Overpopulation is a real problem. Could paying people not to breed help?

This idea got lost in the morass of the "how many kids" thread, so I'll repost it here: should we push for economic incentives for those who choose not to add to the overpopulation problem?

One kid in the U.S. uses 5 times the resources of a third-world child. Our planet's population is out of control.

Do you support economic incentives for those who choose not to breed? If so, why? If not, why not?

people have less children. Instead of paying money out for not having gets we could send more people to college?

I'm all for educating more people. :)

because I've spent a lot of money recently, and I don't have any kids.

How much are we talkin'? :D

NT!

I support using the funding you would use to pay people not to have kids to instead fund research into faster than light travel and/or Lunar/Martian/Titan colonies.

Seems a gamble - why not split the difference and fund both?

we could have a lunar colony and ships on the beginnings of a colony on Mars before the next crop of children were adults.

Is it really feasible?

I just don't know.

Love the idea, but do we even deserve to colonize other planets when we can't even keep our own healthy?

Inquiring minds want to know.

we cannot travel faster than light, this person is completely ignorant of 9th grade high school science

might as well suggest funding a study of witchcraft so that we can just wish our way out of our troubles

the planets in this solar system suggested, such as mars, do not have breathable atmospheres and cannot sustain human life, you would be condemning the inhabitants of such a colony to a life in an enclosed prison forever -- and they haven't even done anything wrong!

you cannot travel faster than light, we've known this for almost a hundred years now, sheesh

lunar/martian/titan colonies are a ridiculous suggestion, if you are going to make people live out their lives in a tin can, it might as well not involve the extra expense of lifting them out of earth's gravity well, we can continue as we are on the path of building more and more and more and more and more and more prisons

that is your idea of a future, humanity in tin cans forever in the sky?

shoot me now

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkhard_Heim

or the possibility of using a "Heim Drive" to do FTL.

http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg18925331.200/

I am curious how many advanced degrees in physics, astrophysics and/or quantum mechanics you have that you are able to dismiss the possibility out of hand so easily.

Apparently the notion of terraforming is unknown to you as well.

I dare say that sort of attitude was rather prevalent in times long passed when everyone knew that the Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it; everyone knew that for hundreds of years at least as well. Everyone also knew for hundreds of years that the Earth was flat and that walking off the edge was certain doom. Everyone also knew that Atlas supported the Earth on his shoulders, women were inferior to men and that World War I would be the 'War to End All Wars'.

In short, what we know changes on a daily basis and I seriously doubt that simply nay-saying away perfectly valid solutions is an attitude I would expect or Galileo's critics not an enlightened person in this day and age.

now, providing birth control options should be available to both men and women along with the education needed to protect themselves.

(I say this as a parent, btw.)

To me this just says...no mattter whether you have kids or not, we'll pay you for it.

...than for having kids.

I don't think it would say something bad about those who have kids, so much as saying something good about those who sacrifice having them to help ease the overpopulation burden.

like sex education and offering free birth control?

NT!

While it isn't enough to cover the entire expense of a child (not by far, I know), the tax deductions are at least a subsidy for having children. Why would it be so hard to pay people not to have kids?


And btw, we also pay farmers not to produce crops, for much the same reason (preservation of resources, namely arable lands). Not that I'm comparing kids to land or anything...

:shrug:

OMG! They're breeding!

(PS I'm joking, so don't get mad :-) )

I mean, we're animals, it's breeding, even if we pretty it up by not calling it that.

:rofl: Thought about it and figured out they were right. I was a breeder. Hubby bred me three times. :rofl:

Why not just educate them so that they both reproduce and consume less?

How many people in the U.S. will really want to hear that they're five times better off than third-world people? That we selfishly consume 25% of the world's resources while being only 5% of its population?

I tend to think encouraging people not to have children will work faster than telling USAmericans how well off they have it compared to the rest of the planet. Judging by that other thread, such an approach might only foster resentment and a "fuck you, I'll have as many as I want, environment be damned" attitude.

It's like SUVs - do we ban them, or give people incentives not to drive them?

The second retains our liberty while helping to reduce the selfishness in our culture.

Like it or not, people the world over are reproducing.

*IF* you think your way is THE way in the world, it behooves you to pass that along. And what better way then to your children?

Like it or not - others are 'breeding' and passing along their values to their kids. If you believe your values are better, and you are not breeding, then you are losing. And will lose in the long term.

If you want a world with less people, then right now more is better. You need more to get your views heard, and laws passed.

It all reminds me of something I saw in a liberal magazine once about animal rights and the environment. A lady wrote in complaining about how the magazine was wasting trees by sending her renewal notices and such - when she had already paid for several years' membership. The editor wrote back that while not perfect their system was OK because in the long term sending out such mailings would save trees in the future.

We can either chose to play the game, or opt out on principle and let others win.

Change comes in the future - and if we opt out now, we may not have a future where our ideals are represented.

Obviously, as you point out, not having children would mean the inability to pass on my view that not having children is good for the planet!

There's no compunction that I only pass on my views to my offspring, is there?

but the reality seems to be - you learn what you live, and those that live in big repug families will learn the same, have big families, and pass that on.

Then there is evolution to consider: The survival of the fittest. While one group sits around saying we need less, and another saying we need more - well, the results are pretty predictable.

Both groups will get what they want in some ways. The one wanting less will get less, the one wanting more will get more.

Instead of bringing more enlightened people into the world, the group wanting less will bring less such people into the world. They will then have to battle uphill to convince people that their being born was a bad thing. And that won't go over well.

Then when we tell them we are pro-choice, but anti-big family, it will only make it worse.

Pro-choice, as long as it is a choice we think is best is not an easy message to spread :)

:)

I voted for the first option.

:)

Kinda unsure why I'd be flamed - I'm not advocating AGAINST kids, so much as for rewarding people who help us reduce overpopulation while allowing those who still want kids to have them.

Heck, it sounds win-win to me.

Gaia will settle the problem herself. And it WILL be painful. I promise.

When she's through with us we will settle to a sustainable worldwide population of @ 2 billion.

There is already a model of population stability. We need to expand it, and rethink our economic needs while we are at it.

people decide to have kids. they know they will have to put a lot of money towards raising their children. so i don't think offer of money would do much. they could already save money by not having kids in the first place.

No income tax deduction after a couple of kids should have the same effect.

Of course not subsidizing "extra" children is a great idea, but then people start whining about "governmental control of reproduction" (as if not being able to claim more tax credits for something you CHOOSE to undertake is somehow oppresive).

are going to choose not to have children whether you throw money at them or not. People who do decide to have children will decide to do it whether you throw money at them or not. So, to answer your question, no, because it would be a big giant waste of money. Better to spend that money where it would actually make a difference. Better sex education and family planning would be a start. Or educating people on environmental issues.

is educating girls and women and giving them worth beyond being baby machines, cranking out a baby every year for the man who owns them. Education doesn't always mean book learning. Sometimes it just means enlightening them to possibilities.

After all, there are women throughout the rural third world who have gotten microloans and started cottage industries with nothing more than cell phones.

Incentives to use birth control, to abort, to delay marriage, and to avoid their sexuality altogether just DON'T WORK on women whose only worth is as baby factories.

give them worth beyond being pursuers of females, cranking it into every female they can, and fighting with other males to keep their property. Educate them to get beyond this sexist possessive thinking, enlighten them that there is more to life than sex, than sports, than making money to spend it.

OK, am being a bit overblown here, so to speak, but still, I agree and want to add that the men need educating also.

but good luck to you and the Red Sox into turning them into what most of them are not. That also won't have any effect on overpopulation.

No matter what we do with them, if we want to slow the population explosion where it is occurring, we need to elevate the status of women through education of various types.

That is the point. Men are already taken care of in that department.

don't watch sports. We need to educate and elevate women to be, oh, I hate to use equal rights concious, but to be equal status (?) still not right. I am agreeing and adding in the men part since I feel they too need education to be able to (oh darn I keep coming up with cliches, need lunch) end the oppression and unfair treatment of Humanity as a whole, women's roles changing also needs men's to change.

is a common one in New England, again appropriate since 2004 they have once again become the losers we all love.

When they choke every late season it restores our faith in an orderly universe and our ability to use them as our favorite lost cause.

you have a family of four, two parents and two children, living in Georgetown who are consuming 500 energy units per day. Well-educated folk.

Let us say you have a family of ten, two parents and eight children, living in Bridgeport who are consuming 75 energy units a day.

Let us say that the maximum carrying capacity of the globe they live on is 50 energy units a day at population 6 billion.

Which family is the bigger problem?

The wealthy use most of the world's resources. These are the same people who are "well-educated."

So let's start there when we limit the rates of procreation.

How are any of us supposed to feel smug and superior and more liberal than thou, now? Thanks a lot.

Because this nation isn't planning for the future at all.

I voted yes out of pure greed because I'm one of the first group. I've never cast a selfish vote for government, so I thought I'd allow myself one just this once.

It's a very complex issue though: in one sense it's worse than suggested because I think our resource consumption in developed countries is nearer ten times that in less developed ones: newly developing economies like China are likely to change that, though that's not such good news for our global pressure on the environment.

But population growth itself is likely to be less of an issue than it's seemed in past decades: developed countries are already around their peak, with much of western Europe sustained only by immigration and eastern European levels falling, and others will follow.

The UN estimates that global population's most likely to rise from its present 6.5 billion to only 9.2 billion in the 2070s, and then fall gently as ever more countries pass through the demographic transition toward similarly low birth and death rates.

That's just the middle of a range of estimates: it could fall sooner, or rise to far higher levels. But it looks like the worst (a near-tripling of the world total since 1945) is behind us. Having doubled between 1960 and 2000, world population looks unlikely to ever double again.

And it's worth remembering that globally, average birth rates were falling in rich countries and little changed in poorer ones throughout the "population explosion": the problem hasn't been overbreeding, it's that we haven't been dying so young as we used to. It takes time for people to adjust their births to the increased likelihood of their children surviving, but we tend to manage it after a while.

China's already achieved near-stabilization, and even without such strong government control measures India's expected to follow after mid-century: Iran and Turkey will probably have peaked by then too. Mexico's past peak growth and will stabilize around the same time, followed by Brazil.

There'll still be fast growers like many African nations and Pakistan, so there'll still be a shift of natural growth from richer to poorer lands, doubtless offset by migration which will be the only hope of keeping western Europe's numbers up. The former Soviet republics face continued population loss.

The anomalous grower is of course the United States: its population's long been hard to predict because of the importance of immigration: but as growth elsewhere eases, so will the flow of migrants from those countries. That should still leave a large and wealthy US.

The problem in the next century isn't so much population growth overall as our continuing expectation of more wealth, more goods, more transportation. The poor who've checked their population growth will expect the same improved economic dividend as we enjoyed from a fit population with plenty of workers.

Whether we can all make the necessary adjustments depends on the haves being prepared to sacrifice so that the have-nots may be willing to forego part of the material wealth we presently enjoy.

Welcome to DU!

Now all we have to do is feed everybody. :)

That aside, I like the space travel idea brought up further up-thread...

They cannot always afford proper birth control, though. I remember a few years ago seeing a program in India where poor villagers who had vasectomies or tubal ligations were given transistor radios. For most Americans, that sounds like a laughably low price, but for the people getting them, the real "payoff" was that they got a safe medical procedure for free -- without the program they couldn't have afforded it, and would have kept having children they couldn't afford to support. The radio was like a free present.

In wealthier nations, most women have the option of birth control, and birth rates in many countries -- Germany and Japan most notably -- are actually below the replacement level. IIRC even Italy has negative population growth, if immigration is not counted. Given a genuine CHOICE, most people won't burden themselves with children they can't afford to support properly.

The REAL problem is that under Repukes, going back to Saint Ronnie, US foreign aid has been severely restricted in its ability to support birth control, because that's against God's will. And if there's even a small chance that a given country is willing to offer women the option of abortion, it's bye-bye US aid. Clinton was only able to reverse some of this before the Congress slipped back into Repuke clutches. It's worth noting that even in heavily Catholic Latin America, the majority of the population -- that is, the ordinary, common people -- consider abortion acceptable, and birth control all but indispensable if they are to have any chance of fighting poverty. It's only the fundies that are blocking sensible birth control for much of the world's population that can't afford it.

"Gosh, it is called reading a book or a study." means what?

Just read the Bible!1!1!
:rofl:

Did you forget?

for family planning, but because i don't think it would be real effective. in most of the places where over population really is a problem, it's population distribution that's also much of the problem. and rural/farming families are always going to look upon children as assets. but your idea might have merit and be workable in urban settings in developing countries. hell, worth a hard look, anyhow.

who will never be married because of china`s disastrous one child policy.

they'll never be divorced either

china was badly overpopulated and a few million unmarried people is hardly a crisis compared to the complete and total environment destruction of an entire nation the size of china

a little perspective please

"if i can't get married i want everybody in my country to be poor and hungry and miserable and diseased forever, so there" would be a fairly stupid attitude

Here's how I see it, correct me if I'm wrong:
Progressives see societal benefits (and other benefits) in giving monetary incentives for poorer, struggling, single, people to not have children.
Liberals see this an affront to....well...I don't know what.
Liberals will have to explain this one to me, since I am on the progressive side of the argument.

BTW, I don't like the OP's use of the word "breed", when referring to human families.

I'm nullaparous and twice-sterilized (two different methods) and my ex was sterilized while we were together. Where's my check?

Because when I look back into my own history I find a great example to support this.
I am an "Army brat" born in the mid '50s. I had six siblings. When we lived on base it was quite common to see families as large as ours and not too unusual to see larger ones. I remember one with thirteen children for instance. Although at the time I thought nothing of this but with hindsight I know that this ratio of large families to not large families was considerably higher within the military than it was without. The ratios for alcoholic parents and child abuse were also quite high among these families but that drifts from the topic.

So what was the reason for this culture of larger than normal families? Money. For a period of time following WWII the government was paying an extra allotment to the soldiers per child. For many if not most of these "family" oriented soldiers it made good economic sense to have more kids. I am unsure what the extra allotment was but I think it may have been an additional $100 per kid. In the '50s and '60s that was quite the inducement, especially when you factor in the cost benefits those parents received in the form of free medical, dental and non-taxed, reduced priced foods and clothing available to them at the commissaries and PXs and etc.

Fortunately the government figured out what was going on and has phased the program out,(or greatly reduced the allotment, not sure which), and I suspect those jumbo-sized families have become a lot less common.

So in essence money can be a factor in inducing family size and I strongly suspect that it can work in either direction. To be frank here, I am not so sure how I feel about this. If my example had been the reverse, (more $$ for less kids) I am not convinced that this would have been so great either. (Well being the oldest kid, I would likely have had a few less siblings and except for Christmas how could that have been better?)
c

These days, every kid can have something for Christmas, so that isn't a factor anymore. I appreciate how frustrating it probably was for all of you, in a large family. Clothes are also extremely easy to come by, in these days of outsourced labor.

Food, however, is the scarce commodity in big families these days. I cringe at the thought of children having to fight over a big table full of nutritionally-void food. That's how we get all these overweight, malnourished children!

Birthrates are tremendously high in high poverty areas. Dry up the poverty, and you end up with lower birthrates. Education and easy access to contraception helps further.

Before we even consider looking to other incentives to lower birth rates we should focus on these areas.

Then, maybe we can have health plans cover contraception- better yet, lets have a SPHC system for all citizens that includes contraceptive coverage.

See, this idea that people need to be forced or incentivized not to have kids- yes, we use more resources than 3rd world countries, but we also have a lot less kids. Europe is in negative population growth territory. The answer here is that people who are doing well economically, who have access to birth control, who are educated, who at least have some mental freedom from religious brainwashing if not complete theocratic rule, will limit their own population without any hectoring from the outside.

The non PC fact of the matter is, it's the 3rd world countries where the population problem really IS. What we need, globally, is economic opportunity for those people, sustainable development, infrastructure, and AVAILABLE BIRTH CONTROL without (ahem. Vatican. ahem. Islamic fundamentalism.) control-minded power structures dictating to people that they must breed every time they screw. If they get to a better place economically, their population issues will resolve themselves as ours have.

who just shouldn't BE parents . . . they don't have the skills, they don't have the education, they don't have the commitment to seeing a child through at least the first 18 years of life . . .

I don't know what the solution to that is, other than vastly increased parenting education for everyone bringing a kid into the world . . .

How about more economic incentives to adopt children from the US and other countries?

can tell you there is already plenty of economic incentive to not have kids.

people who are educated and responsible already have fewer kids, people who can do the math have it figured out that kids cost money, they are not fed and housed and educated for free

if a hundred thousand dollars over 18 years of savings is not enough incentive to practice birth control then it's hopeless

My husband and I both have fertility issues. We don't have kids (but we've been looking into adoption). So, I'm all for getting paid not to procreate! :D

How would the OP deal with people in your situation? Would the Government deny you money because there is no real incentive for them to?

and throw in a bonus for being gay!:party: