Re:The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
by wool_gather on Monday July 16, 2018 @09:48AM
(#17541198)
Well pointed; it's a thing that needs to be considered, but it's a tough position to take and hold. It's an unfortunately short hop from a fact-based "we need to figure out how to create better outcomes" to a really nasty sort of proto-eugenics that says something like "poor people shouldn't be allowed to breed". And proponents of the latter may act like (short-term) allies of the former.
Re:The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
by TangoTrotFox on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:40PM
(#17544372)
Indeed. And the issues immediately start to touch on topics that are going to hit close to traditional partisan divides, making any sort of public discussion impossible in today's deeply polarized political climate. So I think it's mostly best for people to just think about the issues themselves, rather than actually trying to publicly solve the problem. And in fact, one of the most practical points is one that's quite private. It's just considering that how it really is extremely selfish, in terms of societal impact, for those in a pleasant place in life to indefinitely defer on having children.
I tend to be aligned with you in the view that Earth having fewer people would is not a problem, but at the same time demographic collapse is very much a real issue. As the only people considering these things would likely be the people that ideally should be pumping out babies left and right if we want to create a better planet not only for humanity but even for the planet itself.
And as an aside this is of course not to say that no great things will come of those 353,000 born into less than desirable situations. But on average people's outcomes tend to be very strongly linked to those of their parents.