One must understand that the hormones which motivate breeding instinct in social mammals override all other considerations on a neurochemical level when someone has a baby–if those hormones and emotional systems are working correctly.
(Sometimes they aren’t, after all; everyone knows those statistical outlier individuals who stick out like a sore thumb for having no parental instincts.)
If a common-sense-overriding mechanism were not in place to drive reproduction, a species will go extinct.
It’s exactly the inability (more like refusal) of most of us to override our base instincts that is going to cause the extinction of not just ourselves, but most complex life on the planet along with us. I say that not just as someone with “no parental instincts,” but rather a humble human who actually uses the ability to see further than my nose.
Equally of course, if we use our mighty intellects to override our breeding instincts entirely then we’d arrive at the same extinction rather more quickly.
So you know, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Given our current birth rates in the western world I’m less worried about our breeding instincts than our inability to convince everyone that their children should live in a better world than them, apparently that’s the instinct that broke first.
We only settled on a “break even” point now that we’re many billions of people over capacity and society and the biosphere are collapsing. We needed to slow down a long time ago.
We could feed and clothe every single person on the planet right now with about one third of the resources that we use. We aren’t over capacity, we’re being murdered by the owners of about 100 companies across the globe that are responsible for 50% of global pollution.
Indefinitely. Overpopulation is a lie that corporations have fed you so you blame the average person for the repercussions of corporate greed. It’s the same propaganda campaign they used with littering so you don’t blame the companies dumping chemical waste in rivers, and the propaganda about jaywalking that shifted the blame from car companies for lethal pedestrian accidents that eventually saw roads being designed for cars first instead of people. Recycling programs started before we had a realistic way to recycle in order to get people used to the concept for when practical ways to recycle were actually developed, but recycling companies never bothered with that. They just shipped most stuff overseas to landfills in China.
The largest freight ships in the world each individually put out more emissions annually than every car on the planet combined. During the COVID lockdowns, vehicle used dropped dramatically across the globe - by something like 80%. And yet, global emissions barely budged during that time. Because the freighters and factories and all the other things that produce substantially more pollution were still running like normal. The US throws away 50% of the food it produces every year, and most of that waste is from companies and stores throwing away perfectly good food.
Corporations are the biggest factor in climate change and the death of every ecosystem on the planet. But they have reshaped the question and shifted the blame from themselves and the wealthy to the common man.
I’m not saying that we don’t have to change how we live, but while us using paper straws instead of plastic is a net good thing for the environment, even if every single person were to switch entirely, it would barely be a drop in the bucket compared to the excessive plastic waste generated by companies through single-use packaging. We need to question why companies are allowed to get away with it, not discuss how we’re going to uselessly cull the population so companies can keep doing what they’re doing.
We are not over capacity at all, this is a fucked up lie propagated by the rich western northern hemisphere people and the rich in general, the wealthiest 10% causes over 50% of the pollution.
We’re in a state of ecological overshoot, defined as a population consuming more resources than its environment can replenish. At its simplest, overshoot is a function of individual consumption x total population.
The Global Footprint Network calculates that we crossed this line in 1971, when both our global population (3.8B) and individual energy consumption (15.8kWh) were far lower than they are today (8.2B and 21.7kWh, respectively). Consider also that population is both a cause and effect of energy consumption.
the wealthiest 10% causes over 50% of the pollution.
You’re referring to CO2 emissions here (and it’s actually closer to 60%), but there are many other symptoms of overshoot. Habitat loss, species extinctions, overharvesting of resources, and other forms of pollution (industrial, particulate, trash) are huge problems in less wealthy nations. In South America, for example, we’ve seen a 95% loss of wildlife species over the past 50 years. The planetary boundaries framework is helpful for looking at overshoot more holistically, instead of focusing solely on emissions (although that’s important too).
In wealthy nations, populations are declining but consumption is unsustainable. In poorer nations, individual consumption is low but population growth is unsustainable. Only by reducing both do we have a hope of living equitably on this planet.
Wealthy nations decreasing consumption will have a knock on effect on habitat loss in South America for example, where a shit ton of rainforest is being killed to make pastures for beef that’s exported.
Poorer nation’s peak population estimates are declining every year, as life gets better and child mortality falls population growth lowers everywhere (another racist shit that’s spreading that poor nations are reproducing too much, btw).
Energy consumption is more or less useless measure with the rapid rise of renewables, although there are also efforts there to lower that everywhere.
Meh. My wife and I had kids based upon our own thoughts of how we wanted our life to go, not based upon some reproduction drive. The sex drive is a totally different thing, but there was no urge and pull to have kids for us.
We’ve had three kids and it’s been an incredible experience with very few downsides and massive upsides. I was not a “kid person” before having kids, but IMO it’s one of the peek good experiences in life.
What’s worse to me is that mother’s also forget the pain and awfulness of 9 months of pregnancy followed by childbirth, leading to them wanting another child.
Me too but that’s the smallest part of parenting, right? I felt so good pregnant, no migraines, insane sex drive, so healthy and it did a lot for my relationship with my body in general. Labor not bad,the baby coming out is terrible but didn’t take long, but after that it’s a very long road. I did love raising kids, but don’t think that has much to do with easy pregnancy.
There necessarily exists in all mammals (and also some other species as well such as several speeches of birds) a mechanism that will override all other motivators up to and including common sense if the specimen in question even manifests the feature of common sense in the first place.
One must understand that the hormones which motivate breeding instinct in social mammals override all other considerations on a neurochemical level when someone has a baby–if those hormones and emotional systems are working correctly.
(Sometimes they aren’t, after all; everyone knows those statistical outlier individuals who stick out like a sore thumb for having no parental instincts.)
If a common-sense-overriding mechanism were not in place to drive reproduction, a species will go extinct.
It’s exactly the inability (more like refusal) of most of us to override our base instincts that is going to cause the extinction of not just ourselves, but most complex life on the planet along with us. I say that not just as someone with “no parental instincts,” but rather a humble human who actually uses the ability to see further than my nose.
Equally of course, if we use our mighty intellects to override our breeding instincts entirely then we’d arrive at the same extinction rather more quickly.
So you know, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Given our current birth rates in the western world I’m less worried about our breeding instincts than our inability to convince everyone that their children should live in a better world than them, apparently that’s the instinct that broke first.
Not really. I’m sure our mighty intellects could have settled on a birth rate somewhere between 25 and 0. There are a lot of numbers in between.
I mean… the developed world has settled on slightly below break even (or very below break even in a few cases). So yes, that did happen
We only settled on a “break even” point now that we’re many billions of people over capacity and society and the biosphere are collapsing. We needed to slow down a long time ago.
We could feed and clothe every single person on the planet right now with about one third of the resources that we use. We aren’t over capacity, we’re being murdered by the owners of about 100 companies across the globe that are responsible for 50% of global pollution.
For how long? The current output is unsustainable. Respectfully, you’re not seeing the whole picture.
Indefinitely. Overpopulation is a lie that corporations have fed you so you blame the average person for the repercussions of corporate greed. It’s the same propaganda campaign they used with littering so you don’t blame the companies dumping chemical waste in rivers, and the propaganda about jaywalking that shifted the blame from car companies for lethal pedestrian accidents that eventually saw roads being designed for cars first instead of people. Recycling programs started before we had a realistic way to recycle in order to get people used to the concept for when practical ways to recycle were actually developed, but recycling companies never bothered with that. They just shipped most stuff overseas to landfills in China.
The largest freight ships in the world each individually put out more emissions annually than every car on the planet combined. During the COVID lockdowns, vehicle used dropped dramatically across the globe - by something like 80%. And yet, global emissions barely budged during that time. Because the freighters and factories and all the other things that produce substantially more pollution were still running like normal. The US throws away 50% of the food it produces every year, and most of that waste is from companies and stores throwing away perfectly good food.
Corporations are the biggest factor in climate change and the death of every ecosystem on the planet. But they have reshaped the question and shifted the blame from themselves and the wealthy to the common man.
I’m not saying that we don’t have to change how we live, but while us using paper straws instead of plastic is a net good thing for the environment, even if every single person were to switch entirely, it would barely be a drop in the bucket compared to the excessive plastic waste generated by companies through single-use packaging. We need to question why companies are allowed to get away with it, not discuss how we’re going to uselessly cull the population so companies can keep doing what they’re doing.
We are not over capacity at all, this is a fucked up lie propagated by the rich western northern hemisphere people and the rich in general, the wealthiest 10% causes over 50% of the pollution.
That includes lots of Americans and Europeans.
Here is an excellent episode from the climate deniers playbook podcast about this topic. https://pod.link/1694759084/episode/Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwL3I3WDh5SjhNY3RKY1hab2Rva09pRUxiR0NZYzFoNWsyT3gzcE0wZm5sUk0
We’re in a state of ecological overshoot, defined as a population consuming more resources than its environment can replenish. At its simplest, overshoot is a function of individual consumption x total population.
The Global Footprint Network calculates that we crossed this line in 1971, when both our global population (3.8B) and individual energy consumption (15.8kWh) were far lower than they are today (8.2B and 21.7kWh, respectively). Consider also that population is both a cause and effect of energy consumption.
You’re referring to CO2 emissions here (and it’s actually closer to 60%), but there are many other symptoms of overshoot. Habitat loss, species extinctions, overharvesting of resources, and other forms of pollution (industrial, particulate, trash) are huge problems in less wealthy nations. In South America, for example, we’ve seen a 95% loss of wildlife species over the past 50 years. The planetary boundaries framework is helpful for looking at overshoot more holistically, instead of focusing solely on emissions (although that’s important too).
In wealthy nations, populations are declining but consumption is unsustainable. In poorer nations, individual consumption is low but population growth is unsustainable. Only by reducing both do we have a hope of living equitably on this planet.
Wealthy nations decreasing consumption will have a knock on effect on habitat loss in South America for example, where a shit ton of rainforest is being killed to make pastures for beef that’s exported.
Poorer nation’s peak population estimates are declining every year, as life gets better and child mortality falls population growth lowers everywhere (another racist shit that’s spreading that poor nations are reproducing too much, btw).
Energy consumption is more or less useless measure with the rapid rise of renewables, although there are also efforts there to lower that everywhere.
Brain: I’d have to be crazy to have a baby…
Biology: No problem!
Meh. My wife and I had kids based upon our own thoughts of how we wanted our life to go, not based upon some reproduction drive. The sex drive is a totally different thing, but there was no urge and pull to have kids for us.
We’ve had three kids and it’s been an incredible experience with very few downsides and massive upsides. I was not a “kid person” before having kids, but IMO it’s one of the peek good experiences in life.
What’s worse to me is that mother’s also forget the pain and awfulness of 9 months of pregnancy followed by childbirth, leading to them wanting another child.
It’s honestly not that bad for some mothers. For others it can be horrific.
my sister didnt really have any issues with pregnancy or labor, she said it was pretty easy
Me too but that’s the smallest part of parenting, right? I felt so good pregnant, no migraines, insane sex drive, so healthy and it did a lot for my relationship with my body in general. Labor not bad,the baby coming out is terrible but didn’t take long, but after that it’s a very long road. I did love raising kids, but don’t think that has much to do with easy pregnancy.
Maybe im misunderstanding:
Are you saying that there necessarily exists for all not extinct species of social mammals a “common-sense-overriding mechanism”?
There’s a reason bustin makes me feel good
There necessarily exists in all mammals (and also some other species as well such as several speeches of birds) a mechanism that will override all other motivators up to and including common sense if the specimen in question even manifests the feature of common sense in the first place.