Do stupid people have more children? What are the implications?

by AlmostAtheist 55 Replies latest jw friends

  • funkyderek
    funkyderek

    I've noticed this trend for years. The people who seem most poorly equipped to have children are the people who seem to have the most. Not only do the terminally poor seem to have more children, they start having them earlier. By the time I have children, many of my contemporaries from the other side of the tracks will already be grandparents, and probably still adding to their own litter. Unfortunately, the government here raises child benefit levels for each succeeding child, encouraging the workshy to breed even more.

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    If it's any consolation, this has been going on for centuries, maybe milleniums. Somehow, civilization has held together, dispite the propagation of lower class people.

    S

  • funkyderek
    funkyderek
    If it's any consolation, this has been going on for centuries, maybe milleniums. Somehow, civilization has held together, dispite the propagation of lower class people.

    Except it hasn't. In the past, poor people had fewer children, or at least fewer that survived to adulthood, precisely because they were poor. They could not afford to raise a large family. The welfare state has changed all this though. People are being paid to have children that nobody wants. The more they have, the more they get paid. This is an entirely new phenomenon.

  • Utopian_Raindrops
  • Utopian_Raindrops
  • Utopian_Raindrops
  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow

    I don't see a lot of big families anymore like I did when I was a child. Our family had six kids, my neighbor had six kids, a family down the street had seven and there were lots of families with 4 and five children. Today, most families I know have one tothree children. Besides, who says that only very bright people should have more than one or two children? And, usually people in general aren't that bright when you think about it. How many extremely intelligent people do you know? Most people are pretty average. And not all poor people are stupid. Then some people just prefer to live humble lives. I recall that the comedian Benny Hill has millions of dollars, yet he lived in a small apartment with sparse furnishings. Personally, I find the title of this thread offensive. Stupidity: even high IQ people can be stupid.

  • AlmostAtheist
    AlmostAtheist
    Personally, I find the title of this thread offensive. Stupidity: even high IQ people can be stupid.

    Sorry, FHN, there was no intent to offend, nor generate interest through "shock value".

    It was only meant as a "hey, here's a pattern I've noticed in my limited experience, anybody else notice it, and have an explanation?" If I'd had such experiences, it could have easily been "People in hats are usually mean, why is that?"

    Anecdotal evidence from this thread suggests that there is actually little or no direct correlation between intelligence and number of children. So overall, this idea is probably just flat wrong.

    Thanks for everyone's help in arriving at this conclusion. And again, I apologize for the offensive nature of the thread.

    Dave

  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow
    Thanks for everyone's help in arriving at this conclusion. And again, I apologize for the offensive nature of the thread.

    Dave

    Thank you, Dave. That made me smile.

  • John Doe
    John Doe

    "Stupidity: even high IQ people can be stupid."

    This makes no sense whatsoever. This is like saying "Even apples can be oranges." Uh, no, an apple is an apple and an orange is an orange.

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