Civilized population.

@Lore2009 (7378)
United States
August 19, 2011 6:33pm CST
Just a silly question, don't take it seriously. But if we were not 'civilized' how many children do you think a person would have in their life? If we were not 'civilized' do you think humans would be extinct by now for killing each other off or would it have been made even since we'd have a lot of kids too.
1 person likes this
5 responses
@topffer (42156)
• France
20 Aug 11
Is this a silly question ? I live in a country where you can ask for a medal when you have raised a large family : a bronze medal for 4 or 5 children ; a silver medal for 6 or 7 ; a gold medal for 8 or more. It depends of the place where you are living, but there is often a "money bonus" offered to "good mothers". When I was a kid, I remember I saw these medals given to mothers of 15 children. So, can we speak of "civilized" or "not civilized" people ? To have or to not have a "birthrate policy" is also a matter of civilization. My opinion is that human beings have always been "civilized"...
@pickwick (858)
• India
20 Aug 11
Hi topffer , i live in a country where the government helps you in the child's education if you have only a single child , that too daughter.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42156)
• France
20 Aug 11
Another birthrate policy and another civilization. Honestly, I think that the best birthrate policy would be to have no birthrate policy and to let parents free to have children as they want.
@Lore2009 (7378)
• United States
20 Aug 11
That's true, sorry for being ignorant about it. I guess I meant if we didn't have any 'money' problems and no birth control, I wondered how much children may each person have.
@_sketch_ (5742)
• United States
21 Aug 11
In a world where children starve, I am not sure that we can go about making claims of being civilized. And look at the world; we kill each other off all the time, and we do continue to overpopulate. It's interesting to me that both these things are great for the economy.
@Lore2009 (7378)
• United States
21 Aug 11
True, we aren't really civilized.
@GreenMoo (11833)
20 Aug 11
If we were not 'civilized' (a broad term, I'm not sure we're civilized even now when you look at the news reports!) lets say than women got pregnant when ever the opportunity arose. So they could have, lets say, a baby each year or thereabouts. But, if we weren't 'civilized', we would lack medical know how as well as contraceptive know how and many of these babies would die. Many of these mothers would also die, and poor exhausted women would die earlier than currently. There would also be a higher incidence of child mortality. If we were not 'civilized', you also have to consider that people generally would have a shorter life span due to accident, injury, a harder day to day life, lack of medical care etc etc. I'm not sure you'd have the population boom you might expect when you think of couples having babies all over the place, as the mortality rate would also be considerably higher. Just thinking though ...
@Lore2009 (7378)
• United States
20 Aug 11
Very true. I guess we would've just 'evened' out anyway....
@pickwick (858)
• India
20 Aug 11
Hi Lore, the number of offspring an organism can produce in its life span is called its biotic potential.Since the reproductive life of a human female is from roughly 13 years to 50 years let us say she can produce around 20 offspring.But the environment can sustain only limited number of individuals , this is called its carrying capacity.But when the biotic potential is more than its carrying capacity , there will be destruction of individuals due to shortage of food , or famine , earthquake etc.This is called environmental resistance.So there will always be a check on population by the environment even if the human beings were not civilized.
@Lore2009 (7378)
• United States
20 Aug 11
Interesting!!!!! Biotic potential, carrying capacity, environmental resistance. I learned something new!
• United States
21 Aug 11
Perhaps if there were no issues in the world there would be more and more children per family is my thought. Personally I am glad I only had two as being a single parent as I was, would have been really tough if I had more then the two.
@Lore2009 (7378)
• United States
21 Aug 11
I guess it will never happen in the end, because having a lot of children may become the issue.