Yes, when she started losing her wits inexplicably her ability to make new friends suffered. It’s baffling really. :rolleyes:
You’re simply incorrect on this and have clearly not followed the recent economic downturn like, at all, and are ignorant of its underlying causes, and do not comprehend what is happening in whole markets where homes are literally rotting.
Your inability to understand a basic concept is not the same as me not making sense. Attorneys are not patient advocates, you really don’t get it. It’s astounding. You think your attorney is going to come and make sure you are being rolled over to avoid getting bedsores. Really? You wouldn’t do that to a friend? Are you that disconnected from human interaction that you really reduce everything in your life to a business transaction? Attorneys are not patient advocates. If no one loves you, no one is going to come and make sure the nurses are caring for you properly. That doesn’t change just because you have money. This whole ranting about parents with an entitlement attitude makes no sense at all. The parents are the only thing ensuring that your pensions maintain any value at all, by having children to drive the economy. Where do you get the idea that children being born are eating away at your pension?
All of your arguments are missing the fundamental point. That in order for there to be an economy full of workers when you are too old to work, someone somewhere, had to give birth to them. That nurse who will roll you over, is someone’s child. That attorney is again, someone’s child. It would be incredibly ironic if the attorney you hired as your patient advocate was my daughter, or if the nurse that rolled you over was my sister’s son.
But as you have repeatedly said, you only care about the impact upon you, because you have no investment in future generations. You do not care whether or not the plentiful workers who are around now, the younger generation you will hire to care for you, you do not care if THEY will have enough people to run the economy when THEY are too old. Just you.
I don’t know how rare big families are in the US these days - check out Quiverfull, plus there is Jon & Kate Plus 8, the Duggars, 14 and Counting (which might be a show about the Duggars, I have never watched) and Octomom. Locally, we have a lot of Catholics, so small families here are the rarity!
As I’ve said, it isn’t likely to be an issue for me as I should die of old age before there are any serious problems. The irony is that if I’m right, it will be your child and grandchildren that will have to live thru it, partially due to your lack of belief.
Even if the US did close it’s border, I’m not sure it would stop the flow of illegals across our southern border. And if it did, that wouldn’t do much about the overpopulation problem in Mexico, would it?
Ah, so 2.1 being generally accepted is good enough for you and you don’t stop to think at all? Look at the number to begin with - 2.1 is obviously more than replacement, right? Not a lot, but more. Then, they base this on per woman, as if men have nothing to do with reproduction. Then, they fail to address the fact that people are living much longer, that it is no longer common for people to die before their grandchildren are born. You need to learn to think for yourself and not just swallow what the government and Faux News tell you.
This doesn’t make much sense but I’ll try. Yes, most folks live in the cities and suburbs, but those suburbs are spreading out every year. It may not be happening as quickly in your midwest, but on the left coast, open land is being gobbled up. The Chino dairy preserve is gone for example, so they could build houses on that land. There is no separation between cities in all of LA and Orange counties, and probably San Diego county too.
When you build houses on land, you can’t grow food there, right? Well, maybe you don’t understand that since you say “urban gardening has become quite popular these days” as if that makes up for the loss of farmland.
No, you don’t get it, which is just amazing and a bit pathetic. If a woman has two children, and they each have two children, and they each have two children, if the original woman makes it to 70 which isn’t unusual, and everyone had their kids in their 20’s, which also isn’t unusual, by the time the original woman dies, there will be at least 15 people on this earth to “replace” that original woman. Even if you divide it in half and give the half to whoever sired her children, that is still 7.5 persons to one.
Google - go have a look.
Snort. Do you really think that serving coffee is a necessary function in keeping our country strong? What would happen if all of the coffee houses disappeared tomorrow - chaos? As for the rest of that, it isn’t worthy of response.
Little late now, dontchathink?
Slightly ABOVE! And that only if both parents die before their children start having children.
I am saying no such thing.
It is an accepted assumption by quite a few experts - you should go read up on it.
Oh brother. So, no matter what sort of life they might have, no matter how negatively they affect the world around them, you think it is repulsive if I suggest on a message board that they shouldn’t have been born?
Which has what to do with anything?
Your problems with immigration are not the issue here, but your lack of historical perspective sure is.
Guesses? You find the CIA World Factbook to be a non-credible source? You do realize that the bulk of demographic data is based on estimation right?
What does the overpopulation problem in Mexico have to do with me? I’m supposed to stop breeding because illiterate peasants in another country will not?
It’s based off of a ratio of births to deaths. I don’t recall the last time I watched Fox News. But I see you are moving into the realm of conspiracy theory. I am fooled by the government yet you were the one quoting census data. Yes you’re right the CIA’s mind control rays got to me, you are lucky to be immune. :rolleyes:
They don’t ignore that people are living longer, if you actually followed the link you’d see data on death rates and life expectancy as well. They record it as 2.1 per woman because that accounts for the men with the assumption of a 1-1 correspondence between men to women, that’s why it’s 2.1 rather than 1.05.
Actually recent trends show suburbs contracting not expanding as people are moving back to the cities in droves. You happen to live in one of the areas where people are accumulating. I like how it’s ‘MY’ midwest, here in rural Manhattan I don’t know anything about what it’s like to live in a densely populated area. :rolleyes:
You’ll have to provide me a cite that shows that farmland is lost to a point that we cannot sustain ourselves. And yes, urban gardening does make a significant impact upon the food supply.
I get it, what you don’t get is that demographers account for that too, and I don’t need to bring it up constantly as the data I am relying on already accounts for that. That’s where death rate and life expectancy come into the equation.
If you can’t be bothered to cite your own sources I am going to simply assume you made it up and not bother to follow the thread of the conversation. You made the statement, back it up with evidence. It’s how we do things around here.
Yes actually, millions of people would be out of work. Maybe Guide dog trainers are an unecessary job too. I mean why do we need to ensure that the genetically deficient blind take up more of our resources? After all the dogs you breed have a carbon footprint as do the blind people they help. :rolleyes:
No, not at all. Because ‘not breeding’ isn’t the only option to deal with it. If it kills her then it’ll solve the dilemma you pose anyway. So it’s value neutral when posed against never having been born to begin with. Medical science has progressed quite a long way and people in my family, myself and others have survived having the condition. Everyone dies, or so they tell me.
Insisting it doesn’t make it true. You’re simply wrong. 2.1 is not slightly above replacement rate, it is AT replacement rate as defined by demographers and not some lady on the SDMB.
No but your argument supports that much better than it supports being against breeding. You are saying that my people, Americans who are breeding at right under replacement rate should breed less because other people are breeding above replacement rate. So your argument doesn’t really support that Americans should breed less, but that Mexicans should breed less and that Americans shouldn’t let them into the country so readily.
I have read up on it, and there are many experts who also disagree with it, you should go read up on it since you fail to comprehend even the basic concepts of demography like replacement rate.
I don’t think she impacts the world negatively. And yes, it’s repulsive that you say my daughter should never have been born. Maybe YOU should never have been born.
Those who really think the world is overpopulated should do something about overpopulation themselves instead of expecting others who don’t believe the world is overpopulated to capitulate to their demands. You are saying my daughter should never have been born, and I am saying if you think the world is truely overpopulated you can go kill yourself. You’re not going to of course because you’d rather think that overpopulation is being caused by OTHER people. You’re like the kind of person that wants to make a club exclusive AFTER they let YOU in.
I am not the one who has the problem with immigration. You were the one complaining about the population growth of the United States. It is easily demonstrable that American breeding is not contributing to overpopulation in the United States, that it is caused ENTIRELY by immigration. American breeding is slightly below replacement rate, replacement rate being established by demographers and not by your personal opinion, that is.
OK, we’ll just ignore the fact that not everyone “loses their wits” in old age. How far back did this happen? She had no friends when she died?
And you know it all? Based on what Faux News is telling you? I know a lot of the younger generation believes everything they are told, but I did kind of hope it wasn’t all of them…
You know the conditions everywhere in the country, and have some sort of seeing eye ball that tells you how long this will last? Uh huh…
Oh gosh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had made up your own definition for patient advocate!
No, see, it’s the opposite. I would not expect a friend to turn me over in bed, that is what health care workers do. And of course, this all assumes I will be infirm before I die - you do realize that many people are active and reasonably healthy up until the end?
You don’t understand the entitlement because you are the parent. Every year I pay more and more in taxes, for services, for goods, because parents get breaks in taxes, “kids eat free!”, “kids stay free!”, parents pay less for insurance, more schools need to be built and on and on. If my husband’s salary doesn’t keep up with all of that, then we will have to cash out one or more of our 401Ks to pay the bills. Then, even if we do make it to retirement with everything intact, will it be enough?
And you are missing the fundamental point - we have always had quite a few people out of work. How about you all slow down on the production of grunt workers until everyone has a job? If it turns out that we end up with a lack of bed turners and coffee servers, there are several countries that would love for us to import those workers.
What I have done is point out the irony that it isn’t me that has to worry about what the world will be like when I am gone, as I am not leaving any children or grandchildren to deal with the damage being done. Yet you as a parent wave all of the facts, opinions and projections away without concern. Amazing.
She’s not dead. As I said her daughter is the one who comes to see her. When you are in your mid-nineties you’ve outlived most of your friends, even the ones you made in your seventies.
What’s this about Fox News with you? I don’t even watch Fox News. Actually you are quite hoping young people will believe what you are telling them, that’s why you are arguing by assertion and dismissing the definition of accepted terms. It is precisely because I am thinking critically that you are irritated.
It’s called reading. I never said anything about how long things would last, I said based on current trends.
I’ll admit that I was using it poorly. But as you are missing the point intentionally I’ll drop this line. May you live as long as your pension allows in some kind of care facility and may you have a good business relationship with the only person who even thinks about you outside of the nurses while you slowly die over the course of a decade or so.
You didn’t read what I read. The person who cares about you isn’t there to turn you over they are there to ensure that the people who don’t love you, are doing the job they are paid to do properly. May you be active and reasonably healthy up until the end.
:rolleyes: And I am tired of my taxes going to support the old. :rolleyes:
I am not producing grunt workers, I am producing skilled ones. Demographic decline doesn’t manifest in the loss of unskilled laborers, but in the loss of skilled ones. But you probably knew that being the expert and all. We already have a lack of bed turners, most people refer to them as nurses and we perennially have a nursing shortage.
That’s not ironic. It’s a simple fact. You have no investment in the future, and therefore you don’t really care. Nothing ironic about it. Your posts have been significantly light on cited facts. So you can hardly argue I waved away the facts. I could make your argument better than you are making it, because I’ve actually looked into this issue. I know about the goats eating scrub grass along the Sahara in Mauritania contributing to the growth of the Sahara and the loss of whole communities as they must retreat from the encroaching desert. That is an example of localized overpopulation, and a much better argument than any of the ones you’ve come up with.
When you say something that has nothing to do with the subject thereby proving my assertion that you don’t know what you are talking about, yeah probably.
You are gambling your daughter’s future on permaculture? Okaaay. Tell me, are you living like that yourself?
As for the population stabilizing worldwide, if true why do you suppose that is? Could it be because a majority is finally realizing that continuing to reproduce in large numbers isn’t a good idea?
No, I live in Manhattan in a nation that has no problem producing enough food for its people. Permaculture is more important in infertile lands that can be made fertile again.
The reasons are complicated I am sure, but feel free to confirm your bias if need be.
I find that the government tends to be a non-credible source.
Well, lets see. 10-15 years ago it was only the border states that had trouble with illegal Mexican immigrants, now it has spread quite a bit further north. Do you think all those starving folks down there will quit trying to get here just because you don’t want them to? If your state isn’t already feeding, clothing, housing and giving healthcare to a large population of illegals, I can’t imagine it will be long before it is. And it isn’t just Mexico that is filled with starving folks you know.
And you don’t see anything wrong with that? The fact they are ignoring the big piece in between - the number of people currently alive?
Yeah, right, I’m the one that is betting my future on theory…
Apparently they are if they think every woman having 2.1 kids is a “replacement rate”. I suppose you could manipulate the numbers to make it true, but common sense (which isn’t so common any more) shows that, if nothing else, we don’t have one person dieing for every baby born every day. Or every week, month, year…
Well, you said here in the midwest previously… According to stats in the thread on “Why the hatred for suburbs”, suburban sprawl is continuing tho I could believe it has been arrested by the recent mortgage issues. What I don’t believe is that it won’t continue once that has been dealt with - in the west at least, people don’t tend to want to raise their children in the city. More children equals a need for more housing, if not right away, at least when those children become old enough to want to live on their own. Perhaps your view is skewed by living in NYC.
Well, since I didn’t say that we have lost enough farmland that we cannot sustain ourselves, I won’t be posting a cite. Would like to see one that claims that having a garden in your backyard makes a significant impact tho.
Uh huh. How many things have you backed up with cites? Since I’ve forgotten what you are talking about there, if you remind me I’ll show you the cites - since I said Google, that means I found more than one.
Millions of people would be out of work if there were no coffee shops, which indicates that there is no need to produce more workers to keep the country productive. If by some strange chance we started running out of workers, then those that are currently handing coffee out would become far more valuable and be able to get far better jobs than a minimum wage one. Right now, you have far too many people devalued by the fact that there is such a competition for good jobs.
As for guide dog trainers and blind people, I have no idea since I’ve never done that. So I don’t know if getting a guide dog makes that much of an impact or not. And yes, each dog I have has a very small carbon footprint, but I can no more divide my and my husband’s footprints by five than you can by three.
Uh, OK, and you just got done telling me that it is repulsive to speak in general terms about children who shouldn’t have been born? But it’s OK for you to have just gone ahead and had that baby you just had to have, while taking a chance that whateveritis will kill her?
Ah, here we get to the base of it all for you - “my people”. Apparently it is OK with you if I say that most of the Mexicans shouldn’t have been born, even tho they are human too? That their beliefs and desires are less important than yours? That they should just stay in their dirty little country until it explodes (or implodes, whichever is first)? You who claimed the reason it was OK that you had a child was because “America needs workers”? We live in a global society now, you simply cannot base your population beliefs on what (you think) is happening in the US.
Then I guess it comes down to “my” experts against “your” experts. Since mine make logical sense, I tend to agree with them. But again, isn’t going to end up being my problem, is it?
Snerk. Well, since I do have many genetic diseases, and since I grew up with an abusive father, maybe I shouldn’t have been born. But I wasn’t involved in the decision to have me - you, however were involved in the decision to have your daughter. And, I wasn’t talking about your daughter in paticular, tho every human does impact the world negatively in some way. Babies in diapers usually impact it quite negatively. You also don’t know at this time how much she is going to impact the world as she grows and when she becomes an adult - just because she is your daughter doesn’t mean she poops rainbows and butterflies, and always will.
Oh brother. OK, lets start with - what demands have I made of you? It’s the other way around you know - you expect me to pay money and make room for your daughter simply because you wanted her. And now you think I should go kill myself to ease the overpopulation you contribute to? And that isn’t more repulsive than my thinking most children shouldn’t have been born? It appears that your tender feelings towards humanity only extend to the young, which of course is typical.
All I am going to say to this is I am not complaining about immigration of adults. Never have, never will.
Shrug, whatever. I certainly don’t expect to be down to only one person in the world that cares about me.
Except, you aren’t, you are just swallowing what the government is telling you without thinking about it. Or maybe you are just believeing whatever fits what you want to do, dunno. I am not irritated, I am alternately amused and amazed.
Well, given your reading comprehension here…
What, you mean like your grandmother-in-law or whatever the 90 year old is? The one who had kids, so they could “take care of her in her old age”?
What taxes?
You are the one that keeps harping on care facility workers - when I did that job, it was low paying grunt work. And, you have no idea what you have produced - for all you know, your daughter will get pregnant at 17, drop out of school and live off of you and/or the government.
As for demographic decline resulting in the loss of skilled labor more than unskilled, you are going to have to provide a cite for that one.
As have yours. When I say you are waving away facts, I’m talking about that reading and studying of the situation that you claim you have done.
As I said, you wave away facts…“oh gosh, we don’t have goats so this can’t apply!” :rolleyes:
Statistically speaking, you are completely wrong. Actually, doing the maths right, it comes out like this:
You can account either the parents (or just one parent) or the child for the increased carbon footprint, it doesn’t make any difference as long as you divide through the correct number of people…
BUT: it really gets complicated when you assign the increased carbon to the parents, because you need to deal with per capita footprints which are completely different for different people (see the end of my post).
The easiest solution to calculate it: each person is responsible for his own carbon footprint, i.e. you as an adult are responsible for the ultrasound your parents got when you were unborn. Your child is responsable for the ultrasound you have, as mswas proposed. As I said, it doesn’t make any difference, just the math gets easier!!
What is the result: getting another child creates more carbon, but also adds one more person, nothing changes.
You can come to same conclusion by adding the footprint to the parents. But then, you need to take into account having a child which did not get an ultrasound (etc. etc.) assigned, hence having a person which consumed much less carbon then his parents did during its lifetime. Unless it itself gets a child, which adds anotherperson. It quickly becomes complicated, but, the point is: Adding it all up you are equal to the situation described above. Just the maths is more difficult.
The conclusion is, getting children, relatively speaking, does not increase the carbon footprint. Per capita, that is. Saying the contrary is nonsense, get your science straight.
And this does not account for economy of scale. You mentioned bigger appartments etc. The bigger appartment will in general be smaller than two appartments (one for the parents, one for the child), so this actually DECREASES the relative carbon footprint.
