Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China to begin two-child policy

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 455 posts

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#131

Post by hguant »

tremon wrote: post #113
flgb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The earth doesn't have a "carrying capacity" or a "maximum population". The earth has resources that are used more or less sustainably at different times and in different places. If we all still lived like hunter gatherers we would have run out of resources and become extinct thousands of years ago. Luckily we've had social, economic, and technological development. As soon as anyone frames sustainability challenges i…

"Ecologists define carrying capacity as the maximal population size of a given species that an area can support without reducing its ability to support the same species in the future" http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm In the interest of (scientific) discourse, it is generally unhelpful to redefine or ignore generic definitions. Are you asserting that the earth doesn't support any species, or that is perfectly possibl…

I think the post is saying that defining the carrying capacity of a technological species is an exercise in futility. Malthus was writing about this many years ago - humans have a habit of raising the bar.

In answer to your googolplex question - I think it's safer to bet on the technology developing to support such a population than against it. (Though I think we'll either be extinct or an interstellar species before then.)

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#132

Post by hguant »

tremon wrote: post #113
flgb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The earth doesn't have a "carrying capacity" or a "maximum population". The earth has resources that are used more or less sustainably at different times and in different places. If we all still lived like hunter gatherers we would have run out of resources and become extinct thousands of years ago. Luckily we've had social, economic, and technological development. As soon as anyone frames sustainability challenges i…

"Ecologists define carrying capacity as the maximal population size of a given species that an area can support without reducing its ability to support the same species in the future" http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm In the interest of (scientific) discourse, it is generally unhelpful to redefine or ignore generic definitions. Are you asserting that the earth doesn't support any species, or that is perfectly possibl…

I think the post is saying that defining the carrying capacity of a technological species is an exercise in futility. Malthus was writing about this many years ago - humans have a habit of raising the bar.

In answer to your googolplex question - I think it's safer to bet on the technology developing to support such a population than against it. (Though I think we'll either be extinct or an interstellar species before then.)

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#133

Post by iofj »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #71
trymas wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why (I am serious, as IMHO today's global population is too big)?

Hans Rosling has a documentary about it, check it out via Google, it's on youtube of vimeo or something. It's not so much that overpopulation isn't an issue, of course it is (that's why it's called 'over' population), but rather that the trend line is that population growth is very rapidly slowing, that people tend to overestimate population growth, are unaware of big population centres that are shrinking, that the a…

I think the issue is much more what will happen to the world's numbers before the population numbers decline (IF indeed EVERY ethnic groups starts reducing numbers. God help us all if there is one that doesn't)

Numbers of fanatically religious people will double, relatively speaking. Mostly Catholics and Muslims. This is under the assumption that the current rates of conversions remain roughly the same. Trouble is, people turn atheist, don't have kids, and die out, the number of atheists we have today is a historical anomaly resulting from the baby boom. In other words, that effect will stop. This likely will have policy implications.

People in cities are growing FAR slower than people in rural settings. That means that it isn't just atheists that will drop, but everything you associate with city living will lessen. Most city populations are essentially replaced with fresh people from rural settings every 60 years or so (meaning that the number of new rural people in the city at year+60 is larger than the number of people in the city).

Numbers of black people and asian people (not Chinese) will grow a hell of a lot more than the other groups. Africa should have 3-4 times more people than today at least before it stabilizes. Same goes for some countries in Asia. This of course also means that Europe is going to look back to today's Syrian "refugee crisis" and wonder why people were worried about a mere 1 million people per year.

Truth of the matter is that there isn't much any political movement in either Europe or America can do. So it doesn't even really matter.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#134

Post by emilga »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #108
Keyframe wrote: post #72

Are there any psychology/sociology studies how one-child policy impacted China's society? It has been documented how having one child vs siblings impact one's psyche. I wonder what kind of impact it has on a culture/society as a whole if most are from single-child families.

I've wondered that, also. I have a number of friends who are teachers, all of whom say that you can spot a single child within about 5 minutes of observing them. They just act differently. Watching the difference in my oldest child when the second came along and was old enough for them to play together - it was astounding. There must be some optimal number of siblings for mental health. More than 1 less than 4 ?

> I have a number of friends who are teachers, all of whom say that you can spot a single child within about 5 minutes of observing them. They just act differently.

Differently how?

Whenever a student comes late to class, I've always imagined that those students who look up from their work are more likely to come from rural areas in Norway, and that those who don't look up to see who is coming are more likely to come from the city.

But I don't really know what the difference in behavior would be for a sibling vs only child.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#135

Post by Jemmeh »

sahreeg wrote: post #87
vincentkriek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brutal and cruel? I agree it's a severe limit on the personal freedom but China doesn't value personal freedom as highly as the west does. Brutal and cruel is not the right terms for this in my opinion, you can have a beautiful, rich and fullfilling life with 2 children or less. You can plan to have just two children (up to some point). Also, I think it could benefit the earth if more countries would limit children.

I completely agree with you. In terms of population alone, we are exceedingly multiplying; something that might not be of out best advantage. More even when you consider that there will be less opportunities for an increasing number of people, and we will lose this personal freedom you spoke of -to an extent- I am also pro child limit laws. I would suggest nothing too strict, just impose a tax on the third child and…

As much as I agree that the earth is overpopulated, I think better than taxing people is providing access to free birth control. A lot of people don't have access to it, or education about it.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#136

Post by [deleted] »

funkyy wrote: post #128
sethbannon wrote: post #56

From the article "All couples will now be allowed to have two children". So it seems China isn't so much ending its one-child policy, as augmenting it by one to a two-child policy. This means the brutal and cruel enforcement will continue, only it will kick in at the third child instead of at the second.

China managed to succeed in increasing people wealth and loosening laws (still bad for Western standards, but huge step comparing to China 30 years ago). Only because West thinks this is "brutal and cruel" dosent mean our laws would ever worked there. Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative (still bad, just better…

[deleted]

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#137

Post by ZenoArrow »

throwaway_789 wrote: post #124
ZenoArrow wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eugenics is about altering genetics by controlling breeding. Licensing decisions could be based on a broader range of criteria than just genetics. Genetics might not even come into it.

Unlikely. The perceived benefits of eugenics would be too tantalizing for those social engineers in control of "licensing" the right to reproduce. Robust markets for DNA sequencing and clinical already exist. It'd be a vanishingly small step to pivot those platforms for eugenics. The licensing proposal is odious even if we were to (naively) discount conventional eugenics. Licenses would likely be tied to "merit", whi…

> "Unlikely. The perceived benefits of eugenics would be too tantalizing for those social engineers in control of "licensing" the right to reproduce."

What if the priorities of the eugenicists and other life licensers clash? For example, what if a known criminal was also the holder of some rare genes that would link up well with someone from the ruling class?

> "Licenses would likely be tied to "merit", which is rather inextricably linked to socioeconomic class."

So someone who is poor is of less "merit"?

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#138

Post by iofj »

anonyfox wrote: post #79
anunderachiever wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you place all 7.3 billion people onto an area of the size of Austria, every one has more than 11m² to their own. Of course this illustration is a simplification but it brings the world population back to perspective.

And you need space to plant stuff to feed everyone. Can 11m² be enough to feed an average person through the whole year?

The rest of Europe has more than enough farmland to provide for 7 billion people, calorie-wise. If we were to learn how to farm on the open sea, back of the envelope calculations tell me we should easily be able to multiply today's population by 10^4 or more.

If there is a problem, it's water. On the plus side, water is the easiest to recycle by far, the only limit we're close to hitting in some locations is the amount of water that's recycled for free by the weather.

Also, we have skyscrapers. The 11m2 area per person is ground-level area. If you have 10-storey skyscrapers on average, 120m2 for every family on average should be easy, and allow for population to increase 5 fold without exceeding available space in Austria.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#139

Post by navait »

brlewis wrote: post #118
EStudley wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one's denying that. "Brutal and cruel" was referring to forced abortions of pregnant women with more than one child.

Perhaps nobody's denying that China doesn't value personal freedom as highly as the west does, or that you can have a beautiful, rich and fullfilling life with 2 children or less. Some, myself included, do deny that it could benefit the earth if more governments would enforce limits on children. I think humans are important to the future of the earth, and treating them in a cruel and brutal fashion will cause more pr…

You're in luck. human overpopulation is mostly a solved problem thanks to modern contraception. To curb it all one needs is to build a robust economy and make it avaliable. No need for state policy beyond it, people will do it themselves.

http://www.economist.com/node/14743589

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#140

Post by hackerboos »

freehunter wrote: post #120
bigfudge wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter the history, using communist as a synonym for totalitarian is lazy.

No matter the history, using terms as they are applied in real life is generally accepted. The definition of communism means one thing, the real world applications of it are something else. How many communist governments have there been that weren't totalitarian?

Well since Communism advocates a stateless (and classless) society there will probably never be one.
Post reply on HN