Doing my head in....

[Haighus]

Yes but we can collectively afford them so that's alright, innit.

...which is something that I'm not sure how could be resolved. It is basically a justice versus autonomy (and possibly non-maleficence) call.
When does the justice of sharing resources in an equitable way overcome the autonomy of individuals to express their rights? (Well, it is usually, or at least meant to be, when expressing those rights infringes on the rights of others).

Also, £12bn of welfare cuts would suggest we can't afford them...

- - - Updated - - -

No. It's ****ing annoying that one of the reasons I dont spawn as it irresponsible to when you can't afford them, but then I have to watch all the fallout from these ****ing imbeciles that can't figure out how to use contraceptives correctly.

Well, what if this was shifted to a child neglect point of view? First child, you get payouts. Probably second child too. Third child onwards? Neglecting the child's needs by not having the means to support them properly, and beginning to infringe on the rest of the population by using public money. Practically a 2-child policy, and would favour those who could afford offspring too, which creates inequalities.

[Psychosplodge]

I'm in favour of a two child policy. and lets face it the vast majority of the population only has two children or less so its not really going to infringe anyone if they actually implemented one.

But I think the issue here is just a lack of thought and selfishness.

Again...

[Haighus]

I'm in favour of a two child policy. and lets face it the vast majority of the population only has two children or less so its not really going to infringe anyone if they actually implemented one.

But I think the issue here is just a lack of thought and selfishness.

Again...

...I am one of 3 brothers But yeah, I don't think it would be a terrible idea, and people with the means could have more than 2 children.

Yeah, considering contraception is something that can be obtained easily and cheaply, along with advice on it's use (mainly because it is far cheaper to the NHS than a baby) I am inclined to agree with you.

[Erik Setzer]

Eh... child limits could lead to a mess. For my siblings, let me see if I can remember this right...

My mom and dad hooked up in the early 70s. From that, they produced my older sister. They didn't actually marry or anything and my dad moved south.
My mom married a guy for a short while, had my older brother.
My dad married a woman for a short while, they had my younger brother, he ended up with custody because the woman wasn't a fit parent.
My mom and dad got back together, got married. Didn't really plan on more kids, but ended up having my younger sister.
They decided that was enough, got a procedure done to prevent further kids.
Then I ended up happening.

So I'm the third of the three they produced with each other, but they each had one with another person. When they married to form their own family, they already had three, which is above the max desired above. They didn't intend to have a "fifth," but something went wrong and now I exist.

Okay, so now we have some questions.

1. What happens if two people with kids marry? (Not just the situation with my parents, but my best friend had three of her own, two still under 18, and married a man with two of his own, for a total of four under 18, but five in all.)
2. How do you make sure no more kids are produced? Do you straight up remove the reproductive bits from everyone once they've hit the limit?

So, because people are irresponsible, and some people think it's "just" to take from some people and give to others (it's not "sharing resources" when you take something someone's earned away from them to give to someone else), you now have the situation where people take advantage of the "just" system and the answer to it is, instead of trying to get people to be responsible in the first place, just set up measures which would need darned near draconian measures to enforce?

Why not just teach people to be responsible in the first place? Is that really such a foreign concept?

And if you're going to enforce such ridiculous measures, then why not just say "You must earn X amount from a job or other non-government source of income for each kid you're allowed to have"? If the people have two kids already and can't afford them, then how would preventing a third help the situation that already exists?

[Haighus]

Well, what I was suggesting above was not limiting kids, but limiting child benefits to the second child. No one would be stopped form having more kids. They would have the kids taken away form them if they couldn't support the additional children for not being fit parents. But yeah, it would be a mess to sort out, unless it is done in a very draconian way, like in China.

When I say sharing resources, I am talking about the tax pot. That money goes somewhere, and is also limited, so must be rationed.

Having a children/per income ratio is an interesting way of looking at that btw, could be linked to someone's tax bracket (still hard to enforce). But then, benefits are means based anyway.

No, it isn't a foreign concept to teach people to be responsible, but then what about the people who are irresponsible despite this? Should their children suffer because of their choices? Currently the Government says no, the children shouldn't suffer, and I agree with this, the issue is how to prevent the suffering. Currently done either by removing the children for adoption/fostering/into care or by providing benefits for people who cannot afford their children.

This is from a UK perspective btw.

- - - Updated - - -

If the people have two kids already and can't afford them, then how would preventing a third help the situation that already exists?

Well, it is still a third extra mouth to feed. That means the other two children now get a third less of the resources they got before, or the Government has to pay for another person. Seems like a big difference to me.

[Erik Setzer]

Well, it is still a third extra mouth to feed. That means the other two children now get a third less of the resources they got before, or the Government has to pay for another person. Seems like a big difference to me.

Yeah, but the point remains that taxpayers are already having to subsidize the existing kids, which is already a problem.

[Haighus]

Yeah, but the point remains that taxpayers are already having to subsidize the existing kids, which is already a problem.

It wouldn't change the current situation, but it would stop it from getting worse. The Government is coping at the moment, but it is rising costs that are taking their toll.

[40kGamer]

I'm in favour of a two child policy. and lets face it the vast majority of the population only has two children or less so its not really going to infringe anyone if they actually implemented one.

But I think the issue here is just a lack of thought and selfishness.

Again...

Personally I favor a procreation policy of

1) prove you're not an idiot
2) prove you can afford the wee ones
3) reprove you're not an idiot

After all this you can have 1 child as the population really needs to drop by 80% to be sustainable.

[Haighus]

After all this you can have 1 child as the population really needs to drop by 80% to be sustainable.

This creates it's own problems, as China is finding out, mainly because people are living well beyond retirement age nowadays.

[40kGamer]

This creates it's own problems, as China is finding out, mainly because people are living well beyond retirement age nowadays.

Understandable... plus I'm not sure how much they can really enforce it with such a large population. It really doesn't help that the poor countries still breed like rabbits and then try to gain entry to the more developed countries further increasing the strain on the social systems and the environment.