Population overload.

[chaosmaker]

Just wondering if anyone else thinks that we are at a stage where we should incentivise/reward people who choose not to breed. We're on a finitely resourced planet and I've just read a thread where people were talking about some celebrity having a 4th kid via a surrogate.
Should we talk about how the more kids you have, the more competition you are making for them in adult life?

AI is already being used to take over previously human staffed jobs. It's been creeping into jobs like journalism for ages.
There have been famines in various countries for ever and yet we are at a point in evolution where we have more power over our fertility than ever.
Interested in what other people think about this.

Suggesting that we deport women on the basis that they’re reproductively lesser is not the witticism you believe it to be.

I agree OP. Too many people on the planet has caused massive environmental damage by decimating resources and we need to reduce the number of people across the world or there will be no planet to live on. It's a total mess.

No. Look up some robust, objective scientific research on this and you will see why.

@marshmallowfinder

So what sort of cull are you thinking?

This was sarcastic, right?

We are actually in the midst of an aging population crisis at the moment.

While I don't think incentivising is necessarily that right route either way, I do believe that education around the current state of the planet, current consumption and subsequent options regarding reproduction are important.

One of the many reasons I am childfree by choice is that I don't want to add to an already over consuming population, nor do I wish to leave the climate crisis etc to a child.

Oh dear. You ok ? You need speak to prominent environmental people, scientists and understand how the planet as survived and how we are changing but some parts of earth are still untouched and nature prevails.

@Sunflowers80 are they saying that though? Most of the articles I see are pretty bleak

Yes was tongue in cheek. But seriously, this society in the U.K. is based on having more people being born than currently so that wouldn't work in the U.K. rn

if OP meant to have rewards schemes for women not having dc in places that already have overstretched resources then I think it's too simplistic to think that the women who don't have dc would ever benefit from any such schemes given that overpopulation tends to happen (unsurprisingly) in countries where men have more rights than women.

What a daft comment. Obviously no cull. But as OP said, there need to be more incentives for not having children, or just having one. It's pretty urgent.

Well the good news is you can sit back and do absolutely nothing about that as it’s already happening

What a daft comment. Obviously no cull. But as OP said, there need to be more incentives for not having children, or just having one. It's pretty urgent.

You know it's already happening.

People should have as many children as they wish. This is such a dumb thread.

There does seem to be a lot of cognitive dissonance around the climate crisis. And re a PP, I remember some JSO people being interviewed on the news, talking about how worried they were for their four children. I don't think people should be stopped from having more than x children because, well, it would be barbaric, but I do think the effect on the planet should be emphasised.

Whenever I see one of those 'it's too hot' threads there's always hundreds of replies saying how gorgeous it it, but few people seem to talk about why it's so hot and how it isn't normal for the UK. It scares me, especially when you look at countries like Qatar where they have to have special air conditioned tunnels built outside to get from a to b because it would be dangerous to be exposed to the heat even just for a short time. Sometimes I wish I'd chosen environmental science instead of biomed.

This is a good article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/climate-environment/climate-change-qatar-air-conditioning-outdoors/

They really shouldn't. It's very selfish and pretty stupid.

I get that we have an ageing population and I don't know what the answer is that but it certainly is not keep adding and adding to the population. The UK is ridiculously overcrowded as is the planet.

Do you not know or care about the the predicted bleak future the world faces? It's probably too late to do anything about it but if there is any possibility of changing it one thing has to be less humans on the planet.

I am so so glad I did not bring children into the world. I do worry about the future for my nieces and nephews though

In places, yes, but possibly too little too late.

With your thinking, we should incentivise us to let older and sicker people die. We should not prescribe drugs that lower cholesteral, blood pressure etc. Anyone who rely on long term drugs to live should be cut off and die off naturally.

Birth rate in the UK and most of the developed is already below replacement. We are growing, as others say, only because we live longer.

See how your proposal will be received by the politicians.

Reading this thread I can't help but think some people are chronic doom scrollers.

For those berating women for having children you do realise that for every woman with 2 or more kids, there will be many who remain childfree (either by choice or not), and that this group is rapidly increasing!

Worldwide populations are declining - Hans Rosling also predicted peak population mid century then a decline - this seems to already be happening in places like South Korea and Japan. Given the difficulties of CoL, getting onto the property ladder etc. etc. we are headed in a similar direction.

Agree with everyone pointing out population rates are declining

But also -- As soon as you start talking about incentivising people not to have children, you're on a slippery slope toward eugenics. Because at some point the people in charge will realise they don't want to incentivise everyone not to have children, just the 'less desirable' elements of society.

I believe that Margaret Atwood wrote a book about something like that? Unwomen getting sent to the colonies.

Only 3% of the world's population live in a country with an increasing fertility rate. Most countries with a severely declining fertility rates are looking at policies to encourage people to have far more children, see Italy, South Korea, China.

This.

Build wells so that girls don't have to walk miles for water and can go to school, build private latrines at their schools so that they can deal with periods and aren't on the bladder leash to enable them to stay in school, and give them condoms and other contraceptives when they marry. Smaller families will follow.