# Population control?



## Cnote11

Yes, please.

This one oughta **** off the Mormons


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## Dodecaplex

*Space Colonies*

Yes, please.


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## Cnote11

*Udon noodles?*

Yes, please


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## Dodecaplex

*Victoria's Secret Harems?*

Yes, oh yes, please!


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## Polednice

Oh Cnote, Cnote, you have _got_ to see DrMike's argument for no population control. I'll wait and see if he delivers it himself.


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## Cnote11

God says be fruitful and multiply in the Old Testament.
We eat pork because we don't have to follow the Old Testament.
We hate homosexuals because it says so in the Old Testament.
You can't judge us based on those passages because they are from the Old Testament and we aren't bound to them.


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## Huilunsoittaja

*The Last Day?*

Yes, please!

:tiphat:


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## violadude

I am curious to here, from proponents of population control, how they would enforce that law. And I mean I am genuinely curious. Not that snarky kind of curiosity where I'm just going to throw your arguments back in your face later.


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> I am curious to here, from proponents of population control, how they would enforce that law. And I mean I am genuinely curious. Not that snarky kind of curiosity where I'm just going to throw your arguments back in your face later.


Personally, I don't actually advocate "control" - I wouldn't enforce any kind of laws. I do think that we need a hell of a lot more awareness about the issue of global overpopulation though. Consciousness raising is what we need, and eventually mother earth will give us a bitch slap if we don't do it ourselves.


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## Cnote11

I believe you, violadude. 

I actually am a proponent of population control. It is difficult to enforce and I believe it would take an underlying social agreement for it to completely work. That sounds impossible, but ideally that is what I would want. China has had a semi-hard time policing theirs, but it has worked to an extent. I think people just need to recognize the importance of it. People claim they care so much about their children and future generations, but their actions say otherwise. Unless we can continue to innovate to supply the public with quality living, but we've done that and created new issues while trying.


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## Couchie

violadude said:


> I am curious to here, from proponents of population control, how they would enforce that law. And I mean I am genuinely curious. Not that snarky kind of curiosity where I'm just going to throw your arguments back in your face later.


A tax that increases proportionately with the number of children you have beyond 1 child. If you are going to burden society with unnecessary children, you can pay your share for what is a vain, needless luxury.


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## Cnote11

:lol: I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, Couchie.


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## violadude

Couchie said:


> A tax that increases proportionately with the number of children you have beyond 1 child. If you are going to burden society with unnecessary children, you can pay your share for what is a vain, needless luxury.


This is along the lines of what I was thinking at first. It would be really hard to enforce something like that in America of course because we're the "land of the free" and any laws that keeps us from doing what we want to do are for communists.

Except of course when it comes to gay marriage, drugs and prostitution.....


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## Couchie

Cnote11 said:


> :lol: I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, Couchie.


Not at all. The concept works well enough in China (although I believe there it is just a one-time fine). A tax would be better for a yearly reminder for the parents. The tax expires on the child's 18th birthday.


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## Polednice

A tax might be a good idea actually. At the moment, we're _giving_ people money for each child they have!


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## Cnote11

Yes, it is only a one-time fine in China based on the income and other situation factors of the family. One should also note that it only applies to the urban citizens, and some are even exempt from that. The Chinese government may also allow certain people to have more children based on certain criteria. It is more lenient than most people think.


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## Couchie

violadude said:


> This is along the lines of what I was thinking at first. It would be really hard to enforce something like that in America of course because we're the "land of the free" and any laws that keeps us from doing what we want to do are for communists.
> 
> Except of course when it comes to gay marriage, drugs and prostitution.....


It will take a bit longer in America, but you will get there when whites become a minority: people will be begging for it.


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## Guest

Cnote11 said:


> Yes, please.
> 
> This one oughta **** off the Mormons


On the contrary, I am fully supportive of you controlling your own population growth. We Mormons will find it that much easier to take over that way if we are the only ones reproducing.


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## Couchie

DrMike said:


> On the contrary, I am fully supportive of you controlling your own population growth. We Mormons will find it that much easier to take over that way if we are the only ones reproducing.


Ah, gross birth rates + indoctrination, method of Muslims. Conscription isn't cutting it?


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## Guest

Couchie said:


> Ah, gross birth rates + indoctrination, method of Muslims. Conscription isn't cutting it?


On the contrary, our church is one of the fastest growing in the US, and we may very well have our first Mormon president here in less than a year. I'm just saying that if other groups want to help speed that up by limiting their own population growth, more power to them.


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## emiellucifuge

Certainly education is needed, but birth needs to be deincentivised,

Currently in the Netherlands, you are rewarded for having children, through benefits etc,,, Also, should you be unable to have children, anyone under the age of 41 can have government funded IVF. This should stop, and the opposite should occur.

Or indeed mother nature will bitch-slap us


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## mamascarlatti

Eeerm, are any of you parents? Do you have ANY idea how much having a baby costs? Baby equipment, nappies, food, education, clothes, shoes (they keep growing, dammit), healthcare (they keep getting sick, dammit), toys, books, extra-curricular activities, holiday activities, sports equipment and fees, music lessons and instruments, entertainment, socialising and it goes on and on and on, like a black hole that sucks up all your cash. Even with the bare minimum of all this it's expensive.

Then there is the career cost for the primary caregiver, particularly if they want to spend any time with the baby, or work part-time so as to be home for the child after school.

Anything any government can give you is a laughable drop in the ocean.


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## emiellucifuge

mamascarlatti said:


> Anything any government can give you is a laughable drop in the ocean.


Right then so no one will mind if it dissappears...


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## moody

Polednice said:


> A tax might be a good idea actually. At the moment, we're _giving_ people money for each child they have!


The Chinese had a go at it a few years back. I believe they only paid benefits on the first child, can anyone remember the detaiis?
But of course as long as we have the monstrous edicts of the Catholic Church no such measures will succeed.
I see that C Note has touched on the Chinese question, that will teach me to look before I leap!


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## PetrB

Couchie said:


> Not at all. The concept works well enough in China (although I believe there it is just a one-time fine). A tax would be better for a yearly reminder for the parents. The tax expires on the child's 18th birthday.


It does not work well in China: hard and long-held cultural tenets create an imbalance: people are allowed one child, and they want that one child to be a boy. This is evident in the thousands of Chinese female orphans adopted by desperate childless western couples, and that many more infant females in China 'permanently disposed of' -- pre and post natal delivery.

Their population is so imbalanced, male-female, that in poorer rural areas the only women willing and available to marry into that economic strata are locals, and there is a tremendous 'shortage' of available women. This has created a weird and awful situation where the bride is often a far too-near relative: in many of those areas there is a profusion of marriages of first cousins, and more than a few known marriages of sibling to sibling :-/.

The single sons of the wealthier Chinese classes are now using marriage broker agencies, who solicit Asian women from within and outside of China. Those men seeking a wife are making lists of common and traditional requirements; beauty, other superficial qualities, and still expect a traditionally subservience from their spouse. Those women signing up for these services have the huge advantage of calling their shots, are educated, will have no truck with the 'subservient' request, and can only consider a potential husband who is a major financial 'catch,' who promises to treat her with respect.

Apart from the psychological dynamic of a society of several generations of highly spoiled males, each an 'only child,' there are inherent dangers of having a disproportionate segment of males in a population: one of those is a government deciding it is time to take all these 'excess' / 'surplus' males and make an army of them, and put them to use while deeming many of those soldiers as 'dispensable.'

If you limit the number of children allowed to citizens in those cultures where it is considered imperative the family produce a son, I think it then more than prudent to make it a high crime for the medical profession to disclose the gender of the in utero fetus. That might prevent (or at least slow down) the termination of pregnancies due to gender bias and leave families having to be more accepting of 'what they get,' thereby regaining part of the more natural male / female balance. (IMO, that should be as rigorous a law in the western nations as well... do the scan, find out the fetus is healthy; no disclosure of gender; wait and see what you get 

As effective, if not more so than the tax you mentioned... 
Singapore had (still has?) a policy of providing state funded schooling and their other normally offered social services to any two children per family: if there is a third child, the family knows all cost of school and other care must be provided for by the parents. Parents are generally loathe to treat that third child inequitably, so tend to better tend to how many children they have.

East or west, cultural differences aside, there is a very real socioeconomic phenomenon which needs serious address and revision -- The educated reproduce: 
1.) later than the lesser educated. 
2.) tend to have many less children than the lesser educated.

[On Adoption: I would like to see nations ban adopting children from those nations which are doing nothing about population control, or, like China, are fobbing off their unwanted females on the world community. -- Tantamount to an embargo of sorts, draconian perhaps, but sending a very clear message.
...And... if any two completely unqualified and unprepared idiots are allowed to make and keep a child, the legal qualification requirements for adoption ought to be radically revised down....]


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## mamascarlatti

emiellucifuge said:


> Right then so no one will mind if it dissappears...


Well I wouldn't notice because I haven't had anything that COULD disappear. Even our public schools have to be propped up by activity fees, sports levies, photocopy fees, and a hefty so-called "donation". Not to mention the endless fundraising.


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## Guest

mamascarlatti said:


> Eeerm, are any of you parents? Do you have ANY idea how much having a baby costs? Baby equipment, nappies, food, education, clothes, shoes (they keep growing, dammit), healthcare (they keep getting sick, dammit), toys, books, extra-curricular activities, holiday activities, sports equipment and fees, music lessons and instruments, entertainment, socialising and it goes on and on and on, like a black hole that sucks up all your cash. Even with the bare minimum of all this it's expensive.
> 
> Then there is the career cost for the primary caregiver, particularly if they want to spend any time with the baby, or work part-time so as to be home for the child after school.
> 
> Anything any government can give you is a laughable drop in the ocean.


I'll second this. I have two of my own. I have friends who joke about how nice it would be to get the child tax deductions. FYI, we get a deduction of $1000/child, and we also get to deduct a fraction of their childcare costs. We spend ~$600/month in pre-school for our youngest and after-school programs for our eldest. In about 5 months, we have spent in childcare costs the entire amount that we get to deduct. That doesn't include all the other school fees and fundraising efforts that regularly hit us. There is also the very frequent doctor visits, and the almost endless supply of antibiotics (not to mention lost work time staying home to tend to sick kids). Then there is the hassle of figuring out what to do during those weeks after school lets out for the summer and before school starts back up in the fall, where you have to somehow find something to do with your kids so you can get to work.

But there is another reason that the government partially subsidizes kids - all of you who like those government programs, especially in the golden years of your life, are going to need more of those kids to pay for them. At least in the U.S., the notion that with Social Security you are only getting back what you paid in is completely fraudulent. There is absolutely no connection between taxes paid in and benefits received. The whole program was devised back in a time when life expectancy was much shorter, and people weren't expected to live as long after they retired. In many ways it is now a ponzi scheme - without current workers paying into the system, there would be no way to fully pay current beneficiaries. And the bigger problem is that the ratio of workers to retirees is dropping, making the program even more unsustainable. So the truth is that if you want entitlement programs to continue, the last thing you need is population control.


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## Sid James

PetrB is right about the male-female imbalance in China. Of course, part of the reason (a big part!) for the population explosion in China being so huge was Mao's banning of abortions and discouraging birth control during his reign until mid 1970's. So then, the Chinese population got artificially huge. Now, with the one child policy being in place for such a long time, other artificialities and distortions have occured (only seen in hindsight, perhaps). It's true that in rural areas, people can have more than one child, to have more pairs of hands to work the farms and produce food for them and the nation. In cities like Shanghai, last I heard was they were thinking of ending the one child policy - it's been so successful over there, the population is now less than they would like.

Other countries with a very bad population problem are India, Egypt and Indonesia. 

In India, the government has done various things, none have worked (I think?). Indira Ghandi introduced sterilization for the poorest people, which caused a huge outcry there and elsewhere. My memory is sketchy about this, but the reason was that the poor had more children. So after a certain amount of children, she introduced strong incentives (eg. money, or tax cuts) if they got themselves sterilised. Definitely a concern for human rights there. Same with in the West, in some places disabled people are sterilised by law, to not pass on genetic defects. But Indira Ghandi doing that was seen as immoral and a form of class warfare, discrimination, etc.

Anyway, another thing in India more recently where tax breaks for people who had less than a certain number of children. But I don't think this has worked in lessening the population. The rationale is the usual for third world countries. An extra child is an extra pair of hands to work and earn money in the cities, or work the land in the country.

As for Egypt and Indonesia, I have read about it ages ago, but forgot what their birth control policies where.

Basically the long and short of it is, third world countries (or less developed countries in the new jargon), produce too many babies, while first world (or WEstern, rich) countries produce far less. There is a huge imbalance, impacting on many things like food production, livability and amenity of our cities, pollution and pressure on the environment, sustainability, etc.


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## cwarchc

There are several, very deep rooted, causes for the failings of any type of consistent population control.
There is religion, education, infant mortality rates, lack of social welfare (you require a large number of offspring to keep you in old age) 
There is even xenophobia.
I agree with the earlier post - _nature is going to bitch slap us_


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## DABTSAR

Punishing people through the tax system isn't going to going to accomplish anything besides ******* over people that are struggling. You know what works a lot better, education.


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## Sid James

DABTSAR said:


> Punishing people through the tax system isn't going to going to accomplish anything besides ******* over people that are struggling...


I think money talks, basically. People's hip pocket nerve is the most sensitive area of their body. So that's what the government policies aim at. It's targeting the problem.

In the overpopulated countries, they give incentives not to have more children. In the rich West, where birth rates have been dropping for decades, they give money to encourage higher birth rate.

But it has to be tailored to the country and well targeted. The thing that Indira Ghandi did, sterilisation, was too drastic, not thought out well. China's_ one child policy_ has been better. But nothing is perfect.


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## Iforgotmypassword

In my opinion, the government has no place in our personal lives. 

And that goes for drugs, gay marriage and prostitution as well, as violadude jokingly quipped earlier

... on a side note, what happened to Cnote11 and Polednice?


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## Delicious Manager

DrMike said:


> On the contrary, our church is one of the fastest growing in the US, and we may very well have our first Mormon president here in less than a year. I'm just saying that if other groups want to help speed that up by limiting their own population growth, more power to them.


So, are all your children naturally BORN Mormon. Or do you have to brainwash them to be so?

Just a thought...


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## Delicious Manager

mamascarlatti said:


> Eeerm, are any of you parents? Do you have ANY idea how much having a baby costs? Baby equipment, nappies, food, education, clothes, shoes (they keep growing, dammit), healthcare (they keep getting sick, dammit), toys, books, extra-curricular activities, holiday activities, sports equipment and fees, music lessons and instruments, entertainment, socialising and it goes on and on and on, like a black hole that sucks up all your cash. Even with the bare minimum of all this it's expensive.
> 
> Then there is the career cost for the primary caregiver, particularly if they want to spend any time with the baby, or work part-time so as to be home for the child after school.
> 
> Anything any government can give you is a laughable drop in the ocean.


It was your decision to breed - you handle the consequences and the cost. I find it offensive that I'm expected to subsidise other people's breeding habits and their offspring. The world is desperately overpopulated (I would go as far as to say that humans are an infestation of the planet), so we really don't need to ENCOURAGE people to add to the overcrowding.


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## Chi_townPhilly

Delicious Manager said:


> So, are all your children naturally BORN Mormon. Or do you have to brainwash them to be so?
> 
> Just a thought...


Brainwashed? Really?!

Might as well just say children of (fill in any religion here) 
are brainwashed into a greater likelihood of becoming (fill in any religion here).

If you'd made this comment about Judaism, you might have faced an accusation of Anti-Semitism.
If you'd made this comment about Moslems, you might have faced an accusation of Islamophobia.

Of course, there's no Anti-Defamation League for Mormons, nor are there numerous Mormon believers who feel as though they'll get a visit to the 72 virgins if they blow themselves and you away for your impiety, so you can snipe away in safety...

By the way, mama- unlike you, I have no first-hand knowledge of the expenses involved in child-rearing. I do know that there have to be *some* "products-of-the-breeders" around and productive in a few decades' time, if I expect to have any shot at getting a Social Security check...


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## Sid James

Delicious Manager said:


> ...I would go as far as to say that humans are an infestation of the planet...


Yeah but if we don't breed, what will be the future of classical music? :lol:...well, we'll still have whalesong, birdsong...and Tina Turner, she'll never die...


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## Delicious Manager

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Brainwashed? Really?!
> 
> Might as well just say children of (fill in any religion here)
> are brainwashed into a greater likelihood of becoming (fill in any religion here).
> 
> If you'd made this comment about Judaism, you might have faced an accusation of Anti-Semitism.
> If you'd made this comment about Moslems, you might have faced an accusation of Islamophobia.
> 
> Of course, there's no Anti-Defamation League for Mormons, nor are there numerous Mormon believers who feel as though they'll get a visit to the 72 virgins if they blow themselves and you away for your impiety, so you can snipe away in safety...
> 
> By the way, mama- unlike you, I have no first-hand knowledge of the expenses involved in child-rearing. I do know that there have to be *some* "products-of-the-breeders" around and productive in a few decades' time, if I expect to have any shot at getting a Social Security check...


I would say (and do say) exactly the same of ANY organised religion; I treat them all with the same amount of despair and disdain. I am neither antisemitic nor am I an Islamophobe (don't get your antis and your phobes mixed up, by the way!). I think any religion (if it is sincere) should be strong enough to withstand any amount of challenging or attack. I don't judge anyone by the religion they hold, although I can't help wondering why they don't allow themselves to get into the 21st century rather than clinging on to the ridiculous fairy tales fabricated thousands of years ago in attempt to explain all those mysteries of life and the universe that they didn't have the knowledge to rationalise any other way. I abhor religion and the way it is abused by those who seek to control others. I also believe very strongly that no child should be indoctrinated with any religion. Let the child grow up and make its own mind up when it is old enough to make the judgement. By all means make children aware of religion (and I don't just mean one of them), but don't brainwash them from birth and prevent them the freedom of thought to do other than the parents' selfish bidding.

I'm rather embarrassed by it all, to be frank.


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## Chi_townPhilly

My late mother was fond of saying "nobody raises your children the way _you_ think they ought to be raised, not even yourself."

Wise lady, that mother of mine.♥♥

Maybe there's a corollary in there about the inverse proportion between the volubility with which one dispenses parenting advice and the hands-on experience one has with parenting- but I'm still working on that one...


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## science

Delicious Manager said:


> I would say (and do say) exactly the same of ANY organised religion; I treat them all with the same amount of despair and disdain. I am neither antisemitic nor am I an Islamophobe (don't get your antis and your phobes mixed up, by the way!). I think any religion (if it is sincere) should be strong enough to withstand any amount of challenging or attack. I don't judge anyone by the religion they hold, although I can't help wondering why they don't allow themselves to get into the 21st century rather than clinging on to the ridiculous fairy tales fabricated thousands of years ago in attempt to explain all those mysteries of life and the universe that they didn't have the knowledge to rationalise any other way. I abhor religion and the way it is abused by those who seek to control others. I also believe very strongly that no child should be indoctrinated with any religion. Let the child grow up and make its own mind up when it is old enough to make the judgement. By all means make children aware of religion (and I don't just mean one of them), but don't brainwash them from birth and prevent them the freedom of thought to do other than the parents' selfish bidding.
> 
> I'm rather embarrassed by it all, to be frank.


Great scene on _The Big Bang Theory_ when the physicists break up over whether they'd raise the children as string-theory believers or loop-quantum-gravity believers, and Leonard says he'd just let them grow up and make their own minds up, and the girl (Leslie, I believe) says, "But Leonard! They're children!" and storms off.

Anyway, this attitude only makes sense if religion is an intellectual issue like quantum theory or economics or whatever. But religion is only superficially intellectual. In fact, it's about identity, and intellectual stuff is only sort of pasted on and most religion people totally ignore it. You'd have a hard time walking into an average church and finding someone who can tell you anything about the Council of Nicaea or the Council of Chalcedon or Augustine's thoughts on Genesis or whatever. If you got a bit obscure, asking about something like hesychasm or the Cambridge Platonists or quietism or whatever, good luck. If you somehow did happen to find someone who could (other than perhaps the professional), s/he'd be a sort of oddball in the community. And about half of what that guy thought of it all would probably be wrong.

I only use Christianity because it's the most familiar to most of us. Precisely the same situation exists in any normal Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, whatever community.

Where intellectual knowledge or credal affirmation is emphasized (which it isn't in most religions, including Christianity in practice), it is implicitly more important as a symbol of loyalty to the community than anything to do with intellectual matters.


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## moody

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Brainwashed? Really?!
> 
> Might as well just say children of (fill in any religion here)
> are brainwashed into a greater likelihood of becoming (fill in any religion here).
> 
> If you'd made this comment about Judaism, you might have faced an accusation of Anti-Semitism.
> If you'd made this comment about Moslems, you might have faced an accusation of Islamophobia.
> 
> Of course, there's no Anti-Defamation League for Mormons, nor are there numerous Mormon believers who feel as though they'll get a visit to the 72 virgins if they blow themselves and you away for your impiety, so you can snipe away in safety...
> 
> By the way, mama- unlike you, I have no first-hand knowledge of the expenses involved in child-rearing. I do know that there have to be *some* "products-of-the-breeders" around and productive in a few decades' time, if I expect to have any shot at getting a Social Security check...


Are you joining this thread as a member or a moderator, this all sounds faintly threatening?


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## Ukko

moody said:


> Are you joining this thread as a member or a moderator, this all sounds faintly threatening?


He's addressing another moderator, at least in theory; and if it's threatening it's _really_ faint. Pretty much straight observation I think. You, my friend, may be getting paranoid from those (baseless) attacks by the whippersnappers.


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## Guest

Delicious Manager said:


> So, are all your children naturally BORN Mormon. Or do you have to brainwash them to be so?
> 
> Just a thought...


We have a parallel program to our geneology work, in which we have been able to identify genetic markers of "Mormonism," and through decades of selective breeding, we now have a nearly "pure" population. Of course, evolution being what it is, and also with introducing non-Mormon blood into the gene pool from time, or recent converts, then there are going to be exceptions. For those children, we introduce electroshock therapy at an early age and use a healthy dose of corporal punishment if the child shows any signs of independent thought. When that doesn't work, then we have the "box" in the backyard where they can ponder their choices for an "appropriate" amount of time. I though this was all well known. We Mormons are quite nefarious.

I think it is a fantasy that anybody can raise their children without instilling any kind of values in them and leave them to choose for themselves . . . or at least that they can raise children that won't end up blights on society later in life.


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## Vaneyes

More rubbers for the populace, please.

View attachment 5079


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## Guest

Delicious Manager said:


> It was your decision to breed - you handle the consequences and the cost. I find it offensive that I'm expected to subsidise other people's breeding habits and their offspring. The world is desperately overpopulated (I would go as far as to say that humans are an infestation of the planet), so we really don't need to ENCOURAGE people to add to the overcrowding.


On the contrary, the pittance that is directed back to parents in terms of tax deductions is pretty paltry compared to the years of taxes the government can then take from that child in the future to subsidize old folks' entitlement programs. Whoop-de-do, I get a little over $1000 a year in tax deductions for my kids for approximately 18 years, and in return the government will get somewhere around 4 decades worth of tax revenues in the future.


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## Iforgotmypassword

Delicious Manager said:


> I would say (and do say) exactly the same of ANY organised religion; I treat them all with the same amount of despair and disdain. I am neither antisemitic nor am I an Islamophobe (don't get your antis and your phobes mixed up, by the way!). I think any religion (if it is sincere) should be strong enough to withstand any amount of challenging or attack. I don't judge anyone by the religion they hold, although I can't help wondering why they don't allow themselves to get into the 21st century rather than clinging on to the ridiculous fairy tales fabricated thousands of years ago in attempt to explain all those mysteries of life and the universe that they didn't have the knowledge to rationalise any other way. I abhor religion and the way it is abused by those who seek to control others. I also believe very strongly that no child should be indoctrinated with any religion. Let the child grow up and make its own mind up when it is old enough to make the judgement. By all means make children aware of religion (and I don't just mean one of them), but don't brainwash them from birth and prevent them the freedom of thought to do other than the parents' selfish bidding.
> 
> I'm rather embarrassed by it all, to be frank.


I disagree with this idea that parents should not project their own beliefs into their children. I tend to believe that those who propose this sort of idea are doing so due to their own dislike of the beliefs being propagated. If they for example were, an agnostic atheist would they object to their children being taught that there was no god? Of course not, because what damage would it do? It's obviously the most likely possibility and the children are free to question it later on anyways. However, on the contrary if someone teaches their children that there IS a god, then suddenly it doesn't become "teaching" but INDOCTRINATION, the perpetuation of mindless filth which simply won't die due to these disgusting people destroying their children's young minds.

In the end it comes down to perspective, whether those involved wish to admit it or not. One group firmly believes something, another believes perhaps the opposite or close to it and neither side truly wishes the other to endure. What your post was truly saying was simple, you do not wish for religion to exist and therefore hope that people will stop believing it. Of course you still acknowledge their right to believe what they want, but the possibility of a child finding religion when their parents don't teach them is miniscule. This brings me on to one last small question which is linked to my first observation. Those that are truly religious believe their beliefs to be the pathway to enlightenment, to happiness, joy, the doorway to truth and eternal knowledge, do you truly believe that a loving parent from this belief system would keep these things from their child?

What I hope for is in the future is not the death of religion, but the advent of true freedom and acceptance between the differing philosophies. Disagreement of course, but not spite and mockery.

Population control can not come about without the complete obliteration of basic human rights. Neither can the complete removal of others' belief systems.


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## Delicious Manager

Sid James said:


> Yeah but if we don't breed, what will be the future of classical music? :lol:...well, we'll still have whalesong, birdsong...and Tina Turner, she'll never die...


Of course I'm not saying people shouldn't breed, but we need to educate people to become more socially responsible about it. And we certainly don't need to PAY anyone to do it.


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## cwarchc

_in return the government will get somewhere around 4 decades worth of tax revenues in the future._
The economic situation must be better where you are than here in the north west of the UK?


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## Ukko

Delicious Manager said:


> Of course I'm not saying people shouldn't breed, but we need to educate people to become more socially responsible about it. And we certainly don't need to PAY anyone to do it.


US$1000 for every year between the ages of 16 and 50 that we aren't the propagators of a childbirth. Lets see, the guvmint owes me... Hey, a lot! 1, 2. 3 ... way more than $4000, my pet crow says.


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## drwatson

Interesting after all the complaints that a thread _not_ about religion ends up being about religion! :lol:

This is an interesting point though:



Iforgotmypassword said:


> I disagree with this idea that parents should not project their own beliefs into their children. I tend to believe that those who propose this sort of idea are doing so due to their own dislike of the beliefs being propagated. If they for example were, an agnostic atheist would they object to their children being taught that there was no god? Of course not, because what damage would it do? It's obviously the most likely possibility and the children are free to question it later on anyways. However, on the contrary if someone teaches their children that there IS a god, then suddenly it doesn't become "teaching" but INDOCTRINATION, the perpetuation of mindless filth which simply won't die due to these disgusting people destroying their children's young minds.


It's similar to what other people have said about teaching children on this thread, but it's too simple and too... convenient. I don't think atheists would teach a child that there is no god because, actually, that's not what many atheists think. What parents really ought to do, if possible, is expose children to the full range of moral and religious ideas that exist without attaching any baggage to them - tell them that people believe this and this and this, but not that _this_ one is the right one. Instead, give them the values that are universal to all people of all faiths and non-faiths so that they have some moral foundation, and then for more difficult moral questions, give them the _tools_ to come to a decision of their own, which you can help them with by playing devil's advocate so that they have experience rationalising a position. Whatever age they are, they ought to be able to say why they think something is good or bad without telling you that it's because X told them so.

Even if we all agreed that parents should have the right to immerse their children in their chosen ideology, I think too many children grow without an awareness that questioning that ideology is even a possibility. Their minds are so protected, so closed, that such an idea doesn't exist, or exists too late.


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## Guest

cwarchc said:


> _in return the government will get somewhere around 4 decades worth of tax revenues in the future._
> The economic situation must be better where you are than here in the north west of the UK?


Here in Alabama, the numbers I found for March 2012 were an unemployment rate statewide of 7.3%. I'm not sure what it is in the north west of the UK. Of course my numbers were a crude estimate. That is assuming entering the labor force after college in your early to mid-twenties, and then working into your sixties.


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## Guest

drwatson said:


> Interesting after all the complaints that a thread _not_ about religion ends up being about religion! :lol:
> 
> This is an interesting point though:
> 
> It's similar to what other people have said about teaching children on this thread, but it's too simple and too... convenient. I don't think atheists would teach a child that there is no god because, actually, that's not what many atheists think. What parents really ought to do, if possible, is expose children to the full range of moral and religious ideas that exist without attaching any baggage to them - tell them that people believe this and this and this, but not that _this_ one is the right one. Instead, give them the values that are universal to all people of all faiths and non-faiths so that they have some moral foundation, and then for more difficult moral questions, give them the _tools_ to come to a decision of their own, which you can help them with by playing devil's advocate so that they have experience rationalising a position. Whatever age they are, they ought to be able to say why they think something is good or bad without telling you that it's because X told them so.
> 
> Even if we all agreed that parents should have the right to immerse their children in their chosen ideology, I think too many children grow without an awareness that questioning that ideology is even a possibility. Their minds are so protected, so closed, that such an idea doesn't exist, or exists too late.


Should my wife and I leave our two kids at home with the TV to babysit them, or hire a nanny to watch them, while we attend church every Sunday? Or should we take them and give them earplugs so that they won't be unduly influenced until they have reached a sufficient age? I can teach them to respect all people, but how exactly do I teach them something that I don't believe - that the religion I have come to as the correct one is maybe right, maybe wrong? And what other aspects of life do we require people to do this? And can't we teach them one thing and still accept that later in life they may make up their minds and choose a different path and not be unalterably influenced by those early teachings? We teach children science, and it has occurred numerous times that what we once taught as scientific fact was later proven wrong, and people have been more than able to change their views. Why would teaching them religious views early in life be so different? Later in life they can choose for themselves. In the meantime, I am going to teach them what I believe to be true.


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## Chrythes

I agree with drwatson, and I would add that almost always children are brought to religion by their own parents and are encouraged to "follow" by the religious community. Since the parents and the social environment are the authority for a growing child, it's quite hard later in life to honestly consider other options, since it basically means quite a fierce disconnection from the parents and the community - it's even in some way a betrayal of your family and the childhood. 
On the other hand upbringing that purposes the child many ways of the "truth" is IMO the right one. Even as an atheist I don't see myself growing up a child telling him not to go to church or not to believe in God. I'd try to encourage him to find his own truth by showing him as much as I can.


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## mamascarlatti

Delicious Manager said:


> It was your decision to breed - you handle the consequences and the cost. I find it offensive that I'm expected to subsidise other people's breeding habits and their offspring. The world is desperately overpopulated (I would go as far as to say that humans are an infestation of the planet), so we really don't need to ENCOURAGE people to add to the overcrowding.


Allow me to explain the point of my argument:

Previous posters were discussing the idea that paying people to "breed" (I would have chosen a less loaded word, personally) would encourage people to have a child.

I am saying that having a child costs so much, that any tax break is not going to be an incentive.

People have children for reasons that are completely separate from money.

And as Dr Mike says, other people's offspring will pay you back for their schooling by subsidising your NHS when you are too gaga to look after yourself.


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## Guest

Yes, I think one of the biggest things that people have to consider, strictly from the standpoint of government entitlement programs, is that they require a constant supply of offspring to fund all the promises to the retired. Witness the problems in certain European countries right now, where birthrates (outside of Muslim immigrants) have dropped below the sustainability rate. Are those people in favor of population control also willing to do with a significant cut in government programs that the constant supply of offspring funds?


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## Huilunsoittaja

DrMike said:


> Yes, I think one of the biggest things that people have to consider, strictly from the standpoint of government entitlement programs, is that they require a constant supply of offspring to fund all the promises to the retired. Witness the problems in certain European countries right now, where birthrates (outside of Muslim immigrants) have dropped below the sustainability rate. Are those people in favor of population control also willing to do with a significant cut in government programs that the constant supply of offspring funds?


Same goes for China right now, that _is _implementing population control. The One Child Policy has had many consequences, one of them being that there is increased financial strain on the youngest generation, since they have to support more of their relatives alone. Besides that, there has come to be a population disproportion of men to women in China, men being more favored as a supporter of the family. And it's no wonder what has been the cause of all these "disappeared" females: abortion. A consequence for this huge number of single men is more civil unrest/riots and increased illegal human (female) trafficking from places like Bhurma and Thailand.


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## Sid James

The cost of raising a child to 18 is now 1 million dollars on average, in Australia. This is according to recent research.

http://www.news.com.au/money/money-...ding-to-research/story-e6frfmd9-1225803963004

Not rubbing it in but what mamascarlatti says does connect with reality. It's not cheap to raise children, government subsidies and handouts to do it are a _drop in the ocean _as she says.

However, just now the Australian government has given more handouts to parents here, and I think that in this tight economic time it wasn't the right thing to do. They should have held it off until the economy gets more stronger, or done something else to help costs of childrearing. That's my opinion on our domestic situation with this.


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## science

Population control is absolutely unnecessary, but I don't see how people whose party is actively trying to end Social Security and Medicare can use arguments about funding those things in order to argue against it. But anyway, in the case of the US, we can import as many people as we want or need to.


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## samurai

@ Sid, Your point about the economy is well-taken. However, I just wonder what happens to the less fortunate among us in the meantime if the economy doesn't turn around either soon or at all.


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## Sid James

samurai said:


> @ Sid, Your point about the economy is well-taken. However, I just wonder what happens to the less fortunate among us in the meantime if the economy doesn't turn around either soon or at all.


I agree that society needs to look after people in these tough times. But in Australia, trying to encourage people to have kids has been piecemeal. It is complex, but what they are doing is applying band aids. I don't know the solution. The Howard government introduced the baby bonus, I think it was $5000 for the first child. I think this was scrapped after him losing office. I'm not totally sure. Now this, the Gillard government, has introduced some kind of payment - I think it's an annual payment - for each exisiting child, eg. for costs of raising the child. It's not my area, but I think that what they're doing is seen as not thought out properly and with no vision.

I think Deng Xiaoping, the guy whose government introduced China's _one child policy_, at least had the guts and vision to make a tough call and make that happen to deal with that country's massive overpopulation problem. WIth hindsight it isn't perfect, but nothing is, he was brave to kind of do that.

As I said, in the West the problem is low birthrate and in the poorer countries, it's too high. Not always much to do with religion, those _good Catholics_, the Italians, have among the lowest birthrate in Europe.


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## samurai

@ Sid, Your point about the Chinese is quite interesting; would you happen to know how--or if--the Chinese government is able to enforce this policy?


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## Sid James

^^As people have said, it's basically by imposing fines if it's contravened, and tax laws there also come into it, I think. I've read/studied this in some depth, but it was long ago, my focus now is more on other areas of history. But what others have said here corresponds with what I'm saying. You can probably check if you've got time though on wikipedia, etc.


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## Sid James

Delicious Manager said:


> ...I abhor religion and the way it is abused by those who seek to control others...


The thing is that as I've said, this issue isn't really related to religion, but what's practical for each country. In China, Mao encouraged high birth rate, and he was an atheist. He said something like China would be the most powerful country if it had biggest population possible (I'd guess to make the army bigger, etc.). But in reality his _dream_ turned into a huge problem for successive Chinese governments. Others like Ceausescu of Romania and I think Stalin did similar things, virtually ban abortion and contraceptive devices. In the case of Romania, it made people get AIDS and many _AIDS babies _were born.

Of course religious dogma can get in the way of being practical with regards to these issues, but so can extreme forms of other ideology, eg. Communist as I pointed out. & Hitler also had his _baby factories_, underpinning his_ lebensborn _and _lebensraum_ policies. Again, he was an atheist.


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## Vaneyes

samurai said:


> @ Sid, Your point about the economy is well-taken. However, I just wonder what happens to the less fortunate among us in the meantime if the economy doesn't turn around either soon or at all.


We could once bank on the economy turning around in short order. Not any more. With increased populace and fewer and fewer jobs, the future looks dim. Unless a lot of "new thinking" happens.

The new thinking will have to include a drastic de-materialization. Many folk won't like that, but survival "for all" with some order of dignity will dictate.

It won't be easy. Police States can thrive in such conditions.


----------



## Guest

samurai said:


> @ Sid, Your point about the Chinese is quite interesting; would you happen to know how--or if--the Chinese government is able to enforce this policy?


If you want some idea as to how the Chinese government enforces their one child policy, you might want to study up on the life of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Guangcheng


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## Guest

Vaneyes said:


> We could once bank on the economy turning around in short order. Not any more. With increased populace and fewer and fewer jobs, the future looks dim. Unless a lot of "new thinking" happens.
> 
> The new thinking will have to include a drastic de-materialization. Many folk won't like that, but survival "for all" with some order of dignity will dictate.
> 
> It won't be easy. Police States can thrive in such conditions.


I don't buy this. In the late '70's, we were also told that we needed to adapt to the new reality of economic circumstances. Now, certainly, if we continue down the path we are on, we are likely to see a new reality. But I don't buy that this is irreversible. Yes, we have fewer and fewer jobs, but we also have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, so is it really a shock that companies are looking elsewhere to grow? Companies are also under heavy pressure by the government, which seems to come out with new regulations almost weekly. Our GDP is being swallowed up in government spending.

Government control is too strong over production in this country, and the wrong kinds of businesses are being propped up, rather than allowing for the creative destruction of capitalism which allows business to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances of the world around us. No doubt many people worried of the immense drop in employment that the efficient assembly line method of labor institutionalized by Henry Ford would bring. And yet it opened up more employment, just in different areas that others did not foresee. But the environment has to be right to allow this expansion of our economic horizons. No doubt a farmer working at the dawn of this nation could not fathom the size of the population that we would now be able to feed. Yet new technology, and new farming techniques, allowed for larger food production to meet the needs of a growing populace. So can it be now, if government stopped getting in the way.


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## Iforgotmypassword

drwatson said:


> It's similar to what other people have said about teaching children on this thread, but it's too simple and too... convenient. I don't think atheists would teach a child that there is no god because, actually, that's not what many atheists think. What parents really ought to do, if possible, is expose children to the full range of moral and religious ideas that exist without attaching any baggage to them - tell them that people believe this and this and this, but not that _this_ one is the right one. Instead, give them the values that are universal to all people of all faiths and non-faiths so that they have some moral foundation, and then for more difficult moral questions, give them the _tools_ to come to a decision of their own, which you can help them with by playing devil's advocate so that they have experience rationalising a position. Whatever age they are, they ought to be able to say why they think something is good or bad without telling you that it's because X told them so.
> 
> Even if we all agreed that parents should have the right to immerse their children in their chosen ideology, I think too many children grow without an awareness that questioning that ideology is even a possibility. Their minds are so protected, so closed, that such an idea doesn't exist, or exists too late.


I agree with this ideology, but only to a point. Teaching a child, or forming their understanding is a very complex process. In the beginning of their lives I believe that it is important for them to understand things in a very concrete form. Up until the age of eight or nine children lack the ability to understand gray area. They don't have the mental capabilities to see that perhaps two differing opinions could both hold validity. In these first years of formation, a parent should give their child the security of knowing what their parents believe. As they age, their parents should be explaining why it is that they believe the way that they do and explaining the faith or philosophy that they follow, or in some cases the lack thereof.

As the child grows, they will likely have questions, especially as they reach adolescence and beyond. This is the time that they may begin exploring themselves If they have questions about their own faith, they may ask. If they have questions about other faiths, the may likewise ask. A parent who loves their child wants to give them the best that they have. For yourself, that may mean telling them that you yourself are not sure and that you tend to follow bits and pieces of different philosophies. For another it may be that Islam is your truth and that you wish for them to follow it. Perhaps this is ignorance to you, but that doesn't remove it's validity as a loving gesture and the best that the parent has to offer.

Personally I claim membership within a prevalent religion, however as I have aged I have questioned everything on my own. My father occasionally posed questions to me to make me think about different philosophies and such, but mostly I have done this on my own. I tend to take a slightly non-traditional approach to my faith and am open to many different ideas. However as I stated, I was raised within a specific faith. I honestly would consider myself to be an agnostic theist, if there is such a thing due to the fact that I am open to other ideologies and of course the possibility that I may be utterly wrong within my own beliefs.

Point being, if I haven't completely destroyed it by rambling on, raising a child within a particular faith can be very healthy even if they end up rejecting that faith later on. They are offered a particular viewpoint and then as they grow, can be allowed to expand their perspective until they make up their own minds about things.


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## Ukko

Iforgotmypassword said:


> [...]
> Point being, if I haven't completely destroyed it by rambling on, raising a child within a particular faith can be very healthy even if they end up rejecting that faith later on. They are offered a particular viewpoint and then as they grow, can be allowed to expand their perspective until they make up their own minds about things.


You stayed on point pretty well (but please don't ask me to explain that to _Sid_).


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## Iforgotmypassword

^ Good, glad to know it made some sense.


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## Ukko

Iforgotmypassword said:


> ^ Good, glad to know it made some sense.


Well, don't assume it made sense to everybody. That "agnostic theist" term probably needs expansion, and expansion would probably close some minds. Even Hitchens might not have a cubbyhole that fits. It almost fits the one I'm in.

I'm a lifelong bachelor, so whatever you managed is more than I have.


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## Iforgotmypassword

Hilltroll72 said:


> Well, don't assume it made sense to everybody. That "agnostic theist" term probably needs expansion, and expansion would probably close some minds. Even Hitchens might not have a cubbyhole that fits. It almost fits the one I'm in.
> 
> I'm a lifelong bachelor, so whatever you managed is more than I have.


Well I'll never please everyone of course, but as far as that term is concerned, I simply mean that I do follow a god-based religion, however I'm realistic enough to realize that I may very well be wrong in my beliefs. I simply follow that which at present I find to hold the most water and appeal to my own personality and experience.

Well I'm not married as of yet, however I'm the oldest in my family and do have a lot of experience with children and how their minds develop.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Interesting thread.

Maybe this gentleman of Tennessee (USA) could do with some restraint. In this case, it's simply gross irresponsibility IMHO and the likelihood of the 30 children having apt upbringing is, well, leave that up to you to decide.

_A Tennessee man who has fathered 30 children with 11 different women is asking the state for a reprieve from his child support obligations.

Knoxville man Desmond Hatchett, 33, earns the minimum wage but has had his salary garnished since he had his first child 14 years ago, TV station WREG reports.

Despite telling a reporter in 2009 that he was done having babies Mr Hatchett has fathered another nine children over the last three years.

It's putting pressure on his meagre salary with half of his earnings going to the mothers of his numerous families.

Unfortunately for the many mothers of Mr Hatchett's children the state cannot take more than 50 percent of his salary so some women receive only slightly more than US1$ per month for each child.

The state said it has no way to force Mr Hatchett to stop having children.

In 2009 Mr Hatchett told an interviewer "I had four kids in the same year. Twice."

He is believed to be the Knox County record holder for the most children fathered._


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Interesting thread.
> 
> Maybe this gentleman of Tennessee (USA) could do with some restraint. In this case, it's simply gross irresponsibility IMHO and the likelihood of the 30 children having apt upbringing is, well, leave that up to you to decide.
> 
> _A Tennessee man who has fathered 30 children with 11 different women is asking the state for a reprieve from his child support obligations.
> 
> Knoxville man Desmond Hatchett, 33, earns the minimum wage but has had his salary garnished since he had his first child 14 years ago, TV station WREG reports.
> 
> Despite telling a reporter in 2009 that he was done having babies Mr Hatchett has fathered another nine children over the last three years.
> 
> It's putting pressure on his meagre salary with half of his earnings going to the mothers of his numerous families.
> 
> Unfortunately for the many mothers of Mr Hatchett's children the state cannot take more than 50 percent of his salary so some women receive only slightly more than US1$ per month for each child.
> 
> The state said it has no way to force Mr Hatchett to stop having children.
> 
> In 2009 Mr Hatchett told an interviewer "I had four kids in the same year. Twice."
> 
> He is believed to be the Knox County record holder for the most children fathered._


There is something very disturbing to me about these stories:
I am going on the assumption that the act that led to the conception of these children was completely consensual - otherwise the mothers would be going to court for criminal reasons, not seeking child support.
Why were so many women willing to let this man impregnate them? Have they not heard of condoms? Or (and this is probably old-fashioned of me) could they not simply say no to a man that was unwilling to provide any long-term commitment? And ladies - the guy is no spring chicken anymore, and still only earning minimum wage - it might be a good sign that he isn't quality material for getting hooked up with.

Not to divert blame away from him, but come on - one of the reasons that I know these chick flicks are utter garbage, because in normal life, no matter how much girls talk about being princesses and all, far too many of them still end up with dead-end scum like this guy.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Agree. I was also thinking about the children - each of them probably having a dozen or two half-siblings that they would probably never meet / know /care, and what type of family environment they would be growing up in with the lack of paternal care. There would just be no incentive for the father to even pick any one of the women he inpregnated and children as he would be overwhelmed with the responsibility of others. It angers me to see gross irresponsibility of sexually active men and women who appear not to give the slightest hoot of conceived and unique life that is the innocent victim out of mere moments of probable lust.


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## Guest

When you consider that some of the women have multiple children with him, I would hold them just as responsible as him. I think he should have to perform community service and help compensate the state through his labor for the money they are having to pay for his promiscuity. 

It is tough to figure out what to do here without imposing some kind of government control that would be more objectionable. Certainly on an emotional level we probably think that the guy should be castrated and the women should have their tubes tied - best to free the gene pool of their contamination (and by this I mean promiscuous leeches on society, not their race). But we all know that forced sterilization is not a power we want our government to wield. How do you punish them further without punishing the children? You could garner all of his wages, and force him to look for more means of employment, but he probably still wouldn't be meeting his paternal obligations, and would more than likely just end up on welfare himself. You can't financially penalize the mothers without hurting the children (assuming that they actually do care for their children, which is a pretty big if, given the crappy situation they have put these kids in).

The even sadder thing is that numerous studies now show that being raised in poverty in a single-parent household is one of the greatest predictors of poor performance in school, continuing to live in poverty, having children of your own out of wedlock, and incarceration for criminal activity. The statistics show that these 20+ kids that these irresponsible adults have conceived are going to be a burden on taxpayers for the rest of their lives. These poor kids are starting out life with really the crappiest of hands to be dealt, all because mom and dad couldn't keep their pants on.


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## kv466

Remember to keep your pants on, boys and girls!


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## superhorn

I'm no advocate of government population control, but people who claim that overpopulation is not a problem 
and the human race should just go on making as babies as possible without worrying about the future should have their heads examined !
These ostriches with their head in the sand are fond of saying that the entire world population of 7 billion people would easily fit into a tiny area , such as one of our major, cities don't know what they're talking about.
This statement is true as far as it goes, but ignores one inconvenient fact. 
You see, the problem is that ther e is only a very limited amount of inhabitable space on earth .
There are vast areas of the world which are totally uninhabitable, or which would never be able to support more than a very small population . Do you really think that Greenland will ever be able to support 300 million people ? Are you nuts ? Or Mongolia, the Sahara desert, etc? e arctic or antarctic ? 
Lack of population growth ? In fact, the world's population has MORE THAN DOUBLED in the past 50 years .
Do we have unlimited amounts of food, water, energy sources etc ? Heck no !
Spreading world populations have invaded territories previously inhabited only by wild animals , and htis is creating serious problems with animals and humans competing . In America, attacks by bears and raccoons etc are becoming more of a problem because of this .
So we shouldn't become hysterical about population control, but we shouldn';t ignore th e problem,either .


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## Sid James

^^What superhorn says makes me think that in countries with fragile ecosystems like Australia - most of our continent is made up of desert or semi-desert land - population pressure is on our cities. We are the most urbanised nation on earth, over 70 per cent of people here live in cities or larger towns. It was similar in old times, there were said to be_ two Australias_, _Sydney or the bush_. That mentality still survives to a degree. But if you can afford it, those who can, live farther out from our congested and polluted cities and do a long commute in and out for work, or work from home, or work part-time. These are called the_ seachangers_, eg. living in coastal areas by the sea in less populated towns. But they tend to be professionals or business people or cashed up retirees, so not everyone can afford that. Most Australians live in the suburbs of our large cities on the South-East coast - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane.

In the past it was populate *or* perish. Now it's populate *and* perish. In terms of our cities it is, anyway, we don't need more people here, puts pressure on the land, etc. But big business loves population growth, they say it boosts the economy. The 'go for growth' ideology, for unsustainable growth, the boom and bust cycle, is the basis of their thinking - good for their pocket, but ultimately it's questionable whether it's good for the environment, etc.


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## Polyphemus

Soylent Green works.


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## Philip

I hear the global population will basically stabilize at around 10 billion, or perhaps dip.









http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/global-population-10-billion-not-so-fast

I think the governments' responsibilities should be more inclined towards management of resources rather than population control, which nature seems to take care of; That is, resource management with respect to current population predictions.


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## graaf

Let me start by saying that Hans Rosling has showed (btw, this is no joke) that chimpanzees know more about global demographics than best Swedish students and also more than the people who award Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

So it all comes down to preconcieved ideas and, of course, political manipulation. Overpopulation is the myth with amount of catastrophic predictions that would put Al Gore's alarmism to shame:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30694 - first two paragraphs already say enough.

It was also used by Gerald Ford administration policy in 1974 (full name: National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests) and perpetuated ad nauseam. This is not aimed against Americans, it just so happens to be that US are the biggest empire in known history - but corrupt leaders of any other nation would do the same if they had half the chance.

As Philip said - it is about resources (US uses 25% of planet's resources, having 5% of world's population, while bilions of people live with less than 2 US dollars per day). It IS true that even today's 7 billion people can't have the life of EU/US middle class, but they can have more than enough food, clean water and basic health coverage (you can google: food scarcity vs food distribution).


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## Ukko

Hell, _I_ can't "have the life of EU/US middle class". Ain't whining about it though.


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## Guest

To second sentiments already stated here, I would like for anybody advocating population control to cite for me any evidence of any of these overpopulation predictions from the past being proven true. Paul Ehrlich seems to have made a career out of being wrong multiple times on this issue. I know that all of the models predict doom and gloom, but has the actual evidence ever bourn out these predictions?


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## Sid James

^^In Australia's case, it's a case of overpopulated cities and underpopulated rural/regional areas. Everyone wants to live in either Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. Urban sprawl and the donut effect is becoming a serious issue. It's predicted that Sydney and smaller cities Wollongong and Newcastle (to south and north of it) will merge into one mega-city. & that's not good news, look at Manila, Tokyo, Cairo, Shanghai, etc. Successive governments have done things like encourage people to give up the _Australian Dream _of living on a house on a quarter acre block and go for urban consolidation, eg. living in apartments. I think it's similar in China, similar issues there with urban sprawl but not as bad here as there (eg. they have cities of well over one million in places which were literally a flyspeck on the map 10-20 years ago).

Of course, there are other things like an ageing population here overall. It's worse in Japan, and they have little immigration to boost up the amount of young people. I don't know what will be the future there, unless they become bionic men and women.

It's a complex picture and I would hate to be a legislator dealing with it, to be honest, here or anywhere.


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## Ukko

Sid James said:


> [...]
> Of course, there are other things like an ageing population here overall. It's worse in Japan, and they have little immigration to boost up the amount of young people. I don't know what will be the future there, unless they become bionic men and women.
> 
> It's a complex picture and I would hate to be a legislator dealing with it, to be honest, here or anywhere.


Discouraging immigration has been SOP in Japan for a very long time, because they wish their population to be 'racially' homogenous. I wonder if there is any effort now to bring the Nisei 'home'.


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## Sid James

Hilltroll72 said:


> Discouraging immigration has been SOP in Japan for a very long time, because they wish their population to be 'racially' homogenous. I wonder if there is any effort now to bring the Nisei 'home'.


I don't know, I think the lack of land in their cities, which again is where people want to live and all the jobs are, etc. makes people live in shoebox apartments. I think if you have limited space like that, of course having children will be difficult. Eg. more space = a larger apartment = much larger rent or mortgage, etc. I'm guessing here, but it's a strong hunch.

Similar disincentives are here in Australia to reproduce as well. The younger people are struggling to go from one casual job to another, nothing is permanent anymore. Everything is about change and progress to more change and progress to more...and little stability compared to the post-1945 era, which imo (from what I've heard, read, etc. of it) was much better. Economically at least. So of course we had the baby boom. People had a house, had room to have children in. Simple as that, in some ways.

Anyway, in Japan, my understanding is that around the Meiji Restoration is when they started to industrialise and open up to the world. That was mid to late 19th century, early 20th century. So maybe their mentality is trying to get away from that, make a kind of fortress Japan, as it was for a large part of their history?...


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