There's been a lot of talk about breeding issues. I read Jeff's book review about world food productivity and how without science backing it up, the world just wasn't meant to support this many people. Then I had a conversation with several PhDs of chemistry in which they said it was total arrogance to breed just so you can raise someone to be like you, which I pretty much agree with except that aren't doctors part of the small subset of people that should be reproducing?
Anyway, I initially figured everything would be cool if every couple on Earth only had one child, which would eventually cut the population in half, but then I thought again, wasn't it fun growing up with brothers? Another talk with a certain friend of mine (in which he blankly stated "I'm going to have a kid in 9 months") gave me a reason to consider whether the immediate freedom of remaining childless outweighs the uncertain future benefits of having babies (my current decision, emphatically the former). I finally escalated the issue to Code Navy Blue: important enough to dick around on the Internet.
First of all, I have always wondered whether young sperm is better than old-man sperm and that article says that in many ways the answer is yes. My next question was what are the fees for cryogenic sperm banking? Nothing too extravagent, especially considering the savings in birth control: it's approximately $500 for the initial procedures, screens, etc... and an additional $1000 for a 5 year freeze.
So is it too early to start thinking vasectomy? Yeah, I think so. But at the same time this statistically doomed contraceptive battle right now only has two possible outcomes, both of which are equally unfavorable.