To agree that stupid people are breeding more than smart ones

[Holamum]

I read this article and the comments. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22002530

It is not unrealistic that the human race will be extinct one day, especially since the sun is probably finite.

There was a comment on that page that refers to Mike Judge's film Indiocracy - suggesting the problem is that stupid people are breeding more than intelligent people because smart people are more responsible. The film is a comedy but the commentator says 'it's bang on the money on what's happening at the moment'.

I actually found myself agreeing. Most of the intelligent people I know have as many children as they can afford (which is one or two maximum).

AIBU to think this?

In the event of apocalypse it'll be low level cunning and will to survive that you'll need, not just a photo of you in a cap and gown.

And a properly packed OFRS.

I went to a school full of people you would probably call stupid,and yes they started breeding early as you so nastily put it. Thing is, these kids weren't stupid. They just had no one presenting any aspiration to them. Not their parents and certainly not my school. Educated people tend to have fewer children as they see life as having a variety of enticing opportunities. Certainly more enticing than minimum wage factory line work.
It is not stupidity, just about life circumstances and opportunity.
People who go on about stupidity and breeding tend to ignorant smugsters unable to recognise how their life circumstances have contributed to where they are rather than it just being their own self perceived brilliance.

In the real world this is a well established phenomenon.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence

But if you think you're going to get general acceptance of this on a website dedicated to fertility, you are wasting your time.

This has given me a laugh anyway. My folks were very smart and had loads of kids - they could also afford to have loads of kids.

I am relatively smart and have one child as we are nouveau poor. Where we live it is the filthy rich and very poor who have 3+ children. I have met some spectacularly thick rich people and very smart poor folk.

Some cultures/religions/countries encourage a 'high' birth rate. I cant see it being an intelligence problem. Unless you are reading the DM where there are regularly stories about Joe Bloke, 22, 9 kids by 7 women never had a job, all on benefits, bla bla bla.

Well let's pretend you're right.

You need more unskilled workers than geniuses. How would we cope if everyone was a genius and felt they were above cleaning the executive toilets?

So if you are right, this is a good thing.

But you can be intelligent and still not think you're above doing cleaning when needs must.

Idiocracy is a brilliant film. I love it.

Chortles@Skydelics link

The Zombie hordes will kill us all I tell ya!

Its not overpopulation thats the problem but overconsumption.

We need less 'intelligent' people to survive. I think everyone needs to think more carefully about having children, regardless of intellect.

There does seem to be a larger proportion of non critical thinkers than critical ones, which can be a little frustrating, especially reading forums and twitter hope for humanity does diminish sometimes

When you say 'stupid' I think you really mean 'poor'. It's disturbing how many people get them confused. Not half as disturbing as DonnaDishwater's post though

So, I have a good first degree from Cambridge and I have only one child. I miscarried her siblings. Does that make me intelligent, or just stupid and a failure to boot?

Yabu.

It seems that people don't like it when you discuss the correlation between fertility and intelligence.

I agree with what I think some other posters are saying - if this is presented differently, it's an interesting question.

BUT, leave the words "intelligent" and "stupid" (and similar) out of it. There are no generally accepted and clear definitions of them, and they're too emotive.

If we say that people in certain jobs, with certain types of education, in certain sectors of society, etc., on average have different numbers of kids (and in different circumstances and at different ages) then we have a reasonable observation. The effects of this are potentially interesting, although presenting them as positive or negative overall seems ridiculously simplistic. How the situation relates to genes and environment, and the way it impacts on "society", is probably bloody complicated.

Why can't you use the word "intelligent"?

because it is necessary to remove objective tangible measurements in order to make pseudo-scientific nonsense sound less absurd.

Quite right.

there is a general link to education level i seem to recall, with higher levels of education correlating with lower levels of fertility (presumably by choice)
in the uk the richest and poorest have the largest familied. make of that what you will

Intelligence or Success is just a social construct that doesn't really mean anything. At the purely biological level, the most successful individual is he/she who has the most children who survive into adulthood and then reproduce so that the gene pool gets a greater share of their genes

So in that definition it follows that the most successful people are having the most children. They are not been distracted by money, power or capitalism etc

Anyway, of course the human race will die out, it is just a matter of when. If the population keeps growing the way it is doing then there will probably be a devastating event that wipes out most of the population in the next 500 years and even Ning optimistic, we probably don't have more than 30,000 years left

And don't forget that most species don't evolve into new ones, or stay the same, they simply die out

So the moral is, enjoy life while you can!

But just because there is a link between education and fertility doesn't mean that intelligence is genetic

It is true that poorer people tend to have more children and have them younger.

This is because in poorer populations there tends to be higher rtes of infant mortality and higher rates of disease.

Poorer populations have less access to education too, so there are correlations.

The OP was put badly, but there is sound theory behind the sentiment.

You should check out the grandmother hypothesis if you want to read up on interesting arguments around this.

objective tangible measurements

Please tell me what these are.

Problem is OP you can't really debate this because it will tread the eugenics waters and that will not go well.

Intelligence or Success is just a social construct that doesn't really mean anything.
Right.