Wouldn't mass adoption solve world problems?

[beeny]

I believe a lot, if not all, of the world's problems are caused by overpopulation. I'd imagine back in the pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer era, humans lived in small groups with minimal conflict and everybody had strong and complete relationships with each other. Socital pressures and hierarchies wouldn't have existed, allowing people to live as they pleased.

Adoption is a harmless way to reduce the strain on the population and environmental capacities of this world.

1. If I learned my history right, then the gap between the rich and poor is always increasing. Adopting instead of having your own child would save a parentless impoverished kid and limit the world population.

2. More people means more greenhouse emissions. Even if global warming isn't caused by us, all of those toxic chemicals probably aren't good for life anyway. Though there are probably alternative and healtier fuel sources we could turn to, it would be easier to cut the problem off at the source. Each child that is born will grow up into driving an automobile, riding an airplane, creating more emissions, etc.

3. A lot of our world's problems are caused by just the sheer amount of people. Unhealthy lifestyles (McDonalds, cigarettes) can continue because there are more and more people to support them.

Of course, once all the "available adoptions" are gone, births could continue at some kind of controlled rate again.

I don't see why any humanitarian or anybody against greenhouse emissions wouldn't be pro-adoption. So many problems can be alleviated or solved without harming anybody in the process.

[hmkpoker]

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I believe a lot, if not all, of the world's problems are caused by overpopulation. I'd imagine back in the pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer era, humans lived in small groups with minimal conflict and everybody had strong and complete relationships with each other. Socital pressures and hierarchies wouldn't have existed, allowing people to live as they pleased.

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I think this reflects a strong bias of living in a civilized world. The Hobbesian anarchic world of hunter-gatherers was a brutal one indeed. Most anthropoligical studies demonstrate life expectancies in the late teens/early twenties. Infant mortality was extremely high. Health care did not exist. Living conditions would be considered unbearable by Amish standards. The practices of hunter-gatherers are also quite disturbing. Take a look at the "rights of passages" that all young men and women had to go through in pre-civilized African and Native American cultures. They're barbaric.

Reproductive rates were much higher than they are today; there were no condoms and no sex education. Yet the population remained very small for a long period of time. The reason is because everyone was dying.

[beeny]

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Reproductive rates were much higher than they are today; there were no condoms and no sex education. Yet the population remained very small for a long period of time. The reason is because everyone was dying.

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Are we happier now that we can live three times longer? If we could live to be 200 would our lives be even better? [Though I've found some numbers that showed paleolithic humans' life expectancy wasn't much shorter than ours today.]

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Living conditions would be considered unbearable by Amish standards.

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The tolerability of living conditions is relative.

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The practices of hunter-gatherers are also quite disturbing. Take a look at the "rights of passages" that all young men and women had to go through in pre-civilized African and Native American cultures. They're barbaric.

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And the practices of modern man aren't disturbing? I'm not sure what rites of passage you're talking about but the rites of passage we have today can be considered barbaric as well.

Would you still agree with me that allowing our population to increase limitlessly would just increse the severity of the problems that exist today?

[Phil153]

Adoption isn't going to stop the fact that poor people breed like rabbits. Rich people and rich countries are not the problem - they produce a tiny fraction of the world population increase, and some Western countries have negative population growth amongst their founding members.

I agree that overpopulation causes the overwhelming majority of the world's problems, now and especially in the future. But the problem lies in countries outside the West, and the reality is that it will not be solved now that it has progressed this far. The poor regions of the world are destined to becoming teeming hotbeds of humanity, using up all of their natural resources, destroying the last remnants of the natural environment, building armies and going to war, and polluting the world like never before seen as they go through their poor copies of the industrial revolution. It's going to be an ugly future. I'm not a pessimist by any means but this is staring us in the face.

[yukoncpa]

I’m going to comment on your first question. Yes adoption solves a whole lot of problems, period.

I truly hate to go further, but I don’t get all of your ideas or hmkpoker’s. It is true that early people died younger, but by current standards they had a better life. A typical hunter/gatherer worked 4 hours a week, then played the rest of the time ( See Guns, Germs, And Steel ). It wasn't until states were invented, that human suffering really began.

[Ben K]

Although over-population does cause a lot of problems, this won't be solved by adoption. The only way to persuade the uneducated peoples who are producing lots of kids to produce less is to show them that having kids has negative consequences. Adoption removes those consequences so would most likely produce even more overcrowding.

Now, to solve the over-population, I vote for the free distribution of condoms and the education of women. These two things have been categorically proved to reduce birth rates.

[kerowo]

Why don't we sterilize prisoners as well? Or cut off the hands of theifs?

How are you going to implement this plan where instead of a couple having the right to make a baby together they are forced instead to adopt a child not only from another country but most likely from a different race than there own?

[Tablerat]

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2. More people means more greenhouse emissions. Even if global warming isn't caused by us, all of those toxic chemicals probably aren't good for life anyway. Though there are probably alternative and healtier fuel sources we could turn to, it would be easier to cut the problem off at the source. Each child that is born will grow up into driving an automobile, riding an airplane, creating more emissions, etc.

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I agree. Global warming aside, I feel much healthier breathing fresh mountain air, for example, rather than city air which just feels heavy in my lungs. Even if someone does not believe that humans are causing global warming or that any temperature increase over decades is not noteworthy, that person still has to address the current air, soil and water quality.

And returning to your main topic, I think adoption is wonderful but, in my opinion, birth control is more important. What are the main reasons that someone or some couple decides to place their child for adoption and what do studies reveal about how that psychologically affects the child and the parents? The underlying reasons why the parents were unprepared for caring for their child in the first place need to be addressed simultaneously with your proposition for mass adoption. Are you suggesting increases in surrogate mothers?

[tolbiny]

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A typical hunter/gatherer worked 4 hours a week, then played the rest of the time ( See Guns, Germs, And Steel )

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This is a gross mis characterization. Hunter gatherer lifestyle was cyclical. Periods of plenty during wet seasons and when fruit and nuts were harvested were offset by years of horror. Drought could kill off 90% of your group, a sudden outbreak of disease might kill every child under 10. Look up the bottle neck effect and you will find one of the examples occurred 80-100,000 years ago in humans. At some point in time only 1,000-10,000 people managed to have offspring whose lineage survived till today. At the time the human population around the world probably numbered in the millions. A volcano, an epidemic, something happened that destroyed 95% + of humans ability to procreate healthy lines.

[beeny]

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How are you going to implement this plan where instead of a couple having the right to make a baby together they are forced instead to adopt a child not only from another country but most likely from a different race than there own?

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I don't know if forcing people is necessary, but increasing education and availibility of adoption should help a lot.

I think people just don't realize that having more kids increases overpopulation and that overpopulation is causing so many problems. More and more people are trying to be environmental-friendly (hybrids) and eating healthier diets (organic foods), so I don't see why these same people wouldn't strongly consider adoption as well. I haven't looked into it myself but I think adoption is also a difficult process and most people would rather just not go through the trouble. China doesn't allow fat people, single parents, homosexuals, old people, etc. to adopt. If it was easier to adopt I'd say the adoption rate would go up too.

Also, if anybody refuses to adopt on grounds of racial differences... then that's a whole other probleim in itself.