The ethics of having children in a Post-peak world

[clv101]

Riots have occurred for about as long as we've had civilization. They are the natural response of a stressed population to a perceived injustice. Sure, the individual acts of violence are deplorable, but focusing on that aspect distracts for the bigger picture and the worrying idea that 'civil' society is actually very fragile.

[biffvernon]

My gold and silver isn't hidden in a shop window.

No, it's propping up your computer screen


I have some friends, of no great wealth, who happened to be in the right place, a short distance west of Tottenham, at the right time, many years ago, and were able to buy the house they were renting. They are amused and a little puzzled to learn that the house next door has been put up for sale for £6,000,000.

The increasing disparity of wealth does not engender social cohesion.

[DominicJ]

Ludwig
Predicting future events is quite different than wanting future events to occur.

Think on that.

[Ludwig]

Ludwig
Predicting future events is quite different than wanting future events to occur.

Think on that.

There was a tone of relish in UE's post, and in other posts he's made, that suggests he does indeed want these things to occur.

I know there's part of all of us that likes the idea of a blood-letting, of the release of long-built-up social and moral tensions. And it will happen. But the phrase "Be careful what you wish for" springs to mind.

But in any case, to lay the blame on an entire generation, as UE does, is not very charitable. People adapt to the society they find themselves in, and if we became consumers it's because that's what we were told to become, and society didn't give us many other options than to join the rat race.

The current generation would have done exactly the same as the previous one, given the chance. Humanity has been building up to this crisis for the past 250 years, and greedy, amoral buggers have been in charge all the way. The only substantive difference with the current generation of leaders consists in the amount of damage they were able to do, given the size of the economy they controlled. And the fact that they came at the end of the line.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. It seems to me UE has profited as much as anyone from the current financial system, via his inheritance and his investment in metals.

[UndercoverElephant]

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. It seems to me UE has profited as much as anyone from the current financial system, via his inheritance and his investment in metals.

I can't help it if I bought a house just before a property-based banker-scam took place. I was buying a home to live in, nothing more.

And I'm not sure I can be charged with a sin for choosing to turn soon-to-be-worthless paper money into something that actually exists.

[DominicJ]

I dont know, generations preceeding mine got grammer schools, a mostly competant NHS, secure jobs, they'll retire with a fat pension and they paid for it all by borrowing in my name.

I got a "comprehensive" "education" in a drug addled school filled with violent criminals and burnt out teachers, the NHS refuses to acknowledge I exist, job security, thats a laugh, and by the time I retire, the National Security "fund" I'll have contributed a decade of my working life to, will vanish, leaving behind an ocean of broken promises and hungry claimants, not to mention, the national debt.

UE

I can't help it if I bought a house just before a property-based banker-scam took place. I was buying a home to live in, nothing more.

You could always donate your windfall to charity, if you dont deserve it....

But the people who benefited from the past are no more willing to contribute than the people who have never contributed.

[leroy]

80% of the NHS budget is spent on people who die within two years

That's an interesting statistic. Quite believable too. Where did you get that from Dominic?

[DominicJ]

A Book called The Plan
Written by an MEP and MP

Due to the source, a book calling for a radical overhaul of the state, I've been trying to double source it for years, but cant find anything to back it up or cast doubt on it.
So please, if you have a source going either way, share.

Its not quite as bad as it first sounds, because it would include someone who was in a car crash and died after 18hrs surgery, but even so, a massive chunk of our "health" budget is spent keeping old people circling the drain as long as possible.

[leroy]

Yes, massive amounts of resources. I spend most of my working time disturbing people who just want to go to sleep and not wake up or are too confused to know what they want. The second most demanding group are drug addicts and alchoholics who are having a recovery period in hospital, who, sad as it is to say, will near universally go back out and 'retox' as soon as they can, In the meantime they ruin everyone else's time on the ward with thieving, shouting, smoking in the loo and by smelling awful. Sounds heartless, I know, but the NHS would be a lot cheaper without these kinds of patients, who are not really being helped in any significant way.

[PS_RalphW]

One time I got fired for miss-behaving. I was given 3 months pay in lieu of notice and was in work again in a month.

I gave good chunk of that pay-off to charity.

The first house I bought lost a third of its value by the time I sold it.

The second one nearly doubled in price. But then so did my current house, before I bought it. It was only through inheritance that we could afford it.

The housing market in the UK has been a lottery, because demand has exceeded supply for a very long time, and the banks etc. have exploited that by lending to people who were going to default to drive up prices.

[ceti331]

regarding the original post, I find this website has the best advice & most intelligent discussion on the subject of babies in the context of Peak Oil

http://www.vhemt.org/

probably well known around here though I imagine.
the thing that worries me is the number of people who have kids who just didn't get the whole peak oil issue, even though the knowledge that fossil-fuels are finite has been around for decades, certainly my entire lifetime. Its' like we've just collectively sleepwalked toward this.

my take is that without having a global one child policy, its's not worth having any kids. I'm not my genes (they're just one part of my sourcecode, the rest environment , civilization etc.), I only really care about what I see in my lifetime. we evolve through memes.

There's no point subjecting human minds to a fight to the death over resources, if thats what it will take then we're best of leaving the planet to other species that have no high expectations to disappoint.

[biffvernon]

Almost always, when a new poster appears on PowerSwitch and includes a link to a website in their very first post, it turns out to be spam, directing us to somewhere we can lose money. But http://www.vhemt.org/ appears to be curiously different, so welcome, ceti331.

[UndercoverElephant]

regarding the original post, I find this website has the best advice & most intelligent discussion on the subject of babies in the context of Peak Oil

http://www.vhemt.org/

probably well known around here though I imagine.
the thing that worries me is the number of people who have kids who just didn't get the whole peak oil issue, even though the knowledge that fossil-fuels are finite has been around for decades, certainly my entire lifetime. Its' like we've just collectively sleepwalked toward this.

You mean they collectively sleepwalked. They are sheeple. That's what sheeple do.

There's no point subjecting human minds to a fight to the death over resources, if thats what it will take then we're best of leaving the planet to other species that have no high expectations to disappoint.

Humans are biologically designed to fight to the death over resources. What we are not designed to do is co-operate as an entire species for the benefit of the rest of the ecosystem.

[ceti331]

Humans are biologically designed to fight to the death over resources. What we are not designed to do is co-operate as an entire species for the benefit of the rest of the ecosystem.

Ultimately 'gaia' only keeps species that benefit the entire system, or that create new opportunities... via an emergent process: when an offending organism appears, there's a disruption to the ecosystem and the offending organism loses its' food supply. Only ones which fit in symbiotically somehow are kept. (e.g. recycle some waste product, and the rest of 'gaia' thrives)

Hope is in the fact that we could irrigate deserts for agriculture, or colonize space* taking 'gaia' beyond earth. Its also not completely unfeasible that the ability to reason and co-operate (its' abstract thinking that allows us to be tool-makers in the first place) can win through. Not completely unfeasible, but I agree.. very unlikely at this point.


*(very, very unlikely at this point IMO, the future is soylent green/mad-max not star trek.)


also further to the original point (i think this was mentioned) people live 70 years? so it should really be 'ethics of having children a few decades before peak'

[jonny2mad]

I think what your talking about gaia is hippy nonsense, its very nice hippy nonsense but I don't personally believe in it.
Humans destroyed wolves in the UK and various other animals and birds the great god gaia didn't come down and whomp us with a green dodo leg we have driven other species to extinction .
Competition between species and in species between family's groups is pretty universal, and that competition is brutal .
animals fight for resources, they are territorial, nature is pretty red in tooth and claw