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Which of us do NOT want to get married, or breed?


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Hold on...I will quote myself again...

You post a lot more often than I do. Odd how I thought of that, though, since I don't read science fiction or other Neurovore posts from when I'm not active on AVEN...

Anyway, what are the requirements for getting a license to have children? Aside from major genetic defects, I'd be all for a simple IQ test. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something genetic about intelligence.

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Yes, but there are many forms of intelligence that are not accurately measured by an IQ test.

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That is why I think that financial stability, criminal history, and housing conditions should be looked into.

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mouth brooder

I think I came across a statistic once that the most educated people had the fewest children...

But seeing how stupid school has become, that probably isn't true anymore.

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Jumping into this thread way late...

I don't want to have children. On rare occasions I feel the 'baby bug' hit, but I equate it to my sex drive-- it's a physical desire that I don't want to do anything about.

I'm not interested in marriage. Long-term partnership is great, why change it to anything else?

I must say, though, that my inner idealist is a bit offended by the fact that so many of you seem to hate people who want to get married/have children-- what's wrong with that? Most of us wouldn't be here if our parents hadn't wanted children.

Regarding the idea that babies should be 'created' in labs... I don't know. That just seems so... cold to me. Like the parents would be lacking personal ties to the children, then. Maybe it's the traditional sci-fi futuristic image of emotionlessness, but that's the image it gives me.

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Regarding the idea that babies should be 'created' in labs... I don't know. That just seems so... cold to me. Like the parents would be lacking personal ties to the children, then. Maybe it's the traditional sci-fi futuristic image of emotionlessness, but that's the image it gives me.

Having reckless sex and discarding resulting unwanted children to let them rot while no one adopts them sounds cold to me. I don't hate people who wan't children, but I think people who do want children should go about it responsibly. Especially in the case of infertile couples, why invest so much grief in infertility clinics trying to have children naturally? Obviously, nature doesn't want said people to breed!

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No, I definitely get what you're saying about stuff like that. But I believe that if people want to have children through sex then that should be their right.

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if people want to have children through sex then that should be their right.

That should be, but in a welfare state, it should be the decision of the people paying to raise those children. I don't need to name any particular places, but you do see the inherent potential for abuse in places that might directly or indirectly give people selfish incentives to breed.

If people are sterilized from a young age using reversible procedures, then it would at least be a safeguard against people who would have children just to buy free money or for other insidious purposes, or worse, people who would just have children accidentally. Of course, if people could take responsibility to begin with, then it really wouldn't be anyone else's business.

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Neurovore

I cannot speak for everyone here, but it seems that too many people surrender themselves to marriage and children without thinking it through. There is not enough emphasis on the cons of such a life, and it makes many people miserable when they find out that it is not what they expected it to be. Then the divorce courts are clogged up for months, and it turns into a beauraucratic nightmare for many divorcing people. This in turn causes extra expense for the government and taxpayers.

With children, there are so many assorted laws and ordinances set up "for the sake of the children" that ordinary single adults are often treated like second class citizens. Single adults have rights too, and we do face some discrimination. Especially in regards to taxing. As a single and childless adult, why should I pay school taxes when I do not have children?

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Okay, I'll second what Neurovore just posted as a selfish reason. I don't know if I mentioned it here or elsewhere, but some people will have children not to secure welfare, but so they can fit their social ideal or out of peer pressure and what not. Who wants to be the childless couple in an idyllic suburban paradise?

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Neurovore

As to the idea of ectogenesis being "cold" keep in mind that it would probably be a lot less fuss and more humane than the current system we have right now. Besides, we are going to have to do SOMETHING in order to plan population growth responsibly in the future. We cannot continue as we are forever.

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That could prevent a lot of miscarriages. Of course, a lot more research is needed. As concerns natural birth and gestation, there may be more than meets the eye. Still, I just get the feeling that there are far too many people who abuse their reproductive powers more than those who would use them sensibly. Temporary sterilization procedures would not be too extreme or invasive, especially if there were a population crisis or other political problem that mandated it. At least, it would be less extreme than mandatory castrations, abortions, or adoptions, to be sure.

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Neurovore

I do not believe that anyone has a "right" to breed, as it does not satisfy any biological needs, like food, water, shelter, etc. No one ever died from not having children. The impact on other people is also too great, to not take them into account. A child just doesn't affect you, it also affects society at large because of all the resources it consumes. Children consume a disproportionate amount of human and natural resources compared to adults. They also generate a disproportionate amount of waste.

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mouth brooder

You know that bumper sticker:

If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em.

is not referring to miniature Schnauzers.

Like Neurovore said, the mistake is in thinking that people have a right to have children.

It isn't cold. It isn't warm. It just is.

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If there were no society, people could breed as much as they wanted to, and would have to follow through somehow. In this day and age, however, too many people have children at the expense of other people. That is to say, I don't want to have children, but for every other breeder who does, I still foot the bill somehow, either through taxes for schools and welfare or dealing with the larger consequences, such as unnecessary consumption and secondary crimes committed by people involved in irresponsible breeding. The problem is all the worse when people neither want the children nor the consequences, and yet they still pop them out.

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mouth brooder

And it looks like we can't go back to presociety days, so might as well forge ahead,...BANG! Hey, did I just hear the top blow off another nuke? Maybe we will be going back to presociety days after all.

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Neurovore

Not even that will solve our problem. You know how prolific the human species is, for a large animal. We could always follow the suggestion by Jonothan Smith in "A Modest Proposal".

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Hallucigenia

I don't think that school taxes can be said to only benefit people with children... after all, the people who go to the schools you're helping pay for are the people who are going to be helping pay for your pension and medicare later in your life, whether or not they're biologically yours. Not to mention that they're going to be running the infrastructure of society eventually. It's not just a "Pay for this luxury for my kid!" kind of thing.

Of course, that still doesn't justify people having a ton of kids and then refusing to take proper care of them.

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Absolutely. If future generations weren't getting dumber and dumber and more neglected, I wouldn't so much mind it. I know what it's like to deal with poorly educated young people. Still, when the problem is that parents aren't parenting, then no matter how much money you pour into schools, the kids are going to be screwed up.

I'm all for opportunities and education, so I wouldn't complain about school taxes if I weren't convinced that my money was being wasted. Incidentally, where I'd been working now, I've found a good way to get out of these local taxes and such, so now I really can't complain for myself, but on principle, I'll stick up for my fellow indignant childless friends. I'm guessing that most people can't claim all the odd legal residences that I can with my frequent relocation.

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Neurovore

Instead of requiring everyone to pay school taxes for children, why not ask if people who are child-free want to make a donation?

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Because then they might not get our money, Neurovore!

I'd also like to add the complaint that NON-childless couples who are pursuing a different educational option for their children still have to pay school taxes, frequently taking away from the money they need to provide their own children with a good education.

And, on topic, I can imagine a long-term relationship, but I think the odds of such a thing happening are negligible given the kind of person I am. I don't think I'd biologically reproduce, because I wouldn't want to bring a child into the world if it were going to be as isolated from it as I was. I also don't think I'd adopt a baby, because I wouldn't know what kind of person it would grow up to be and there are many kinds I don't think I could deal with.

Marriage or no marriage, I can imagine myself adopting a sufficiently wonderful child (read: nerd) of 8-10 and over.

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Neurovore

Actually, the contention that people might not donate, opens another can of worms.

Childfree people who have never had children are a very small minority compared to the rest of the adult population. Second, it would have to be determined just how much money childfree people and corporations would be willing to donate to the public education fund, in addition to taxing people who have or have had children. Many non-prophet organizations do not go wanting in this country. If you really want to get creative, you could try investing some of the funding for public education into the stock market, or some sort of growth fund. There is also the matter of efficiency. Much of the money that is given to education is spent on new football uniforms and pads, instead of new books and desks. Effective utilization of money is also part of financing. Lastly, considering the state of American k-12 education, we would also have to consider the possibility of offering more options for private and home-schooling.

Any of these solutions I have highlighted could bear some more looking into, and a combination of all three might probably be for the best.

There are some people who would say that this would put too much of a financial burden on the parents. It is not known as many of these approaches have yet to be tried. Looking at the math, science, and english scores of many students (In my country at least.) most everyone agrees that the education system should be overhauled.

Parents should also keep in mind, that financial planning should be part of the decision to have a child. Having children should not be done on a whim, and there is no reason why other people should have to suffer from someone else's bad judgement. If people are unable to provide for their children financially, then the child should be taken by the state to be put up for adoption. I think that the price to "buy" an adopted child should be much lower, and I also think that the process of adoption is laden with too much government red tape. Due to our current system, many would-be parents get discouraged when navigating through the maze of rules and regulations. By making adoption easier, we could also reduce the population of orphans.

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I agree with everything you've just said, but unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that people won't want to go from a system in which their default educational option is "guaranteed" to a system in which they might have to fork over money themselves for it. By and by large, people are sheep, and the people who have kids that they'll have difficulty supporting because of societal pressures ("first comes love, then comes marriage...") are more likely to fall into this category than others.

I've never felt that schooling=education anyway, so I don't think the public *schooling* craze is necessarily a good thing on the whole. Yes, sometimes public schools and compulsory attendance laws allow children whose parents would otherwise confine and abuse/neglect them to contact the outside world and (maybe) learn something. They also encourage parents to forgo any intelligent thought about what type of educational setting is best for their child and stick him/her on whatever bus drives past their front door. This, too, is geared towards the societal-pressure family. Want your mum to have grandbabies, but have absolutely no clue what to do with them yourself? Don't worry, the society that encouraged the creation of these crits will give you step-by-step instructions on turning them into cogs for its own great machine.

So we wind up with wonderful horror stories about special education kids being abused by teachers without any training whatsoever and bright kids being told by their teachers that they should try "get[ting] high and get[ting] laid."

Note: everything above applies only to America and some parts of the U.K., Canada and France, since I have no idea about the state of public schooling outside those areas.

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Hallucigenia

I agree about the "alternative educational options" thing.

The government of Ontario tried a few years back to implement a tax break to families who were sending their children to private schools, so that they wouldn't have to bear the financial burden of both systems at once. Everybody got so offended! I couldn't figure it out. Apparently wanting alternative education for your kids means that you are a horrible elitist rich snob.

It reminds me of some of the stuff that vits has posted...

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Hallucigenia:

I agree about the "alternative educational options" thing.

The government of Ontario tried a few years back to implement a tax break to families who were sending their children to private schools, so that they wouldn't have to bear the financial burden of both systems at once. Everybody got so offended! I couldn't figure it out. Apparently wanting alternative education for your kids means that you are a horrible elitist rich snob.

It reminds me of some of the stuff that vits has posted...

I suspect that it's more a question of realizing that when these kids go to private schools, their parents' volunteering efforts and their own classroom contributions will go as well. Thus, one source of opposition to anything that enables concerned parents to put their kids into alternate educational situations is always the parents who don't care enough to move their own kids but who recognize that they can profit from the others.

When I was 9 (?), my parents removed me from a public school to homeschool me, since the public schools in my area were rather adversarial towards anyone diagnosed as sufficiently "bright." (It was around the time I finished writing my first decent literary work, which didn't go over well with my teacher.) The number one source of venom was from people who acknowledged that I was being hurt by the situation, but felt that academically-poorer-than-average students were being helped by my presence, and that it is generally more important to benefit the latter group than the former.

Many of these people (most?) were teachers and administrators. I'm not sure whether that makes it better or worse. Probably worse.

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people who acknowledged that I was being hurt by the situation, but felt that academically-poorer-than-average students were being helped by my presence, and that it is generally more important to benefit the latter group than the former.

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me of that. That's why my parents finally yanked me out of the public school system when I was 11. You've got to wonder how long a system can live when it goes out of its way to penalize success and achievement.

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people who acknowledged that I was being hurt by the situation, but felt that academically-poorer-than-average students were being helped by my presence, and that it is generally more important to benefit the latter group than the former.

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me of that. That's why my parents finally yanked me out of the public school system when I was 11. You've got to wonder how long a system can live when it goes out of its way to penalize success and achievement.

Well, if the majority of the people with power over the system are not successful and harbor sufficient ill will/ignorance towards the successful ("let's chop the goose open! then we'll be even wealthier!"), it can live a long time.

Mediocrity is a dangerous friend and a lethal opponent. :twisted:

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alexparker

Just wanted in on this.

Satan will be shopping for iceskates before I have children. I'd rather do anything else. Anything. Really. And I loathe weddings.

Also, Brave New World keeps coming up. My friends think I hate it because it's a dystopia and you're supposed to object to the ideas presented in it, but really I'm just very repulsed by how all the people go around having sex with each other all the time! The kids are encouraged to! Even if they're not having children as a result... what are the asexuals supposed to do? A society that expects everyone to sleep with everyone is my worst nightmare.

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I do not believe that anyone has a "right" to breed, as it does not satisfy any biological needs, like food, water, shelter, etc. No one ever died from not having children.

I think that's a rather cruel thing to say. You can't survive with only food, water and shelter, humans are too smart for that, we would go crazy. Having children is part of the dreams of a lot of people. Ask anyone who's infertile and trying to have kids if they're happy, after all, noone ever died from having children. Plenty of people have become depressed over it, I'm sure some have committed suicide. Saying "You can't have kids because of x" isn't fair, for someone as diverse as we are, there is not "One size fits all". No matter what the criteria, there will be some horrible parents who fit the bill, and some fabulous parents who don't.

Saying someone can't have children is like saying to someone "You can't become a doctor/lawyer/whatever career you want to have." "You can't live where you want to live." "You can't marry who you want." "You can't own the things you want to own." "You can't be friends with your friends." Noone ever died from having those rights taken away, but it's still a terrible thing to do to someone.

I don't want to get married or have children, but having a family is what makes some people happy. I don't think it could ever be regulated.

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