No its not fair but life isn’t, what are you asking? I am not asking I am saying in the current circumstances if you don’t have the money don’t have the children, what you’re saying afterards is another issue. Don’t be simplistic, deal with one thing at a time.
In SOG’s example, they had the kids when they could afford them.
How do you reconcile that?
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A good article by David Baddiel about the whole affair. He’s factually correct that Hitler did support Jewish people leaving Germany, before he gained power. It was convenient, subsequantly was more efficient to exterminate them. Hitler never supported a Palestinian state, he considered Jews as “beneath animals”. Ken Livingstone must know this, he’s just being contrary.
Is it fair that the size of one’s house should be dictated by the size of their income?
Is it fair that the size of one’s car or the length and luxuriousness of one’s holidays should be dictated by the size of their income?
Is it fair that the ability of someone to follow their football team should be dictated by the size of their income?
Exactly, it is a nonsense. People make choices based on many things. I doubt if anyone ever sat down and said, I earn this amount of money therefore we can have 5 children though. What is the cost of raising a child anyway? Surely it is purely dependent on how much you decide as a family? Some might spend money on new clothes, new buggies, private schools, the latest phones etc. Some might buy the child second hand stuff, state schools etc. I should imagine there would be a huge difference in the amount spent by either family. My mother was born in 1930 and was one of eleven children. The family were certainly not minted, but nor did they take money from the state and they lived within their means. Can you imagine anyone deciding to have eleven children now, no matter how rich? Whatever, surely the point is that you start to move into dangerous territory if you dictate how many children people can have dependent on their income. We have not heard yet how Barry thinks about the Chinese model of one child per family but given his arguement that he is tolerant and liberal (as much as he clearly hates liberals) I would expect that he would argue against it?
When I met my first wife we thought that we would like to have three children (nothing to do with affordability). She already had a daughter from her first marriage. We had two more kids and I thought that was that, but I didnt bargain on her becoming broody again! We were struggling financially and having two babies in just over a year was like having twins, so we had our hands full - but she feel pregnant again so we ended having three children in 3.5 years. Selfish? It was more than we cold afford and we got into debt for a while and it was a struggle, but I wouldnt have changed anything for the world as I have three wonderful daughters. Ok, so they didnt have all of the latest phones or toys, but we managed and they are doing really well. You cant put a price or a value on a human life.
It is not another issue at all. A child is for life, not just for Christmas. Surely you dont just bang one out because you think you can afford it now without thinking about the long term consequences.? And you keep talking about affordability. At what point does a child become affordable? What is your income criteria to start a family?
Is ppl worry much about Population Growth? My mum said the other day that there is already 3 times more people in the world than when she was born, which is pretty woah when you think about it. I reckon that causes more problems with Climate Change and Hunger and House Crisis and Pension Crisis and Want than anything else.
I dunno if I would want to stop ppl have kids, but maybe it’s time for a cull. I don’t think you can just pick people tho, cos non-fair, it would prob have to be arbitary, like a coin toss or something. Maybe split the world into half, you know blacks vs whites or men vs women. Winner stays on.
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Nature has a way of dealing with things like this. We have had things like the Black Death and AIDS. I guess at some point the bugs will find a way of beating antibiotics and we will all be dying of the common cold. And then we will get hit by a meteor.
You’re totally out of touch and reality then, me and my wife had that exact discussion, she is on maternity and has been made redundant.
A child affordable? Hhahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
That’s the point.
SOG I’m not sure what you’re talking about on this thread tbh. Isn’t all that Barry said that people should make an informed, educated decision about having kids and whether they can afford (and are ‘likely’ to continue to afford) to raise them? Are you saying people should just be able to bang them out without thinking of the consequences?
I’m also not sure that Barry said anything about the government or society making the decision on behlaf of people, rather just that people should be smart enough to think things through before making such a big commitment.
Have to admit, I can’t be bothered to read back through everything though so might be wrong!
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that’s pretty cool i didn’t know you could do that.
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Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesecake
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Totally.
One of the great challenges is the fact that the vast majority of contributions to global warming, climate change and the destruction of the environment is the population growth, as well as industrial and urban development, of previously third-world countries.
How the hell we’re going to morally balance that with as you say, basically telling developing countries like Mexico, Nigeria, Indonesia, Turkey, the Phillippines, Vietnam as well as a whole host of other fairly high population developing countries that they can’t have what we in the West had (i.e rapid development whilst polluting the fuck out of the environment) is really tough. Obviously its more-or-less impossible to do anything about China and India so unless we somehow do something about the rest of the world its deckchairs on the Titanic stuff here in the West.
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