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Having children and reproduction should not be a “right”. It should be something that we limit and put high thresholds for. People say how difficult it is to get into a military academy or how tireless the process is for buying a home. Well wanting to have a child should be 10X as difficult as either of those.
There should be a credit check, income verification, drug testing, psychological profiling, dna/genetic testing, iQ score, physical fitness exam, and a general health screening.
If we require tons of permits and inspections to build a home we should do the same for reproduction. We also should limit reproduction to 20% of current rates to control and limit populations. We need less people than we currently have but better people.
This is a horrible idea.
We used to have such thresholds. They weren't imposed by the government, but by churches, local communities, and families. Things like:
--Not having sex before marriage.
--Getting married before you have kids.
--Parents carefully vetting dating partners of their kids.
All of that has gone by the wayside. And now we expect a corrupt government can somehow do a better job. That's insane.
We've reached a point where a larger percentage of the populace don't even see starting out as a single parent as a mistake. It's just normal for them.
We used to have such thresholds. They weren't imposed by the government, but by churches, local communities, and families. Things like:
--Not having sex before marriage.
--Getting married before you have kids.
--Parents carefully vetting dating partners of their kids.
All of that has gone by the wayside. And now we expect a corrupt government can somehow do a better job. That's insane.
We've reached a point where a larger percentage of the populace don't even see starting out as a single parent as a mistake. It's just normal for them.
I know- we've gone from shaming unwed mothers, which wasn't the right thing to do, either (especially since the father generally did not suffer the same stigma) to assuming that this is the norm and society has to provide whatever the mother cannot. I'll confess to having had sex before marriage, but I was SCRUPULOUS about using BC (and, of course, also lucky that the methods themselves didn't fail). I once said to my sister, an OB-Gyn, that it was sad that so many women got pregnant figuring they could make a go of it on government programs and she said, "That's the problem- they just don't think at all".
I know- we've gone from shaming unwed mothers, which wasn't the right thing to do, either (especially since the father generally did not suffer the same stigma)
Yes, I agree there was a double standard and it wasn't fair. At the same time, removing the double standard by effectively having no standard was NOT an improvement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by athena53
to assuming that this is the norm and society has to provide whatever the mother cannot.
I believe this was the goal all along, but it had to be done in step by step fashion. How is it that almost every developed country has moved more or less in the same direction as far as a large increase in out of wedlock births? I just can't believe this hasn't been engineered to at least some degree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by athena53
I'll confess to having had sex before marriage, but I was SCRUPULOUS about using BC (and, of course, also lucky that the methods themselves didn't fail). I once said to my sister, an OB-Gyn, that it was sad that so many women got pregnant figuring they could make a go of it on government programs and she said, "That's the problem- they just don't think at all".
I'm a big advocate of birth control, obviously. But there is now some evidence that women who have multiple sexual partners before marriage have a harder time pair bonding than women who marry as virgins. Even one previous partner significantly increased the risk of later divorce. I'm a gay man (yes, the stereotypes, while not 100% accurate, have some truth to them), so I'm hardly in a position to tsk tsk other people for having sex before marriage. I've always been a fierce advocate of birth control, but in light of the new evidence I don't think we can just say "sex before marriage is no big deal as long as you religiously use birth control", which had sort of been my position until I was in my mid 30s.
The thing I'm learning is that smart people seem to have an easier time thinking about the consequences of their actions. They don't need someone to spell everything out for them. And even if you do spell it out for the not so smart people, they still have a harder time overriding their evolutionary programming (i.e. they have less "self discipline", on average). So those social stigmas that seem too harsh to smart people, were a fairly effective way to push the less smart segment of the population into making better choices. And when that didn't work, there were shotgun weddings, something that's also been done away with. Once again, as much as I don't like them, they are better than mom going on welfare and dad being marginally involved or completely uninvolved, which is a common scenario.
The problem smarter people have is they think the less smart segment of the population has the ability to operate as they do. What seems easy and self evident for a smart person is not so easy or self evident for a not so smart person.
Pretty much every social trend we've had in the last 50-100 years, some would say 200 years with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, has had the effect of weakening and destabilizing the family unit. Maybe not all of that was engineered, but there have been too many 'coincidences' for me to believe that all of it has just been random happenstance.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 04-13-2019 at 10:19 PM..
same for all of us ... it is like waiting for the perfect time to invest in equities ...there is never a point in time i remember where we are not either over valued or waiting for the other shoe to fall and we plunge for some reason.. i can't remember any point in time i would have said to my wife , now is a good time for kids .
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-14-2019 at 04:52 AM..
If my parents had waited until they thought they were financially stable enough to support kids, I and my siblings wouldn't be here.
If you were born prior to 1990 this is hardly an apples to apples comparison with the kid in the story born in an era of automation and low wages and low growth opportunities for unskilled workers.
the same could have been said when we were a nation of farmers and the industrial revolution came about ....we had millions in unskilled farm labor out there..
rarely has there been growth and opportunity for unskilled workers ..perhaps when unions drove up wages for jobs that never should have been at those levels you may have had some ... you make money by doing the things others can't or won't do for themselves ...there is zero reason any job function anyone can do should see wage growth except for inflation adjusting .. the same job down the road is the same job . i does not suddenly become more valuable in the job market
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-14-2019 at 05:01 AM..
I have been called all kinds of names including the Black Hitler for suggesting these things.
The fact remains is we have been running on life support as a planet since the 70s. Scientists already told us when the oil crisis happened that the earth is at maximum capacity and nothing short of breakthroughs in new energy sources would fix it. Hence climate change.
People complain about climate change but then reproduce like rabbits and get mad when mother nature responds in kind to restore balance and cull the herd. With Tsunamis, Tornadoes, Earthquakes, Rockslides etc.
Modern day humans need a reality check but looks like only a doomsday event will succeed in waking us up now. Because being a willful single mother and suffering in poverty isn't enough and a more severe deterrent is required apparently.
This...
For how many people pretend to be intelligent very few actually get it. It’s a basic Economic principle that resources are finite and fixed in many cases. As you increase the population the resources per person rises and so does prices causing the standard of living to fall. This creates further income inequality critical resource shortage and likely war not to mention the environmental impact we have on the earth.
A world with a global human population of 250 million people is far more stable and sustainable than where we are at right now. I’m simply just asking for humans to get smart and realize the predicament we are in. I’m not saying anything about race or religion. We have vasectomies so enforce the snip on populations and have sex with who you like. Once approved for reproduction they reverse the snip until you get your “tag” persay.
We used to have such thresholds. They weren't imposed by the government, but by churches, local communities, and families. Things like:
--Not having sex before marriage.
--Getting married before you have kids.
--Parents carefully vetting dating partners of their kids.
All of that has gone by the wayside. And now we expect a corrupt government can somehow do a better job. That's insane.
We've reached a point where a larger percentage of the populace don't even see starting out as a single parent as a mistake. It's just normal for them.
We must be better.. all of our problems are a function of too large a population. Just imagine a world with a population 5% of what it is today. It could be a paradise with tons of land resources and space to go around for everyone. We have developed so much technology and innovation we simply don’t need manual labor anymore. We could run 1 copper mine with 500 people to supply the global demand for that entire resource.
See, envy is a hell of a thing. If someday I leave my kids an easier start in life than I had, does that somehow make them lessor?
Why does it matter to YOU how someone else views their accomplishments or lack of them?
No, they aren't lesser...but if you believe you've done it all yourself then you are less likely to be in favor of any supports for others. The old "I did it, why can't they". THAT'S why it matters for society to understand.
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