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Robot Babies Not Effective Birth Control, Australian Study Finds (sky.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Girls given imitation babies to look after in an effort to deter teenage pregnancy could actually be more likely to get pregnant, according to a study. Researchers in Australia found 8% of girls who used the dolls were expecting by the age of 20, compared with 4% of those who did not. The number of girls having at least one abortion was also higher among girls given the dolls: 9% compared to 6%. 'Baby Think It Over' dolls were used in a Virtual Infant Parenting (VIP) programme which began in 57 schools in Western Australia in 2003. During the three-year study, published in The Lancet, 1267 girls aged 13 to 15 used the simulators -- which need to be fed and changed, while 1567 learned the normal health curriculum. The idea originated in the United States and is used in 89 countries. Researchers from the Telethon Kids Institute in Western Australia are now warning that such programmes may be a waste of public money.
Conservatives accuse liberals of trying unproven social experiments, but he's an excellent example of Conservatives pulling the same trick.
I find robots very effective at birth control. I've not managed to get one pregnant yet.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Lack of sleep could have accounted for the difference in judgement the girls with simulated babies experienced.
Robot Babies Not Effective Birth Control, Australian Study Finds
Depends on where you install them.
Well, it looks like this population control psyop / social engineering experiment will have to be scrapped. Maybe they should have made the robot baby cry and shit more....
You know what makes good birth control? Robot sex dolls with real AI!
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Good on the Australians for actually verifying the claims made by their American counterparts. I am sure this won't have an effect on the US' extremely large teen pregnancy rate, that correlates much better to the lack of sex-ed than anything else. But of course you can't teach children about sex; it's better if they never know!
It would be nice if the conservatives started admitting that birth control is effective birth control.
This just in from Australia: Robots do not prevent sex.
"No sane man will dance." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
If teenagers think that feeding a crying baby and changing diapers is tough, they should just wait until they start crawling, pulling things down, and gnawing everything in sight because of teething.
Until the dolls literally spray genuine, authentic baby shit and vomit on you in the middle of the night, they are going to be inadequate to the task of dissuading girls from wanting to make babies.
If you can't actually fill them with a truly realistic substitute for unwanted infant fluids, they're worthless.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The dolls are helping those who use them make an informed choice about a huge life decision. What did it matter that these decisions are politically unpopular? I can't think of a more important thing to be educated about.
How were the women selected for this program? Were they already at higher risk than national average?
Female brains are hardwired to care for a baby in need. All these robotic babies do is trigger those responses quicker. It's basic biology.
Yes, some women will decide babies aren't for them.. some out of practicality, but most out of an inability to process those biological imperatives nature has embedded into mammalian female brains.
They did something similar in my high school as part of one of the home economics classes. This was a while ago so I'm sure the simulators are now much more advanced, but that's neither here or there. My point is that the types of people enrolled in this particular class were...trying to be polite...just the sort of people most likely to end up with a teenage pregnancy. I'm wondering if this was a random sample of teenage girls, or were there other factors at play in determining what population ended up with these simulators?
simulated electronic dolls only teach children the approximate modes and methods of caretaking an infant. drop sensors detect potentially lethal impacts that are factored into scorecards, and rand() algorithms activate and deactivate pre-recorded audio through a speaker to simulate crying.
Children dont learn the complex consequences and repercussions of what it means to have a child our of wedlock or unplanned, For example, markedly lower income and education. They do not correlate the robot child in their arms with statistical increases in drug abuse and crime. Children are in many municipalities instead taught to avoid pregnancy but arent given viable options to do so such as condoms birth control or emergency abortifactants despite their safety for use in ages as young as 12. the doll program in the United States served no purpose than to drive sales of D cell batteries for all intents and purposes.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Not to mention more efficient?
Handing out condoms and showing how to use them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's far better birth control than giving girls robot babies.
I think she was about 15 yo when this was assigned as homework in public school (in N Carolina, USA). She's from an affluent household and always said, I'll never have kids. After? Now she is looking forward to having children, someday. She's a Sr in H.S. now and picking her universities for next year. An all around great young lady.
My niece was given one to look after for a couple of days, the whole thing sparked a family conversation and it was fun and I suspect it was educational. It may not have met its political purpose but it had other value. I think the only thing they should have done differently was to pick some of the class at random and given them two or three at a time to take home.
Nullius in verba
The articles referenced post nothing about the socio-economic factors of these girls, which many believe has a lot to do with unintentional pregnancies, with our without any education. Additionally, I see nothing discussed about interviews with the teen-mothers to indicate if they were already thinking of becoming mothers prior to the sex-ed/robot baby teachings. Seems a lot of data is missing if you ask me.
They should have given the dolls to boys. It takes two.
(Maybe with a new law that all underage fathers get automatic, irrevocable full custody.)
The bottom line is that the "conservatives" advocating abstinence training are actually right. The only actual way to reduce teen pregnancy is to encourage them to stop fucking so much.
That's like saying the most effective way to stop the tide coming in is to stand on the beach and tell the tide not to come in. I mean it works perfectly when it works.
But much like the tide won't stop when you tell it to, there is nothing you can say to teenagers to stop them fucking.
Back to your stats, condoms are pretty effective when used correctly--98%, not 82%. When used badly they have high failure rates. The CDC data indicates that you should be telling teenagers how to use condoms properly.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Not the one you dream of. The CDC's numbers are correct.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Speaking as a father of two, nothing prepares new parents for what happens when one of these little creatures stops being a robot and starts being real:
- Sleep deprivation
- Loss of anything resembling free time unless a kid activity is involved
- Loss of money -- they're expensive at every age and stage, just in different ways
- Loss of sanity -- $deity help the teen parent who happens to get a perpetually fussy kid
Of course, there are huge upsides to it (it's the best thing I ever did, bar none...) but I'd think those would be drowned out quickly among the stresses of being poorly educated, underemployed, and always broke. I can see why young parents tend to be more abusive and neglectful.
I think it's silly to promote abstinence as a preferred form of birth control, which is what typically wins out in conservative areas of the US. These kids are teenagers -- if you tell them not to do something, and even show them examples of why you might not want to, they're going to go do it more. All the options need to be presented -- it's terrible luck of the draw for a kid who happens to be born to parents who can't properly care for it, and that kid shouldn't have to suffer because religious conservatives are afraid of exposing the real world to kids.
1) Expecting young humans to be rational
2) Expecting humans of any age to be rational about one of the most powerful hardwired instincts: reproduction.
Girls that are going to give in to their hormone-driven instincts are going to do so no matter what you do, unless you physically or medically restrain them somehow. Giving girls in that category babydolls like they did just 'trains' them to take care of the infants they'll eventually have too soon anyway, it doesn't deter them; more likely it just softens the impact of the reality of having a child to take care of.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
You have figures for all the other methods. What are the figures for "encouraging them to stop fucking so much"?
The figures quoted say otherwise. True, the worst contraceptive you mention is successful with 72% of users across a year never having a problem, however the pill is successful for 91% of users (over a year), and the CDC includes reversible birth control measures that are more than 99% effective in the chart you mention.
It's also worth mentioning that the failures aren't necessarily a function of the devices themselves so much as user error. Condoms usually "fail" not because they break or anything else obvious, but because people who rely upon them frequently decide to chance not using them. Almost all versions of the pill can be rendered useless if combined with certain drugs - notably many antibiotics - and are more than 99% effective if used properly.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I am sure it's awful. Just curious why. I don't know anything about it. Of course, the fact we have libido's as teens means that nature wants us to have children at that age. So why exactly is it the case that modern societal norms are correct and that nature is wrong?
End of story...
Playing with feed and change dolls is something American girls have been doing for decades. As this wires in "be a mommy it is fun! You are a baby making machine!". As a result Yes, they get knocked up. If all it is is feed and change then this encourages reproduction.
You want a robot baby that works?
1. Install colic v4.2 135Db deluxe. Robot now screams at all hours of the day and night for weeks.
2. Install Explosive diarrhea v5.0 This makes sure that the human safe bacteria in the robots milk storage tank, break the milk down into the most foul and stench ridden substance known to man, and randomly expel it out of one end of the robot or the other at high velocity (or sometimes when RNG comes up right, both).
3. Install chunky milk burps v1.0. This takes milk from the storage tank and has it leak out on you whenever you burp the baby. Failing to burp the baby after feeding leads to reengaging colic v4.2 or firing off SIDS 10.
4. Install SIDS 10. Failing to take proper and constant care of the robot according to its sensors, makes it die and the girl gets an F for the class.
5. Install No more free time or friends v3.2. Robot will now make demands all the time or it will engage SIDS 10.
6. No more nice things v3. This leads the robot to crawl around and ingest things its pattern recognition identifies as valuable. Things which are too big to be eaten will be dealt with using Explosive diarrhea v5.0.
Pulling the batteries from the robot leads to an F, Failing to keep it charged leads to an F.
I'll lightly disagree with the drive to procreate not being rational, if only because one can take the perspective of the individual, and one can take the perspective of the species - from a species point of view, procreation is definitely rational.
That all being said, I think part of the larger picture is that, whether driven primarily by biology, one can argue being a mother is a free(ish) choice. We "rational" folks pooh-pooh it as something we should scare people out of, but what if, making different assumptions about the world, it's actually a rational and conscious choice on the part of the woman?
The research doesn't state how the program affected the participants education experience, i.e. How do they pass or fail? If they fail how does that affect their academic status? Do they lose credits making them less eligible for higher education?
Without investment on behalf of the participant, how can they show that the Doll has any affect?
8% of participants went on to become pregnant.. OK so did they just put the doll in a corner for the duration of the program or did they actually participate.
The study doesn't seem very thorough.
I had to get a signoff from my wife at age 29 for a vasectomy.
Really?! After all that women's lib stuff about gaining control of their own bodies (with the pill)?
The only actual way to reduce teen pregnancy is to encourage them to stop fucking so much.
That's just not going to happen. You'd have better luck promoting a more tolerant society so gay-leaning teens start fucking each other more instead of the opposite sex.
In my world, we rely on practical tests of functionality *with the actual users* rather than theoretical measures of effectiveness. It seems the CDC agrees with me on this one.
As to one of your other points:
"The bottom line is that a single act of intercourse between a young couple has on average a one in 20 chance of pregnancy – this assumes the opportunity presented itself on a random day, as these things tend do when you are young."
Source
So the answer is based on how often you fuck. The CDC numbers do not map precisely to data of this sort, however.
Last point: "measuring the effectiveness of encouraging people not to fuck" sounds like the craptastic questionnaire-based research I saw at (not to pick on them) the Lehigh psych department in the early 2000s. People lie, and they can't simulate the paths not taken effectively. There would literally be no way to know if someone decided to not have sexual intercourse based on an abstinence campaign.
Besides, my kind of abstinence campaign would be "Blowjobs for Everyone" or "Real lovers wank each other".
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
This kinda makes sense, with multiple possible effects in play, but I think the greatest effect may be love/emjoyment and fear.
Removal of the fear of the unknown. Once a girl understands all the responsibilities of caring for a child, she may find that her fear of getting pregnant is reduced, and may possibly enjoy the idea, thus possibly increasing her desire to now have a real baby.
She may also find the experience enjoyable, and may actually like taking care of a baby.
In either case, I don't think either of these effects are bad. We should be teaching both boys and girls the responsibilities and skills necessary when having a child. This will allow them to fully understand what it takes, and will help them make better more informed choices.
If the program doesn't also include boys, it should. One of the worst problems we face in inner cities is the 'absent father' syndrome. Boys need to take this responsibility seriously as well.
Maybe not a good prophylactic, but perhaps it makes these mothers better parents?
I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that humans, particularly young human females, have an innate desire, probably driven by hormones, to reproduce, and no amount of scolding, cajoling, lecturing or whatever is going to override that.
Proverbs 21:19
There are plenty of unwanted babies already.
Pass those around and have the high schoolers take care of them. You'd only need to run the program for a week at each school.
it's something like 50% under those same CDC criteria, which count buying (pledging intending) and not using(sticking to the pledge) as a failure.
I had to get a signoff from my wife at age 29 for a vasectomy. I was told they wouldn't do it if i were single or if I had been married with no children.
This has always bothered me especially with the whole "It's my body you can't decided for me" line of thinking that is trotted out in the abortion debate. If a girl can be the sole decider about an abortion then why can't a guy be the sole decider about a vasectomy. For IUDs I don't know if there is some medical reason for a 16 year old couldn't get them especially considering that they are temporary but for thing like getting your tubes tied or getting a vasectomy done I would say as long as you are 18 and aren't under the legal custody of someone else, i.e. you aren't a nut case or have limited mental facilities, you should be able to get either done.
Time to offend someone
Wow that stat is bad. American guys/girls really need to learn to use a condom.
And the effective solution, is just to use a condom, and the pill together. If used correct this combination should land you below 1%/year unwanted pregnancy.
Actual effectiveness ratios for birth control:
Are shaded by factors that you're not presenting. No surprise, you want to use a chart to advance your own lies, like most Conservatives. You take the lesson you want, and ignore the truth.
Highlights:
Condoms are about as effective as the withdrawal method, sponges, or the rhythm method. 20% or so failure rates.
Spermicides are worse (!) (28%)
Wrong, that's not a failure rate. That's a reflection of a usage rate. Condoms and Spermicides being on-demand usage, they have a lot of improper methods used. Like leaving them in the box. Or on the store shelf.
9% annual failure on the pill.
See above.
The only truly effective contraception methods are *just* the methods they won't allow young kids to get.
Because they aren't contraceptive methods, they are sterilization methods, and that's something you don't let young kids get, and which is SEVERELY problematic to do anyway.
I had to get a signoff from my wife at age 29 for a vasectomy. I was told they wouldn't do it if i were single or if I had been married with no children. Reason: ex post facto lawsuits by women aggrieved by the urologist denying them children within their marriage. Similarly, just try walking in and asking for your tubes tied at 16 or an IUD implant.
Yep, it's a real problem. Men lie about having a vasectomy, sweet-talk some woman into a family, but has been lying the whole time. Doctors do not want to be facilitating that. And children, children making life-long decisions at that age? Bad idea. Very bad.
Of course, you'd like to say that the doctors are not involved, but yeah, then you learn about the fertility specialist who never bothered to check the man's sperm count before giving the woman a hormone cocktail, or the one who was prohibited from telling the woman because of doctor patient confidentiality.
It's a nasty business.
The bottom line is that the "conservatives" advocating abstinence training are actually right. The only actual way to reduce teen pregnancy is to encourage them to stop fucking so much.
Hmm, except what you didn't do, is offer ANY data or studies on the effectiveness of abstinence training. Did you notice that? I did. I noticed you presented nothing to tell us how many people actually practiced abstinence, or even the people who got ONLY abstinence, and nothing else.
There's a reason for that. Because you don't want to admit that abstinence is not practiced.
The birth control available to them _does not work_. They should all just screw bareback from what I can see.
Then you're not good at statistical analysis, which is no surprise, since you can't tell the difference between 100 and 10, let alone shown any evidence you have any idea of the actual pregnancy rate.
Why don't you go back, and stop the pretensions? I get it, like the guy blathering on about homicides in Chicago and Milwaukee, you want to present the numbers as SCARY ones. But what they didn't do, is note that the increases they cited were actually low in terms of real numbers, and that the peak homicide rate is still back in the early 1990s. Or all the FOX NEWS graphics where the make some HUGE display out of 2 or 3 more of something.
Giving boys robot girlfriends might have worked better :)
Have gnu, will travel.
Actual effectiveness ratios for birth control:
US CDC document on actual effectiveness
Highlights:
Condoms are about as effective as the withdrawal method, sponges, or the rhythm method. 20% or so failure rates. [snip]
... when used inconsistently you should add. With perfect use you get (Trussell J, Contraceptive failure in the United States.) way better numbers:
Our estimate of the proportion of women becoming pregnant during a year of perfect use of the male condom is [...] 2%.
Which means with a proper education you can lower the rate of unwanted pregnancies significantly.
What you said is certainly true. Also, I would bet the dolls don't wake the girls up every two hours and apply a clamp to the their nipples for 30 minutes. I would bet that while changing the doll, the girls didn't get a squirt of diarrhea to the face.
By misrepresenting the difficulties, you encourage them to have babies rather than discouraging them.
Robot Babies! Now with Fecal Mist!
This reminds me of a class that was offered in my high school where the students were given a 10lbs sack of flour (it may have been salt) and that was their "baby" that they had to take care of for the quarter. One of my buddies took that class for what ever reason and got to cart that damn sack of flour around for 3 months our senior year. I forget who has the pictures but we tormented the hell out of him about that and tried to get him into trouble. We took Polaroid pictures with it posed holding a screw driver about to go into an electrical socket in the computer repair class, sitting on the 3 axis milling machine, having a heater while holding a oxy-acetylene torch. I believe he learned from that class to not leave kids with his friends unattended. He was the first one to have kids and the only one to have them outside of marriage (3 kids by 3 women) although he has full custody of the first 2 and is happily married to the 3rd woman.
Time to offend someone
They don't have the wisdom, common sense, skills, or anything else that qualifies them to be parents.
Just make BC mandatory for all of them (yes, guys too when they come up with it) and condoms don't count. The idiots will fuck that up too.
Women who have a child love that child. The myriad costs are real, of course. But this is a program that tries to play up the costs ("what a hassle!") without any of the benefits ("this child is of my blood, I love him or her in a way that couldn't be described previously"). The whole program is sketchy from the get-go.
This doesn't prove anything. The research is missing the point...it's not to prevent pregnancy per se...
The program is to encourage birth control use, which is different than percentage who are pregnant at age 20.
Also, number of abortions is not a proper measure either!
One can argue more OR less abortions prove this program is successful...it depends on how you view abortions and their use.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I can tell you that I've been quite prolific in my late teens and never got pregnant. -Sure you can try and oppress me for being male but your solution does not apply to me.
I know, you're talking about girls? -I made sure I either fucked their mouths or their asses.
You will be quick to dismiss this I'm sure but if we try to preach "natural" and "effective" methods then let's stick to oral and anal. 0 pregnancy risk.
Sure, social taboo and BS religion will shy away from such acts but remember, your wife or gf wasn't born with super oral powers she practised.
Also I would not trust those figures. Condoms, if used correctly are 99% effective. There are also super thin and durable condoms In case your religion or beliefs/lame partner/retardation limit you to vaginal stuff.
Disgusting. Oral For Everyone doesn't assume any specific parts involved, and rolls off the tongue better. You'll never convince teens to get on their knees and kiss where they pee with half-baked campaigns like that.
wtf
Condoms absolutely suck. Feeling is reduced severely and it certainly ruins the moment to have to put a condom on. No, I am not advocated unsafe sex, but the reality is that I'm glad I'm in a relationship where I don't have to worry about putting on a rain coat to have sex.
Where's the +1 emotional bias mod? How does this get modded up when he's clearly just making up things that Cons want to hear?
People like to have sex. Having a robot baby isn't going to deter people from having sex... but it may make some people desensitized to the downsides of being an ill-prepared parent.
The bottom line is that the "conservatives" advocating abstinence training are actually right. The only actual way to reduce teen pregnancy is to encourage them to stop fucking so much. The birth control available to them _does not work_. They should all just screw bareback from what I can see.
Obviously we must fit all teenagers with chastity belts! By Everlast!
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
There is no law whatsoever regulating vasectomies. This is all FUD.
This is about independent urologists refusing to perform one. And I'm all for it. A 19 year old is going to sorely regret getting a vasectomy when he's 40 and has had multiple failed reversal attempts.
As for permission from the wife, there are guys out there who will get a vasectomy and not tell their wife they did it. That is an awful thing to do to a woman. I think a urologist with any morals would want to consult the spouse.
If they had to put up with one of these things and they still go out and get knocked up, presumably at least part of the reason why is that they feel the task was rewarding and they feel confident in their ability to handle it. Sounds like a win, to me.
It's pretty hard to get rid of the desire to nurture a child. It's not surprising that having an infant simulacrum causes more infants...
Actual effectiveness ratios for birth control:
US CDC document on actual effectiveness
Highlights:
Condoms are about as effective as the withdrawal method, sponges, or the rhythm method. 20% or so failure rates. Spermicides are worse (!) (28%) 9% annual failure on the pill.
The only truly effective contraception methods are *just* the methods they won't allow young kids to get. I had to get a signoff from my wife at age 29 for a vasectomy. I was told they wouldn't do it if i were single or if I had been married with no children. Reason: ex post facto lawsuits by women aggrieved by the urologist denying them children within their marriage. Similarly, just try walking in and asking for your tubes tied at 16 or an IUD implant.
The bottom line is that the "conservatives" advocating abstinence training are actually right. The only actual way to reduce teen pregnancy is to encourage them to stop fucking so much. The birth control available to them _does not work_. They should all just screw bareback from what I can see.
I am religious, spiritual, and conservative. My sect teaches that all sex outside the bonds of marriage is sinful, but most forms of birth control within marriage are ok (but abortion is considered sinful in most cases). Abstinence is the method that is 100% effective, so it should be stressed. Realistically, a certain percentage of kids will experiment, so other methods should also be taught.
See this, kids? That's why we need Sex Ed, or you will end up believing total bullshit about birth control.
"why can't a guy be the sole decider about a vasectomy"
You mean to tell me it isn't?
Would you mind elaborating? Are you saying that if I go to *my* doctor and say "cut that shit" then they won't do it without permission from my "partner"????????
> The bottom line is that the "conservatives" advocating abstinence training
> are actually right. The only actual way to reduce teen pregnancy is to
> encourage them to stop fucking so much.
Like many things, the theory is perfect -- I agree, abstinence is 100% effective, and other forms of birth control are less than that. But in the real world... how, exactly, do you stop teens from fucking?
The old joke is 100% true: What do you call someone who advocates abstinence-only education? Grandma.
Just like with computers: security in layers. How about teach abstinence and make birth control available?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
birth control for whites? srsly are we at that stage now? my god...
n/t
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Trump and Hillary both hail back to such a past. Are those two racists just 'historical curiosities' or not?
You'll never convince teens to get on their knees and kiss where they pee with half-baked campaigns like that
When we were teens (and legal age where we lived at the time), my girlfriend and I tried that based on recommendations from friends who said it was great. No promotional campaign needed. Also, we preferred (and still prefer) 69. (Not saying we don't fuck regularly. We do (and did). And a lot of oral, especially 69.)
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
The CDC agrees with you that Condom use currently has a failure rate of 12% due to the fact that people don't use condom use perfectly and while they regularly practice safe sex with condoms they don't always, hence this "random day" thing.
The real bottom line is where a condom is available and used the chance of pregnancy drops to 1-2%.
12% is quoted for "typical users" which includes all the wonders of "I don't have one with me right now", "trust me I'm on the pill", "yeah I'm sure this strange sized one will fit", and my personal favourite from parents to children "Why do we find this in your room!" which leads back to excuse 1.
Only the CDC is stupid enough to quote the "typical use" numbers in a frigging family planning campaign. Every other government medical department for countries quote the perfect use figure of 1-2% because the NHS actually encourages use while the Americans seem content to say "well we're not using them correctly right now, so clearly we should advertise to people that they don't work. That'll improve it, now pass me another beer I'm falling behind."
Do both. Teach them how to use birth control, make it freely available, show them stats on effectiveness, teach them about sexually transmitted diseases, the responsibilities and consequences of pregnancy, what is really involved in an abortion, and that having sex while underage can implicate their partner in a crime.
Too complicated you say? Too bad. That is the straight dope. This is what all adults are expected to know and consider before having sex, so for God's sake let's teach it ALL to kids who are at an age where the desire sex.
We can't make their desire go away. We can't force our values on them. We can't stop them from having sex if the want to. The ONLY thing we can do is give them all the facts. No dumbing things down to avoid sending a mixed message, that's stupid. Relying on their ignorance of the facts to guide them to making the right decision is really damn stupid.
The truth is our best defense. Let's be honest with our kids, for Christ's sake.
In my world, we rely on practical tests of functionality *with the actual users* rather than theoretical measures of effectiveness
Some actual users do use the methods properly, so the theoretical measures are not as theoretical as you seem to think.
My girlfriend and I were well educated about sex. We got her pregnant exactly the one time we planned for. The rest of the time, we've always used the precautions properly and effectively. And sex has always been a lot of fun for us. By the time our daughter turned 10, we had decided no more children, so I got a vasectomy. Yes, we can now be a little more spontaneous about fucking, but honestly, that made no difference in the level of fun.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
That's more reason to sterilize: Leaving a helpless human in the clutches of someone who can't take care of herself is an obvious madness and thus many countries had a mandatory sterilization process. That's been shamed and banned, thus allowing people normal enough to fuck, to push out babies the government now has to wrest from the mother and pay someone else to raise them.
There's nothing like a whiny, demanding 11 year old throwing a tantrum and screaming about how much they hate you to make you wish you'd stuck to oral.
Maybe they should have been given robot sex partners instead of robot babies.
This is not the first or the 10th time you have said this I'm guessing. You feel hard about this subject.
The thing is that people who think about it have sent you many many links showing that abstinence only sex ed gives higher rates of teen pregnancy than all other types of sex ed including "no sex ed".
Why you go to places where people think about things rather than feel about things, I hate to guess at.
You have been shown you are wrong so please accept it and stop regurgitating this garbage in hopes that you have found yourself in an echo chamber with other emotional responders who feel about things.
And remember that when all methods of birth control fail that abortion still works. In an overpopulated world, if that is not something you are willing to contemplate, then you should not be fertile.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that "having children" is made a focal point? What would the rates be compared to giving similar groups work experience or mentoring so they have aspirations of more than just motherhood.
("more than just motherhood" should be read as being able to achieve both, not as disrespect for parenting. My sister for example was headstrong to establish a career before bringing my beautiful niece into the world, to a stable home that was able to prepare for the event with years of planning.)
If we're running public policy based on the possibility of imaginary beings blowing up countries then we should give up now.
Physically partition the country, give the religious nuts one part, and allow the sane people space to make sane policies for the rest of it. Put up a sign at the enclave border "Warning: Entering Fruit Cake Town. Abandon all rationality here!"
20 isn't a bad age to start a family - after all you can party with your offspring once they are teenagers.
Mother Nature has its way to make looking after a baby feeling attractive. So what might have worked for a teenager as deterrent while they are in their early teens, will surly be sugar coated by memories when they are a little more mature.
That experiment could bear the solution to counter some of the decline in birth rates
Declining birthrates... robot babies...
is healthy young women producing healthy offspring during their peak fertility years: lower odds of genetic defects; younger, more energetic parents better suited to the demands of raising active children.
Nah, forget that. Having a child at 20 is a travesty.
There's never been a dispute about whether murdering children eliminates children.
The argument is about whether it's MORAL to murder children.
Is it, for example, good to murder a child before he is born to spare him from a tough life? Many very famous/productive people got that way because of a tough life.
Is it good to murder a child because he might be deformed? Ask some adults with deformities. Some might say "yes" but the fact that most do not commit suicide says a lot.
The better question is about CONCEPTION control. The vast majority of conservatives are fine with controlling CONCEPTION and pracitce it themselves, but worry that if taught badly in the schools by government employees pursuing their own agendas it encourages kids to take life-altering risks including risking diseases and dangerous lifestyles. AFAIK the only people against conception control are the Catholics, but they're rather unique in this and even the Pope tosses that idea aside in places where Zika is raging.
These stupid ineffective robots are just another failed we-know-what's-best-for-you elitist idea to do the job of raising teenagers that parents are supposed to do. Teenage pregancy rates were FAR lower decades ago before government handouts and when young women in the larger families run by MARRIED ADULTS were involved in helping to care for their younger siblings and were thus exposed to the workload and observed the family concerns about family budgets. The real world used to be a harsh teacher. Young people living on cell phones and aware of government handouts are not so easily deterred from living recklessly.
Exactly. Does the robot baby have a colic mode? A persistent and painful ear infection mode?
Then you ultimately select for people who it does not work on.
If you persuade people to not have children or have children later, then you select for people who are not persuadable.
If you are a nutcase, or have limited mental capacity it should be easier to opt into not reproducing, not harder.
The tautology was intended as a rhetorical device. It should have made the meaning for you more clear, not less clear.