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China to begin two-child policy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: China to begin two-child policy

#231

Post by Dylan16807 »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #137
throwaway_789 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rath…

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

With the word in quotes like that? Absolutely yes.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#232

Post by pmontra »

I've been on vacation in China this summer and a tourist guide told me that they can have as many children as they want, but 1) they have to pay some sort of one time fee for the second and successive children (maybe 10,000 Yuan? can't remember) and 2) school, healthcare, etc are to be paid in full for those children. Basically if you're not reasonably wealthy you can afford only one child.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#233

Post by Dylan16807 »

moistgorilla wrote: post #226
Dylan16807 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't consider any punishment the responsibility of a criminal, then I think you're using a different definition of 'responsible' than most people, and this might actually be a semantic argument rather than anything meaningful.

> responsible : having an obligation to do something, or having control over or care for someone, as part of one's job or role. The criminal is only responsible for breaking the law, the only thing he had control over before he was caught (assuming he was caught for the sake of argument). We as society are responsible for dealing out the punishment. How could the criminal be responsible for the punishment when he is…

I think most people would say that if the punishment is justified then the responsibility is transitive.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#234

Post by ctlby »

gnaritas wrote: post #159
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…

> America has been slowly transitioning from a Bible believing nation to a humanist world view. America has been slowly transitioning from a superstitious nation to a more rational one. Fixed that for you. > The humanist world view on the other hand has no moral absolutes and must enforce the popular or elected rules onto the majority by force. No one has moral absolutes, they do not exist except in the minds of thos…

> Laws aren't about morals, they're about reason.

Most contentious issues--marriage laws, universal healthcare, minimum wage, etc--are explicitly framed and argued (by both sides) with the language of justice. Moral preferences guide law; reason is just post-hoc rationalization.

You might object that "law" is not the same as "contentious issues," but that changes nothing. The emotionally charged political process that drives these debates is the same one that produces legislation. It is almost structurally incapable of producing rational outcomes.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#235

Post by gruez »

zero_iq wrote: post #96
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.

The policy itself isn't cruel or brutal, but the enforcement can be terrible. Brutal and cruel acts include: * Killing of child immediately after birth * Killing of child whilst being born, e.g. in birth canal during birth * Termination of pregnancy as late as 8.5 months * Forced abortions (incorporating kidnapping and assault) All of these things have happened routinely as part of enforcement of the "one child" poli…

At the risk of getting massively downvoted:

Most of the brutal and cruel acts you listed are a result of carrying a child to birth. Surely they would have noticed that they were pregnant and had the opportunity to abort at an earlier time. Better yet, why couldn't they just... not have children? Do they not have access to contraception?

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#236

Post by task_queue »

grecy wrote: post #208
moistgorilla wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Couldn't the argument be made that the parents, in effect, did it to their own child No, it couldn't. The person responsible for killing the child is the person that enforces the law and the person that created the law.

Iteresting. It follows then the person that kills a death row inmate is responsible for their death, not the inmate for committing a crime in the first place.

Yes, they are responsible for killing them. It's a conscience decision an executioner makes to kill those the state deems worthy of execution.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#237

Post by crdoconnor »

funkyy wrote: post #146
mkaziz wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is typically a thing that is grown at home, not a thing that is "given".

It should be that way. But some cannot understand that some countries do not want Democracy. Its not that they don't matured - they just don't want it. Even in some European countries we can see the move to shift much more power to presidents (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland).

TIL some people actually believe the things Mubarak says.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#238

Post by ksenzee »

adrianN wrote: post #42
kirsebaer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you going to force women to abort "unlicensed" children? Force women to have birth control implants? Up until the 1990s in Spain, many thousands of children were systematically stolen from political activists and others with the wrong politics or wrong lifestyle. Parents were told that their newborn had died. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15335899

A less severe form would be financial incentives for licensed parents. You're still free to have children if you want, but you're only supported by the state if you got a license. Pair this with free birth control implants and abortions for everyone who wants them and you get most of the effect without the use of force. You could even pay men to get a vasectomy.

"You're still free to have children if you want, but you're only supported by the state if you got a license."

The traditional "license" to have children used to be marriage, and children born without such a license were called illegitimate - i.e. outside the law. It was an unjust system that hurt a lot of innocent children, and we've moved away from it for a reason.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#239

Post by tremon »

hguant wrote: post #131
tremon wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I (think I) understood the GP post, I just have very little tolerance for idiotic and easily falsifiable statements. Therefore, I chose to respond to the first sentence only, and ignore the rest of the post.

My use of that population number was simply that: a refutation of the assertion that the earth has no population limit, as it will be hard to argue that our planet can support 10^9980 humans per square millimeter of land area. A genuine "argumentum ad absurdum", to counter the GP's completely nonsensical opening statement.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#240

Post by cccooo2015 »

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.

it is just as brutal and cruel as US cop.in china,one child was a law,you want more child,you pay more money,it was called Social maintenance fees.but someone did not want to pay the money,so come the brutal and cruel just like US cop shoot on blacks,but in china the one child law-executor has no gun,and they are base officer,they have more pressure and want more benefit than US cop
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