Even if I accept your assumptions, which I do not, how is it irresponsible? Do people in this country have some sort of obligation to rid themselves of affluence so as to be more on par with the rest of humanity? Who assigned that responsibility? If it’s true, then Jennifer Aniston, Ancy Pelosi, Cameron Diaz, and Andrianna Huffington are enemies of humanity, given their respective standards of living.
Your argument requires us to assume that a large percentage of this country is “irresponsible” for being, as you put it, “resource wasting.”
It’s true that, in directly responding to my posts, you have been reasonably civil. But you have certainly been insulting, patronizing and condescending in this thread.
While I’ll agree that neither of those two statements is what I’d call polite, I would classify them as neither patronizing nor condescending. I’ll give you marginally insulting for the first example–but not so towards the poster to whom I was responding.
I just can’t seem to parse the idea that having extra children is wasteful or selfish, yet we’ve also (mostly) determined that you shouldn’t look at the last child and say “You shouldn’t have been born”. If we go with [whoever]'s comment that we should instead say “You should have been born to different families.”, how is that different or less wasteful? The argument now has been reduced to the fact that bringing more people into this world is bad because there’s already a lot of us here. This argument has nothing to do with whether or not they should belong to one family or several families.
In other words, the argument is now “The family should stop having kids because the world is overcrowded.” How does that logic not apply to a childless couple looking to have their first kid? That argument means that NO family should have kids. Unless, of course, you say that each family has some sort of inherent limit…a “kid cap”, if you will. That’s just silly and I won’t even try to prove it.
So far, it seems we’ve determined:
A. The Duggers do not leech off others.
B. It’s not fair to claim that another sibling worsens a child’s environment, despite claims of iPods, vacations, and college being opted against.
C. The Duggers have the right to do what they want.
D. The kids are well-treated.
E. It’s possible to bond with the kids/each other.
I say these have been declared because people seem to have stopped arguing them. Is there anyone that will argue that any of the above conclusions haven’t been reached?
When one person believes he is in a position to determine when another persons vagina should be stapled shut, that first person is arrogating to himself a superior position which he in no way should hold or erecise. That is the very defintiion of patronizing.
Moreover, dismissing my example and complaint – which, I assure you, is quite keenly and legitimately felt, with “Sorry, you’ll have to do better than that,” is the very definition of condescending.
Based on that, I would say that your earlier statement (“I don’t believe I’ve been any of those things to you, but if you show me where I have, I’ll be more than happy to apologize for it as it certainly wouldn’t have been my intent”) which on its face was conciliatory, was in fact a sham, and you had absolutely no intention of apologizing or even recognizing where your words might have been offensive.
That being the case, I’ll be quite pleased if you exercise the option you alluded to moments ago:
Note carefully the bolded word. I meant the statement sincerely within the constraints of that word.
I will not be drawn further into this ridiculous semantic hijack. If you want to discuss the issue at hand, that’s great, but I’m not playing your silly games.
Why is that so implausible an assumption? People living in McMansions and driving SUVs are definitely irresponsible. I have no problem asserting and arguing that. The US uses, what, 25% of all the world’s energy? It seems pretty obvious that we are irresponsible resource wasters.
Humans don’t get swatted to death by other annoyed humans (I can dream…).
Our technology, decidedly NOT a part of the circle of life, has made us immune (in the big scheme of things) to all of mama nature’s checks and balances. Only thing left to stop us from consuming ourselves to nothing will be our own foresight and preemptive action. Maybe a catastrophic natural disaster here and there
Because once we know for sure it will likely be too late? Think about it, nobody is asking for huge sacrifices, just that people acknowledge +/- 18 kids makes a large difference in the long run in a world where people don’t friggin die (relatively speaking). Nobody is absolutely demanding anything either. On the other hand, if we ignore even the possibility of the problem, one day it’ll bite us in the ass and then we’ll be faced with some tough choices.
I can understand why you find the idea of a “kid cap” so silly, but the sad truth is that there is a practical limit to the number of kids per couple the world can sustain indefinitely. Whatever this unknown “cap” may be, 18 is in my opinion cutting into other couples’ quota. Yes, the word ‘quota’ probably made you cringe, but try to think of it in the more reasonable ‘we can’t all have all of everything, lets make sure everyone can have some without going over the limit’ sense.
Another argument would be that if 18 kids were born to nine different couples rather than just the Duggars, it would be arguably “better” for our gene pool. Nothing conclusive, just something to chew on.
There is also the ‘law of diminishing returns’ angle to argue here, and again I’m not going to pretend this is anything more than opinion, but I think there is a point where the marginal benefit of anything, children included, begins to decrease. In which case one more child would be of more utility at the same societal cost, being born to a childless and desperate couple.
US total fertility rate - 2.10 in 2008 according to the CIA factbook, 2.05 in 2006 according to the UN. The US is in 127th place in both lists. List of countries by total fertility rate - Wikipedia
Yes, much of the front end of that list is taken up by third world countries, but elbows and Sophistry and Illusion have already pointed out that the average American is hardly average in resource consumption.
Perhaps that’s true, but in the real world we can’t arbitrarily switch children around and assign them to whatever family we think would be best for them. The childless and desperate couple couple will probably remain childless and desperate, so the overall number of people in the world remains unchanged.
I say that as a member of one of those childless and desperate couples.
In fact this experience may explain way I feel the way I do about this issue. We already have physiological issues preventing us from having children, it seems. I resent having societal ones imposed as well.
Yea, but what if its an imaginary problem, and we cause more problems than we solve? As I have pointed out trends indicate demographic decline in the first world, and a decline in the rate of demographic increase in the third world. Why work on solving something that is solving itself?
Yeah, but I bet there are 8 couples here on the SDMB who won’t ever have kids that balance out that quota and account for the fact that Americans are breeding below replacement rate. On a conservative religious message board where I post, there is this guy that is super paranoid that smart people in the world aren’t breeding enough. So he’s terrified in the opposite direction of what people here are advocating. To me both sides are irrational.
Yeah, but human life isn’t merely measured by utility. The Duggers do not keep other people from breeding, and there is no evidence presented here that their children have a poor life.
The average American is hardly average in resource consumption, and I appreciate you pointing out that we are actually at replacement rate, not above, nor below it. The Duggers however, are below the average consumption, at least that is one of the arguments up for contention, that they cannot provide the same material concerns that most people expect for their children. No iPods for Dugger children perhaps.
Why, though? Who assigned us the responsibility of living up to the a world average dragged down by people living in mud huts in Togo? Should we average out our legal code to, and start stoning women for adultery after they’re raped? (Perhaps only 50% of the time, just to even us out with the parts of the world that does it full time.)
Why should we? Who decided that we are somehow responsible for this?
The claim seems to be that we have some responsibility to keep our energy use to the per capita world average, and I’m just wondering if energy is the only area in which we must conform to world averages. I didn’t get the memo from On High that mandated this rule, so I’m obviously not clear on all the details.
I note, for example, that we have a higher minimum wage than much of the rest of the world. I assume, following the same logic, we should be adjusting that to match. That’s an obvious consequence of using less energy. We should probably stop using things like MRI machines, because the people of Benin and Laos don’t have nearly the average access to them that we do.
Or maybe this rule about conforming our energy use to theirs is crap, eh?
I really think that more than replacement plus maybe 1 or 2 for the hell of it is beyonds the grounds of sensible, for a number of reasons. I dont have kids, so I joke that my friends daughters in excess of 4 [they have 6] are mine but she had them. I will never have kids, and really dont like kids or the idea of having kids, so it isnt so bad. I know that there are a fair number of couples opting to not have kids for different reasons, but I could see legally capping the number of kids allowed before tax penalties apply [like in many SF futures]
I haven’t seen anyone but you say anything about conforming to averages, or rules about energy use, but granting, for the sake of the argument, that such an assertion has been made, how can you average a justice system? It makes no sense. I ask again, what does a justice system have to do with conserving energy?
Yes, well… thank goodness you are not in charge, will never be in charge, and would be a disaster if you WERE in charge of public policy-making in this area.
And since we’re drawing on SF novels for guidance, I would just note that once we have matter replicators in place, all this carping about resources is going to seem pretty silly.
I have no idea, but since I was unaware of the mandate to reduce our energy use based on the “world average,” I can’t really adequately address the point. If I knew what rationale (and what authority) was imposing the rule for energy, I might be a bit clearer on whther or not its applicable to justice systems. Now, I’m simply asking the question.
It’s not just the percentage of the world’s resources that we use; it’s the total amount. For example, the developed world is responsible for most greenhouse gases, and since the US uses so much energy we are disproportionately responsible for AGW. This is one way in which the US is a resource hog, and overuses resources which are limited. I’m saying that as more countries become developed and wealthy (like India and China), countries like the US are going to have to dial back our per capita resource consumption because having the Americans and the Chinese and the Indians consume at these rates is unsustainable.
Or maybe your reading of my argument is crap, eh? Saying that X overuses a resource is not the same as saying everyone should use the same amount of the resource, unless you are a strict egalitarian, which no one is. Justice =! absolute equality; justice = people having the share they deserve, and nobody taking more than they have a right to (or being forced to take less than they have a right to).
I’m trying not to be snarky, Bricker, because you are one of the posters I consistently have a lot of respect for, but man you’re pissing me off. I really don’t think you’re trying very hard to fairly represent what I’m saying.
