China to begin two-child policy • Hacker News Board

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#301

Post by funkyy » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #199

rtpg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

It won't be anywhere near a billion. China already has an average of ~1.7 children per family [0] if you factor into account that the policy is enforced at a provincial level, and depending on that province, it may be the case that (0) people of certain backgrounds (e.g. farmers, minorities, parents with disabilities or medical conditions) can be exempt in some areas, (1) affluent people sometimes just pay the fine a…

imo you are not including the fact that Chinese culture is quite different to other parts of the world. It would be better to compare them to India and Vietnam rather than world statistics.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#302

Post by fapjacks » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

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…

And this, folks, is the real kicker: Developed nations naturally begin to level off at a certain 2.x children per couple growth rate. This is a token policy, if anything.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#303

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:16 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #194

hvs wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a communist gov't. The people "letting the gov't decide" has little do with it.

I think you are trivializing thousands of years of history with this. China is ... china. They use the same alphabet they used when egyptians used hieroglyphs. The sensibilities of the chinese population are not about a people being dominated by a marxist tyranny. It's china being ruled as it has always been ruled - the dynasties have come and gone but the dynamics of government - and the cultural sensibilities which…

> the current china is more of a pragmatic autocracy

Has there ever been a nominally communist state that wasn't a pragmatic autocracy? That seems to be the main criticism of communism... that it's impossible without immoral coercion of some sort.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#304

Post by zhemao » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

matt-attack wrote: post #190

nsxwolf wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, forced abortions and drownings of infants are sometimes necessary in some cultures. We shouldn't judge.

Couldn't the argument be made that the parents, in effect, did it to their own child? They knew the law and flaunted it. Not saying the law is just, but the parents did it to themselves.

This assumes that China has a strong legal system and that government officials won't abuse the system to meet arbitrary quotas. Neither of which are true.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2013-04-15/china-past-due-one-chi...

tl;dr Couple had the legal right and license to have a second child, but the local family planning officials were over quota so they made up some bullshit about her license being expired and forced her to abort her 8-month old fetus.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#305

Post by funkyy » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

fineman wrote: post #269

funkyy wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

If someone truly doesn't want democracy then they are participating in it. Only some theoretical person without desires could be said to not want a system that lets them express them. Now, it's debatable if a "representative democracy" would seem to offer that, but I wonder that myself from time to time...

The problem is that current democracy is no democracy at all in most countries. It support corruption, the governments are barely changing (same deputies, the name just changes), total detachment of administration from real human problems, hostile approach towards small businesses.

The thing is that true patriot and authoritarian government for a decade can fix many problems that democracy cant handle. Once again - not everywhere though.

In Libia for example most people loved Kadaffi. Yet, he was removed by revolution that would surely fail if not for major help from west. Kadaffi while violent man, managed to make Libia in to blooming example of African country that can distribute prosperity to majority of people.

Let us check Singapore - did it work? Sure. Was it bad for people? Not really. Obviously there will be some affected by strong power, but devastating majority seen their lives skyrocketing comparing to Malasia.

The issue is that majority of strong Leaders are either military man, or democratically chosen governments that refuse to give power away - and they are often bad news.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#306

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

ksenzee wrote: post #238

adrianN wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It was an unjust system that hurt a lot of innocent children

If the current system (where marriage and procreation are notionally separate) were found to hurt a lot of innocent children, would we call our system unjust and abandon it?

I suspect not. The current culture around marriage and parenting didn't evolve from pragmatism as much as (various takes on) ethics, morality, and self-determinism.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#307

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:26 PM UTC

paradite wrote: post #216

Talk about bad things about China -> Get upvotes. Talk about good things about China -> Get downvotes and people rebutting you with clearly one-sided sources. Am I surprised? No. Am I pissed? No. I believe time will tell.

The one-child policy in China is one of the few issues that will piss off both pro-choice and pro-life Americans. Very few things will bring this sort of across-the-board unanimity in American politics.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#308

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:26 PM UTC

navait wrote: post #139

brlewis wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[deleted]

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#309

Post by jquery » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:28 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #298

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 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.

The moral hazards of uncontrolled population growth are far more severe. The only question is whether we control population via a statutory law (as China did), or through extreme costs-of-living (as "liberal" Western countries do). I'd argue a statutory law is far more humane.

Not only more humane, but more fair. Why should the people who provide the least resources to their children be the ones to create the most human progeny?

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#310

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 7:32 PM UTC

jquery wrote: post #309

humanrebar wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The moral hazards of uncontrolled population growth are far more severe. The only question is whether we control population via a statutory law (as China did), or through extreme costs-of-living (as "liberal" Western countries do). I'd argue a statutory law is far more humane . Not only more humane, but more fair. Why should the people who provide the least resources to their children be the ones to create the most h…

Given that coercive abortion and gender selection are realities and the problems of overpopulation are more theoretical, I wonder what your definition of humane is.

And again, who decides which is more humane? If you and your cohort wants to stop reproducing as a good example, nobody is stopping you.