Early Retirement Extreme Forums

There's another element being left out here. Even if having fewer children helps, and even if a large mass of the population decided to have fewer children, it's still not that likely to happen.

Yesterday I was talking to a person who is a very real expert on this subject, and she told me that 55% of births are unintentional (I assume her number was for the U.S.). Dare I say myself, a large portion of those unintentional births are also unwanted. A lot of people who don't even want kids are having them. We were talking birth control, and she explained how poor women's methods are, other than the IUD. Women who take the pill and who are perfect about taking it still average about two accidental pregnancies over their lives that occur while they have been taking the pill. The ~97% or however much effectiveness rate of the pill is still pretty bad when considered over the entire range of a woman's reproductive capability.

While riding in the car with my brother in law for about 2,500 miles over the last couple weeks, I asked him, more or less, "If you became god tomorrow, what would you do to improve the state of man kind".. one thing he said, the main thing he said, is compulsury sterlization for all men when they turn ~14 years old, using an easily reversible method (like the gel(?) injections developed by an Indian guy)) so that births would only occur more deliberately. (and that, ideally, after reversing, it would generally be compulsory to get the sterilization injection again after a some reasonable period of time for creating one child). Regardless of how far past hope we are on climate, this did seem like an impressively simple method to improve the world. (This was a purely theoretical thing and of course there would be complications and ethical challenges relating to actually trying something like this)

It's those darn ethical challenges that always hinder my plans.

Oh.I got past the ethics, no problem. It's the technical challenges that are in my way now.
Stupid Google doesn't know how to make super-mumps, either!

PHOTOBUCKET SUCKS

C40 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 20, 2017 10:27 am

Women who take the pill and who are perfect about taking it still average about two accidental pregnancies over their lives that occur while they have been taking the pill. The ~97% or however much effectiveness rate of the pill is still pretty bad when considered over the entire range of a woman's reproductive capability.

When combined with another form of contraception effectiveness is closer to 100%. Obviously abortion is available to terminate the remaining pregnancies. In most developed countries, abortion is not controversial.

Yeah. IUDs work very well and seem to be used much more in recent years.

Seems to me that compulsory sterilization would likely prove to be fraught with unintended consequences.

There are probably some dystopian sci-fi movies starting out that way

Maybe all the sperms could be mixed together into a universal impregnating concoction that would be expensive to purchase. Sexual selection would be reduced to tadpole-like vigor. No child a bastard. Every child a bastard.

You could call it "Impregnation Nation".

Came up with a better plan. How about a law that only allows the most virile males to have sex with women over 50?

@C40

Vasalgel is still not on the market. I'm on the waiting list so I'll update when new information comes out.

Currently planned for either clinical trials or market release in 2018.

Felipe wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 22, 2017 12:42 pm

@C40

Vasalgel is still not on the market. I'm on the waiting list so I'll update when new information comes out.

Currently planned for either clinical trials or market release in 2018.

Oh cool, thanks. I still haven't gotten the 'snip snap' vasectomy. So maybe I should just wait for this 'clog the pipe' method.

Here's an article to the 2 main methods of reversibility sterility:
Vasalgel, the form coming to market soon hopefully.
https://www.parsemus.org/projects/vasal ... lgel-faqs/
RISUG, the Indian form I believe you mentioned that is also currently undergoing trials.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4345756/

Maybe we stop giving money to people that can't aford childs.

Jean wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 23, 2017 1:08 pm

Maybe we stop giving money to people that can't aford childs.

Education and decent health care are more effective.

ducknalddon wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 23, 2017 2:15 pm

Jean wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 23, 2017 1:08 pm

Maybe we stop giving money to people that can't aford childs.

Education and decent health care are more effective.

Neither are effective.

@Jean
Are you referring to the Tax Credit?
I hadn't thought about the fact that it acts as an incentive until this point.

I don't know how it is in the US, but in most european countries, If you have child and can't feed them, social services will hand you some money to avoid you to starve.
And when we send food to a place were they suffer from starvation, this is what we do as well.
If unhability to take the future into account is only slighty hereditary, it only makes the future worse.
Mamals that make children and can't feed them usually see their kids die, this is how it has been for millions of years, and we shouldn't try to change this because they happen to be human, because otherwise they'll just multiply and starve a few generation latter, when we can't feed them anymore because they are 10 times more numerous starving. This is how we could minimize suffering in the long run.

I would ask the author of the article about the law of unintended consequences. Have they thought of any and what are they in their opinion. If everyone started having less children, what would happen to schools, teachers, jobs, children's marketing, the economy etc. More unemployment and more time for the unemployed to have more children?

Also, people are living longer, and consuming more and more resources.

Also, why is there not more discussion on how to cool the earth instead of more discussion on not making the earth warmer because of global warming. How can we make the earth cooler if it is such a problem? Like adding matter in the atmosphere to deflect the sun's rays, or adding more clouds for the same reason.. stuff like that perhaps. It's rarely talked about.

Also, it's a drop in the bucket approach. It's like if you want to support democracy, vote. One more vote or one less vote and one more child or one less child will not change anything on the scale of something like climate change. The article could say "Want to fight climate change? Interrupt people's lives so they can't have children. Convince the wealthy to make more propoganda to scare people into not having children. Make laws like the one child policy in China (which had it's own unintended consequences). But of course we can't do that because we love freedom. So it can only be done on a personal level only.

So with all these complexities: need for freedom, fear of hurting other people's feelings and offending people, fear of offering other practical solutions but going over the "line" and offending others so you have to keep things like that to yourself etc. fear of politicians doing something to actually save the earth but they won't get re-elected next time so they won't do anything etc.. we just continue with the status quo.

Also, we need growth and inflation to keep the status quo. If the author is concerned about climate change, it should be of major economic changes (which could produce more and more unintended consequences) instead of children being born which is a biological urge.