NahnCee: You think the Yurpizoids will have the stamina or the will power to kill a bunch of old people? I suppose they *could* just turn off the air conditioning every summer.

Well, the Netherlands has been flirting with legalizing outright euthanasia for some time now. (Or have they finally gone and done it?)

spindok: People dont make babies because of some sort of rational retirement plan or for the good of society.

You’ve touched upon another of my favorite observations, which is that from a societal and cultural standpoint, procreating is a lot like voting in a U.S. presidential election, in that your individual contribution (or lack thereof), taken by itself, means next to nothing in deciding the outcome. That is, you could have one child or ten, or none at all, and in the big picture that won’t make a dime’s worth of difference. Therefore you have next to zero incentive for giving societal/cultural impact any weight in your family planning decisions. “Rational ignorance”, I guess, is bliss.