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.

Plenty of women feel a strong hormonal/primal/maternal urge to have a baby, and will have sex in the hopes of pregnancy, though.

Thanks @MrsDanversGlidesAgain I suspect your male colleaugue was worried that you would be able to compete with him on the same level as you didnt have to worry about childcare.

@HamBone I suspect it might be because im from a working class family (i live in social housing) and it was assumed by some of my WC friends that i just didnt like kids. I also got a lot of heckling from the WC women on the Nottingham chat show but the Vanessa show i did on Anglia TV was much more sedate if thats the right word.

Its assumed that if you dont have kids you must have a high flying career and lots of holidays. I havent been abroad since 1986 and that was a school trip. I just didnt/dont want the life of drudgery that i saw happening to young women around me. A lot of them started having babies in their teens and very early twenties. I realised it wasnt for me and was never going to be.

I hope no one minds me coming on here as I have two children but I promise to be respectful and am here to learn about this topic. I have read the whole thread with a lot of interest.

As a PP mentioned (and I had to have a Google) the situation in the Philippines is interesting in how quickly it changed from a high birthrate in 2017 to a low one in 2022. That's a very rapid cultural shift and it will be interesting to see if that's going to stick or if it goes back up again. https://thediplomat.com/2022/11/philippines-registers-sharpest-ever-decline-in-birthrate/

@pinguins as far as I'm concerned you are welcome here because you want to take an intelligent interest in the discussion. It's all the parents who have an issue with us being on MN or just being CF who are the problem

I don't think broodiness is quite the same as the near-universal human urge to shag. Certainly broodiness is by no means universal. I have a powerful urge to avoid human interaction, but I don't assume that everyone else must share it.

Oh no, the anti-choicer is leaving the thread, the world is ending.

Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.

@JenniferBooth He was the sort of man who'd tell you that you don't smile enough or ask why you're looking miserable - always addressed to women, of course. I don't think I was competition because I was temping at that company; he was just a jerk with no manners who couldn't understand women having minds of their own.

@SarahShorty

As early as possible and as late as necessary!!!! ALWAYS!!!

@DidItMatter

"It appears that no one really wants to think about it all. Politicians don’t plan that much in advance."

+++

I think politicians do actually think about it or at least recognise it. But having political policies of restructuring the NHS and raising the state and public sector pension age is pretty guaranteed not to get you elected. Besides it's easier to leave it to the next Government and so on.

Yeah that’s probably true. Just kick it down the road as the decisions to manage it would be too unpopular

The opposite, they already have the power to kill people in war zones. Some good but disturbing TED talks about it. My point was that corporations will choose 'free' AI workers over human ones, therefore less people able to earn a wage. Along with at least our government not wanting to regulate the use of AI.

Surely the overproduction of tat is a result of people being employed making said tat so that they have wages to live on. It is all circular. Unless we keep buying tat, capitalism won't work. Selling said tat provides more work for someone. People of the 60's were offered all manner of time saving devices as they thought the future would be more leisurely and the drudge would be gone. They never addressed how people would have an income.
Universal basic income would help to address this gap for the future but wouldn't make any more resources for us to use.

Is too large a population also adding to the mental health crisis?

@sunglassesonthetable I don't know, it's probably as others on this thread have said that it's a conscious decision not to have kids and more thought goes into that decision usually. Population would be one of those reasons for some.
Which board would you have posted it on?

I think it's a really interesting topic and so relevant to everyone. Like everyone on the planet.

I stumbled onto this thread because of the question alone not because of it being posted here on CFree.

But I get what you're saying that some CFree posters might already have put some consideration into it.

But judging by this thread it's a difficult place to have this discussion!

IMO the move from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalism was the the worst thing to ever happen to the planet (and beyond if we keep cluttering up space with junk) and all life that inhabits it.

Awaits flaming

Agree, overall we are completely out of balance with nature and don't like to think of ourselves as animals that are interlinked to all other life and species on the planet.

@CyanCrystalViolet Completely agree. We went from a travel light way of life to acquiring as much stuff as possible.

It wasn't the worst thing for us though. You can't have hospitals and schools in a hunter-gatherer society.

Large parts of the world don’t have hospitals and schools though, at least not ones easily accessible. To me, the amount of suffering for both humans and animals throughout history and that continues into the present day, as well as the suffering of the planet as a result of agriculturalism is a high price to pay for schools and hospitals. That said, this is not at all my area of expertise so I’m very much open to a discussion!

You could have a sophisticated agricultural society with schools, hospitals, houses, etc but have 1/20th the people and it would leave huge amounts of the planet untouched. The problem is too many people.

Why is this shitty topic even allowed on MUMSnet???
Why is it showing up in my active?

I dont want to see your shitty antimatalism on my feed thanks. Go to reddit!

I’m not welcome on REDdit. I’m not RED.

@mnhq is there a way to stop childfree threads appearing in active?

The downside to that is that then new childfree people to MN have to actively look for the board, which they might not know exists, rather than finding it through a thread on active

Shitty topic? Yeah we are all shitty until you want cover so you can have Christmas with your kids then we are suddenly saints