What complete nonsense. There are 7Bn+ people in the world. Making more people is not a problem the human race has. Far from subsidising the child-free, you are destroying the ecosystem with your selfishness.
I would have a bone to pick with folks who feel entitled (or "commanded by $deity") to have 6, 7, 8 or more kids. That's just absurd stupidity.
I, personally, found parenthood to be enormously rewarding. And that may not be something one comes to grips with when kids are 3. Or 10. Or even 18. Having kids with medical problems, or mental health problems, can be a challenge, and you can miss out on the immediate sense of accomplishment when it's overwhelmed with "just get through today". This is a big-picture thing.
I'm also not blinded by illusions of; having a legacy, having something that is a "permanent" accomplishment, or even just having someone else in this world who I can relate to. My feeling is that my kids turned out to be pretty good people, and the world as a whole is a better place with them in it. In Net. Considering even their resource consumption. They are part me. They are my intention and will. But they are their own beings as well, with their own hopes and dreams.
Hell: we're all worm food in the end. It's not pleasant facing or contemplating death. Maybe we all would have liked to have been asked permission before being brought into this world against our will. I think the main difference it made for me was that I participated in life. The process of life. The continuation of life. The strife for survival. I did not look at the world, and decide to simply persist until I perished. I lived. Even if I have another 30-50 years on this world. I gave it a shot.
I have to laugh at this, because 3 years ago I was this person and I know exactly how the conversation would go. I had 3 kids and planned for 6-7 of them, then I left the Mormon religion.
But I would love to hear the conversation. I can't speak for everyone, but in Mormonism at least you literally believe that having children is commanded by deity and any environmental offsets are not an issue because the Second Coming is soon and the earth will be cleansed by fire at that time anyway. Besides, God created the earth, he would never let man destroy it.
There just is no real discussion to be had with somebody who believes those things. Fortunately, higher education and sex ed are highly correlated with lower birth rates, so I'd push for those if you're looking to reduce birth rates - even in Mormonism or other religions.
If you look at my wider family, you'll see some people with no children and some with five. But even on such a small scale, we average out at around replacement rate.
The solution would need to happen in less than three generations.
If everyone adopted your rationale, the human race would go extinct. We haven't gone so far that we are indifferent to the survival of our own species, have we?
Seems to me there is ample evidence of the young supporting the old.
Consider what your aged life would be like if everyone suddenly elected to not reproduce. What would it be like to be 70, when the youngest person is 60?
Clearly, the young support the aged.
The young, by definition live in a world built by their elders, benefiting from all the infrastructure and institutions they created. So it’s not nearly as one-way as you think. Any care of the elderly is merely a part payment on that debt the young owe them.
Those cultures will be gone forever.
She drinks milk. That comes from cows. Cows are bad for the environment. By having another person on the planet, we need that much more milk.
Isn't that simply a consequence of how people today and in the past decided to solve these problems in general? This issue is not limited to diapers.
> Cows are bad for the environment.
Interesting, so cows are not part of the environment? What separates things from being part of the environment and not being part of it?
Every child that's born is a child that will eventually need their own shelter. Will probably drive their own car. Will need food.
The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is to not have children.
https://www.npr.org/2017/07/19/537954372/want-to-slow-global...
All I'm saying is that our current population growth is unsustainable and we're killing the environment. Until we adapt to only consume renewable resources, or at least sufficiently reduce our consumption of non-renewables, and stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, the best thing to do is slow down reproduction.
Seems like a criteria for overcrowding to me.
My tax bill sure indicates otherwise.
I decided at an early age not to have kids - at 12-13 I figured out that I was not suitable to be a father - one, I wanted the chain of crappy childhoods to stop with me, and two I have various conditions that I believe are largely genetic - I didn't want to pass those on.
Even if they were a huge fraction, you're considering one single axis. You're not considering population support or economic contributions by and on behalf of children, both of which are arguably much more significant than tax bill distribution.
The tax-funded support for “people in lower income brackets” are themselves very much slanted toward support for parents with children, largely because the American public is broadly fine with blaming poor adults for their condition, but somewhat less so for children in poverty.
Having benefited yourself, you shouldn't be bothered that others also benefit. It is only fair.
BTW, you can earn a 6-figure income and have negative taxes. The key is to have a double-digit family. This is what I do. Nothing is stopping you from doing likewise.
Also, nobody knows the extent of what one must give up to parent. No matter how prepared a person thinks he or she is, they aren't. Having kids is very abstract right up to the point that it's not. The concrete realization starts to happen earlier and more intimately for the mother because of the gestational period, but that realization sets in eventually for both parents.