this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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It seems though that our pension system is failing, as you pointed out yourself. So maybe having a stable number of children is the better pension system?
Given the productivity rate that we have in industrialized countries, we don't need 5 children per mother, but 2 seem reasonable. And there isn't "more than enough" people. Any number of "enough" is arbitrary, until the planetary limits are exceeded from the number of people. But we could easily sustain another 2-4 billion more people with a good life, if we would get rid of capitalism.
Sure, but how likely is that? Shouldn't we start on filling the planet up to that limit only once we have a better system, not now?
We could also stabilise pension systems by allowing in immigrants to work the jobs that aren't getting done tight now. Skilled craftspeople are needed, and if they help us with pensions and get a better life for their families out of it, even better, right?
I think there should be no limits to immigration, but we also need to avoid deliberately robbing other countries of their skilled work force. Germany for instance has installed programs to get nurses from countries like Romania, which then are lacking there. Meanwhile they are faced with strong racism here, the notion being that they should feel grateful and accept being subjected to shitty (and often illegal) working conditions.
When you look at the people "invited" for working in agriculture or slaughterhouses you often find conditions that fulfill many criteria of forced labor.
And telling people they shouldn't have children is one step towards enforcing them not having children. And this will be done along ethnical lines and it will be genocide. That is why we need to reject this notion, before the idea becomes normalised and then the fascists say "obviously population control is needed for the other people, not us"
That's a very good point of course - brain drain is a problem and we shouldn't encourage it. I suppose I'd rather propose encouraging countries to offer refugees good educations. I am explicitly talking about jobs that require training and come with an expectation of a good life - I agree that the jobs in agriculture and slaughterhouses and such are inhumane.
I don't think we should tell people not to have children. I just think that we should stop telling them that putting more humans on this world is the moral option or their duty. I think we should at least encourage people thinking of having kids to consider the consequences that has, and then leave the choice to them.