Why I probably won't have children

It was something that struck me when I was young: the world isn't big enough. Here is why.

The land surface area of the earth is 148,940,000 km² (wikipedia)

The population of the Earth is 6,602,224,175 people.

That is 44.3 people in every kilometer squared covering the entire planet. Or, another way that is 150m squared each, which is 4.5 football fields side by side.

Of course that includes the ice sheets, the rain forest, the deserts, the tundra, savannah, mountains etc. Say that even half is good enough to live on and grow food on... in an equal world we have only 2 football fields to support and live upon in the whole universe.

With the population expected to double in the next century our children will be living on just a football field each. That is poverty.

This is reflected as I speak in rising commodity prices, and inflation across the board. It is an odd irony that as resources are becoming more and more limited the human population is responding by demanding more and more.

In my own life I have been going in the opposite direction. I am vegetarian which puts less demand on land (vegetarians use only 10% the land of meat eaters). I live in a garage with no supply of water, electricity or gas. I use solar power for electronics. Jumpers for warmth. 1L of petrol a month on cooking. I would use rainwater but have nowhere as yet to put the collection unit. I use toilets once a day at work, and shower only once a week in the local swimming pool. I do not shop except for necessities. My salary is kept in savings or given to various charities which support the preservation and education of people about the Earth. I share as much as I can. I don't have a car (use public transport), I don't have a washing machine (I share with 50 other people and use the laundrette) - imagine the saving to the environment if the number of cars and washing machines were reduced by 50/100 times simply by sharing. Think of the riches we would gain by living like this! And I still think there is much more to do.

This is not about being good. This is just simple logic and understanding. In contrast one has to accept that the economies, governments, planners and leaders of this country and most others must be ignored. I have voiced already my reservations about the real validity of "government" at all. It is simply a game or an arbitrary idea that we can chose or ignore. In contrast true Government cannot be ignored. And the true governors are holding us account to what we have been doing for the last 3 centuries!

This was apparent more or less to me as a young child (aged 9). I assume it is even more apparent to adults of this world. It has been troubling since quite where my own family would fit into this. I decided as a child it was untenable with reasonable behaviour to have a family for the sake of future generations.

As a Darwinist however I knew that "my" genes were in a struggle for survival. If I did not have children then my genetic line would die out. If indeed I thought myself and my own lifestyle worth preserving then i should have children. I am also the last of my family line so the name dies out as well.

Yet this is exactly what everyone else is thinking so we enter the Prisoners Dilemma of game theory.

It would be wrong for everyone to have children. But also wrong for everyone to not have children. It seems the destruction, or at least grave poverty, of the human race is assured which ever direction we head.

Consider the family who cannot have children and which adopts. Are they not happy? If they are happy then why can't we all do that? Adopt the human race as our family and overcome the tyranny of billions of years of genetic struggle?

We know from monastics that the keys to happiness do not lie within family. Jesus would have taught us the same. The keys to happiness lie with God.

The challenge it seems regarding children is a profound and tough one: to overcome that drive of billions of years which directed our worm like proto-ancestors to mate and spawn the offspring which ensured our eventual physical birth. A billion years is a lot of fathers and mothers honing their desire for creation, and we flourish at the end of that successful tree. It is hardly going to be easy to undo the programming of so many generations. However are we to be just a link in the chain? An automaton like the worms that breed in the soil under our feet? Is that all our life was ment to be? Or can we chose?

So it seems that the challenge is to gain the power to chose. Right now the choice for those who are strong enough is to chose the welfare of future generations by holding back on child birth. The "breeders" who are too selfish or stupid to make this decision are then best suited to create the generation that I am sacrifycing my own progeny for.

So the geneticists argue again. But, then we will have a population of humans who are only selfish and stupid and who will generate too many children and obliterate their own futures anyway. There can be only one answer to this. I am only able to make choices for myself, sadly not for others.

And another problem. Kids cost money. And, money comes from working. And, working involves changing things. So kids involve changing the world. And if the world was fine before then kids involve spoiling the world. which is what is happening with environmental degredation. It is not just the human race we are saving here but the whole planet!

So the choice for me is made, as argued.