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Total Members Voted: 65

[Loud Whispers]

I live in a post-industrial society with decent medical care, as such I intend to raise a family as large as possible, to such a capacity as I do not burn out and die too soon to give my kids good education in all I can teach. In my eyes, all of them will have opportunities available to them unavailable to most of the world population, and as such have the chance of getting the furthest. With any luck, some would end up being innovators, leaders and such who end up improving the world rather than just eat and die, being useless in existence. Money isn't an issue because education from primary to 6th form is free and Uni education has a tendency to make students more useless than more useful outside of STEM in its current iteration, but that's another issue entirely. Larger family is more capable of looking after itself and absorbing shocks, a good personal example I draw on for wisdom is when my great grandparents died whilst raising a very large family. Because it was a large family, the boys were able to quit education to work whilst the girls continued education to get more advanced education, improving the long term prosperity of the entire family for all involved. One generation after that and their kids were all in education and saving money to move abroad for more technical education. One generation after that and they accrued enough to start sending kids off to advanced western education and if parents faltered due to deaths or some other tragic occurrence then others stepped in to cover the costs, the most inspiring moment has to be when one of our aunts got footed with a private medical bill of a few thousand monies - moment the family heard of this, everyone chipped in a bit and in a single day the bill was cleared. This is why I think if you look at Jewish, Chinese, Indian and Arab families they are prospering in Western societies where Westerners are failing. This is in spite of the former having to adapt to the latter whilst the former should be born innately advantaged in their home society, yet they are failing because they act as atomized individuals and not as an adaptable family unit. A child of a large family can draw on much life experience, work experience, familial support and act as pillars in emergencies. Even if one parent fucks up or dies, there are always uncles, aunts and grandparents waiting in the wings if emergency requires help.

In developing nations where most children will die, or end up as misers with no future prospects, I would not have as much children. However with prospects so good, for me this is an obvious question: It is imperative to have more children, more raised well, otherwise the long line of people who worked towards you ends, and you cause the growth of your family to turn into decline. If you are the last of your family, your family dies. Fundamentally the nation is built on the family, and this then has a knock-on effect of all the peoples of your nation which others have pointed out.
I do not even see overpopulation in industrial nations as an issue, rather a simple change in lifestyle would be enough to solve most of the resource issues. How is it that the USA can look eye to eye with the nation of China in regards to pollution? Despite one having hundreds of millions of people, and the other over a billion?
Elimination of consumerism, people wanting to glut themselves on more food than they need, more stuff than they need, trinkets they don't need, living forever as an indulgent individual rather than a grateful family, not only do the former kill their own people through negligence, but they cause more damage per person than even the largest African or Asian family does. I also see it very much as a utilitarian calculation for contemporary western society, wherein large families increase their children's share of future wealth. Lots of wealthy individuals who have no children upon retirement have created a system which requires new blood, thus those who have large families will capture the largest share of the jobs left by dead professionals; there is no hope of western countries reducing their populations because they are all in favour of large scale immigration from countries which do have large families. Thus it is imperative that westerners have large families or else they will just have to deal with them being replaced by people who do have large families, causing a permanent extinction of their heritage in peacetime for no reason

And I know this puts me at odds with a lot of people on the internet who mostly seem to hate kids and honestly kind of seem to hate being alive in general, but I think continuing your lineage, both genetic and cultural, is inherently a worthwhile activity.

The West tends to (especially in the modern day) feel the pull of death very strongly, because we live by a nihilism wherein we find everything meaningless and of no higher purpose. I see that because the distant past and distant future are more or less meaningless to us as humans as we as humans are meaningless to the cosmos as a source of impetus, cherish and make well with the present because it's all we have, so we must use it well. To that end kids are a great gift, I don't understand how you can look at a new soul being brought into the world as something unethical; it's a new mind ready to experience all the hardship and fulfillment the world has to offer.
I do wonder if the reason why Western society has such high depression and suicide rates is because it has so few families? The greatest, wealthiest and most accomplished do not compare to a good parent

The only good book I've read that argued for no kids was Conspiracy Against the Human Race.  I liked it, and I think it had some interesting thoughts on human consciousness, but the argument was based on an Epicurean sort of ethic, specifically that existence entails suffering and the optimal way to minimize suffering is to not exist.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The trick to this question is that if you divert the trolley away, another one will come down the tracks at a future unknown date

Zero children. No more reproduction. This provides a motivation, and frees up resources, in order to speed research immortality, interplanetary travel and colonization, and artificial intelligence.

One does not speed research by reducing the intellectual pool from which to draw from
This would result in very fast extinction

What's the alternative, leaving the elderly in the wilderness to die?

Nah, elderly do not need help dying

Spoiler: snip (click to show/hide)

However, it'd be nice if that was all the problem was about. Things are specially bad because the other half of the problem comes from a kind of social conditioning. In western (european, at least) society, people have been conditioned to just "enjoy life" and not worry about the problems the future generations will have to deal with. Even worse, a large chunk of the population decided that the best solution to that conundrum would to simply not have said next generation. There's a whole chunk of society who simply decided to not have any children because they thought there would be no real consequence to that, and that their personal pleasure ranks higher in the order of important things to do in life. Sure, in China that may not be a problem, but its a fuckhuge problem in yurop. Its not (purely) economical problem even, you can toss all the contraceptive methods and legalized abortion you want at, say, saudi arabia, and they'll still maintain a healthy population growth, simply because their culture encourages it.
Western europe has largely thrown away any semblance of its many cultures that stablish having children as a social duty. So, dear europa, stopstart fucking around.

This is a really well put together post of what I agree with
The "it doesn't affect me, it doesn't affect you" gen, the last gen

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I used to think that this was just a young people thing and that people still settled down, just not as young as they used to. Thinking about it though our society is really geared against having kids. It used to be perfectly feasible for one person to go work while the other stayed home and took care of the house and kids. Now though even the middle class often needs to be dual-income to stay financially solvent (relying on public assistance is not financially solvent) and that means either paying someone to raise your kids for those who have the means, or just not seeing all that much of them for those who don't.  Neither of which are exactly ideal. To say nothing of all the bullshit an expecting or recent parent can expect from their employer.
That, I think, is the true cause. Western people have just been made to think of kids as a liability. But unless you're one of those voluntary extinction dweebs we can't allow people who want kids to be deterred by the expense. It would quite literally be the death of an entire people, and all their customs and experience with them, because of nothing more than myopia and selfishness.

Could be that Western societies have abandoned the notion of virtue as self-sacrifice for the benefit of future generations
I also think a family unit where the children lack a paternal or maternal role model is not beneficial, thus a system where one is sole breadwinner and the other raises the kids is not beneficial (unbalanced a/f). More on the abandonment of virtue, the notion that children are liabilities, invokers of suffering, hard work to be avoided - how can a society that believes this live? How can it on the one hand claim it is ethical to cease building families for the sake of survival, when the very act produces collapse? Rather depressing that everyone involved in western politics sees raising family as this burden. The sjw tells you families are oppressive, the alt-right tells you families are for religious cucks, the centrist tells you families hold back total liberty of the individual :[

[MorleyDev]

Now though even the middle class often needs to be dual-income to stay financially solvent (relying on public assistance is not financially solvent) and that means either paying someone to raise your kids for those who have the means, or just not seeing all that much of them for those who don't.

In the UK, from talking to people from my Grandparents generation I actually don't think that was the case even then. The vast majority of them were in living situations where the Mother and Father both worked, the mother a part-time job and the father a full-time one, and even then were mostly practising the 'policy' of "living in the red". Their pay checks would often take them back into the 'black', but by the time the next one rolled around they were in the red again. And they'd often sometimes still wind up leaving their children with their parents (the kids grandparents) whilst working.

And the above has definitely been true for my parents generation for my whole 25 years of life too, my parents both working and my grandparents feeling like almost a second, older set of parents.

So either that's unique to the UK in the western wold, unique to the elderly people I've met (possible, since this is mostly from talking to old friends of my grandparents so there may be group bias there), or this was never actually the case.

But anyway, I don't want to have children. Other people's kids are fine, you can give them back when you're finished with them, but my own? Nope. Not for me. When I'm in a more sour mood I'd describe it as "The nicest thing you can do for a child is not to have them. Anything after that is just an apology. And those who are left have a duty to try and make things less shit for the people who are stuck here.", but "Nope not for me" is fine when I'm more chipper.

Having a nephew has not made the thought any more appealing, he's adorable when he's not being a screaming shit cannon but still spends waaay too much time as a screaming shit cannon for me to want one.

The human race is pretty big, there's no longer any kind of social obligation to have kids when so many people will have them regardless of whether or not there is a social obligation due to having some kind of 'paternal instinct' thing. Especially in countries with good life expectancy and healthcare, where there are no real chance of the kinds of high death counts needed to mandate breeding for populations to be maintained. So that's a nice oppression to be lifted from.

Plus, I can't be the only one whose first instinct when he hears a screaming child is to want to smash the loud annoying tiny thing? Right?

Arguably, more people without children using their time to actually benefit the world, either through using the time to pursue learning and science and new technologies (thereby contributing more to the advancement of the human race), or aid in charity, or both. So less people having children, whilst still enough having them to keep populations growing slowly (enough for the science and tech to keep pace so the whole "out of resources by 2050" thing doesn't happen) or roughly stagnant, would be the ideal solution. So there's that if you really want a moral reason to not squirt out another prick in the wall.

[Silverthrone]

I might. I can't really think of any clear reason not to, some day. But it's not a goal, on my part. If it happens, it happens. I'd take the chance.

Birth rates and population tallies tend to get pretty hysterical, though. I mean, there's a reason why most Western families with children have two; it's a managable number. Pregnancies are difficult, and raising a child is, while probably one of the most rewarding things you can do, also quite a task at times. People are having fewer, more managable children because it's an option. You don't have to keep making ten or so babbys in the hope that at least a few will make it into adulthood. And you're not dependant on having loads of children for a decent elderly life, or on having someone to work your land when you are too old to, and so on and so on. Even the foreign, baby-making hordes would likely have less children if that was as viable as in the West.

Honestly, the only unethical part of baby-having I can think of is having more children than you can provide for or having children you don't have any intention to care for. Having or not having babies don't seem too much like a moral choice in itself, altough that is partly because I don't think the entire yerpan race is quite so ill-fated and hopelessly resigned to doom as one would think at times. Birth rates haven't gone down because the people of yerp and the West has gone decadent, soft and forgotten how to fuck. They've gone down because you do not need to count on half or so of them dying before they reach adulthood, and your future and survival don't depend on them in the way it did. What that means for the future is a different matter, but the cause is not moral degeneracy.

In brief, I'm pretty positive towards having children of my own, but I don't feel like I'm a soldier that is abandoning his duty as long as he hasn't gotten a few pounds of his own into circulation. _{And honestly, it rather depend on who'd want me to be their children's father.}

[JoshuaFH]

ptw

[Cthulhu]

I live in a post-industrial society with decent medical care, as such I intend to raise a family as large as possible, to such a capacity as I do not burn out and die too soon to give my kids good education in all I can teach. In my eyes, all of them will have opportunities available to them unavailable to most of the world population, and as such have the chance of getting the furthest. With any luck, some would end up being innovators, leaders and such who end up improving the world rather than just eat and die, being useless in existence. Money isn't an issue because education from primary to 6th form is free and Uni education has a tendency to make students more useless than more useful outside of STEM in its current iteration, but that's another issue entirely. Larger family is more capable of looking after itself and absorbing shocks, a good personal example I draw on for wisdom is when my great grandparents died whilst raising a very large family. Because it was a large family, the boys were able to quit education to work whilst the girls continued education to get more advanced education, improving the long term prosperity of the entire family for all involved. One generation after that and their kids were all in education and saving money to move abroad for more technical education. One generation after that and they accrued enough to start sending kids off to advanced western education and if parents faltered due to deaths or some other tragic occurrence then others stepped in to cover the costs, the most inspiring moment has to be when one of our aunts got footed with a private medical bill of a few thousand monies - moment the family heard of this, everyone chipped in a bit and in a single day the bill was cleared. This is why I think if you look at Jewish, Chinese, Indian and Arab families they are prospering in Western societies where Westerners are failing. This is in spite of the former having to adapt to the latter whilst the former should be born innately advantaged in their home society, yet they are failing because they act as atomized individuals and not as an adaptable family unit. A child of a large family can draw on much life experience, work experience, familial support and act as pillars in emergencies. Even if one parent fucks up or dies, there are always uncles, aunts and grandparents waiting in the wings if emergency requires help.

In developing nations where most children will die, or end up as misers with no future prospects, I would not have as much children. However with prospects so good, for me this is an obvious question: It is imperative to have more children, more raised well, otherwise the long line of people who worked towards you ends, and you cause the growth of your family to turn into decline. If you are the last of your family, your family dies. Fundamentally the nation is built on the family, and this then has a knock-on effect of all the peoples of your nation which others have pointed out.
I do not even see overpopulation in industrial nations as an issue, rather a simple change in lifestyle would be enough to solve most of the resource issues. How is it that the USA can look eye to eye with the nation of China in regards to pollution? Despite one having hundreds of millions of people, and the other over a billion?
Elimination of consumerism, people wanting to glut themselves on more food than they need, more stuff than they need, trinkets they don't need, living forever as an indulgent individual rather than a grateful family, not only do the former kill their own people through negligence, but they cause more damage per person than even the largest African or Asian family does. I also see it very much as a utilitarian calculation for contemporary western society, wherein large families increase their children's share of future wealth. Lots of wealthy individuals who have no children upon retirement have created a system which requires new blood, thus those who have large families will capture the largest share of the jobs left by dead professionals; there is no hope of western countries reducing their populations because they are all in favour of large scale immigration from countries which do have large families. Thus it is imperative that westerners have large families or else they will just have to deal with them being replaced by people who do have large families, causing a permanent extinction of their heritage in peacetime for no reason

And I know this puts me at odds with a lot of people on the internet who mostly seem to hate kids and honestly kind of seem to hate being alive in general, but I think continuing your lineage, both genetic and cultural, is inherently a worthwhile activity.

The West tends to (especially in the modern day) feel the pull of death very strongly, because we live by a nihilism wherein we find everything meaningless and of no higher purpose. I see that because the distant past and distant future are more or less meaningless to us as humans as we as humans are meaningless to the cosmos as a source of impetus, cherish and make well with the present because it's all we have, so we must use it well. To that end kids are a great gift, I don't understand how you can look at a new soul being brought into the world as something unethical; it's a new mind ready to experience all the hardship and fulfillment the world has to offer.
I do wonder if the reason why Western society has such high depression and suicide rates is because it has so few families? The greatest, wealthiest and most accomplished do not compare to a good parent

The only good book I've read that argued for no kids was Conspiracy Against the Human Race.  I liked it, and I think it had some interesting thoughts on human consciousness, but the argument was based on an Epicurean sort of ethic, specifically that existence entails suffering and the optimal way to minimize suffering is to not exist.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The trick to this question is that if you divert the trolley away, another one will come down the tracks at a future unknown date

Zero children. No more reproduction. This provides a motivation, and frees up resources, in order to speed research immortality, interplanetary travel and colonization, and artificial intelligence.

One does not speed research by reducing the intellectual pool from which to draw from
This would result in very fast extinction

What's the alternative, leaving the elderly in the wilderness to die?

Nah, elderly do not need help dying

Spoiler: snip (click to show/hide)

However, it'd be nice if that was all the problem was about. Things are specially bad because the other half of the problem comes from a kind of social conditioning. In western (european, at least) society, people have been conditioned to just "enjoy life" and not worry about the problems the future generations will have to deal with. Even worse, a large chunk of the population decided that the best solution to that conundrum would to simply not have said next generation. There's a whole chunk of society who simply decided to not have any children because they thought there would be no real consequence to that, and that their personal pleasure ranks higher in the order of important things to do in life. Sure, in China that may not be a problem, but its a fuckhuge problem in yurop. Its not (purely) economical problem even, you can toss all the contraceptive methods and legalized abortion you want at, say, saudi arabia, and they'll still maintain a healthy population growth, simply because their culture encourages it.
Western europe has largely thrown away any semblance of its many cultures that stablish having children as a social duty. So, dear europa, stopstart fucking around.

This is a really well put together post of what I agree with
The "it doesn't affect me, it doesn't affect you" gen, the last gen

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I used to think that this was just a young people thing and that people still settled down, just not as young as they used to. Thinking about it though our society is really geared against having kids. It used to be perfectly feasible for one person to go work while the other stayed home and took care of the house and kids. Now though even the middle class often needs to be dual-income to stay financially solvent (relying on public assistance is not financially solvent) and that means either paying someone to raise your kids for those who have the means, or just not seeing all that much of them for those who don't.  Neither of which are exactly ideal. To say nothing of all the bullshit an expecting or recent parent can expect from their employer.
That, I think, is the true cause. Western people have just been made to think of kids as a liability. But unless you're one of those voluntary extinction dweebs we can't allow people who want kids to be deterred by the expense. It would quite literally be the death of an entire people, and all their customs and experience with them, because of nothing more than myopia and selfishness.

Could be that Western societies have abandoned the notion of virtue as self-sacrifice for the benefit of future generations
I also think a family unit where the children lack a paternal or maternal role model is not beneficial, thus a system where one is sole breadwinner and the other raises the kids is not beneficial (unbalanced a/f). More on the abandonment of virtue, the notion that children are liabilities, invokers of suffering, hard work to be avoided - how can a society that believes this live? How can it on the one hand claim it is ethical to cease building families for the sake of survival, when the very act produces collapse? Rather depressing that everyone involved in western politics sees raising family as this burden. The sjw tells you families are oppressive, the alt-right tells you families are for religious cucks, the centrist tells you families hold back total liberty of the individual :[

Alt right a shit.

This is a good way to get put on blast in most circles due to the veneration of single moms, but a single mother is statistically one of if not the single worst predictors of childhood outcomes

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Really? Makes sense, but that'd be a hell of a can of worms to deal with. Can't do it directly, so we'd have to figure out why.

To the !!SCIENCE!!mobile!

[Cthulhu]

Because kids need stability and positive role models.

[TheBiggerFish]

Hi.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Really? Makes sense, but that'd be a hell of a can of worms to deal with. Can't do it directly, so we'd have to figure out why.

To the !!SCIENCE!!mobile!

Lack of a village?

[Solifuge]

Maximum Babies.

Hmm. I think I disagree with more than half of your points... partially on ethical grounds, partially on differences of experience, and partially on our respective evaluations of society and the state of the world we live in.

For starters, I think y'all might be assigning too much value to The Biological Imperative; it seems like you're taking "squeezing out maximum babies to increase the population of people who are similar to you," (presumably rather than babies who are like Those Other People?) and conflating that with "meaningful contribution to Society." If it's not apparent, let me just say that these are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS, with NO CAUSE-EFFECT RELATIONSHIP and NOTHING TO DO WITH ONE ANOTHER.

Maximum Babies ≠ Magically A Good Thing. Take a quick peek at a few of the mass extinction events brought on by soaring and unsustainable populations of living things. Consider The Oxygen Holocaust or The Great Dying, brought on by massive overpopulation of a certain species of photosynthetic organism, or of methanogenic microorganisms 2 billion years later. You can read almost any ecological publication and see the same strains happening today, though the culprits are bigger and arguably smarter this time around. (P.S. Those culprits are us)

And I know this puts me at odds with a lot of people on the internet who mostly seem to hate kids and honestly kind of seem to hate being alive in general, but I think continuing your lineage, both genetic and cultural, is inherently a worthwhile activity.

The West tends to (especially in the modern day) feel the pull of death very strongly, because we live by a nihilism wherein we find everything meaningless and of no higher purpose. I see that because the distant past and distant future are more or less meaningless to us as humans as we as humans are meaningless to the cosmos as a source of impetus, cherish and make well with the present because it's all we have, so we must use it well. To that end kids are a great gift, I don't understand how you can look at a new soul being brought into the world as something unethical; it's a new mind ready to experience all the hardship and fulfillment the world has to offer.
I do wonder if the reason why Western society has such high depression and suicide rates is because it has so few families? The greatest, wealthiest and most accomplished do not compare to a good parent

Er... wot? Wot x 10, even?

Note, I'm speaking as someone who loves children, but doesn't want to have any kids of their own... but what the hell is this all about? I love the world, and the modern era. I love children, and teaching and taking care of the kids in my life is something I enjoy more than most things. My decision not to have kids is a sacrifice I choose to make because I'm not thinking as an individual... I can see my place as a small part of the Human Species, and as part of the large and interconnected ecological and environmental web of our Planet. I personally know too many families who've thoughtlessly popped out 7 or 8 kids because they care more about their own "immortality" through propagation of their own genes, and couldn't give two shits about their actual contributions to Human Culture, Environmental Wellness, or General Posterity. Even if they're stand-up examples of parenthood, they still honestly expect their kids to fix the world for them, since they're apparently too damn lazy to better themselves and make a difference with the sweat of their own brow. Given that the Apple doesn't often fall far from the tree, how much do you want to bet their ancestors have been making the same decision on into history? And what makes them think their children and grandchildren won't just do the same thing, and put the weight of improving the world on their offspring?

We're all responsible, and personally so, for making this world a better place. So many children are wards of the state as-is, and don't have parents or families to care for them... yet there's all these shitty breeder-families that put the gratification of their ego above the well-being of their kids or the world, or even above general respect for human life. If I ever have a family, I plan to adopt, and pick up the slack for some of the breeders out there who couldn't be arsed to give a shit. Our world (as of 2012) has converted more than 50% of it's total land surface to provide strictly for the needs of the existing Human population, and is still failing to provide for those needs. It makes no sense to FURTHER INCREASE the rate of reproduction. We're not only burning a candle at both ends- we're getting ready to take a blowtorch to the middle too. And the destabilized and ever-worsening state of our environment reflects that fact.

We are literally a small, conscious part of this world; part of a system far bigger than you or I, bigger than a family, or a country, or even a species. No one is an island of genetically similar people; we're a continent of humans, other life-forms, and environments that make up our world. And we need to grow up, pull on our adult diapers, and act like it.

Rather depressing that everyone involved in western politics sees raising family as this burden.

I'm going to guess that we had very different childhoods. Raise a kid. Or take care of a kid sibling while you're still a child yourself. Or even have a chat with a low-income or single parent about their experiences. Then we can talk about how effortless raising a family is, or how selfish those couples are being for not choosing to reproduce.

I was raised by a single mom. 3 kids was more than my mother could afford to care for. Despite working 2-3 jobs, and even with assistance from relatives and from the State, we regularly went hungry. We lived in an old trailer, with rotted holes in the kitchen floor big enough to fall straight through. The water in our neighborhood smelled like rotten eggs, and stained everything brown. My 2 siblings and I shared a tiny bedroom where my brother and I had to crawl over my older sister's bed to get to our bunk. I got my first job was while I was still in elementary school, working off the books at the shop my Mom managed; I opened shipments, took inventory, labeled produce, set up product displays, and did my homework in the break room. My Mom paid me in compliments and granola bars, and I helped us stay afloat.

I didn't have the luxury of a childhood. She didn't have the luxury of having a social life, or getting to spend much time with her kids. I knew the burden my siblings and I put on her, and there were a few times driving home from school when I asked her frankly why she chose to have me at all... not a spiteful thing or a depression thing, but just a frank question. Raising kids is hard. Not everyone has the freedom or ability to do a good job of it, either. I respect people who realize this about themselves, and choose to hold off on having kids unless things change.

Because kids need stability and positive role models.

True. To add, that kind of stability doesn't need to come from the place you're living, or from your genetic relatives. Perhaps understandably, my Mom was almost never around. We were close with our other relatives, but they were largely bitter, prejudiced, or abusive people, who may have done as much harm as good to my siblings and I. I was lucky to have a strong community outside my family, particularly the role models I found in my teachers, in my best friend's parents, and so on. Weirdly, living in a trailer park meant I had a lot of friends within easy walking distance, and plenty of other households where I could escape the fights, or find a table to eat at from time to time, and generally find the support and friendship I needed.

Blood doesn't mean Shit, unless your family chooses to think of it that way. Families aren't some cosmic force for good; they're just a social group; every function some folks assign to A Good-Old-Fashioned Nuclear Family can be fulfilled just as well by public servants like teachers, by peers, and by neighbors and community. I'm a living testament to that.

[Egan_BW]

As always, the obvious solution to our problems is to live in a perfect society with no flaws or problems where there's no scarcity.  Why haven't we done that yet

What's the point of discussing what society should do if we first assume that society won't listen to us?

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

What about collective childrearing?

[Solifuge]

I'd be in favor of a clean, well-regulated collective childrearing option, as long as it took good care of the kids, helped them with education and career training, and genuinely prepared folks for a good life. I'm glad Orphanages and Foster Care exist, but the whole thing could be a great deal better with proper government funding and a more comprehensive system.

[Cthulhu]

As always, the obvious solution to our problems is to live in a perfect society with no flaws or problems where there's no scarcity.  Why haven't we done that yet

What's the point of discussing what society should do if we first assume that society won't listen to us?

What's the point of discussing what society should do if our suggestions are unworkable and fundamentally don't understand how the things we're talking about work?

as LW (i think?) said, ceasing childbirth is not going to make us figure things out faster, we're just going to go extinct.  Taking everyone's money and giving it to people to do their projects isn't going to do anything because it invalidates money's basic function as a measure of value.  I want to make the world's best breadslicer so I get a million bucks from the government but I can't spend it on anything because no one needs money because they got it from the government too.   

If everyone's equally a member of the government then who's gonna tell me to put my money in the pool?  Go to hell, it's my money.  It's useless since money is now worthless, but I'm not giving it up.  And if you beat me up and take it from me now you've established a power dynamic based on the ability to use violence and we're back to a regular old state.

[Reelya]

I think I might have been onto something when I realized that each person needs to be considered as a self-contained person in terms of age ratios. E.g. adding more babies to balance the old people means you have more old people later anyway, so it doesn't work - it's sort of akin to maxxing out  credit cards, then your solution is to keep getting more credit cards to pay the old ones off.

Basically, the optimal total number of children we should have per year isn't dictated by how many old people there are, or how many mothers there are. If the mean life expectancy is 80 years, then each person is taking up 80 "person-years" of space. If we work out the optimal amount of people we want at any one time, then divide that by the life expectancy, then it will give us an ideal amount of babies to make per year. With immigration, you'd then need to work out the life expectancy of the immigrants, e.g. two 40 year old immigrants who'll live 40 years each means 80 less person-years, therefore you'd want to reduce the babies by 1 around the year that those two people immigrated.