Date: Saturday, July 30, 2016

Participants (from 14 countries):

Host: Rick
Co-Host: Johny

Teams:

Panel PRO: (Team A): Amin.
Panel CON (Team B): Haitham.
Audience (Team C): Johny, Elham, Behnam, Nancy, Flory
Just Listening: Hanieh, Milano, Grace, Amina.
Late: Mario, Mostafa, Zivar. Azamu, Ahsan, Rose

Team A summary:

Amin:
There are too many orphans in orphanages and on the streets and this can create problems in the society. People should put aside their ego and think about the common interest and be more caring about those children who don’t have parents.
Adopting can help the economy of the country because adopting them could prevent these children from entering into a criminal lifestyle and contribute to the economy.
There are already overpopulation problems in many parts of the world and we don’t need to bring more people into the world because the resources are limited. More people would mean we would need more food, space and energy to supply them. The point is to avoid making the problem bigger and to control the problems we already have.

Team B summary:

Haitham:
There are no population problems. Humans are treasures and they should be used to create more investments. It is not a problem at all to have more people. The only purpose of marriage is to have children. All human beings have desires to have children and to continue the lineage. It is not sensible to prevent people to have their own children in order to adopt others who don’t have parents. Adopting is not a solution because the overpopulation is not a problem. If we would’ve used the money spent in wars throughout history to address this issue it wouldn’t have become a problem in the first place.

Team C summary:

Johny only made two questions and did not give an opinion in order to save time.

1. “In what way can adopting help the economy of a country?”

Amin’s answer: orphans may become criminals when they grow older and this hurts the economy of a country. There are some criminal organizations that take in these orphans and make them do illegal activities.

2. In countries where overpopulation IS a problem (such as China), would adopting be a good option to start addressing the issue?

Haitham’s answer: There is no overpopulation problem in China. They use their population to gradually boost their economy.

Behnam:
Behnam only voted and did not give opinions either in order to give other people opportunity to speak.

Elham:
Adopting orphans in order to prevent them from becoming criminals when they grow up could be a solution for the crime rate issue but it does not address the problem of overpopulation. Adopting children is doing a good deed but we can do both, have our own children and adopt an orphan as well. We can’t take away our natural right to give birth to our own child and be a real dad or mom. Adopting children will not solve the overpopulation problem; there should be other ways. Many children are in centers because parents are not married and they don’t have controlled sex so parents are forced to give these children to these centers. The solution would be to decrease the number of these particular children instead of adopting the ones that are already there.

Nancy:
“Team B said that China doesn’t have an overpopulation problem but I live in China and indeed there is an overpopulation problem.” There are problems related to this such as the aging of the population and the gender unbalance between men and women so there are some systemic issues related to the overpopulation.

Flory:
In Romania there is no problem of overpopulation. However, there are some people who give birth to too many children but they are not responsible about it and their kids end up dropping out from schools. They think it’s a gift from some god but they don’t have mind to deal with the situation. They are not ready to put food on the table and they even sell their kids when they don’t have the resources to provide for the resultant family.

Votes:

Johny voted for team A.
Flory voted for team A.
Elham voted for team B.
Nancy voted for team B.
Behnam voted for team B.

Rick’s take away:

There are places in the world where the concentration of the population is uneven. There have been experiments with mice where they’re kept in big numbers in one small cage and they become competitive. The more mice you put in the cage, the more competitive they become because there are less resources (food). The point is that there is a significant impact and no one can deny that. The more people a place has, the less resource there is (job, food, space, etc.) and there ought to be a balance for society to operate in a responsible manner.

When a place becomes overpopulated there are negative consequences such as the increase of crime. The challenge is how we deal with it. Regardless of what our religion is, the key is to be a responsible person. When people who are not ready to have children have them anyway, it creates a problem. Certainly adopting is a valid alternative, especially for people who can’t have babies. The process of adopting though should be easier than what it is right now for many countries. There should be a balance. People should have the rights to have their own children but be responsible about it and the process of adopting should be easier as well for people who want to adopt in order to give these children opportunity to have a family.

Behnam, Hanieh, Zivar, Mostafa and Mario gave their opinions after the debate. You can listen to them in the recording down below.

Team B won this debate. Thanks everyone for participating. Below are the links to listen to this discussion.

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