So I'm thinking about selling these neon signs. They're bright, cute, stylish, and have very good advice on them. Look at how nice they would look in your local hospital.
If you don't know why I would suggest a "Limit 3" policy on children, or have already overindulged in breeding, you are--how can I put this nicely?--ignorant? uneducated? living under a rock? out of touch with reality? a slave to your hormones? an egotistical narcissist? without natural restraint? fanatically religious? or maybe just irresponsible? Take your pick.
It may not be your fault. Anyone who has condemned your views or behavior may not have articulated the crisis we are coming to. But as a citizen of this planet, you have access to the same information everyone else does, and overpopulation warnings have been coming forth for hundreds of years, and the evidence of a failing society is all around us. The solution to the plan is not popping out more babies.
When an animal species overpopulates an area, they don't all die off of starvation immediately. It takes a while. As the highest life form on the planet, humans have insulated themselves from this catastrophe, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. It manifests itself in many ways.
Poor education.
Collapsing economy.
Stratification of wealth.
Rising crime rates.
Lowering of life expectancy.
Competition for employment.
Devaluing of college educations.
Wars.
Disease.
And the list goes on.
Compare a list of the poorest countries in the world with the highest fertility rates and you'll find a direct correlation. America is in the middle of the stack of countries, but immigration is bringing the third world's problems to our doorstep. But immigration is a topic for another day. We can set the example of self-restraint here and hope it catches on. Otherwise, someday we could be looking at government-enforced restriction. It has happened before and will happen again.
Sometimes the system is self-correcting, but that is usually very painful. 3% of the world's population died in World War II. Then what happened? The biggest economic revival the world has ever known, the longest life-expectancies, and of course the biggest population boom in history. Even in defeated Germany and Japan, economies surged. It was not socialist policies or even the war bonds that brought us out of the Great Depression, but the staggering loss of life and lack of competition. We would still be in the Great Depression today if not for it.
What about your day-to-day families? People die. Single-parenting is hard with however many kids you have, but 6? Crazy hard unless you're infringing on the rights of your eldest to take care of your youngest. Why should they be responsible for your decisions? Unemployment happens. If you aren't able to help all your many kids through college, you are dooming most of them to a life of debt or uneducation. That may not always have been true but it is now.
Don't take my word for it. Read a book or two. National Geographic does overpopulation articles frequently. The world went from 1 billion to 7 billion in the last 200 years. It has doubled in size since your grandparents were born. Negative growth has its own undesirable consequences, but believe me, we are not in danger of that. The perfect way to be is a little growth. Limit 3. Take it to heart.
And for you religious nuts, when God said to be fruitful and multiply, he was talking to a population of 2 people!
