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 Apis
NewbieMycolophile
Registered: 12/17/06
Posts: 32
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 Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Silversoul]
#6399790 - 12/23/06 04:57 PM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
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I could think of solutions to some of those problems, too. How easy do you think it would be instead to convince people abide by these suggestions instead:
-walk, bike, or take public transit only--no internal combustion engines allowed, except for commercial necessities
-farmers must all switch to organic farming
-everyone must eat a plant-based diet, possibly including insects (factory farming and commercial fishing are far too damaging to the environment)
-vastly reduce consumerism; only allow products necessary for ones' survival. That means no TV, no movies, no stereo, only a few sets of clothing made out of hemp and organic cotton. Look around the room you're in. How much of your shit do you really need to survive?
-no more paper publications (I do my part by getting my newspaper online)
-no new houses allowed. Existing houses will be torn down, and highrises built. Everyone must live in an apartment (obviously for efficiency of land
-eliminate any fuel burning activities; electricity must be obtained from alternative sources
-eliminate most mining
-most of the above points already require huge leaps in advancement of technology (e.g. cold fusion), not to mention an international totalitarian regime to make people comply.
Incidentally, I fully support policies leaning in the directions above. I bicycle for transportation, eat a plant-based diet, live in a condominium, purchase materials from sustainable sources, rarely use paper, recycle everything, use fluorescent bulbs, etc., etc. AND I got a tubal last year, which I am very proud of.
Every single human on the planet has what one calls an "ecological footprint;" the negative impact we have on the environment, caused by consumption of resources and pollution. If try your hardest, you can reduce that impact quite a lot. But guess what? No matter what you do, your very existence damages the earth. Every human damages the earth by existing, some very much more so than others of course. So no matter how "good" your children might be in comparison to the rest of the world, the earth would have been better of if they never existed.
And face it, we are going to have to slow down our population growth eventually; no system can support an infinite number of people. And trust me, it would be a whole lot easier to slow down the growth of people now than when our population has quadrupled or more.
As for our "biological programming"... Sure, women and men have urges to have sexual intercourse, and women (mostly) and men have urges to be the mother or father of something. Both of these natural urges are readily satisfied without contributing to overpopulation (by birth control and adoption, respectively). I don't mention being pregnant because I don't think most women feel like they need to go through the discomfort of pregnancy and agony of childbirth, in order to satisfy some primal urge.
While I don't support total elimination of our species, I recommend you read http://vhemt.org/ Not all of it is relevant, but I'm sure you can figure out what is and isn't.
If you still think overpopulation isn't a problem, do yourself a favour and enroll in an environmental biology course or three at a college in your area... I've taken enough of them to know what I'm talking about. If you're still not convinced, then you are akin to the students who go through a degree in Evolution, and can somehow still believe the earth was created in 6 days. Hopefully you're smarter than that, though.
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Silversoul
PleromaticExplorer
 
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 15,297
Loc: Mostly harmless
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Apis]
#6401293 - 12/24/06 04:21 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
So no matter how "good" your children might be in comparison to the rest of the world, the earth would have been better of if they never existed.
I wonder if you would have the guts to say the same to someone who already has children. Do you think the world would be better off if you had never existed? If you do think so, there's an easy solution. However, I think you miss out on some of the incalculable benefits that a person can bring to the world.
And yes, the world's population growth will have to slow down, and it's already doing so in much of the developed world. All across Europe, the population is shrinking, and it would be doing the same in America if not for immigration. The answer, then, lies in bringing the undeveloped world out of poverty.
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"I happen to be the CEO of the Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal, and we actually are offering $10,000 to anybody who can produce anything that is totally normal in all respects, or even average." -- Robert Anton Wilson
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 9,889
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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 Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Silversoul]
#6401433 - 12/24/06 08:35 AM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
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I love kids and would have some by now, but I will not bring a life into such an ugly world.
Maybe in a few hundred years religion and superstition will go away and the long history of death and misery those two have given us will finally end. Only then will it be good to have kids.
Meanwhile, I'll settle for a cat. 
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of three Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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 whichits
Registered: 01/14/06
Posts: 22
Last seen: 1 year, 5 days
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Diploid]
#6403698 - 12/27/06 11:03 PM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
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Diploid, understand your point of view... however Dont want kids here, dont have the patience to teach kids the valuable lessons they will need today and future society... maybe they would learn it on their own, however If my Kid ended up shooting someone in a mall Id be very disappointed in him/her and Myself.. So A cat, fish, or some of those little shrimp things in a can will do for now..
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DarkTranquillity
MycoNooblet
Registered: 08/08/06
Posts: 20
Loc: Pennsylvania
Last seen: 10 months, 28 days
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: whichits]
#6408906 - 12/29/06 06:57 PM (1 year, 9 months ago) |
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I got a son named caden and he is 1 and 1/2  Love him to death.. don't think I want more though... I'm 18 right now.. he was kind of an accident.
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Macuilxochitl
God of Love
Registered: 02/18/07
Posts: 50
Last seen: 1 year, 6 months
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Silversoul]
#6642285 - 03/06/07 05:25 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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no/yes
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The flowery dream
Psilocybe aztecorum,Nicotiana tabacum,Turbina corymbosa,Heimia salicifolia,Quararibea funebris, The last flower is for you to figure out.
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Meedio
Stranger
Registered: 03/05/07
Posts: 10
Last seen: 1 year, 6 months
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I dont like children... they are wierd...
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ladle3000
Registered: 08/05/06
Posts: 160
Last seen: 1 month, 8 days
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Meedio]
#6691520 - 03/20/07 01:36 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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I didn't want any forever. Now I have One, and want more.
Overpopulation is a bullshit excuse.
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--Ladle--
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Trepiodos
trepein epioshodos
Registered: 06/30/06
Posts: 177
Loc: Midlothian, Virginia
Last seen: 1 year, 6 months
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Silversoul]
#6698499 - 03/22/07 07:58 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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I have two children, one of each flavor. I wanted three, but my wife wanted no more. She insisted that I get a vasectomy. Painful as shit, the doctor had to numb me up three times because the first two were insufficient (read as: jabbing needles in my nuts). Then, it still felt like he was pulling out my teeth by way of my scrotum. FUCK!
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War has all the characteristics of a socialism most conservatives hate: centralized power, state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties, foolish optimism about intended results and blindness to unintended secondary results.
- Joseph Sobran
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vigilant_mind
metaphysicist
Registered: 01/19/07
Posts: 1,486
Loc: the view from nowhere
Last seen: 17 minutes, 4 seconds
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Silversoul]
#6701285 - 03/22/07 10:23 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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There is no way I'm having kids. I'm getting a vasectomy.
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MyRedrum
Easily Amused
Registered: 03/20/07
Posts: 212
Loc: Portland
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Silversoul]
#6727096 - 03/30/07 04:02 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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i would definitely adopt a child, i dunno about having one though. there are a lot of people on earth already 
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Distort my perceptions to make my reality more powerful 
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dreadheadgurl
still kickin
Registered: 04/24/07
Posts: 79
Loc: U S OF A
Last seen: 28 days, 8 hours
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 Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Silversoul]
#6847349 - 04/28/07 11:00 PM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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I have a 15 month old, and if anyone has had a child that age you'll understand that MOST days I want another child! lol. I wouldn't trade being a mom for anything in the world...definitely the most rewarding job I've ever had.
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I may be crazy but it is the one thing that keeps me from going insane. --Waylon Jennings
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NiamhNyx
I'm NOT a 'he'
Registered: 09/01/02
Posts: 3,110
Last seen: 4 days, 2 hours
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The thing is, most of the people who say they aren't going to have kids because they're worried about adding to the problem of overpopulation or they don't want to bring a kid into an ugly world tend to be intelligent, compassionate people that would actually make good parents... but then it's the fundamentalist nutbags who breed like rabbits and spread thier pathology far and wide! There need to be people in every generation who were raised to think.  May as well have one then. (a few years from now that is, for now my friends new baby is more than enough for me!)
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Colonel Kurtz Ph.D
What What?
Registered: 07/22/04
Posts: 11,028
Loc: Shadow Moses
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Silversoul]
#6848536 - 04/29/07 06:49 AM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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I don't have children but I want to have some in the future... maybe.
That's what I voted but the way things work around the world nowadays I don't think it's a good idea to keep reproducing.
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There's no better way to rock out than with your cock out!!
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flibius
Stranger
Registered: 07/11/06
Posts: 61
Last seen: 9 days, 4 hours
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Re: Do you have/want children? [Re: Silversoul]
#6889076 - 05/08/07 01:19 PM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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Don't have any children and don't want any
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