Simply by reading the bold title and question, Should This Be the Last Generation? made me think of what the world would be like if there was a chastity belt on the human race. Peter I can see the positive aspects based on the perception I have formed in my head about generation. As I kept reading Peter Singer’s article, I then considered the people that came before me and after my group. By the end of the article I realized that stopping the additional birthing of children would have some advantages now, but in the long run, it would only be hurting the future.
In addition to considering the family history of illnesses, as Singer pointed out, there needs to be a consideration of who the babies are on average being birthed from. This would be the most recent generation to come into adulthood: Generation Y. Ranging from 1984 to 1992, not only is Generation Y young, but the group is still trying to find out who they are in this world. They are at college. They are working in fast food. They are out partying. They are out drinking. An end to conceiving now would be a positive affect to this generation because of how mixed the morals are. This is also the generation that has raised the statistics in teen pregnancy, and the spawn of the generation that raised the divorce rates in the world. No more repopulating could stop many mistakes from coming into the world due to a one night stand or inebriated shenanigans.
But look at the generations that are still growing: Generation Z. With technology such as computers and television at its highest, it is easier for these generations to absorb information as well as learn more quickly than the past, as they are growing as these industries grow. This could possibly be the smartest generation to later walk on this earth, as some are still crawling. This could possibly be the generation that solves cancer, find a solution to national debt, or even build a computer that rivals creations by Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
So what if we stop now? What if we stop this generation from creating an even smarter generation? We will still have our other problems and would still have to solve them. If we do stop creating, we won’t feel guilty. Rather, we will be questioning what would have been. And how will we do this properly? And then again, you can’t just put a chastity belt over all the women and men of this Earth. And sterilizing the human race would possibly increase the chances of dying from a sexual disease or possibly rape encounters, and we would still have our debts and diseases, meaning we will just have more problems to solve.
If anything, it is not so much how good life is or would be, but how stable that makes it reasonable to have a baby. Look at your life, look at your choices!
Well, the graphic was hilarious, and the title certainly set the tone, except I'm not sure it's the tone you want.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit too familiar to address him, and to address him using his first name. Singer will do.
Paragraph two seems to be overgeneralizing.
And given your skepticism for Gen Y, your optimism for Gen Z doesn't make sense.
But in the 2nd to last paragraph, you focus on the long term effects, which is good, even if it's obvious that it wouldn't be too long term before we all died out. And the pragmatics of it matter less than the hypotheticals (the morality of it).