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| Re: Re: ality gap (913174) | |||
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Re: Re: ality gap |
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Posted by JayMan on Sun Feb 26 15:20:43 2012, in response to Re: Re: ality gap, posted by bingbong on Sun Feb 26 13:54:59 2012. I forgot to make clear in my response to you that I have no problem with birth control and am in fact all for it. It's especially important to bring it to parts of the Third World, particularly Africa.That said, my main point was against the importance you give "overpopulation" as being the reason we need birth control (which is true in some instances) and against, more importantly, the mentality you seem to have on the subject, which mistakes their overpopulation for our (lack of) overpopulation. How about being able to feed these children? Just the economic hardship (relative) the past few years raise the concern of unfettered reproduction. The numbers in the developed world speak for themselves. It's clearly not a problem, and if anything quite the opposite. A primary source of that economic hardship (and the primary reason this "recovery" will only be temporary) is because of the poor fertility among the productive groups in society; i.e., the exact opposite of what you claim. Existing children need to be cared for first. Agreed, but... Family size must be kept to a maintainable level. What do you think that size is in the developed world? A sizable percentage of people (mostly people who unfortunately think about this like you do) can easily afford to support many more children than they're currently having (like the Commander-in-chief himself, and his preceding Democrating President). The world would not suffer if well-educated and accomplished people reproduced more, even they did so much more. Obviously I think Santorum is nuts (because he is nuts). And I believe birth control is here to stay, as it should. The problem I have is when educated, productive individuals feel (who, really, are pretty much the only ones who do feel this way) they need to curb their own reproduction because of "overpopulation". Their population isn't overpopulated. As well, the people who are actually causing overpopulation don't feel that way, nor will most of them. In Third World countries, contraceptives are incredibly popular when available, as it enables families to focus even the most meager available resources on already existing children. Many medical advances are available even there....especially those which fight childhood disease, immunization, so your point about replacement value is well outdated. You need to visit some of these hellholes sometime. Yes, in the "developing" parts, where a middle class of sorts is emerging, some of those things are coming to pass. In a lot of others however, it is still very much a Malthusian trap, where large families and high childhood mortality is the rule. And even better, this just serves to amplify the problem: the people who are curbing their fertility in these developing nations are typically the more highly-educated and productive (i.e., high-IQ) individuals, replicating the same problems the world as whole is having on that scale. As malaria and dysentery deaths are now being minimized through well funded focus on these plagues, the need for contraceptives will be universal. Agreed. Let's hope that this happens fast enough though. Overpopulation is not imagined,when there is a drought, war or crop failure the starvation is very very real. And avoidable. Yes, but I think you're turned around on where it is a real threat. Overpopulation is a problem of the Third World, not the First. The First World suffers from severe depopulation (true even in the United States—population growth here is driven entirely by minorities, mostly Hispanics), a problem that will only grow. The way to fight lunatics like Santorum is |
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