Population Control

sallylou said:
Wirelessly posted (droid)

Let me be more specific. Women want their children to have resources and opportunities. When that is within reach, women limit the number of children. To have a large number of children reduces resources (including time and energy for each child). For this to exist, there are 2 requirements. First, women have to perceive that resources and opportunities are truly within reach (and not a long shot). Second, women must have control over their reproductive lives. The former is hampered by social factors and lack of power. The latter is prevented by religion and political groups.

Research shows that women want access to birth control where it does not exist. I have a friend who works for the Carter Foundation and she's in Africa now. They are working to eradicate parasites in the water supply.
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I can relate to what you are saying. I decided to have only one child because my first was deaf and I didn't have the resources to tend to all of his needs, plus have enough left over for a second child. The second child would have gotten the short end of the stick, and therefore, I made the decision to stop with my son.
 
sallylou said:
Wirelessly posted (droid)

Let me be more specific. Women want their children to have resources and opportunities. When that is within reach, women limit the number of children. To have a large number of children reduces resources (including time and energy for each child). For this to exist, there are 2 requirements. First, women have to perceive that resources and opportunities are truly within reach (and not a long shot). Second, women must have control over their reproductive lives. The former is hampered by social factors and lack of power. The latter is prevented by religion and political groups.

Research shows that women want access to birth control where it does not exist. I have a friend who works for the Carter Foundation and she's in Africa now. They are working to eradicate parasites in the water supply.
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Good points, Time had a recent article on this topic, featuring several studies, including the findings in the latest US Census and a very interesting study conducted in Norway.

Basically, having children prevent women from continuing their education, many women who have children early aren't able to stay in school.

"These results suggest that women with advanced degrees have lower completed fertility on the average principally because women who have one or more children early are more likely to leave or not enter long educational tracks and never attain a high educational level."
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DeafCaroline said:
It's been proven that when a country descends into famine, the government collapses. They call that "the failing state". Somalia is one such example, Haiti another. Chad yet another.
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somalia's government did not collapse because of famine there is famine because there was no government to prepare for the predicted severe drought. somalia's state is due to infighting, tribe politics, and foriegn intrests.

and as for haiti and chad their situation didn't just appear because of the drought developing countries can't compete with huge corporations which show up and exploit them to keep them poor. basically north america and europe are only rich because they took advantage of what we now call the third world.
 
chocoholic said:
somalia's government did not collapse because of famine there is famine because there was no government to prepare for the predicted severe drought. somalia's state is due to infighting, tribe politics, and foriegn intrests.

and as for haiti and chad their situation didn't just appear because of the drought developing countries can't compete with huge corporations which show up and exploit them to keep them poor. basically north america and europe are only rich because they took advantage of what we now call the third world.
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A country can be ridden with war, politics and foreign services and not have a governmental collapse (look at south korea as an example) but once famine enters the picture, government will collapse for it's impossible to exert control over people starving to death. In Somalia's case, it collapsed from famine, disease, lack of water and food, all results of infighting, piracy, tribe politics and foreign interests.

similar situations in haiti where famine is becoming a very serious problem (particularly after the earthquake and also because of lack of fertile farm land due to the disastrous environmental impact of deforestation) and also in chad. In fact, because of my advocacy work for elephants, I'm aware the famine problem has become so severe in Chad that protected wildlife parks are raided for food and the government doesn't have enough funds to deal with this - no money to pay soldiers to patrol the parks, even though many of the animals, including elephants are on the critically endangered list and is protected by international law. When government can no longer exert control over the population nor be able to protect its resources because of famine, it will collapse.
 
"A country can be ridden with war, politics and foreign services and not have a governmental collapse" you are right about that
what i'm saying is in somalia's case the goverment collapsed in 91 after the president siade barre was ousted. ever since different groups have had a tug of war over power.

"When government can no longer exert control over the population nor be able to protect its resources because of famine, it will collapse." aslo true so i agree famine can be a direct cause of the collapse of a governement. there are also many indirect causes. If it weren't for the uneven distribution of wealth where 20% of the worlds population controls 80% of the worlds resources countries in the third world would be able to ensure that even when environmental conditions aren't good that their people won't starve.
 
chocoholic said:
"A country can be ridden with war, politics and foreign services and not have a governmental collapse" you are right about that
what i'm saying is in somalia's case the goverment collapsed in 91 after the president siade barre was ousted. ever since different groups have had a tug of war over power.

"When government can no longer exert control over the population nor be able to protect its resources because of famine, it will collapse." aslo true so i agree famine can be a direct cause of the collapse of a governement. there are also many indirect causes. If it weren't for the uneven distribution of wealth where 20% of the worlds population controls 80% of the worlds resources countries in the third world would be able to ensure that even when environmental conditions aren't good that their people won't starve.
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Foreign interest play a huge hand in corruption and warfare.
 
I completely agree both private enterprises and more powerful states will fuel warfare as long as it profits them and considering the billions made selling weapons around the world not to mention how supporting the side which benifets them is extreemly profitable. It's like the developing world is one giant monopoly boardgame

there are plenty of groups and people who would lose a huge amount in invested money if there were world peace
 
Banjo said:
Here's a little known fact, without oil, we wouldn't be able to sustain a population of more than 500 million on Earth. We didn't hit the first billion until the beginning of the 18th century.
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You are stating the oil and coal provide the means to gather the resources needed to sustain the population and is credited with the rise of mercantilism, no argument there. However, today what sustains our population today is genetic engineering. Currently, we have the capability to feed the entire world and this promotes the ability to avoid war(a major check on population). In addition, modern medicine has eradicated major plagues(another major check on population). Oil and coal can be replaced by nuclear and solar energy and, in fact, this will be the case as oil reserves run out. Oil and coal are still widely used because of political reasons rather than the need to sustain population, at this point.
 
Wirelessly posted

No need for population control. The more educated people are, the more we understand our children have better chance of surviving subverting the Malthusan equation.



In other words, our legacy can still be passed on via 1 or 2 children as a result of a deeper understanding of what the consequence of overpopulation.
 
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KStiletto said:
I'm soooooo down! I think people, especially teenagers might think twice if they knew they could only have a certain amount of children. In a chat group I was in recently, there was a person who had a patient who was 13 and was having a second child! :shock:. I don't know which was worse, that or a 15 year with one already, and pregnant with twins, that can't afford either.
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I feel real bad for the babies, I know one girl that been living in a motel with her baby and parents for over 2 years now! They all live and sleep in one room! That is not much of a life for a baby!
 
For it, in the past the reason why families had so many children was because maybe one or two survived to adulthood, we don't have that problem anymore. So i think it's irresponsible to have more than two children, two keeps the population stable, one is even better because it would cut the population in half. Reducing the ridiculous amount of waste we pump out, and the stress on our natural resources, not to mention it would decrease the unemployment rate.
 
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