Why would it seem that everyone would lose their minds if women stopped being capable of having children?

Question

They portray this within the movie: "Children of Men". Most everyone could agree that all things are temporary. But suddenly they assume there is some strange form of hope or perhaps an immortality for humankind through reproduction. We all die sometime. I'm not seeing what the panic is about.

Answer 1

When the book (and the movie) is really about is hope.

Sure, most of us live out our one life and then that's it. What the author crafted in this book, however, is a little bleaker than that. Having no children and no possibility of children casts a certain pall on things which tends to trickle down.

For example, one of the first things to go out the window is fame. After all, what really is the point of being famous if everyone is going to be dead in a few years? No artist can hope to be another Michaelangelo, no scientist can be an Einstein. This idea is captured rather well by the author in specifically incarnating the most famous person in the world - the last person to have been born. After him, fame was pointless, see?

Permanence is another major loss. If nobody is going to be around, then there's no point to building anything that will last. Indeed, if the population is going to always decline, there's probably no point in building much of anything... soon there will be more than enough old stuff to go around to anyone who wants some.

So with just these two blows we have rendered pointless most human endeavours. Sure... some people LIKE doing these kinds of things anyway, but the demand is likely to dry up as well. Who wants to hear about Plato's theories of justice when all justice is just about to end?

As if that weren't bad enough, you are going to be living in a society where EVERYONE is getting older. If you get old and lose your eyesight, you have at least some hope of getting support from young people around you. But what if everybody's faculties are degrading? This is all that everyone in such a world would have to look forward to, even in the best of circumstances.

So right off you have a world of depressed people. Industry is collapsing. Saving is pointless. Most things of value in the past are now pretty much worthless. No children leaves more time for things, but no real new things... so everyone is just left to brood more and more. And there is absolutely nothing to look forward to.

And what do all the unemployed people do now? They have no jobs. Populations with large amounts of men with extra time on their hands have historically not been very peaceful ones. Women, too, who tend to identify more with their children and hoped-for children now have nothing to hope for. Many of these people will just turn to taking what they want. Some will be driven by despair to inflict it on everyone around them.

So even if you are capable of zipping along in a running-down world, you are now surrounded by the depressed and the violent. Even the most cheery among us would have trouble keeping a positive attitude in such a situation for long. And as each new person is drug down into despair, it gets worse and worse for those who remain...

No... I'd say the author did a fair job of things. All things considered.

Answer 2

The psychology of mankind is wired to instinctually have a sort of "procreation complex". Imagine this:

The Earth as we know it will be destroyed by a giant asteroid in, say, four years. Now every single human being on Earth would know the very day and month they will die. Chaos would insue. Ultra radical religious leaders and fascists would take power, urban youth and criminals would cause complete mayhem and creat retaliatory rebel factions against the government(s). Very similar to the movie, huh?

It's not because humanbeings are ignorant to their own demise regardless of the asteroids impending presence, but rather the societal instincts of establishing the right environment to properly cultivate the next generation is instantly squashed.

Thus, the ant colony's very future is threatened. What is to be done? Especially when such a problem doesn't seem to have a solution. The army ants figure they might as well forget the queen and her hill and just live their own individual lives as though every moment were the last. After all what's the purpose of a society without a future? Thus... Anarchy...

Answer 3

yea, personally, I wouldn't give a damn. I am going to die anyway, and besides, what is the alternative?

we reproduce and reproduce and build more energy inefficient superhighways and buildings and more buildings until the soil is made of concrete and weather is annoying...all for what?

we can experience that right now...the future, is just trying to cut even to bring what we already experience (freedom, 'the life) to everyone else.....it will just be more over-crowded..

and then what?
do the same thing to mars...more babies, more crap...more wastelands made out of junkyards and huge superstructures...for what? so we can experience what we can already experience here over there?

you see how ridiculous? are we somehow 'bettering the universe'?

no, there is no purpose to it....just as if, tomorrow, everyeone stopped having babies...it wouldn't matter, we would jsut live our lives happily ever after and die.

I mean seriously, what else would we do? build an archaic energy inefficient dinosaur, which cannot survive more than 400 years (civilization) bigger and bigger? Its just as well as if we stopped rerpoducing but lived a more productive life now. There is no real difference.

The only one would be the joy of having a child, but if you never knew that joy, there is nothing to remorse about. Personally, I think that if this happened, it would be mainly the WOMEN, who would suffer greatly. Not the men. The women have an emotional hardwiring and love for their young, which, if not replaced...will just make them depressed and sad...which might carry to men. But that doesn't mean the whole world would collapse.


If you listen to the movie carefully...you realize that 'theo' (omg, clive owen is such a geek in this movie, he doesn't even take away someone's gun when he can, but insteand, prefers to hit him and run around with broken shoes...what a goof--anyway)....says 'the world had gone to hell before it happend..it makes no difference'...

which probably means something else caused the collapse..like oil warfare or some nuclear holocaust.

All in all, I would say that movie was pretty lame and stupid. But if your emotions get you all enticed beccause it gives you a purpose if there were no children (making you feel alive) be my guest....the 'lord' hardwired you with those for a reason...and partaking in the emotion of remorse (crying) can be just as entertaining as being happy (psychological studies)..

but true happiness comes from balance. This is just the way it is. Learn to stop being carried away by stupidities and focus on things that you should REALLY worry about. THEN the world would be a better place, examples:

family
friends
work
energy efficiency

have a good day.

Answer 4

It's not just about keeping the human race alive. I mean maybe some people think of that but a lot of people it's more deeper. A child is precious, so innocent and a tiny little thing. Something to look after and to love. It could represent the love of two people a love child you know.

Answer 5

OK let me put it to you this way... if women stop having children the human race becomes extinct within 100 yrs of that last child being born. That is the big panic, maybe it doesn't scare you but imagine being one of the last people on earth knowing that all you had acomplished was about to be gone forever.

Answer 6

Humans have always found a way out. Perhaps when women can't give birth, humans will be created using some other technology.

Answer 7

I'd be devastated by our abrupt extinction because I see humans as a work in progress. I guess I'm hoping for some type of closure or great universal achievement before we all go.

Answer 8

It would be near the end of the world, and though some of us believe it will be a time we may enter heaven, others, who don't have a solid structure or faith are blown away. They are frightened that our human race will be gone forever. Where will they go if they don't believe, is what they want to know. It's a scary thought to some, but to others it's a thing to look forward to.

Answer 9

besides sexual insanity among teens and people who cant afford children. that would be every hooker and p**n stars dream. and besides, if the entire human population died out then what would happen to all of the animals that we have domesticated. they'd die and plus, where would the world go? would it just blow up or would we leave it so that every living thing left has to suffer because of our pollution. we trashed the earth.

Answer 10

I'm not sure why the panic is there either but good question. everything is temporary nothing not even the world or or souls if you believe we have souls were created to last forever. so i don't get why so many people are panicking. worrying and panicking never got any one anywhere.