Pro and cons of families

Originally posted by Styrbiorn Are you serious?   Let's overpopulate a world where resources became scarcer for every day and wait for the inevitable disasters that happen when there is not enough land, food or water. Sounds like a plan!

'The best way is to learn from our grandfathers. I mean, we shouldn't use any method of birth control. Women should stay at homes and take care of children, while their husbands should earn monay. It'll be enough.' lol you could difficultly have picked a worst example: Saudi Arabia is a very inequal country with a majority of dirt poor and a huge part of the population is fron abroad (25% in Saudi Arabia, 75% in UAE)
Finally I don't see how these countries can be a social model for anyone even for anti-feminists

i loved this article

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=9407842

Originally posted by Maharbbal Ataman at least you should precise that people should be free to do as they wish.

Originally posted by ataman It is not the matter of a model. It is the matter of an influence (or lack of influence) of feminism and a wealth of a country�on a natality rate.

Bad understanding of causation here. Even if birthrates are higher in countries that haven't been influenced by feminism - it doesn't mean there is a causal relationship between the two, to any degree whatsoever.

This is the kind of misunderstanding of causality that led ancient Egyptians to assume celestial objects could affect the Nile, because the two phenomena appeared to be related. When the stars and moon were in certain positions the Nile flooded, but it didn't mean the celestial bodies caused the flooding.

Correlation does not imply causation. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.

Example:

Originally posted by Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

Originally posted by edgewaters Originally posted by ataman It is not the matter of a model. It is the matter of an influence (or lack of influence) of feminism and a wealth of a country on a natality rate. Bad understanding of causation here. Even if birthrates are higher in countries that haven't been influenced by feminism - it doesn't mean there is a causal relationship between the two, to any degree whatsoever. This is the kind of misunderstanding of causality that led ancient Egyptians to assume celestial objects could affect the Nile, because the two phenomena appeared to be related. When the stars and moon were in certain positions the Nile flooded, but it didn't mean the celestial bodies caused the flooding. Correlation does not imply causation. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.

Originally posted by ataman In thic case correlation implies causation.

Correlation never implies causation, in any case. You can't demonstrate a causal relationship by mere correlation. It's irrelevant. If it can't be demonstrated by other means, then it is insufficient. If it can be demonstrated by other means, then it is unnecessary.

Feminised society has more educated women, more working women, more women who are independet on men etc. These women get marry later (sometimes they�don't marry at all), use methods of birth control, etc.�It has a direct�influence on a natality rate.

The only proof you offer is correlation, which is no proof at all. A third factor may be responsible for both feminism and lower natality - say, education or living costs or social mobility. People who expect to have more income in the future might wait longer to have children, for instance.

Originally posted by ataman       'The best way is to learn from our grandfathers. I mean, we shouldn't use any method of birth control. Women should stay at homes and take care of children, while their husbands should earn monay. It'll be enough.'     [/QUOTE     I can't find where you first posted this so I may be taking it out of context ( although I can't think of any context that it wouldn't offend me) but I find this to be one of the most assinine, offensive remarks that I have read on here in a long time.  To credit my grandfathers with such thoug

Edited by Dawn - 06-Jul-2007 at 20:03

Ataman has some problems in his arguments, here are some:

People always had birth control (Japan population under the second half of the Tokugawa shogunate had a total demographic growth close to 0% even when there was no major mortality because of birth control including infanticide).

The presence of feminism cannot be considered as the main nor even a significant factor of the drop of the natality rate. France population simply stopped growing in the 1750s while the rest of Europe waited toll the 1850s or the 1900s to undergo such a shift. No major feminist trend can be correlated to that.

Feminised society has more educated women, more working women, more women who are independet on men etc. These women get marry later (sometimes they don't marry at all), use methods of birth control, etc. It has a direct influence on a natality rate.
Ultimately, it also depends on ho you see the world and hope it will be when you pass it up to your children: I'd rather have educated and free women than a high natality rate. I don't see how any one can oppose this (specially since women in chains may not have many more children).

Talking about grand ma, mine had 16 abortions, 3 miscarriages, 1 child dead before 1 and 3 daughters� in 20 years of wedding� I don't see how this can be better than my mum who had 1 kid only�

Originally posted by elenos Perhaps if Ataman's grandparents had access to birth control they would have used it