h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As an addendum to a previous conversation I think that a universal contraceptive should be added to the water supply. Prospective parents would have to have to finish a course and prove that they can financially support a child before they're given an antidote to the contraceptive.

You may think this is harsh but everytime I hear of a child being murdered by it's own parents or being made to live in squalid conditions I think something drastic needs to be done.

Rama

(Flames welcome, although I would prefer reasoned arguments)

How about a universal contraceptive with no andtidote whatsoever?

Well then we'll be talking about the end of the human race, perhaps a good thing for the planet but not for us.

I just think that we need to give our children the best possible start in life and that would include getting the best parents for them.

Rama

I don't think that the actions of a few hundreds of people can be used as an excuse to sterilise the thousands of millions of people that bring up their children with all the love and care they can.
That is like saying we should remove all life forms from the sea because some jellyfish are poisonuous.

The thing to do is not to watch too much headline news but rather to concentrate on the underlying trends. As a species we are improving all the time. Per capita crime is dropping, average life expectancy is increasing, quality of life is increasing...everything is getting better all the time. Therefore it is a bit OTT to sterilise the worlds population at this point.

Possibly, but we are talking a revesible sterilisation. If they can prove that they have the qualities to be responsible parents then they are given the antidote.

The other point is that with increased life spans we're placing more and more of a strain on the planetary systems on which we depend on for survival. A general drop in birth rate can only be a good thing.

Rama

(Again awaiting flames)

Not at all - the best standards of life are to be found in places like Tokyo and Belgium which also have the highest population densities. Conclusion: people are good.
A drop in birth rate is really bad because as the remaining population ages the number of people of working age becomes less than the number of people retired or in need of age related assistance. This is the "demographic timebomb" that is rapidly destroying the social service pensions in the UK.

Presumably it'd be like having to pass a test before you can drive a car? That's another case where a few accidents is apparently reason to require everyone to take a test. It wouldn't work, of course. A black market would spring up in the antidote faster than you could say "take me! harder! harder! yeah, baby, give it to me!"...

Lucinda - who *doesn't* talk like that during sex...

People are good? Interesting statement. What about Mexico City (largest city population in the world) which has daily smog, and has huge slums where poverty is actually a step up.

Tokyo (Japan) and Belgium - highly industrialised nations both with there own pollution problems.

As for the aging population we end up in a vicious circle. Lower birthrate, instantly we get a larger ageing population with fewer workers to support them, however over time the balance would be redressed. Same or higher birthrate, more workers, more ageing citizens requiring a higher birthrate, meaning more workers, more ageing ctiziens requiring a higher birthrate, etc.

We need to draw a line at a point at which the world is more important to us than more and more people.

Now if we could invent a cheap and easy way to get into space then we could solve our problems at a stroke.

Rama

Lucinda, good point about black market however I think the principle is sound. Also it would be quite easy for Government Organisations to work out who's been buying off the black market just by minitoring MotherCare sales (flippant point but it's not that easy to hide a child away especially if you want them to go to school at some point). Now I'm not saying that we then confiscate the child, but some sort of fine system would then have to be in place and/or social services can then monitor the situation with those parents to make sure they're alright.

Also the Parenting Test would be available for everyone to take at any time so it would be just as easy to learn parenting skills as to buy a black market antidote.

Rama

This is extremely similar to the one-child policy in China. Depends who you talk to on whether that is/was a good thing or not

What didn't help there was a prediliction on the part of the parents to have boy rather than girls. This caused the murdering of a lot of girl children.

Limited to this country there isn't this social prediliction so would be a problem.

Good point though.

Rama

Not at all - the one child policy was universally applied. What is being proposed here seems to be means testing for the right to have children. OK - assuming we are in a democracy, on whose mandate do we take such a momentuous decision? I'd say it probably wouldn't get passed in a referendum.

Why should the responsibility fall solely on the parents? Surely children should have to demonstrate their fitness to enter society as well.

Perhaps the true test is for society to demonstrate its fitness to host children. Thus people can not care for children should be removed from society and placed in mini-societies which have no children.

No, it wasn't - universally applied, that is. But the exceptions are perhaps statistically insignificant in a sample that size.
Most mainland Chinese that I know are very proud of their one child. The more educated are especially proud if the one child is a daughter even though this has caused strife with the grandparents.
In many smaller towns, you could have a second child if you paid the fines and bribes . Farmers whose first child was a girl were always allowed a second.
It seems to be the populations of Beijing and Shanghai which have done best with this policy. there has been a visible rise in the living standards and many attribute this to the smaller number of children, but it would never happen in a democracy, I agree. What has happened is a voluntary reduction in family size. For example, my father and his seven brothers and sisters left six children who have a total of nine children. This pattern (where my generation has an average of two children) is common in UK.
So what if there aren't enough of you to look after us in our old age! 1) we'll go on working longer 2)we'll emigrate to somewhere warmer and cheaper 3) we'll really encourage emigration - sorry all this is thread drift
Most of the things I want have already been invented - as you may know, I'm waiting for self-cleaning windows to come within my price range. You can now have a look at photos before you pay for expensive printing. I'd really like some non-fattening deserts that taste as nice as the calorie laden ones,though

Not only can you have nice-tasting non-fattening desserts, but you can even burn calories by eating them. Just sprinkle a small quantity of botulinus toxin onto your dessert and remember to take some antitoxin between when the vomiting stops and the paralysis starts .

Really easy to do in the "I can't believe nobody's thought of that" category - lockable plug sockets, so that nobody can unplug the mail server to plug the vacuum cleaner in.

Probably in breach of fire regulations

hmmmmm.... back on the contraceptive thingy, it would be really nice if there were a simple, lifetime, no side effects type of contraceptive that could be installed in all women when they become fertile. It would have to be able to be removed (at low cost) when they made a decision to have children, as long as they could prove financial capability for caring for their offspring.

I think that might resolve the issue of a lot of poor parenting due to unwanted children and would also help ease the burden on various welfare institutions, without unduly limiting the right of people to breed as they see fit. (In my opinion, people ought not to be allowed to have children which will be supported by the taxpayers.)

Rama,

<-------------------Long Post and Rant Alert-------------------->

While I fully agree that there should be some sort of minimum standards in place, for anyone to have a child, your premise is faulty. I also do not think such standards could be implemented in any realistic way. You said:

'...financially support a child before they're given an antidote to the contraceptive.

You may think this is harsh but everytime I hear of a child being murdered by it's own parents or being made to live in squalid conditions I think something drastic needs to be done.'

This reinforces belief in the utterly specious correlation between poverty and child-abuse. There is NO such correlation. This is my area of specialisation, for over 20 years, and I have read, met, worked with, counselled abuse survivors from every imaginable socio-economic background, from families of all religions and none, from all over the world.

Female infanticide may be more common in the developing world, but, in the US, where the sex of the embryo is *known*, four out of five abortions are of female embryos. (Don't anyone start on abortion, please!) Middle-class and above families can afford amniocentesis, to test for birth-defects, and also find out the embryo's sex. Poor people cannot. These statistics probably reflect the whole developed world.



Duncan the 'Spearcarrier' said something about taking action against all of humanity for the actions of 'a few thousands'. Wrong. In the developed world (these are conservative statistics, based upon FBI and other similar estimates), one third (33%) of all girls, and one quarter (25%) of all boys - socioeconomic class irrelevant - are REPORTED to have been sexually abused - this does not count physical or verbal abuse - by a person/s in a position/s of trust (parent, teacher, priest, police officer, doctor, nanny) before the age of 18. Those of us who have worked in this field know that only about 1 in 10 instances of sexual abuse of children is reported to any authority. YOU do the maths. Look around, folk. Wake up. There is a HUGE, unbelievable (so nobody wants to believe it) child-abuse problem in the developed world. Ireland currently stands at #1 for the highest child abuse stats in the EU.

In the developing world, adult women are treated worse, if possible, than in the developed world. Only 4-6 women actually die, every day, in the USA, from injuries inflicted by men who say they 'love' them. In the developed world, a woman is being bashed every 12 seconds. In the developing world, those statistics are much worse, the number of fatalities higher, and the number of permanent maimings much higher.
(I have heard as many as 25 women die a day in Pakistan, which I tend to think is a little high, and 15 in India, which I am sure is low by a factor of 50% - Rama, judging by your name, you are either from or in India, and *may* have access to better information than I, but my mother is from India, and I try to stay up to date on information there - you know how much they minimise publicised figures to make the country look better off than it is. )

They have extended families, and the extended families tend to protect the children from abuse. Children who *have* families in the developing world are safer than children in the developed world. Orphans and runaways, and children who were sold... (I refuse to buy small, faceted stones by way of jewellery. I shall never buy a *real* Persian carpet. Children die in those slave-labour shops, and no one seems to worry too much about it... so long as they can have the little diamonds and the carpets. )



My mother was a Brahmin from a very wealthy family (hereditary aristocracy such as is only known in Hinduism) in India. My father was European, a self made millionaire, quite famous, and very influential. I was abused in every way imaginable (and many you can't imagine) from birth until 19, when I left home. I am *not* the exception. My estimate, looking back, is that about one quarter of my Eton-like girls' school classmates were ongoing incest cases.

Children of either sex who have mental and/or physical handicaps are in deep trouble. 99% (according to several advocacy groups for people with disabilities) of such children are sexually - this does not count physically or verbally - abused by age 18, by adults in positions of trust.



There should be a test. Yes. And sociopaths like my father could fake the 'right' answers, and get bonus points for super-genius IQ and talent, too. Who is qualified to screen such a test? Who is qualified to DESIGN such a test? Wouldn't it be against all the religions of the book, who have a 'be fruitful and multiply' mandate written into their beliefs?

It's not money, it is *character* upon which the having or not having of children should depend. I am horrified by the idea of no screening at all. I am more horrified by any Orwellian characterological screening, where if one doesn't fit orthodox and orthoprax models, one does not get to have children. The implications are appalling. The opportunities for a black market, or USSR Party-style perquisites, or corruption in general are just too high. My father would have fit right in on a panel of people who made such decisions. So would my mother, and she had no clue -- just oblivious...

Like you, 'Spearcarrier', and most of the rest of the world, who Just Don't Know. That is why it keeps happening. No one gets involved, because people just do not want to know.

A few thousands... Wake up.

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Arpeggio, not born with the name
Leïlah el Khalil Zendavesta, MAR