Too many kids

[OoerBlah]

So I've just watched Cathy Come Hone, the Ken Loach play from 1965. It's heartbreaking, no doubt about that. But it made me wonder if there is ever a situation where people might think that having kids if you can't afford them is just, well, don't do it?

I know accidents happen and not all kids are planned. I also know that life is complicated and consequences can't be foretold. But particularly in this day and age of so many finding it difficult to find homes and provide for themselves let alone children - is there ever a time when we should say if you can't afford kids, don't have them?

"Ask the woman who had forced abortions if they supported it. Ask the girls who were abandoned in the street or to orphanages or just killed outright, if they supported it."
I made no claim that support was universal. There wasnt univrsal support for Britain entering WW2 either or for the policy of conscription. There certainly wasn't support for conscription in the USA during the Vietnam war! That is the nature of states, they take decisions which are sometimes harsh and not everyone likes, but I do not think there is any evidence that the one child policy did not have broad support, especially among the educated who understood the desperation of their overpopulation problem.

"Ask the boys who will grow up destined never to marry because China has the biggest gender imbalance in the world if they support it."
This is a collateral effect and caused by sexism rather than directly by the policy. Infanticide of girls predates the one child policy. Its also changing as with the rising status of girls and women (due to scarcity)young couples are happy to have daughters. Perhaps many Chinese men will find Russian brides, since they have surplus women. In the meantime Chinese girls have their pick!

"The West, Japan and much of Pacific Rim needs to INCREASE not decrease the birth rate!"

No! These countries need to welcome the poor and displaced from other parts of the world. There is no need for every country to replace its population.

So you are advocating the demographic replacement of European, Japanese and some other Far Eastern populations with migrants from parts of the world where they are breeding less responsibly?

You do realise what that is, dont you? Yes, slow motion genocide. I suspect you think that because you include our own ethnic group you somehow think it makes it acceptable? It doesn't. Which countries have YOU decided have "no need" to replace their populations? What an EVIL disgusting view. Hitler and Saddam Hussain incarnate.

What you are advocating is IDENTICAL to what the Chinese are doing in Tibet i.e. replacing the native Tibetan ethnic group with migrant Han Chinese.

No! These countries need to welcome the poor and displaced from other parts of the world. There is no need for every country to replace its population. Lots of brown people want to live in the uk and evidence shows that they make excellent citizens in majority of cases.

Your views are nothing short of venomous. Will you be at the boarder with your clip board? I honestly can't believe that anyone in 2016 would espouse such views.

That is the nature of states, they take decisions which are sometimes harsh and not everyone likes, but I do not think there is any evidence that the one child policy did not have broad support, especially among the educated who understood the desperation of their overpopulation problem

Oh well then the dead baby girls and women forced to have abortions and be sterilised against their will was just fine then! AS long as there was support amongst the richer, more educated people, we don't need to care about womens rights to their own bodies then?
Lets bring it in here then. Oh wait, you mean it was ok for them, but not for you, right?

"You do realise what that is, dont you? Yes, slow motion genocide.shock I suspect you think that because you include our own ethnic group you somehow think it makes it acceptable? It doesn't. Which countries have YOU decided have "no need" to replace their populations? What an EVIL disgusting view. Hitler and Saddam Hussain incarnate."

Honestly I don't think that people on this thread understand what genocide is.

No it's not genocide to have a low birth rate. White people are not going to become extinct. We need to think globally and care for our fellow humans whatever their skin colour. In the past white people have displaced American Indians, aboriginal people and Maori peoples. In Australia, the Americas there was REAL genocide of indigious peoples in centuries past.

All of us are descended from immigrants. Thousands of years go the uk wad covered in ice and uninhabitable. The U.K. has always been a melting pot of cultures.

Genocide is what is happening in Syria. Genocide is allowing children to die of hunger in a drought or bombing towns. With global warming parts of the world are becoming inhabitable. Unless you are very religious I can't see how using birth control can be considered to be murder.

Germany has welcomed more refugees than any country. German culture is not being destroyed. I think there are issues with people being encouraged to walk across Europe and resettlement of refugees could be managed better than it is at the moment.

You're the one who doesn't understand the word. The pp who advocating that westerners don't have a replacement level birthrate, instead replacing our populations with immigration, was advocating for slow genocide. Precisely that. Advocating for killing off the inhabitants of a country and replacing them with people of another country...its a ridiculous viewpoint but call it what it is at least.

First of all I am again surprised at the defence of one child policy/Chinese government. In my opinion I consider the communist Chinese very evil and the idea that people should be forced to have only 1 child a massive infringement into civil liberties. I am surprised that people are even thinking it's an acceptable policy.

Secondly, surely it's better for birth rates to be increased in west and decreased in the east. Bringing in millions of migrants into the west/Japan is only going to create a massive backlash in these countries leading to far right wing governments as seen emerging in Germany and Sweden where parties that once got 1-2% of the vote are now very likely to win.

Germany has welcomed more refugees than any country. German culture is not being destroyed. I think there are issues with people being encouraged to walk across Europe and resettlement of refugees could be managed better than it is at the moment.

German culture at this point is not being destroyed but Mrs merkels immigration policy is causing working and middle class Germans to become radicalised into far right extremists. Mrs Merkel has done more to help the far right since WW2 then anyone.

All of us are descended from immigrants. Thousands of years go the uk wad covered in ice and uninhabitable. The U.K. has always been a melting pot of cultures

Yes the UK had waves of immigration but it was mainly while the UK was still forming as a country. You had the angles and the Saxons, Norman's etc. British people are descended from these groups today that migrated here but no one identifies as one of these tribes because Britain was formed by many tribes mixing and this took thousands of years before British became an identity. We had immigration after that French Protestants, Jews and European migrants but it was in such small numbers that it didn't destroy and overwhelm the country. Britain has not always been multicultural either in terms of the point after these tribes mixed to form an English, Scotish, Irish etc, a single culture developed. Even in the wind rush migration of the 50s groups followed British culture. Multiculturalism is often confused with ethnic diversity Britain has been diverse for about 70 years it probably only been multicultural in the last 20.

I'm half Jewish half English and I think migrantion has been great for Britain but groups have to integrate and that really is only done when the group enters in small numbers less then 100,000. Moving millions across continents leads to social unrest as seen with the attacks in Germant recently.

Moving millions across continents leads to social unrest as seen with the attacks in Germant recently.

Seriously, who is suggesting this?

Why on earth would anyone want to encourage replacement rates amongst Europeans? Exactly how is the overall population to contract if no one goes below replacement rate? Do we aim to retain the same ratios of all ethnic groups? If so, why? Isn't this a naturally fluid situation?

If a country has a below-replacement birth rates, then that country will naturally attract immigration by way of job vacancies, more housing, less pollution, etc.

If a country has above-replacement birth rates e.g. exponential growth then its citizens will naturally seek to emigrate at some point because of overcrowding.

How this has devolved into accusations of genocide is beyond me. Is anyone really worried about white Europeans disappearing?

Espresso you haven't really asked how you feel about, as a libertarian, the sort of government controls that could conceivably arise to manage a global population of 11 billion. Specifically, how states might react to riots in the face of water, food or energy shortages.

Its a long time since I saw Cathy Come Home, I saw it when it was first on and I was about 13 so forgive me if I'm wrong but weren't they doing OK when they had the kids? Anyone can hit hard times.

English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. British culture is not in danger. White people are not on the endangered list yet.

I would like everyone in the world to have access to food, shelter, education, healthcare and maybe some nice things like electricity or clean water. If we have 11 billion people then this goal becomes harder to achieve.

It seems more than a little racist to suggest that black nations reduce their fertility rate, but tell white nations to increase the number of babies born.

Why on earth would anyone want to encourage replacement rates amongst Europeans? Exactly how is the overall population to contract if no one goes below replacement rate?

You are NOT serious? This is the most ridiculous question yet.

I would like everyone in the world to have access to food, shelter, education, healthcare and maybe some nice things like electricity or clean water. If we have 11 billion people then this goal becomes harder to achieve

Oh lordy. If we have 11 billion we will still have the top few percent hogging nearly everything. If we had half what we do now, we would still have the same problems.
I can't believe that anyone is so naive as to suggest that if there were only fewer people on the earth, everyone would have enough of everything. We already have more than enough for everyone, its that we don't SHARE it.

We currently have seven billion people and yes there is an issue of a small percentage of people hogging everything..

Newsflash many of those people are white Europeans. Not allowing immigration and worrying that the the Ayran population is not having enough babies is hogging the resources.

How does allowing the world population to reach 11 billion going to help the world poor?

Migration leads to an exchange of ideas. Some African nurses return home with experience gained in the NHS. This enriches their nursing knowledge. Ditto with teachers who work abroad. The U.K. also had plenty to learn from other countries.

ReallyTired I suggest you just ignore Hedda.

One minute your saying we need to reduce birth rate next minute your saying it's racist to tell african people to lower their birthrate to 2.1 when most population growth is happening in Africa. Surely having both black and white birthrates at an equal level 2.1 would be treating each race the same so therefore not racist.

Also if the west has mass migration and can't cope with numbers the west becomes poorer/less developed so birth rate increases. The goal should be improving conditions in LEDC countries so that they feel less need to have kids otherwise you are just moving the problem.

Also language is not culture. You can speak English and have a non British culture.

Not allowing immigration and worrying that the the Ayran population is not having enough babies is hogging the resources.

First of all that is a completely inappropriate term, that term is not used by anyone outside of Nazis and white supremacist groups. Are you for real.

"No it's not genocide to have a low birth rate"

But to advocate that: "There is no need for every country to replace its population." THAT certainly is!

Then you launch into a race hate polemic against so called "white" people

"Lots of brown people want to live in the uk."
"In the past white people have displaced American Indians, aboriginal people and Maori peoples. In Australia, the Americas there was REAL genocide of indigious peoples in centuries past"

Yes there WAS genocide, and it was wrong, and you seem to want to repeat that in a vicious revenge.

Can you tell us which nations you have decided don't deserve to live? Would that be just the British and Germans (nasty 'Aryan' types )
or Europeans in our entireity? None of the nations of Europe are currently
breeding fast enough to maintain population levels, even the poor ones such as Romania. Do you want to replace us all with "brown people"?

Do you include other nations of the world who are also breeding responsibly (slowly) and have shrinking populations such as Japan, Korea, Singapore and much of the Caribbean and parts of Latin America as not 'needing' to replace themselves, but to be seen as convenient 'rehoming' lands for migrants? Or is it just Europeans you wish to deny a future?

It would certainly be beneficial to reduce world population, but to be advocating discouraging already shrinking populations from breeding, and at the same time doing nothing to discourage those who are responsible for growing overpopulation due to their continuing to have, in some cases, huge numbers of children , five six seven per woman, instead saying they should be free to spread out and occupy the lands of those behaving responsibly, IS genocidal. "Lebensraum" anyone?

Also the reason why that term is not used by anyone with half a brain is because Aryans where actually a religious and cultural group in the area know known as Iran. I'm starting to think your winding us up.

Marmaduchess

I think she has an agenda to push. She's probably a white supremacist pretending to be something else. Her masked slipped with the word Aryan.

Espresso you haven't really asked how you feel about, as a libertarian, the sort of government controls that could conceivably arise to manage a global population of 11 billion.
Specifically, how staes might react to riots in the face of water, food or energy shortages.

Yes it would be a concern but I doubt most of the places affected would be under state control because let's face it unfornutely if the world ever got that desperate so many wars would start. We would see total collapse of govt (not a good thing) but as I said I doubt we would get to that point.

Yes it would be a concern but I doubt most of the places affected would be under state control because let's face it unfornutely if the world ever got that desperate so many wars would start. We would see total collapse of govt (not a good thing) but as I said I doubt we would get to that point.

The world's population will increase from today's 7.3 billion people to 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion at century's end, John R. Wilmoth, the director of the United Nations (UN) Population Division, told a session focused on demographic forecasting at the 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM 2015) today in Seattle.

In Australia water wells were poisoned. In the Americas native Indians were deliberately infected with small pox. An attempt was made to diliberately murder whole tribes of people. Europeans have committed true genocide.

Strongly encouraging people to stop at two children is not murder. Having controlled immigration is not murder. Yes, I think the pacific rim countries should take some asylum seekers. Japan's attitude to ayslum seekers is disgraceful. Many developed countries do not take their fair share of displaced people.

Maybe you are scared that British culture will be different from what we know. However British culture evolves with time. Victorian culture is nothing like 21st century Britain. Also you do not have to have white skin to be British.

Those who want European countries to increase their fertility rate are the white supremacists. I used the word Ayran to mock you. It's not me who wants more white babies born. I am not the person who has used excessively dramatic words like genocide where the birth rate is simply below replacement.

I find it amusing I am described as a white supremacist when I said up thread that I want every person on the planet to get a fair share of the world resources.

If all countries had a fertility rate of 2 children then the world population would start to stabilise. The population would still increase in the short term even if the world's fertility rate was below replacement because people are living longer.