Be Fruitful and Multiply: Mitzvah or Sin?

Jupiter,
Faster please, your hippie neo Malthusian ideas about population growth are so laughably out of sync with reality that it will be a mitzvah that you don't pass on your ideas to any impressionable young children. Liberal self deluded idiots such as your self will be out bred by those who are thirsty for life and all that it has to offer. Good luck with the fertility treatments in your 40's when your biological instincts finally hit you over the head, but not nearly hard enough to knock any sense into it.

I agree that overpopulation is a problem. However, it is difficult to find a solution, since having babies is simply an instinctual drive for the majority of the world's population. One group may realize there are enough people in the world and conscientiously decide to lower their birthrate (and try to encourage others to have less kids as well), but that group will eventually become a minority and cease to have any influence over the other group that continued to have large families and believe that it is a good thing to have large families. And the world's population will continue to grow.

As sad as it is to say, there is no human way to slow the exponential growth rate of the human population. The earth, on the other hand, can only give so much and eventually the point will be reached in which hundreds of millions, if not billions will start to starve to death. (Or actually die of thirst, since water is a much more precious resource than food.)

And this is really a fate that I do not wish upon any descendants of mine.

With that happy thought, I wish you shana tova! 

Look at the statistics, and it's clear that the Malthusian population "catastrophe" is taking care of itself in ways both benign and horrifying.

 First the benign: As women throughout the world become more educated and more empowered, and as societies develop from agricultural to industrial and post-industrial, population growth ebbs.  World population is expected to peak around 2050.  The horrifying answer to population control is AIDS, which has brutally "solved" the problem of overpopulation Africa.  

The benign side of population growth has already happened in the developed world and is quickly spreading to developing countries.  In America the domestic population keeps growing only because of immigrants.  In Europe and Japan, the real problem is not ENOUGH babies to support welfare systems overburdened by a progressively aging population.  The same seems to be happening in China, thanks to that country's disastrous and tyrannical "one child" policy.  So if you live in the developed world (or China), you might contribute more to the universe by having a few extra children to make up for all the people not reproducing who will depend on the government to take care of them in old age.  Maybe one of those kids will even find a cure for AIDS, or figure out technologies that reduce our carbon emissions or allow millions of poor people to be lifted out of poverty.   

--Z

    The "small planet" discourse always sounds to me like rationalization of a decision really taken for other reasons.  I would take this discourse more seriously if someone said, "You know, I really want to have kids; I think I'd be a good and conscientious mom/dad; my spouse and I are, fortunately, physically able to have kids; and we're prepared to devote the time, effort, and money that is required to raise children, but we're going to forgo that opportunity because there are just too many people in the world."  

    Jewish thought on this subject, as on many (most?) other subjects, can't be grasped simply by reading biblical verses.  Procreation has not been seen as a communal (species-wide?) duty, one that's fulfilled as soon as the world is amply populated.  It's been seen as an individual duty.  Why?  Perhaps (my own interpretation) because the Torah/our Tradition/God wants us to take responsibility for and have a stake in the future, and having and raising kids (one of each gender, say Beit Hillel) is an integral part of a full human experience. 

To zbird, do you think a starving kid born in a slum and unable to get an education will solve the problem of AIDS? The reason the US has so many poorly educated and low-skilled illegal immigrants flooding in is because Mexico, and the rest of Central and South America has an exploding population that it cannot feed. The rising population has negative effects on the planet like rapid deforestation, species extinction and global warming. I realize Jews just want to increase their own population, and hence want to downplay the threat of overpopulation. This is not only irresponsible, it is downright dangerous. Here's a great article on this subject:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferguson30jul30,1,3...

 You claim that Mexican immigration is caused by an "exploding population" that it cannot feed.  In fact, according to the CIA's World Fact Book, Mexico's population is "exploding" at a rate of (drumroll, please)...1.153%.  Granted, that's about .2% higher than the US's population growth rate, but hardly a Malthusian catastrophe waiting to happen.  (to give some perspective, Saudi Arabia population growth rate is 2.06%; at 1.008%, Brazil's population is growing slower than the US). 

As an economics major and Spanish minor who has traveled throughout Mexico and Latin America, you bring up a subject near and dear to my heart: namely, the persistent poverty and lack of opportunity in this part of the region.  However, I think you exaggerate when you say the country cannot feed its population.  Doubtless there is hunger in that part of the world (as there is in the United States), but the main economic problem these countries face is not basic subsistence, but a lack of hope or opportunity for the poor to realize their full potential. 

Mexicans aren't flooding to the U.S. because they are starving but because they see opportunities in the U.S. that they lack back home.  

As for the environmental disasters you speak of, I can't deny that more people require more space to live in.  But with the right technology and better economic management a country can decrease the natural resources consumed by each individual.   

 Finally, with regard to your first question about whether a poor slum-dwelling kid could grow up to cure AIDS, you misinterpret my earlier post.  I was specifically referring to children in the DEVELOPED world.  On the other hand, although I'm not naive to the challenges faced by the poor, I also am optimistic enough to believe that some people, through heroic efforts and good fortune, will always rise from even the humblest circumstances to do great things.  

 --Z