Should people be allowed to have large families?

Removing the countries where the population growth is at it's highest won't address any issues with population growth, IMO take religion out of the equation, one of the biggest stumbling blocks in bringing contraception to developing countries is the massive influence religion has there .. the amount of false information given by religion concerning contraception is outstanding as much as it is BS.

 

i believe industrial automation can even help with industrial waste.

 

Why not simply build, "section 8 cities" to help out with homelessness? We may be able to lower costs by contracting out to specialists in that sector.

 

Very true. Another poster made a good point that the US growth rate is impacted by immigration too, not just births which I hadn't really considered. Maybe focusing on these developing countries would directly impact US growth rates. I totally agree with you that religion needs to get out of the way of family planning and sex education.

 

According to me it should be 2 kids because young generation can't afford more.

 

If you can afford to support a large family, why not?

 

What mostly has occurred in the USA and the world is the more children a couple can afford, the less children they have. Wealthy people should have many children as that disperses the wealth more broadly into the future. Poor couples lack the means to provide for their children as children or to help them into successful and productive lives.

 

Yes. What are you going to do with the extra kids?

 

What do you mean? Extra, meaning any exceeding two? If there was a limit the ideal scenario would obviously be preventing pregnancy. I'm not saying limiting is actually practical, just wondering what people think about family size.

 

I have five other siblings. What are going to do with the four extra? And what if I have more than two kids anyway?

 

Obviously nothing, I'm talking about future unborn children. Should people still be having 5 children in 2016? Should they be having 5 children in 2050? My questions aren't aimed at judging big families or pushing the execution of excess children. I'm curious because I wonder what the maximum carrying capacity is for this planet and if we'll pass it because we aren't proactive. Perhaps we've already passed it.

I don't know that anything should be "done" if you had more than 2. Obviously the one child law didn't work for China, no need to repeat that. Educating people, comprehensive sex ed, access to birth control and supporting women and girls in school and work has proven to lower birth rates. I'm thinking more on the front end before people start planning their families, not reactionary where baby girls end up murdered because families exceeded the one child law.

 

Education trumps force.

 

Because the planet can't support and endless tide of large families.

 

Maybe not endless but we are not at that point yet. You can fit the world's population in Jacksonville FL with room to spare.

 

Who would decide how many children we could have?
How would it be enforced? Forced abortion if someone gets pregnant and already has the limit of children?
Is the government going to oversee this?
If so, how does that fit the 'keep the government out of our bedroom' mantra?

 

Absolute nonsense. However, I'd love to see you living in a situation of that density.

 

Just making a point. With the World having 3% of its continents livable for humans and taking into account how much the average needs to survive there's plenty of room.

 

Plenty of room if they don't eat anything. 1/3 of the earth's land surface is used for agriculture, 1/3 is developed and 1/3 isn't really livable, unless you can stand the Sahara desert. You forget that just because there is physical room to stand should o shoulder... doesn't mean there's adequate room for all of the food each human should consume.

 

I tooled that into account. There is enough room for half to be developed and half agriculture. Also I said that 3% is livable.

 

There is no legitimate reason to stop them from having as many children as they want, especially in the Western world. There is no more natural right than the right to reproduce. The Western World (without immigration) is actually at either close to zero or even negative population growth.

 

If we don't take in immigrants, yes. I look at my family (my two brothers and myself), and we aren't even having an average of two children (two of us have two kids, the third has one, for an average of 1.7 kids per couple, with 2.1 per couple being neutral to population increase). We can see the implications of this lower population growth already. It's why social security is nearing the point of insolvency.

 

Nowhere in the western world are many people having 6 or 7 kids. Yes, there are a few abberations, but in the U.S. our average birth rate per woman is 1.9--i.e. not even replacement. The few families having 6 or 7 aren't doing much to change that average.

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Well, in the 1960s, they thought maximum carrying capacity was about 5 billion. They were clearly very wrong, as the rate of starvation in the world is much less than it was then. I'd venture that our carrying capacity is in the 20 billion range, and we won't reach that.

 

Developing countries reduce their growth rate as they become developed countries.

Love the way you envirofascists want to force people to do things your way. Are you going to ban religion, or just require that religion obey the government's edicts? How do you suggest we force people into two kids? The Chinese way?

The U.S. (without immigration) is at a slightly negative population growth. This was done without mandates, but by choices. IMHO, that is the way to do this, not force people to abort babies or punish them for having more than two babies (which seems to be what you are implying).

My wife and I chose to only have two kids, but that doesn't mean we can force everybody into that same decision.

 

Based on what rational metric, other than imagination?

 

This is all just a theoretical discussion about population. I'm not suggesting we "do" anything. Obviously China's one child law was terrible and I would never advocate for mandatory abortions for those who have exceeded. It's just a dynamic topic and actual problem that's interesting to ponder.

To me the solution isn't in being reactionary, it's in being proactive. The more educated women are in a nation, the lower the birth rate. The more sex education we receive, the lower the unplanned pregnancies. Literacy lowers birth rate. I think if we keep educating ourselves and working on those big world issues, the population will naturally level off.