The elephant in the room..

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I think the first thing we could do is remove fertility treatment on the NHS!

Actually I disagree with this. I don't believe it's a person's innate human right to reproduce (as you've probably already gathered), however if we as a society eventually do decide to take the bold-yet-necessary step of regulating reproduction, then who does-or-does-not get to breed should be determined by us, not by the arbitrary whim of nature.

In other words whatever else we may decide determines who gets the chance to be one of the 'lucky ones' who's allowed to breed, I don't see why reproductive health should make a difference. That would just be social darwinism.


It may sound a contradiction in terms to be defending reproductive medicine while arguing for lower birth-rates, but it's not really.

[Woodbutcher]

I'm all for sterilization at birth. That would be reversed once you show that you have the means to look after your child. Two kids max, after that sterilization.

I think this is politically a non-starter in all liberal democracies and impractical in many others. For starters in the developed world we could remove contradcitory incentives by removing tax breaks, 'family allowance' (a support payment all parents get in the UK and in some other European countries) and similar support. Things like long term paid leave when you have a child etc. Those sort of approaches would be a start.

It is also clear that education reduces family size. In many poorer parts of the world large families = more income.

Frankly I don't think that we are up to it.

I agree. Only the most extreme police states could enforce sterilization. Education is the key. Poorest countries always have the worst support systems in place; unless you have several children you might not have anyone survive to look after you when you get old. Like 40 years old. But it also keeps you mired in poverty and hunger, it's a vicious circle.

[Sisifo]

In Vietnam where I live, any girl can get an abortion into any public clinic or hospital, without giving any reason or even her name.
Families who have more than 2 children are expelled from any public job (which is a majority in a communist country), and they lose the education allowance for all their children and other benefits. And above all, they are marginalized by the community for being anti-system and greedy.
Only ethnic minorities in the mountains and forests are exempted, but they have such an infant mortality rate and short life expectancy that it's justified.

Those measures work.
A combination of free and anonymous abortion with huge economic penalties would work equally in any country where government has a big hand in the household income (either benefits, or taxes).
The problem is, indeed, the countries where the education is an exception, and where there is not really an economic instrument in the families to implement policy enforcement. In some of these countries, it is working quite well the anonymous supply of contraceptive pills to the women (without the husbands knowing), but is a lot less effective.

I guess that anywhere where a theorical campaign of sterilization would work, it would work equally a tax and public health policy.
But where governance is so small that no taxing or clinic or schools are available, sterilization is out of feasibility.

Now that I think of it, maybe the best univeral measure would be putting a TV in every house and a network of 20 channels of sports 24 hours. As far as I have seen, it is the best sterilitation program that has ever worked...

Note: Of course, money would be granted so that the local teams would never win... otherwise: baby boom

[charlou]

It is also clear that education reduces family size. In many poorer parts of the world large families = more income.

I've heard this argument before and I just can't fathom the logic of it. More income? When there are more mouths to feed where's the improvement?

I don't think people in poorer parts of the world have large families to supplement their income, I think they, like the rest of us, just enjoy sex, and procreation is inevitable and unavoidable as a result of their poverty and/or lack of education.

[Sisifo]

It is also clear that education reduces family size. In many poorer parts of the world large families = more income.

I've heard this argument before and I just can't fathom the logic of it. More income? When there are more mouths to feed where's the improvement?

I don't think people in poorer parts of the world have large families to supplement their income, I think they, like the rest of us, just enjoy sex, and procreation is inevitable and unavoidable as a result of their poverty and/or lack of education.

I guess it's the fallacy that you point out what Rumertron means when advocating for education...

Of course you are right: It's just an outcome of non planned sex. But also, as I have heard some, it is a way to reassure that there would be enough surviving children to take care of the parents when they get -prematurely- old. A retirement plan...

[klr]

It is also clear that education reduces family size. In many poorer parts of the world large families = more income.

I've heard this argument before and I just can't fathom the logic of it. More income? When there are more mouths to feed where's the improvement?

I don't think people in poorer parts of the world have large families to supplement their income, I think they, like the rest of us, just enjoy sex, and procreation is inevitable and unavoidable as a result of their poverty and/or lack of education.

I guess it's the fallacy that you point out what Rumertron means when advocating for education...

Of course you are right: It's just an outcome of non planned sex. But also, as I have heard some, it is a way to reassure that there would be enough surviving children to take care of the parents when they get -prematurely- old. A retirement plan...

Absolutely. That is the key. Even if education is notionally "free", it means losing your children as a working resource, which is a huge opportunity cost. The more education someone gets, the better their long-term financial prospects are going to be - but the longer it will be before they start earning serious money and repaying their parents "investment" in them. It's the classic double-whammy.

This is a universal phenomenon in the natural world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory

EDIT: In an environment where education is the key to long-term success, it is in the parent's interest to behave in this way, as having a few well-educated children is the best way to ensure they themselves will get taken care of in their old age. The basic motives haven't changed, but the basic parameters of the game have shifted.

[Rum]

It is also clear that education reduces family size. In many poorer parts of the world large families = more income.

I've heard this argument before and I just can't fathom the logic of it. More income? When there are more mouths to feed where's the improvement?

I don't think people in poorer parts of the world have large families to supplement their income, I think they, like the rest of us, just enjoy sex, and procreation is inevitable and unavoidable as a result of their poverty and/or lack of education.

Well it isn't a myth. A number of studies offer evidence. Just typing 'education and population growth' into google brings up quite a long list. Here is one-

http://www.uni-protokolle.de/nachrichten/id/39996/

[klr]

Other points: Once you commit your child to an extended education, you have a definite interest in dissuading them from having offspring of their own, at least until they have completed most of their education and established themselves in the workplace. The child usually has the same motivation. And of course education itself is an enormous liberating factor. Among other things, it teaches people that there is more to life than simply passing on their genes, and it would depress birth rates by that means alone.

[Sisifo]

Other points: Once you commit your child to an extended education, you have a definite interest in dissuading them from having offspring of their own, at least until they have completed most of their education and established themselves in the workplace. The child usually has the same motivation. And of course education itself is an enormous liberating factor. Among other things, it teaches people that there is more to life than simply passing on their genes, and it would depress birth rates by that means alone.

I am afraid I don't agree at all with your two previous posts in the same basis which is that I find very arguable and dangerously misleading the application of natural selection theories into humans. Everything I have read about it I have found it statistically inconclusive. Too many objections that make it anything more than a theory to chat with a coffee. I read Rushton's "Race, Evolution and Behavior" which uses extensively the r/K theory and it's one of the few books that I have thrown to the rubbish can. I would not donate it or give it to anyone else. I personally believe that the main factor in human evolution from the moment it gained conscience it's memes related; culture, psychology and sociology are 90% of the decition makers in our lives. Not genes, hormones and such. And when I hear "race" I get goosepumps. Especially when I hear "black race", as if east africans and west africans would be closely related...

Going to your points, I doubt that education reduces natality because "teaches better things to do in life". Education first of all reduces the fertility period 10 years (15-25); ten less years to reproduce. Secondly, education leads to advance the consequences of acts, and thirdly education provides professions, that are usually alternatives to a family life. In that sense, I doubt that any parent would believe that sending the children to school would guarantee better retirement. Mostly, the better the education of the children, the most likely that the parents would end in an asylum.

[klr]

Other points: Once you commit your child to an extended education, you have a definite interest in dissuading them from having offspring of their own, at least until they have completed most of their education and established themselves in the workplace. The child usually has the same motivation. And of course education itself is an enormous liberating factor. Among other things, it teaches people that there is more to life than simply passing on their genes, and it would depress birth rates by that means alone.

I am afraid I don't agree at all with your two previous posts in the same basis which is that I find very arguable and dangerously misleading the application of natural selection theories into humans. Everything I have read about it I have found it statistically inconclusive. Too many objections that make it anything more than a theory to chat with a coffee. I read Rushton's "Race, Evolution and Behavior" which uses extensively the r/K theory and it's one of the few books that I have thrown to the rubbish can. I would not donate it or give it to anyone else. I personally believe that the main factor in human evolution from the moment it gained conscience it's memes related; culture, psychology and sociology are 90% of the decition makers in our lives. Not genes, hormones and such. And when I hear "race" I get goosepumps. Especially when I hear "black race", as if east africans and west africans would be closely related...

WTF? I didn't bring race into it at all, not even indirectly. I don't see how you make that connection from what I said . Of course race has nothing to do with it, but then I never said it did.

As for the suggestion that investing more in your offspring's upbringing is likely to lead to a reduction in the numbers of offspring (in combination with other factors), that pretty much stands to reason. The more effort it takes to produce something, the less of it can be produced - all other things being equal. If we create an environment that favours extended education as the key to long-term success, then expect people to modify their behaviour accordingly in the long run.

I haven't read the book in question, so I am not influenced by it in any way - good, bad or indifferent. My application of t r/K theory is based purely on my own thinking. I needn't have used it all: I could have used the basic (even abstract) economic argument which underpins it, which I've just done now.

My comment about "... passing on genes" was meant figuratively, but maybe I should have been more precise: There is more to life than getting married at a young age and having a substantial family.

Going to your points, I doubt that education reduces natality because "teaches better things to do in life".

You don't get an education, you don't realise what you could do in life - let alone have the wherewithal to actually do it.

Education first of all reduces the fertility period 10 years (15-25); ten less years to reproduce.

Which I clearly implied.

Secondly, education leads to advance the consequences of acts, and thirdly education provides professions, that are usually alternatives to a family life.

Which is also part of the point that I was making when I said "... teaches better things to do in life". It looks to me as if you've just supported it, despite your dismissal of it earlier.

In that sense, I doubt that any parent would believe that sending the children to school would guarantee better retirement. Mostly, the better the education of the children, the most likely that the parents would end in an asylum.

Since most parents of well-educated children do not in fact end up in an asylum (or belong there regardless), that point is simply not true. What evidence is there to support a hypothesis that level of offspring education and parental sanity are in any way inversely linked?

[Sisifo]

Ooops! sorry. False friend. In Spanish the retirement houses are called "Asilo", and I made the bad translation. I meant that they would not be living with the children.
As for the races, it is not you, it's everything I have read about using r/K selection to humans.

[charlou]

It is also clear that education reduces family size. In many poorer parts of the world large families = more income.

I've heard this argument before and I just can't fathom the logic of it. More income? When there are more mouths to feed where's the improvement?

I don't think people in poorer parts of the world have large families to supplement their income, I think they, like the rest of us, just enjoy sex, and procreation is inevitable and unavoidable as a result of their poverty and/or lack of education.

Well it isn't a myth. A number of studies offer evidence. Just typing 'education and population growth' into google brings up quite a long list. Here is one-

http://www.uni-protokolle.de/nachrichten/id/39996/

I think you may have missed the point of my argument which is in objection to the claim that large families mean more income and in objection to the notion that it is a conscious rationale for procreation in poverty stricken areas. Any extra income is swallowed up in (barely) maintaining the larger family. They're not better off, they're often worse off. I don't think poverty stricken people procreate for that reason. I don't think they procreate with a conscious motive of providing carers into their old age, either. They procreate because they, like most people, naturally like to shag and procreation is a consequence of lack of contraception and/or a lack of or misleading education about contraception. Our (humanity's) culture of 'family' has evolved, just like that of other apes, as a consequence of biological and natural selection imperatives and memetic perpetuation, and it's had very little to do with conscious considerations until relatively recently; and only as a result of our increasing trend toward education and enlightenment.

[FBM]

I think married couples should be made to choose between having children and having TV. Once word gets around what it's like raising children w/out TV...well...problem solved.

OK, that wouldn't work. There are so many people in "undeveloped" countries w/out TV in the first place. Instead of watching TV, they make babies for entertainment.

On a more serious note, the countries with the highest GDP tend to have the lowest population rates. The US may be an exception, but that would most likely be due to immigration, not birth rate. Japan and S. Korea have birth rates at or below maintenance levels, and their populations are set to start greying and declining.

Sorry, can't be arsed to look up the real data. It's just what I recall reading recently.

[charlou]

But I think it is downhill from here. I used to think that the 'survivalists' were totally nuts, but sadly their time is coming. Dig in folks.

Sorry to be so glum. Perhaps its just me?

Fear for their future is the one and only reason I have come to sincerely regret having children (the philosophical regret does not change how I feel about them - I love them dearly). All I can do now is nurture in them a far better understanding of global issues and their humanitarian responsibilities, including considering procreation very carefully and having a sensible attitude to preventing/terminating unwanted pregnancy, than I was raised with. Not in a moralising or otherwise emotive way, but simply out of pragmatic concern for their future and that of any progeny they may have.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...the countries with the highest GDP tend to have the lowest population rates. The US may be an exception...