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China to begin two-child policy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: China to begin two-child policy

#291

Post by mahyarm »

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.

I would just let teenage children get free RISUG / hormonal implants and let them remove them or keep renewing them for free.

That alone will prevent many unplanned and unwanted babies in a population without any force, political, eugenics or racist overtones.

I don't know the long term effects of these implants so it's a tentative idea.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#292

Post by Retric »

nickbauman wrote: post #283
superuser2 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ecosystems have carrying capacities. There is only so much water and arable land. There are only so many resources in the mines/oil wells waiting to be extracted. Technology (like GMOs) can help you make incrementally more efficient use of those resources, but not as fast as unbounded exponential population growth. At some point, the average standard of living has to come crashing down. The biologically necessary qua…

Arguably 1/2 of the molecules in our bodies come from the artificial nitrogen extraction process developed during WWI. Without that, Earth's human population would have been limited to half of what it is now back in the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Haber_process

The earth could probably support 100+ billion people at reasonable comfort levels with slightly better technology as long as we give up the idea of life outside of zoo's.

That said, past experience has demonstrated the Human population can easily grow at 5% per year. At that rate it's doubling every 15 years. Trying to double the universes food supply every 15 years is just not possible indefinitely.

PS: 2^n is crazy. It takes less time than you might think before the mass of humanity is growing faster than a sphere expanding at the speed of light could support.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#293

Post by Animats »

Before commenting on this, there are two things you need to read.

"China - total fertility rate (graph)"[1]

"List of famines in China."[2]

"China - Population 1950 - 2015" [3]

In 1970, the fertility rate (babies born per woman) was 6. That's huge but not untypical for an undeveloped country, where a lot of people die young. Once some basic modern medicine was deployed, the number of people surviving went way up, and the population doubled in 50 years, even with the one-child policy. It would have been much, much worse without it. Something had to be done. China has a history of famines, and the last big one was in 1962, and 20 million to 40 million people starved to death. Keeping that from happening again is a major goal of policy in China.

The one-child policy worked. The population is leveling off. The fertility rate is now around 1.55, which is about typical for a developed country. Once a country develops, the fertility rate drops off without coercion. China has reached that point, and no longer needs a mandatory one-child policy.

India's population grew by a factor of 3.4 during that period, but India has more arable land. China is a big country, but most of it is desert, tundra, or mountains. The US has six times the arable land per capita as China. China has nothing like the Midwestern US.

Actually, the one-child policy was relaxed years ago. Only some provinces require it.

[1] http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2010_TFR_1.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China [3] http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_Pop_WPP2006.htm

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#294

Post by BookmarkSaver »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #260
BookmarkSaver wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are too many people on the planet to start with, and 1/6 of them is in China. The effect that they are having on the environment (both in "nature" and in their own living spaces) is atrocious, but there are too many people to reasonably switch to a sustainable model. Additionally, if you account for the fact that a gigantic portion of their land is basically uninhabitable (the Gobi Desert), they have an unreal…

> there are too many people on the planet to start with Earth doesn't have too many people. The people inhabiting it are just, currently, quite wasteful with resources.

At the trajectory we are going, there are too many people. Rather than simply assuming a solution would appear, China took action.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#295

Post by humanrebar »

Animats wrote: post #293

Before commenting on this, there are two things you need to read. "China - total fertility rate (graph)"[1] "List of famines in China."[2] "China - Population 1950 - 2015" [3] In 1970, the fertility rate (babies born per woman) was 6. That's huge but not untypical for an undeveloped country, where a lot of people die young. Once some basic modern medicine was deployed, the number of people surviving went way up, and…

> The one-child policy worked.

If you ignore the invasive health monitoring, gender selective abortions, forced abortions, and other human rights violations, sure.

But I'm not sure this cure wasn't worse than the disease. Especially, as you point out, since fertility rates seem to regulate themselves in developed countries.

I guess if you're a pure utilitarian, you could try to make the case that it all was a net benefit, but I don't see many utilitarians around these days.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#297

Post by funkyy »

austenallred wrote: post #196
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…

> China managed to succeed in increasing people wealth and loosening laws To be clear, do you think that killing children or forced abortions were major contributors to that? Or does it just so happen that the two happened at the same time? It seems like a bit of a logical stretch to me to say, "America installing democracy didn't work in Iraq, so we shouldn't be worried if China kills or forcefully aborts children."

Maybe instead of building camps and fighting between A and B consider option C? I am not saying its OK by my standards but it seems that this was only way for China to properly handle this issue at the time when they made this move.

Your assumption is a stretch. You are putting words in my mouth and that's just below level of conversation one should expect from HN community.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#298

Post by humanrebar »

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #253
erispoe wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is there too many people in China? What is the standard to determine the right population?

There are too many people on the planet to start with, and 1/6 of them is in China. The effect that they are having on the environment (both in "nature" and in their own living spaces) is atrocious, but there are too many people to reasonably switch to a sustainable model. Additionally, if you account for the fact that a gigantic portion of their land is basically uninhabitable (the Gobi Desert), they have an unreal…

> There are too many people on the planet to start with

The issue isn't whether that's true. The issue is who gets to decide what the right number is and what we all do about it. To most of us, the moral hazards (and realities!) of coercive birth control are severe.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#299

Post by funkyy »

bhouston wrote: post #149
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) That is highly contentious statement.

Some parts of the world are not grown up to handle democracy or make social decisions. Those worlds usually have only three options, forced dictator, forced democracy or domestic war.

We could go in to the detail but I assumed my point was clear on this one.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#300

Post by WildUtah »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #260
BookmarkSaver wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are too many people on the planet to start with, and 1/6 of them is in China. The effect that they are having on the environment (both in "nature" and in their own living spaces) is atrocious, but there are too many people to reasonably switch to a sustainable model. Additionally, if you account for the fact that a gigantic portion of their land is basically uninhabitable (the Gobi Desert), they have an unreal…

> there are too many people on the planet to start with Earth doesn't have too many people. The people inhabiting it are just, currently, quite wasteful with resources.

Earth doesn't have too many people. The people inhabiting it are just, currently, quite wasteful with resources.

What's the goal here? We could have many more people each living in misery, crowding, and poverty. Or we could have fewer people with each one being rich and free and having access to parks and open space to breathe and relax.

More people isn't somehow good in itself. Children are great but one or two is enough.

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