You might have heard of the Duggars. Headed by the hyper-conservative Jim Bob Duggar, this is a family of (currently) 18. We're not talking "John and Kate Plus Eight," here, where somebody is just very fetile and likes to randomly pop out six kids. We're talking no contraception because of some crazy moral value, wife-firing-off-babies-like-a-pop-gun-because-I-don't-know-how-reproduction-works-due-to-conservative-indoctrination kind of shit here.
Now, aside from the judgmental twinge in me that wants to slap this woman for being a sheep, I have a serious problem with this kind of behavior. In a time and place where almost all children survive the first few years of their lives because of improved medical care, this behavior isn't only superfluous, it's irresponsible. I don't expect everybody to hold the same sort of environmentalist values that I do, and I respect that people want to have their biological children, but I see a problem in two ways:
1) They've created a comparably massive footprint, rather like the carbon footprint that irresponsible industries create, and
2) They've chucked sixteen kids, maybe more by now, from that vagina of hers, all because they are opposed to contraception and because the wife wants a big family. I look at this as the most selfish, conceited behavior when you think about the kids out there that need to be adopted. Angelina Jolie swipes all the cute ones up from other countries, so there are plenty here that need the help.
If you really want to have your own biologicals, make one or two of your own, then adopt. It's the quick road to a big family anyway, without all the trouble of pregnancy and birth. Am I right to feel like that? Are these people, and others like them, acting as irresponsibly and selfishly as I think they are? I have an immense moral objection to this behavior because I feel a responsibility to this earth that we live on, so I definitely won't take part of that behavior and will probably wind up adopting more than producing my own biologicals, but should I hold these people to the same standard?
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The problem here: "You first."
You have to get the whole planet to stop, otherwise one culture can just out breed another culture and take it over directly or indirectly.
Numbers are power on the world stage as well, once technology is more or less equalized.
Most first world countries have negative growth rates and overpopulation is not really an issue
If you're in India or China, I agree, of course
Their kids are pretty awesome. They are well-educated, hard-working, they built their own house, the oldest one makes documentaries and shit. They should have 500 kids. Because we need more people like them in the gene pool. And less people who randomly bitch about shit that hasn't nothing to do with them.
I disagree with this.
I think that most of the environmental problems befalling us are due to each individual taking up too much of an environmental footprint, not to there being too many people. If you look at birthrates worldwide, the general trend is that the more developed a nation economically, the lower their birthrates. It's not a leap to say that as each third- and second- world country creeps towards a first-world economy, their birthrates will fall.
Now, in more developed nations, each human represents a greater ecological burden. I don't think it's a stretch to say that if there were fewer people, each person would demand a quality of life requiring more energy and more natural resources. Besides, how else would growth economies continue to, er, grow, if not by demanding greater consumption from a population whose growth rate is itself diminishing?
However, if we attack the problem from the footprint angle, rather than the raw numbers angle, and strive towards a system where each individual is at or close to equilibrium, while birth rates simultaneously diminish as economies develop, then overpopulation seems a lot less scary.
As for the OP... yep, those Duggars. They're fucking loonies.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
They're also indoctrinated with hyper-conservative Christian values and have a nice TV face. It's not how they're raising their kids that bothers me, it's that they're raising that many, creating that many, when there are some kids that have already been created that desperately need care themselves.
Edit: Also, each kid has a "J" as the first letter of their first name. It's a personal thing, but that just irks the shit out of me. It's almost as if it's an effort to remove their personalities, as are the dresses all the girls are seemingly forced to wear all the time.
First world nations are almost all below replacement right now, even America. This woman is no doubt polluting the genetic pool by overloading it with her genetic sequence for "poor judgment," and additionally dooming her brood to a relatively poor existence. Still, she's not really significantly altering anything on her own, and the large number of no-or-one kid couples are counterweighing her "contribution".
You think people get upset about them doing THAT, just wait until people have to be neatured and spayed. (figuratively speaking, as cutting off a baby's balls would keep it from developing masculine characteristics, but you know what I mean)
XBL: QuazarX
I'm not sure where you got 30, the numbers I see are usually 10 - 14. How much does the average American produce compared to the average Bangladeshi? About 20 times. When you measure production vs. consumption, we're one of the most efficient countries in the world.
And overpopulation is a myth. Particularly among middle-class educated people like the Duggars.
Whole Foods is fucking expensive, yo.
I'm not for eugenics or anything, but maybe a system where the government offers greater benefits to adopting parents rather than breeders. It certainly wouldn't cut down on the breeding significantly, but it would significantly lighten the load that foster care and adoption agencies have under their oversight.
We still need replacement population.
We don't need to -decrease- our numbers. We need to -stabilize- them.
We should be encouraging couples to have about two kids.
Not more than two kids.
Not less than two kids.
If we drop below a certain level, we can up that to three kids for a generation, then go back to two.
But there's a serious need for some good, healthy, SMALL families, rather than people having one or none, or bazillions.
Do you really want that much control over everyone else on the planet?
Besides that, I'm not saying "Ban large families."
Just incentivize the hell out of "just right size" families.
I'm especially tired of the well-educated people with lots of money not having kids, so that their years of awesome basically die with them.
because if it is, we should be cracking down on companies much more so than on families who have lots of children.
Well, I mean, we should, but I wanted to talk about this.
That's not really cracking down on anything, is it?
From what I've read, there was a period of the environmental movement that was heavily anti-growth, but it became hidden.
There's some pro-family site that's suggested that the Union of Concerned Scientists are, at least partly, an anti-growth group.
It sort of clicks with their badly-considered push for the diesel regulations in California as written, if nothing else.
I think the argument is that people having a ton of kids is bad because those kids will grow up to buy SUVs and use too much electricity.
Maybe those 16 kids will grow up to be CEOs of companies that voluntarily reduce their carbon footprint. Ya never know!
XBL: QuazarX
How are the Duggars hurting anything? Why are they so bad? Conservative? They dress well? Their names all start with J? That's really all you've got?
Did I say the well-educated, money-having people should have a bazillion kids?
No.
What's Jim Bob's education? I know they're supposed to live debt-free according to some crazy, cult-like Christian financial plan or something, but I don't know much about their education.
no i guess not
i guess i just feel your distaste (outrage?) is a bit misdirected.
It's selfish. To me, it's the worst kind of selfishness. That, and Jim Bob's strong pushes for home schooling vouchers when he was in the Arkansas state government was clearly self-motivated rather than in the interests of his state.
Anyway, I have the pic from the title:
EDIT: It is kind of sickening that a woman would have that many kids.
I mean, Ferraris have terrible gas mileage and poor emissions ratings, but so few of them are made every year, and those few are driven so rarely, that they don't really have an effect on the climate at all.
This family is like the Ferrari of families. Just not as awesome.
XBL: QuazarX
I'm just confused by the level of hate coming out of you on this. They seem to be really swell people.
I don't know their education level except that the kids score very high on standardized tests, and that the parents are both licesnsed real estate agenst and that the Dad served on the state senate or something.
I also know they were on birth control for years until they were ready to have children.
You haven't explained how it's "selfish." Raising children is about the most unselfish thing most humans ever do.
And I don't see how you wouldn't think that someone who believes in home-schooling might also think home-schooling is a good thing. They sort of go hand-in-hand.
Again, it's like you are reaching really really hard for a reason to hate them, and you're coming up with weak nonsense.
Also: I agree, a lot of kids out there need to be adopted. That is just as true for a family who has one kids as it is for a family who has 17.
A society that can't even replace it self is a dying society. Negative population growth is not a sign of progress and all the things that you care about like say the environment are for nothing if your beliefs die with you right.
They must spend a small fortune in WASP clothes.
If there were a lot of married people, engaged people, and/or females on this forum, the responses would likely be vastly different. I don't think you have anything to worry about as far as society goes.
I, for one, think if you have the money and time to truly watch after, raise, and take care of that many kids... go for it.
XBL: QuazarX