Philosophical question: Spinoff of Mayan doomsday thread
 

So this post by bowener got me thinking (the bolded part is the section I'm talking about)...
And I got to thinking about that point and was simply going to respond to the original post, but this is such a rich question that I think it deserves its own thread.

So let's assume 2012 hits and some sort of gradual decline of civilization begins, whether it be through a sudden change in climate, breakdown of communication satellites, whatever. It's recognized by society as incoming destruction, but nobody knows when it's going to start destroying life.

So let's say you're recently married/united in love/whatever with a spouse (opposite sex necessary here). You know what's coming, but you look around and don't see an exactly unfriendly environment to raise a child.

My question is, is it fair to the child to be conceived at this point in time, where likely at some point in its life, it will have to suffer through an armageddon-type world? The chance of survival is not so great (maybe 20-30%) and if survival is achieved, life will be extremely tough, lonely, and horrific.

The issues at hand are furthering the human race in the face of a likely world-wide catastrophe, as well as fulfilling perhaps your own ambitions as a human on this earth-- to raise a child.

What will it be? Deal? Or no deal?

That particular child, in question, may be the one that leads the entire human race out of the quagmire and desperation.
That's all I got.
I've been thinking a lot about that, cuz I'm kind of in that situation myself.

Titan hell? That's an actual place?

I think it's arrogance as a species. Until the sun goes, or until there's a catastrophic impact of some kind, there's no real armageddon, no apocalypse. We may end, human-kind, and other species may end, but the earth will still be here, and the earth will go on. Eventually it will repopulate, in some way.

As for kids, I'll never have any, but it doesn't have anything to do with a sense of foreboding about the future of the species. It's just not something I've ever really wanted, and I'm getting to the point in my life, age-wise, where it's too late.

It was when I created the username 8 years ago.

TEbow can stop the end of the world. Just ask him.

So are the hardships they'll almost certainly encounter in that life worth it? Being raised in human society under a roof with A/C to living in the forest with barely any tools of your own? Perhaps no human contact?

I don't know, that sounds pretty much like my life. I got no complaints.

No a/c would suck though.

People will breed. It's human nature. Maybe we'll even survive a cataclysm.

Or maybe reality's like Azimov's Nightfall, and we're just seeing a cyclical part of human history that we aren't cognizant of. We rise, we fall, we rise again, we fall again, over and over.

I didn't want to turn this thread into an excuse to quote the great sci-fi authors.

Thanks a lot, nerd.

I don't think anything would change quickly enough for us to realize it.

In the grand scheme of things, humanity's like a parasite... we're here and dominant. Too smart for our own good, really. We keep figuring out how not to die... meanwhile we're multiplying like crazy.

Something's gotta give. Either, eventually, we move to other planets... or we **** up our home to the point that it kills us off. If we did find some way to "save the enviroment" or survive the natural cycles (ice ages, etc), eventually... there'd just flat out be too many of us.

In any case... the "world" and life will be here... long after we're gone.

Hehe.

As a Yankee that has lived in the South for the past 19 years, I have heard on numerous occasions from lifelong natives that the advent of A/C was the end of the South. That enabled people from up north to come south and live comfortably during the high heat and humidity of the summers.
Don't know if it's true, but I'm damn glad I have A/C.

Well, it kinda leads right into that genre...

Makes ya think.

Okay, fine, I'll play along.

*Spoiler alert: I reveal the ending to this book. Don't read it and complain*

In Robert Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold, the situation that Hugh and Barbara find themselves in when they return to their own time post-nuclear blast is kind of what I'm talking about. Would anyone really want their child to be raised in that sort of environment?

Everybody in this thread is correct. The earth WILL continue and life will find a way to continue whether it be human or not. I'm speaking MORALLY... is it right to raise a child with that kind of knowable future for them?

There are times I wonder why I doomed my children to this world. Then I think, maybe they will be the ones to solve the problems.

THERE! That's the type of answer I'm looking for!

GF said he was a minute man.

Interesting point SNR.

I think of human beings as a virus. As a species we're very hardy and resilient and can seem to make it through about anything thrown at us. Disease and War have tried and failed ultimately so far. Yet as like a virus seem to have the ability to adapt to any condition or situation.

The baby boom from WW2 comes to mind. It's amazing how much adversity was happening in the world and yet there was a huge birth rate.

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure. :D

There is no spoon!:LOL:

The kids will be fine.I'm sure they will adapt well to the world they have been given.


http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...heferalKid.jpg

The impending doom would probably be a good reason to encourage people to have kids. If they don't have a reason to try to clean things up and make the world better, it would make sense that they would live only for themselves and at the expense of the survival of the other people.

Unless you believe a guy with a big white beard became bored one day and decided to wiggle his nose and place man on earth (I obviously do not) we are essentially highly evolved viruses.

Much like the lowly single celled organism we are instinctively replicating so fast and creating so many toxins for our host in the process that the host is either going to fight back or die. We are slowly bringing our host to lysis by upsetting the natural balance.

The key at this point (for this particular path) is population control.

I don’t think population control will ever occur on a large enough scale to stop the process of poisoning the earth to the point of no return. We can’t come together as a country to solve our most basic problems let alone come together as a species to solve what will eventually wipe us out.

One neat thing about it however; seeing earth “fight back” so to speak is the closest we’ll probably ever get to catching God at work. I hope I get to witness at least the first few minutes should it happen in my lifetime.

Just how I see things thru observation and education.

Read "The Road" if this question interests you.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I have two small sons and when I read that book I couldn't stop thinking about it for at least a week.
There's a movie version of it with Viggio Mortenson. It was supposed to be released in 2008 but they delayed it. I want to see it, but at the same time I don't.
There's a French film, "Time of the Wolf" that is similar.
I don't think it's as impossible as some people would think (societal decay). I think the fabric of society is somewhat fragile. A few years ago I lived in Houston when Hurricane Rita was supposed to hit. People were told to evacuate the city, and because it was on the heels of Hurricane Katrina people were in a sort of panic. All the gas at the gas stations ran out, cars were just packed in the highways, sitting there in the heat with small children; they didn't want to run the A/C because they didn't want to run out of gas. I saw people abandoning their cars and start walking. There were reports of people waiting at gas stations for fuel trucks and pulling guns on each other.
The grocery stores had sold out of basically everything. When I went into a Wal Mart a guy came out to put bottles of water on the shelf and people almost fought over them. People very quickly become me vs. you.
It was eye opening. After that day I have always looked at society as more fragile than I first did.
I hope my kids don't end up in a anarchistic society. At the same time, maybe I'm jingoistic, but I think other parts of the world are going to keep reproducing and if we become too much smaller we could become vulnerable to aggression.

So, generally, in an industrialized nation, if the total fertility rate is <2.1, the population will decline. If it is >2.1, the population will increase. Same for developing nations, but substitute 2.5-3.3 for 2.1. Here are the fertility rates:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...fertility_rate

The baby boom was after the war ended fyi...

Yes, and that's why I said "The baby boom from WW2 comes to mind" meaning came from. I guess I should have made it a little more clearer.