How many kids are too many?

[Gregorian]

12. The individual family isn't important. The collective is what is.

If everyone had 2 kids, we'd see an increase in population that would decline once the parents die. But in the meantime, the planet obviously cannot afford to see more people than it already has.

It seems weird to most people, but I would like to see zero children per couple until the population stabilizes at a much smaller number. Give it a couple of decades.

I know, all completely crazy ideas. How would we fund social security. And how it would kill economies.

The answer is, we probably destroyed the real beauty and diversity of the planet, doomed a billion people to a horrible way of life and death, and people are going to reproduce just how they want without any intervention. And my prediction is things will slow down too slowly. Look at the world now. It's already too late for many facets of life and ecology.

So my answer is 1. That pretty much fulfills all criteria for reasonable future life on the planet.