Saturday, August 29, 2015

People Overreact When I Mention Human Overpopulation

I am a bit behind the times; I only recently joined Facebook!   I have often mentioned human overpopulation on Facebook posts, such as when a person references pollution, or whatever.  Typically I am met with responses that are not only very defensive, but often a total overreaction to my comment.  Specifically some people jump to the conclusion that I am suggesting we kill off a bunch of people!

I have never suggested solving the concerns of human overpopulation by killing people.  

To that end I am actually afraid that at one point the world will be so overpopulated that killing people (much as we do with other species to control their growth) will be something that is talked about more openly.  I grew up watching shows such as "Logan's Run" and movies like "Soylent Green" in which overpopulation was a real concern and society had its own way of dealing with this.  

I absolutely do not want the human population reaching a point where our lifespan is decided for us.  Heck no!  That is why I warn about human overpopulation now and point out that we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend it is not a concern.  That is why I tell people that one child is plenty, and that putting off having kids until you are at least 28 is a very important thing to do.

Look around, human overpopulation is not about food, it is about what we are doing to our planet just by being here.  We have destroyed forests, we have driven thousands of other species to extinction, we have caused the destruction of many ecosystems, polluted rivers and lakes, and yet some people still insist we are living in harmony with the planet and that our numbers are not too large!

The city used to be farm land, the farm land used to be a forest... as soon as we destroyed the forest, we were overpopulating the area.  This is the city of Edmonton, Alberta.

I am not talking about depopulating the planet by killing people.  I am suggesting we realize that we are killing the planet by allowing our population to grow uncontrolled (we have eliminated many things that kept our population controlled, such as diseases, and predators).  We are living longer than ever before and that is in fact the problem because the birth rate is actually going down in many countries.  However the population grows because infant mortality is down, and (as mentioned) we are living longer so several generations of the same family are alive at the same time, whereas in the past the older generations would have died off, allowing for room for the younger generations.

Please do not put words into my mouth, I am not suggesting we kill people, I am just suggesting each one of us would be reproductively responsible and not have more than one child, and not have that child before we are over the age of 28.

I am sure that most people who talk about human overpopulation are met with the same overreaction by others who assume that just because you talk about there being too many people that you are automatically suggesting we eliminate some!




Sunday, August 23, 2015

Dumb Thing Said by a Pro-Lifer

I am not pro-life, I am pro-choice.  I think if a woman wants to have an abortion she should be allowed to do so,  however I do feel that it would be better if women who do not want kids would take measures to avoid pregnancy in the first place.  Nonetheless I realize that unwanted pregnancies do occur.

On an anti-abortion post on Facebook recently one pastor made the ignorant comment "They should just wait until they get married before having sex".  This comment is ignorant on so many levels but mostly because it implies that once people are married they want kids and will not have abortions.

In Ireland abortions are illegal.  One married woman was pregnant with a ectopic pregnancy that meant that her baby had no chance for survival, and nor did she.  She was denied an abortion and died.  This occurred in October 2012.  The anti-abortion laws in Ireland were subsequently changed to allow abortions when the mother's life is at risk.

It is religion that largely fuels the "pro-life" movement but I rarely see those who are against abortion line up to adopt drug addicted babies, or those with other issues.  I rarely see them hand out free condoms or offer to pay for birth control.  Instead they simply tell people to wait until they are married before having sex.

Marriage is no guarantee that people wont have abortions, it is no guarantee that they want kids.  So telling people to wait until they get married before having sex is not going to stop abortions.  Empowering people to be able to prevent unwanted pregnancies will!

All these pro-lifers who think they are holier-than-thou need to open their eyes to reality.  If a woman does not want a baby and happens to get pregnant and is told she cannot abort, she will likely not care for her unborn child throughout her pregnancy, and may come to hate it, she may drink, smoke, do drugs, and fill her self with anger and rage directed towards the unborn child and we know that a mother's mood during pregnancy does affect the unborn child.

I wish women could avoid getting pregnant if they know they do not want a child, but I also know the reality for some women does not make this possible.  To be ignorant and tell people to wait until marriage and assume that somehow being married makes people fit and ready to be parents is a joke!  Married people, can, and do, have abortions too. 

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Causes of Random Acts of Violence

If you think random acts of violence are more common now than in the past you are correct. 

Violence has often been a part of the human society, wars over territory and such have been a concern for thousands of years, but actual random acts of violence are a relatively new thing.

In studies done on rats and mice, John B. Calhoun noted that as the populations grew so too did the occurrence of random acts of violence.  He provided the animals with ample food and water, so he could eliminate "need" from the cause of violent outbreaks.  What he noted was that as populations grew the compassion the animals had for one and other shrunk.  They no longer acted the same towards one and other, even simple parenting skills declined.

The rats, or mice, were in near constant contact with each other and this caused them to devalue others of their kind more and more over time, leading to the increase in random acts of violence.

Humans have doubled their population in the last 40 years.  This has caused a huge strain on us socially as more and more people feel like life is a rat race and is less enjoyable overall.  More people than ever are living in cities, constantly rubbing shoulders with others.  In turn people feel lost and alone, and their subconscious cannot take the loss of identity.  People are, in general, less compassionate to strangers, and in some cases even resent them. 

In the past when people lived rurally or in smaller communities (and in areas where these smaller communities still exist) people still greet each other with a "hello" and they still make eye-contact, even with people they do not know.  In big cities people mentally distance themselves from others, they do not say "hi" to people they walk by on the street and avoid eye-contact.

We have already reached a point where random acts of violence are occurring, and are at a place where they seem to be quite common. 

As parents we must raise our children to be compassionate to others, but equally so if we have lots of children we need to take responsibility for the fact that we are just adding more of a burden to the problem.

More people = more stress.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Can Families Raise Children Without Depending on Daycare

One symptom of overpopulation is parents giving up their role as parents.  In studies on rats and mice, as the populations grew the parent animals were less involved with raising their young.  It seems to me that the human population is showing the same symptom in that many parents are getting strangers to raise their kids rather than raising their kids themselves.

The excuse so often given is that they "need to both work" so they need to have daycare.

I had only one child and before she was born both my husband and I agreed we were not going to place her in daycare.  Please note that we were not rich, in fact we were considered lower class citizens, living on minimum wage.  Rather than dumping our daughter in daycare we simply altered our schedules so that while he worked full time and I worked part time, I worked on days and times when he was home, and visa versa. 

We were very frugal with our money.  We did not have cell phones, internet, or cable television.  We had one car that we shared, it cost us very little to buy and we were not making payments on it.  We never went out for coffee but we often went for lovely walks to the park. 

We put our child as a priority rather than having "stuff". 

When I hear people say that they cannot afford for one person to stay at home and watch their children I seriously wonder what they are thinking, because if we did it on a really low income, anyone with a better income should be able to do it too. 

Otherwise I have to wonder why even have a child if you are not willing to raise it yourself, particularly as children's most formative years are 0 to 5.

If a person cannot stay home to raise one child, then why do they have more?  Surely this raises their day care expenses and further cuts into their income.

Universe 25, a study on mice which showed that as populations grew the parent mice cared less and less for their own offspring with each new generation.
I realize that most people are not logical thinkers.  They want kids, they want a big house, they want new cars, and they are not willing to make any sacrifices.  They make excuses for why they put their kid(s) in day care, they say they could not afford to stay home, but in all reality they just did not make the right choices so they could stay home.  They wanted too much stuff instead!

Again, as a low income person, if my husband and I could figure out a way for one of us to always stay home, for sure a couple making a higher income should be able to figure it out too.

Over all though, parents would be wise to remember that one kid is expensive, more will not be cheaper.

The world is not at a loss for population, we need to control our numbers, there is no need for people who produce more and more kids that they are unwilling to look after and will put in the trust of strangers.   Is this the result of human overpopulation? Or the result of human greed?