Comment by chiefalchemist
7 years ago
I'm not doubting the desire. But in the face of 7 BILLION and counting...climate change...other questions about resources...AND there are other proxy-esque options...It to me feels selfish and shallow.
You "bear" a child because you have love to give and to share. It's not about you, but about giving selflessly. I'm not judging what this is, or why. But this is not that. This is about the parents. The irony is disturbing.
The birth rate of most countries outside Africa is below replacement. There’s plenty of room for more children.
Our current rate of resource usage is not sustainable. Africa may have a high population growth rate, but its carbon footprint is minuscule.
The problem isn't Africa. The problem is billions of people living a middle-class lifestyle - even with growth rates at or slightly below replacement.
Since we're swimming in the realm of opinion: it's not selfish precisely because the issues you raise are all solvable and I choose to believe they will be solved. There has been no time in human history where one could not have raised equally valid issues, and then proclaim nobody should have children because of said issues.
In fact, today is the best time in history to have children (or in your phrasing, today is the least selfish time in human history to have a child). Humanity is radically more capable of supporting another baby now than at any other time. It isn't even remotely a close contest.
Questions of resources? No it's not. We're drowning in food, take a look at the massive boom in Russian wheat production as one example. Global food potential is far beyond where we're at now, likely by a magnitude. We don't know what to do with it all. And that's before we take it up another level and move to drastically more productive food output methods, including indoor farming, AI + robotics, growing meat, better information management & knowledge globally, etc; and that's while we're still acting very inefficient with our existing food (throwing vast amounts of it away). Merely developing Africa's food potential alone will feed billions more people.
Maybe you're thinking energy? Have you seen the massive boom in solar and wind? That's going to get a lot more massive yet. We're intentionally under-developing nuclear, because right now it doesn't look like we're going to need it. Renewables are making up the majority of all new energy production globally, that tilt is going to get more extreme by the year. If the world had to do it, we could collectively throw trillions of dollars at nuclear immediately, and boost global energy output substantially within a few decades.
To date, humanity is batting a thousand at not going extinct due to challenges. Climate change will be no different.
Where the hell do you get your news from? The "massive wind and solar boom" exists only in the media. There's a rule of thumb you can follow here: the importance of a technology / energy source / whatever is inversely proportional to the number of articles about it in the general media (and on HN for that matter).
Geothermal, wind, solar, heat, tide, etc. currently amount to a staggering 1.5% of the total primary energy supply of the world. Coil is at 28%, oil is at 31%, natural gas at 22% (and climbing), nuclear at 5%, etc. CO2 emissions continue climbing year after year, and we should have started going down more than twenty years ago.
Our agricultural system is completely dependent on fossil fuels (oil). Because of that it is mostly unsustainable, and also because it tends to destroy fertile lands (topsoil loss is kind of a big issue).
You are kind of right that the current system can support a lot of people. Unfortunately, almost none of it is sustainable. So making more people is really not a good idea at the moment, because the situation will change drastically over the next 80 years.
The US has hit the milestone of generating 10% of its electricity via wind and solar, a huge increase from the 1% number of less than a decade ago. Sounds like a pretty big deal to me.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-reports-a-maj...
Population will stop growing much sooner than 80 years. You can look up Hans Rosling's talks on the subject.
> But in the face of 7 BILLION and counting...climate change...other questions about resources
Pretty sure most people who want to be parents dont really think about those issues when having kids. It might be important for you but its not for those new parents.
Yes. And thus my original comment about the lack of the need for a license, etc.
Short-sighted people with more money than awareness doesn't feel like a great way to describe a future parent(s).
You accuse others of being short sighted when you first need to look in the mirror.
> Short-sighted people with more money
Turns out people with money (aka developed countries) the birth rate is falling (or already has fallen) below replacement.
Population is not the problem, population with an American lifestyle is a problem.
I think it's pretty clear that you don't actually believe in evolution.