[mbenjaminsmith]

> Doing something about that number would no longer make us human.

I really struggle with this. Apart from "evil" countries like China we do very little to try to steer the reproductive outcome / health of our own species. We aggressively breed domesticated animals and plants but apart from class stratification we do almost nothing to ensure a positive genetic future for ourselves.

Why not? I'm not suggesting we prevent certain people from having kids (who? who decides?) but awareness of really basic concepts like "kids are expensive, have fewer or none if you're poor" simply aren't out there or are ineffective.

My wife and I (I'm an entrepreneur and a software engineer, my wife is GM of a company in architectural design) very deliberately decided to have one child. Our nanny on the other hand has three (grown) children. They're all in the same income bracket as she is and all having children of their own.

It's pretty well known that smarter / better educated people have fewer kids. That means that our current 7 billion is mostly those least equipped to raise the next generation and also those most likely to increase its size.

Again, I'm not suggesting we have the government try to regulate reproductive rights. (Governments rapidly accumulating power via technology is another problem we have to deal with as a species.) But what about global awareness? Or what about incentivizing the poorest people to have fewer children via social programs, education, etc.

And, just in case: No, you can't compare what I'm suggesting to Nazi Germany. This has nothing to do with race. I don't think race is even a meaningful concept when discussing humans. This is about us taking responsibly for our future and the health of the only planet we'll be able to call home for the foreseeable future -- by raising awareness of our collective responsibility to future generations, our strengths and weaknesses as custodians of.

[Edit]

Was really hoping to spark a meaningful discussion here. I think this is the elephant in the room wrt our future as a species -- as important as curbing CO2 emissions or detecting / destroying the next killer asteroid.

1. Just for the record, no, I did not call China evil. I thought that was self evident. I guess not. If I thought Chinese people were evil my son wouldn't be half Chinese.

2. Yes, there are a number of reasons poor people have more children than they should. None of those negate what I am saying. I'm suggesting we need to educate the poor on choices that will benefit themselves, their children and the human race as a whole.

[Karellen]

> we do very little to try to steer the reproductive outcome / health of our own species. [...] we do almost nothing to ensure a positive genetic future for ourselves.

Yeah, we probably don't want to try that. The genetic health of a species can basically be defined by its genetic diversity. That aggressive breeding of domestic animals and plants leads them to be really vulnerable to disease or parasites. Any attempt to exert "control" of our genetic future is likely to reduce our genetic diversity, not expand it.

One of the great things about modern medicine is that it allows people with some genetic variations that would have killed them in earlier times, to live productive lives today. And one of those variations might be the key to surviving (or even curing) some future disease that could otherwise devastate humanity.

Also, as PZ Myers recently pointed out, when it comes to genetics everything is so intertwined and interdependent that we can't really know how things are going to turn out, and the law of unintended consequences is pretty much guaranteed to lead to catastrophe.

"It seems to me, rather, that it shows that you can’t decide ahead of time what traits are desirable, but that they have to emerge organically in concert with other properties of the organism"[0]

[0] http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/07/12/how-eugeni...

[fsloth]

Apart from "evil" countries like China

I know you put 'evil' in quotes but I still find this trivializes the governance of a country of over billion people and three millenia of continuous government (yes, the communist party may not be called a dynasty but if you look at it from historical perspective it's a direct continuation of the bureaucratic autocratic system that's dominated the area before Plato and Aristotle ).

Or what about incentivizing the poorest people to have fewer children via social programs, education, etc.

IMO, there are two main reasons for high birth rates: 1. lots of children are a form of capital in capital poor areas 2. there is very little else to do than breed in the evenings. 3. these two create a behaviour pattern in society where having lots of children is the social proven option.

If one does not want to go the china way then one needs to affect these causes directly. For 2. I suppose giving entertainment would lower birth rates. For 1 - well, I have no idea what to do with that apart from supporting economic growth.

[lunchTime42]

I dont trust you to hold back on the lottery tickets and not start a civil war - so to secure my future, i got to put lots of lottery tickets into the pot.

Gametheory makes us do it.

[phatfish]

Population growth is not a long term problem. Fertility rates are approaching 2.0 globally. Even developing countries like Bangladesh that had a real effort to educate women about sexual health already have rates of about 2.1/2.2 i think, it is pretty narrow minded to believe that only "clever" people want small families.

Only Africa has large population growth still.

China have stopped the 1 child policy (such as it was, if you could afford it you had as many as you want) as they are worried of fertility rates being affected in the future. They have seen the situation of countries like Japan and Germany with a shrinking population.

I would be more worried about resources such as clean water and energy. When most of the worlds population is competing for as much water and energy as the average US citizen currently uses, then you have problems.

[Ygg2]

That won't work.

In nature, the less likely you judge your children chances of survival, the more you have. Other reason is that poor people use their children as a form of labor.

There is however one thing you can do and that is - send all your money to poor people and reduce their natality number.

[saiya-jin]

the thing is, people are deeply irrational on many, many levels. emotions take over our decisions, which seems to be the case for most of population quite often, and quite a few times for the rest too.

you & your wife might be very rational compared to average, but "crowd" isn't. otherwise they wouldn't consider some soccer games most important thing in the universe for a few weeks in a year, wouldn't give a damn about terrorism, would lead healthier lives, wouldn't think with their d*cks and so on.

over longer term, it's a zoo out there, however nice we want to paint our civilization so far. it's rule of the stronger, as it has ever been, and power in numbers will over time prevail over some more rational approach (as yours). if times will get really rough medieval-style, mortality will sort this out anyway.

I used to care a lot about these things, worried and afraid and so on. not anymore - apart from nuclear holocaust/massive meteorite/supervolcano, mankind will in some way survive. and since we have no clue what will happen tomorrow, no need to worry and just do what you feel is right for you. or something like that

[misja111]

> It's pretty well known that smarter / better educated people have fewer kids.

This is only partly true. For women there is a negative correlation between the length of their education and family size. But for men it's actually the other way around. Also, I don't know of any statistic that shows that smarter women tend to have smaller families.

[J_Darnley]

We could start asking for volunteers to come forward should they desire to be removed from the gene pool. I would volunteer. I hold the genes for male pattern baldness, extremely poor eyesight, heart problems, obesity. Not to mention I am a drain on society being perpetually unemployed.

[phaemon]

At first your comment annoyed me, but that's because I totally missed the satire on first reading. Quite subtle. It wasn't till I re-read the "nanny" part that I got it.