@Brieandchile and a few others who have commented along the lines that ‘smart people’ need to have children, b/c otherwise only the ‘non-thinking’ ones would. Well, it’s already happening. Meisenberg (The reproduction of intelligence, 2010) showed that if current fertility patterns and environmental factors remain, the proportion of Americans with an IQ of over 130 will reduce by 11.5 % in a generation, and by 37.7 % in a century.
So if the US is anything to go by – and there is little reason why it wouldn’t be for the so called western world (that the rest of the world aspires to follow), the ‘world IQ’ will continue to go down.
(There is not necessarily a strong link between higher IQ and ‘more useful/better human beings’, but it is likely that people who are more capable of thinking can add more benefits to the world – if they choose to. They can also choose to exploit the less thinking ones of course, but statistically, more of them will add benefits.)
And to people writing ‘my western children in London/the UK will be fine’. Well, given the number of places in the world that will become uninhabitable, you may find that the UK, and other habitable places, will be run down with refugees, since we, with our lifestyles, have made their homes inhabitable. It is happening already too.
@frogsincoats, who wrote that many people with Downs syndrome have great, happy lives. Yes, exactly. People who do not ‘think’ and feel responsible for many problems in the world have better, more careless lives, because they do not worry. It is in many ways an enviable position to be in.
@12frogsincoats@startinganew123, your comparison with a mother of one who lectures you on the environmental woes of having four children does not work: although she flies and even if she does not recycle ;-) she will never even come close to the effects you have on the world by having four children. But yes, obviously she’s a hypocrite.