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Eugine_Nier comments on Review: Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids - Less Wrong
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I haven't seen anyone mention the other issue with having large families. There are already more people than we can sustain at US living standards, Every extra child adds to the pressure on pollution, the environment, raw materials, land, water, and energy.
In my case we stopped at 1 child.
Partly because as one of four I felt I clearly missed out in ways that would have made a huge difference to my life. I did not want that to happen to my children.
Partly because I wanted to do other things with my life as well as raising children. Until you have children you do not appreciate the huge impact they have on time, money and most importantly on your energy - not to be a super-parent but just to be a good enough parent.
But also partly because of the "Crowded Earth" factor.
Caplan would point out how Malthusian predictions of disaster never seem to come to pass, whereas disasters and atrocities happen whenever Malthusians get a chance to influence policy.
I would hope he would not point that out; famines and similar overshoots happened all the time throughout history, and still do, even in the past few unusual non-equilibrium centuries.
Caplan would argue, and I largely agree with him, that modern famines are caused by bad economic policies rather that overpopulation.
Are the negative effects of these bad policies increased by overpopulation?