Sperm/Egg donations: Would you do it?

There are more than enough resources to properly feed the world's entire population now, but people like myself in the rich countries hoard an unreasonable share of them, a trend that I would bet my life will never turn around, and so descreasing the world's population is probably not a bad idea.

I would adopt not to limit the number of humans but to provide a happy and healthy home for a child already born. Adoption seems like a no-brainer to me. The more I think about it the closer I am coming to actually making the decision to some day do it. I would rather take a chance on a random kid than subject others to my flawed genes. The world has enough alcoholics, diabetics, depressives and just generally sick looney folks as is.

I gotta agree with what stlukes says on these issues. When talking to my dad (55 years old) about the overpopulation problem, he pretty much says the "experts" were all saying the same things being said now when he was in high school. From what he heard, the planet should have reached a world-wide famine by now or be so crowded that there would literally be not enough space on the planet to fit everyone.

Plus, everyone is far in America. Rich, poor, and everyone in between. Poor people are fat because they eat too much and don't exercise, like everyone else. There are plenty of skinny and in shape poor people to show that it's perfectly possible to not be obese as a product of lack of money.

Is there a problem? Yes. Is our current population rate unsustainable to the point where people should be having less kids? No. Maybe in China and India, but not worldwide. Like someone said, throughout all of history, no matter he population side, there have always been those with and those without.

There are more than enough resources to properly feed the world's entire population now, but people like myself in the rich countries hoard an unreasonable share of them, a trend that I would bet my life will never turn around, and so descreasing the world's population is probably not a bad idea.

Cetainly... but how do you propose we undertake this? It makes absolutely no sense to curtail the population in the wealthy Western nations that are fully able to sustain themselves, and to do so will have virtually no impact upon the overpopulation in other poverty-stricken nations. So what is the solution. We've already have more than a few famines, genocides, wars, AIDS etc... but it hasn't been enough to slow the growth. There have been attempts at educating the population about birth-control, but then we've had hostile responses of the uneducated populations of those we have attempted to help... and the uneducated morons at home. Perhaps we should just lob a few nukes their way and get it over with... or again turn to Dr. Jonathan Swift's solution.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

There are more than enough resources to properly feed the world's entire population now, but people like myself in the rich countries hoard an unreasonable share of them, a trend that I would bet my life will never turn around, and so descreasing the world's population is probably not a bad idea.

Cetainly... but how do you propose we undertake this? It makes absolutely no sense to curtail the population in the wealthy Western nations that are fully able to sustain themselves, and to do so will have virtually no impact upon the overpopulation in other poverty-stricken nations. So what is the solution. We've already have more than a few famines, genocides, wars, AIDS etc... but it hasn't been enough to slow the growth. There have been attempts at educating the population about birth-control, but then we've had hostile responses of the uneducated populations of those we have attempted to help... and the uneducated morons at home. Perhaps we should just lob a few nukes their way and get it over with... or again turn to Dr. Jonathan Swift's solution.

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A Modest Proposal is brilliant. I love Swift.

I don't know. I don't think any organization or effort could ever tackle something as widespread and multi-faceted as the problem of over-population. Certainly curtailing reproduction among rich westerners is not going to make much of a substantial impact. If the resources were more equitably distributed across the globe I'd wager the birth rates in under-developed countries would appreciably decline. But again - who or what would be capable of orchestrating such an initiative? God? I doubt He'll bother to intervene. Over-population is not some isolated singular thing. Its the result of biology, agriculture, wealth, industrialization, religion, science, a whole host of mightily complex and impossible-to harness-things.

In short - we're ****ed.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Tell me just how poorly those kids living in foster care in Canada are doing? Are they truly starving?

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Did I say they were?

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

The fact that there is an excess of children in need of parents is not the same as suggesting that the nation is unable to sustain the current population.

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Did I say it was? I believe I said:

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

My assertion thus far in this thread has been that given the choice between costly anonymous in-vitro and costly overseas adoption/domestic fostering, I'd choose the latter because the children already exist and need to be cared for. Better to reduce suffering than to create more.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I doubt even that there are more children in need of parents than there are willing parents out there.

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Wow, really? Doubt away, you're still wrong. There are more people in the world ready and willing to adopt kids than there are kids without parents? Where are you getting that?

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I thought the issue was the inability to sustain the populace in the wealthy nations.

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I think the issue is adoption vs. in-vitro actually. You're just latching onto the one point of my posts that is arguable, which is overpopulation and the concept that the first world has enough resources to feed and clothe the entire world. The truth is that yes, the math works out, if you completely ignore human nature and our pyramidal distribution tendancy and pretend that everyone can take no more than they need and share everything equally, which is unfeasible and thus not even worth mentioning. Overpopulation exists and is a serious problem if we take REALITY into account (which I think you'll agree is probably important), so to REALISTICALLY reduce suffering I would be more comfortable with myself, if I were in a situation in which I really wanted a kid and had to seek alternative methods to the standard, if I were to take one out of the crowded, ****ty foster care system in which they recieve sub-par education, ratty clothes and food lacking in nutrition (because people don't like sharing with domestic orphans either) or else adopt a kid from an overpopulated nation overseas to reduce the number of mouthes to feed in those places. What's even debatable about this? And developing nations are overpopulated, meaning that the number of people are too many for the amount of resources needed to keep everyone healthy. Do I have to bring out my graph again? I have one that shows the population growth of developing vs. industrialized nations from UNEP if you'd prefer, and I can tie it up with another regarding resource availability and some informaiton about basic human needs to hammer the point home.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

First of all... it would seem that the choice on how to use ones own money is probably something best left up to the individual, not to others to deem wasteful or not.

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Yeah, I've said that three times now. You're just arguing for it's own sake, aren't you? What a kettle. It is a personal consideration - and individuals often consider the idea that adoption might be less wasteful and more socially responsible, like several people on this forum have already expressed (including myself right now, which is what you're debating).

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

And did I say it was going to happen?

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No, but you did miss my point. The idea that the first world might have enough to feed and clothe the entire world is useless, because we aren't and won't.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

India has a huge surplus of cattle... and yet because the cow is sacred, more than 50% of the population live in a state of malnutrition. Much of Africa is farm-able... yet continued wars, poor leadership continually undermines the efforts to create a sustainable society.

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Yeah, again, that should be happening any day now.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Fast foods and pre-processed foods and junk foods are in no way more expensive than healthy food.

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You've clearly never been poor. When you're poor, you still have to eat every day and yet you only have maybe ten dollars for food (that's each day, you don't have more than ten dollars today and that's what you'll have tomorrow if you're lucky). You could buy a head of lettuce and some tomatoes today, and you could buy maybe some bread and mayo tomorrow, then ham the next day, and look! After three days you have enough to make sandwiches for a week and a half! Doesn't do you very much good on those first three days though. Or, you could live that day on a meal at a fast food restaurant and a box of kraft dinner. This is how you live after you've run out of the cheap food that you load the fridge with on payday, and even then healthy food spoils quickly so you buy frozen meals and canned food. You live day by day, and feed yourself day by day. Trust me, pre-prepared/"fast" food and meal-in-a-box style eating is the best way to go. You have all the food groups there each day, and you get full from it. You can buy "low fat" or "low sodium" frozen dinners and meal-in-a-box's, but they're still pretty unhealthy and honestly they taste like garbage (except cauliflower Kraft Dinner, that **** is delicious).

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

For the poor it often comes down to education.

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I'm not sure it takes much education to realize that unhealthy food and sitting around all day = you get fat. Being poor doesn't mean you're retarded.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Isn't that what I said at the start?

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And I didn't argue it, so I'm not sure why you're trying to. I've said almost exactly this:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

The advanced cultures already have more than enough resources to feed themselves and most of the rest of the world... and future developments could likely continue to meet the needs of a growing population... but here's the problem. Why should they do so?

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...several times on this forum. The population isn't too high for what industrialized nations COULD provide, it's too high for what we DO provide, so overpopulation is still a problem, and also the standard of living for kids in the Canadian foster care system is crap. So, adoption = good choice.

I don't think anyone should feel guilty about wanting to have kids of their own, and if they are prepared to go to extremes to do it, fair enough.
Life is short, you must do what feels right as long as you are not harming anyone else.
The tools are there now and they will be used and after all it is built into us (as a species, there are a few individual exceptions obviously) to want to procreate.

But it still remains that the world population has nearly doubled in my lifetime and I am still in my 30's - that is a scary fact.

Morals and philosophy aside... If it didn't hurt and didn't involve hormone injections and legal liability, etc. I would do it. I have perfectly good eggs going to waste... Plus, I'm awesome. Why wouldn't someone want to have a mini me??

I might consider going through with it for a family member though...but that involves a whole different set of issues.

The always wonderful Hans Rosling recently gave another statistical TED talk demonstrating that the natural tendency towards smaller numbers of children in both rich and poor families across the world will lead to a static global population level of 10 billion in the near future - I certainly hope this is the case, as the extrapolation from current levels of growth gives us a doubling rate of around 70 years, which is unsustainable. Anyone who buys into the myth that we can deal with just any number of humans is a little short-sighted, to put it mildly.

Completely regardless of the population question, however, I would still state that I would decline sperm donation for no ethical reasons except that I think people ought to prioritise adoption.

All of the arguments made so far have been predicated on the retention of human life on this planet but, given that humans have populated the Earth for some 15 million years and the Earth has been in existence for over 4 billion years, mankind's sojourn is of relatively short duration. It may be that, as a species, we will become extinct in the manner of many others that preceded us, for who knows what epidemics, wars and other forms of mass extinction are around the corner? Naturally, we have to think in the here and now but it's worth taking into account that we may only be here on nature's sufferance.