Should their be a Limit on how many children people can have?

[Bakis]

Those charts does not seem to consider that large part of the reason why a women might give birth to many children in the 3rd world.
1/8 child die before the age of 5, about 20 times higher than we enjoy in the developed world.

---------- Post added 2013-03-26 at 03:45 AM ----------

Tokyo is one of the, if not most, expensive cities in the world to live in. Kills the incentive to raise a family there.

As for Germany, something...something...Nazis /shrug

Also we think we are so focused on a career, it is NOTHING compared to how the japanese are.

[Grizzly Willy]

Those charts does not seem to consider that large part of the reason why a women might give birth to many children in the 3rd world.
1/8 child die before the age of 5, about 20 times higher than we enjoy in the developed world.

True. A lot times people will forgo naming their child until after several months because of this.

[Nadev]

Also we think we are so focused on a career, it is NOTHING compared to how the japanese are.

Oh hell yea. I'm both envious and mortified.

[Bakis]

Oh hell yea. I'm both envious and mortified.

Remember something a friend who studied in Japan told me.
-Never 'get intimate' with a girl in Japan, they are so focused on studying and their future career that if occassionaly go out and something happens she will expect more than just that night (at best)'.
That might be true(doubt it) or untrue but just the prospect of being true mortify me

[Drekker17]

No, developed countries already have smaller birthrates. I think forcing people to only have a certain amount of kids is the last thing to do, we have other options for these over crowded countries like increasing womens rights, increasing birth control, ridding of incentives to have children...all these things have proven to reduce birthrate without making people feel like there rights were violated and some unforeseen consequences like with China's 1 child laws with less girls. I'm surprised after China's fail people still think limiting kids is a good idea.

[Seegtease]

I can't be the only person that doesn't want to live in a world with so many people its like living in a fucking anthill. 2 years ago there was this beautiful tract of old hardwood forest about 5 miles away; now it is slowly being destroyed so greedy "land developers" can put in some vile condo subdivision.

I value space and open nature unspoiled by humans. The more people there are the fewer of these places will remain. I suppose for people who like to live in hive-like cities where you can't go 20 feet without running into another person, overpopulation is a "myth", but when I have to travel 100 miles to get away from the urban sprawl, and that distance keeps increasing each year, to ME there sure as hell is a population problem.

But not only is that your choice, but you're part of the problem.

Want to live out in the wilderness? Go ahead, there's plenty. There's more than you can ever know what to do with, and many people choose that lifestyle. But I'm assuming you live in a high population area for the same reason others do: you need a job, and there are more jobs in high population areas. People congregate at cities because it's convenient to do so. Even if the population weren't growing as quickly, cities would still expand as the technology of the world increases. More technology = more convenient to live in city centers.

The only reason you have to go 100 miles to find any wilderness is because you choose to live 100 miles away from wilderness. It's definitely not because wilderness is rare.

[Deleted]

I value space and open nature unspoiled by humans. The more people there are the fewer of these places will remain. I suppose for people who like to live in hive-like cities where you can't go 20 feet without running into another person, overpopulation is a "myth", but when I have to travel 100 miles to get away from the urban sprawl, and that distance keeps increasing each year, to ME there sure as hell is a population problem.

I can just walk out of my own apartment and a few hundred meters and I'm in a forest. That you choose to live in a city does not validate the argument. I choose to live in a small town with a population of 1500ish up until recently, really close to nature aswell.

[Deleted]

You can't police it though without breaching human rights.

They need to cap welfare at 2 children, if the parents decide to have more then they need to take responsibility for that decision and work. The more we cater to this lifestyle of being a parent as a full time job, the worse this problem will get.

My town we have the rich part and the poor (social housing) part. All the trouble comes from the poor side. Parents just don't look after their dozens of kids, spend the welfare on cigarettes / drugs / alcohol., and the kids roam the streets standing on street corners. I know it sounds like a generalization but there is obviously a connection between parents that choose not to work (and need social housing) and those that do (own / rent their own house).

[Kogoes]

I think that this is a logical step for preventing an issue that could very easily become a problem in the future. We're eventually going to become dangerously overpopulated and unfortunately, it's not going to be by the more educated better off people. We're setting ourselves up for a nightmare scenario where the uneducated and dangerously unfit make up the vast majority of the population. These people who are born to families who abuse systems and generally are unable of taking care of themselves without being on the public dime pass these behaviors onto their offspring and it's going to foster an endless cycle of dependency and reliance which civilized society simply has no room for.

Sometime we're going to have to address the problem and not worry about being called insensitive, cruel, racist, or any number of other things which may apply to the conversation. This isn't sustainable and we eventually need to put our foot down and pass controversial policies for the betterment of society as a whole.

[Seegtease]

You can't police it though without breaching human rights.

They need to cap welfare at 2 children, if the parents decide to have more then they need to take responsibility for that decision and work. The more we cater to this lifestyle of being a parent as a full time job, the worse this problem will get.

While I agree with you in the matter of not breaching human rights, I'm not entirely sure denying social benefits is the best solution. The reason is that when we limit welfare to 2 children, we aren't hurting the parents as much as we are hurting the child. It's not their fault they were born, but by denying them the benefit of welfare simply because they happened to be a third child kind of defeats the purpose of welfare. I'm sure welfare could use a lot of reformations, but it doesn't seem quite right to deny it to those who need it the most, and the kids have to reap the consequences, not so much the parents.

It'd be interesting to see a statistic, but I have to wonder what percentage of welfare benefits go out to people with no children? I'd imagine most welfare benefits go to parents.