Sansa Stark

Good then
I just saved you a thirtiesgirl lashing

Dotoar

You really shouldn't have. I would have needed one of those.

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RVCA

Both of my (female) housemates think feminism is silly. They believe that there are certain duties and responsibilities that women have, and will always have, that men don't. They believe that the two sexes will never be completely equal. I guess they just kind of accept these things.

Rainard Jalen

This rings quite false to me. More like, people in dire situations should have the basic sense of responsibility not to have children that they cannot look after. It is laughable that people in privileged circumstances feel such sympathy for starving people in areas highly prone to drought and famine. They brought it upon themselves for creating a population size that was not sustainable given the resources available. If people wish to be, in practical terms, suicidal, then that is their prerogative and they must bear the consequences. A much smaller population would have had no trouble surviving in even the most challenging of climates.

As for whether it is in the earth's interests to produce more children, of course it is. This is how we as a species evolve and become stronger and superior to our ancestors. The strong prevail over the weak. That's the rule of nature. That's why any of us exists today. Because there was person after person after person in our ancestry who was strong and robust and attractive enough to be able to reproduce. Limiting reproduction would prevent this natural process from occurring, the weak would start to outnumber the strong, and our entire species would be doomed.

Guybrush

I think it's important to have people fighting for female rights as well as male rights to ensure that the interests of both sexes are taken care of in society. I also don't really mind systems that promote/ensure women and males are somewhat equally represented in politics. Men and women are different and if a country is made up of 50/50 men and women, then women's interests may be underrepresented if the government is made up by 90% men.

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Something Completely Different

Guybrush

There's a lot of wrongishness in this, some basic assumptions which are incorrect.

The most important is an error also hinted at by Vanilla in her first post. Instinctively, we don't care about our species. Evolution does not reward you for choosing not to have children for the greater good. Actually, it would punish such a decision, hence it's generally not adaptable. The idea that we base our choices on what's good for humanity is false. We generally don't and those who do have arrived at these conclusions and managed to convince themselves emotionally based on rationality. Such people are few in the grand scheme of things.

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Something Completely Different

Dotoar

Agree!

Evolution simply doesn't apply to an individual level at any given time, and I cannot see the point of hanging on to that thread whenever it comes to issues like why we act in a certain way as human beings (or the myth of overpopulation, which is hinted in the post you cited above). It's at the very core of human nature to adjust the surroundings rather than adjust to the surroundings in order to overcome problems along the way. The notion of "survival of the fittest" among human beings is just so 19th century. At best.

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Rainard Jalen

My point was, if there were to be some sort of interventionist approach, then it would not be control measures to limit the number of children being born in developed countries. This makes no sense. Actually, if anything it isn't even an issue. The most advanced nations have ever diminishing birth rates already. Perhaps we ought to be having more children rather than less, in order to avoid the aging population outstripping the working population and all the huge problems that will result from that.

As for the problem of people starving in undeveloped countries, then my point was that it is largely self-wrought. Those areas have the resources to support a population - just not on the scale to which they reproduce. They overpopulated themselves. So if there were to be an interventionist approach, then surely it would be to counter the hazards of overpopulation in regions which cannot support it - and NOT limiting developed nations' populations in order to feed those regions.

Paedantic Basterd

On the topic of the workforce, I don't think that women should be pressured or bribed into fulfilling roles they would otherwise have no interest in, but should be supported and treated equally if they so choose to partake in it.

The Fascinating Turnip

I like you, you're sane.