Pang Ying:Hello, I’m Pang Ying. Welcome to Episode 29 of Think Like a Debater. Today’s motion is:Is having children a social responsibility or a personal choice?Ms. Zhan argues social responsibility; I argue personal choice. The affirmative begins.

Zhan Qingyun:People say I always take the easier side, so this time I chose the position that will get me criticized. But hearing that childbirth is a social responsibility first evokes not rebuttal butresistance.。

Part of that resistance comes from grand talk about society that ignores individual struggle and the enormous cost and responsibility of raising children.

Another part rejects the preaching and desire to control: don’t tell me how to live.

I share both feelings as someone pressured to marry and have children, but want to explore what this position can reasonably say.

Social responsibility has many definitions, generally meaning choices by people or companies that look beyond self-interest and contribute to collective interests.

Many actions fit, but expectations differ greatly.

Paying taxes and operating a business without fraud are ordinary duties.

Donating blood, volunteering in a pandemic, or pursuing early carbon neutrality go beyond duty.

Thussocial responsibility means looking beyond self-interest toward collective benefit, with varying degrees of expectation.

A familiar tool for deciding whether something is a social responsibility isthe collective-action dilemma.。

I profit more from raising one hundred sheep than twenty, but if every herder does so the pasture is destroyed and no one has sheep in twenty years.

Childbirth is similar. No person is an island, though pressure makes us say having children is private and no one may order us around.

Population can seem unrelated to us, but every choice and benefit is shaped by the larger environment.

Andpopulation is the foundation beneath every social condition. We benefit daily from a huge community without noticing.

This program exists because Vistopia and its editors built it, while China’s large population lets even a niche platform gather enough listeners to survive.

After years abroad, I marvel at the quality available cheaply in China.