China to begin two-child policy • Hacker News Board

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#171

Post by Idontagree » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

dyeje wrote: post #110

bko wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human ingenuity is the world's greatest resource and leads to wealth creation and advancement of living standards. Limiting population growth would be ill-advised.

I suggest you read up on the carrying capacity of Earth.

How is it that we're on a technology forum and people continually insist that we've achieved the maximum rate of advancement? Also we most certainly do not spend all of our resources advancing areas of technology that would sustain more people, for instance I think there could easily be more research put into food growth/production/sustainability and perhaps things like housing development than are currently being done, but since there is no impending doom from overpopulation we tend to spread our interests around as the free-ish market allows. Everything we produce isn't going to make it easier for more people to survive, but I'm sure much could be done if it became a priority.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#172

Post by saryant » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

hodwik wrote: post #148

freehunter wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In this case they're not totalitarian though. China is a Republic, it's just a Republic with a taller pyramid than our own. You elect district leaders, who elect state leaders and the congress, and they elect the president and prime minister. Technically, that's roughly the same system we have here with the electoral congress and faithless electors. The difference is that in the US, faithless electors are much less c…

> You elect district leaders

...from a list of candidates approved by the Communist Party.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#173

Post by jobu » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

The sad part is the policy was likely unnecessary given what we now know about the effects of urban migration and modern healthcare on reducing population growth.

It's often too expensive to have multiple children in a large city, and when infant and child mortality is reduced there's less incentive to have lots of kids (so people use birth control).

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#174

Post by xlm1717 » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

dyeje wrote: post #110

bko wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human ingenuity is the world's greatest resource and leads to wealth creation and advancement of living standards. Limiting population growth would be ill-advised.

I suggest you read up on the carrying capacity of Earth.

The carrying capacity of Earth is seemingly revised constantly. The overpopulation crisis we imagined decades ago never materialized.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#175

Post by bko » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

pwm wrote: post #161

bko wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human ingenuity is the world's greatest resource and leads to wealth creation and advancement of living standards. Limiting population growth would be ill-advised.

While in essence I agree, I think it is much more nuanced and complicated. Inequality seems to be deeply encoded in the system. Capacity, in my opinion, only makes sense if you extrapolate from an average human, but there is no such thing as an average human being. However, I don't think it is an exaggeration that our western way of life is not sustainable on a global scale. I wish the fruits of human ingenuity could…

In what year was the average, or even marginal person better off? Yes, there may be more income distribution, but would you prefer to be born into a different time under the veil of ignorance?

Even the poorest in our society have incredible access to goods.

Just to list a few:

Wikipedia

Ability to talk to relatives from across the world to little or no cost (Skype and alternatives)

Ability to send money and store wealth cheaply (low cost ETFs, bitcoin, free checking)

Social acceptance of previously marginalized lifestyles

Access to wide variety of foods and entertainment

There has never been a better time to be alive, and I expect that to continue, despite greater inequality.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#176

Post by Idontagree » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:47 PM UTC

Bill_Dimm wrote: post #152

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…

About 20 years ago, when I was a grad student, I attended a colloquium where the speaker (a physicist, for better or worse) had computed the number of people that the planet could support if everyone consumed natural resources at the rate that Americans do. His number was 2 billion. I don't remember who the speaker was and I don't know what assumptions he made -- I don't know how much error there might be in his resu…

Which is a calculation based on current technological standards, which is also not proof that we will not become more efficient and better able to manipulate our resources as needed.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#177

Post by it_learnses » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

code4life wrote: post #156

"A Christian Manifesto" by Francis A. Schaeffer gives a reason why. Our creator inspires freedom and love. When we follow him we seek to spread freedom to not only ourselves but to others as well. A population willingly adopting the new testament Biblical principles will spread freedom willingly. The humanist world view on the other hand has no moral absolutes and must enforce the popular or elected rules onto the ma…

wtf are you babbling about? this is hacker news, not reddit. stop posting made up stuff.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#178

Post by xlm1717 » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:49 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #141

dyeje wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you read up on the carrying capacity of Earth.

I would put any research or estimates into perspective. We have well surpassed predicted carrying capacities, but maybe these estimates are different? Example: > In a 1994 study titled Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, David Pimentel and Mario Giampietro estimated the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy at 200 million The dangers of over-population myth assumes a naive view of a static societ…

Additionally, Z is dependent on social and economic pressures. As the world becomes more urbanized, birth rates have been going down because it is becoming more expensive to raise children. This is occurring naturally without artificial limits imposed.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#179

Post by lallysingh » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:51 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #169

funkyy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 - to clarify). A mistake was made. It was not understood that people in war-torn countries want peace and stability above all else, and are willing to hand in their liberties for it. It was also not understood that among people who don't trust news or…

It was understood " rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_need..., nobody cared. I have my own beliefs on the matter, but I'll save us the argument.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#180

Post by lostInTheWoods3 » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 2:51 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #164

funkyy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Same with China - imagine them exploding with an extra 1 Billion people over next 20 years. Who will feed them? What would be social implications of such a move? Well for one thing, you'd have a billion more potential farmers... Population growth is a pretty old problem, and if recent developed nations' demographic reports show, it solves itself once you reach a certain level of development. China's success is not n…

a billion more potential farmers yes, but land and water are finite resources