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China to begin two-child policy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: China to begin two-child policy

#421

Post by oafitupa »

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…

> Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative

Is that what they teach in American schools? Let's see how you cope with this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#422

Post by throwaway_789 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #385
throwaway_789 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't lead to eugenics, it would very much already be eugenics.

Explain to us what exactly is bad about eugenics in general, that is not related to Nazis doing their Nazi things because of their Nazi ideology?

Eugenics has an unacceptably high -- and excruciatingly documented -- risk of mutating into a demographic weapon wielded by racial groups that have attained dominance by historical coincidence against other racial groups. It is a long-dormant existential threat to large populations. The fact that this cluster of comments is discussing "licensing" the fundamental right of humans to reproduce is in itself a triumph of dystopian rhetoric.

Also, excluding Nazis from arguments against eugenics is like excluding Bolsheviks from arguments against communism. Spare me your precious Godwin's Law, Nazism is eminently relevant here.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#423

Post by throwaway_789 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #227
throwaway_789 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be eugenics. The how-to gusto and historical tone-deafness of three commenters in this chain are flabbergasting.

I don't know what exactly you replied to, but the entire category of 'eugenics' should not be tainted forever. Heritably curing the cystic fibrosis gene with an injection? That's eugenics.

No, eugenics really should be tainted forever. Cystic fibrosis can be heritably cured without eugenics, e.g. hopefully within a few decades via gene editing something like CRISPR. Let us not use specious arguments about curing rare Mendelian diseases as a Trojan horse to usher eugenics back into mainstream acceptability.

As a sibling comment notes, eugenics is conventionally understood to be gene selection via people selection, i.e. differential all-or-nothing biological reproduction of whole humans. And it was that sense of the idea I was critiquing.

And it is in that sense of the word that people shooting from the hip with talk of "licensing" the basic human right to reproduce are engaging in shocking historical naivety -- or worse, with facepalm-worthy apologetics like those corners of the commentariat that defend misogyny, slavery and other social aberrations that have rightfully been interred to the dustbin of history.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#424

Post by TeMPOraL »

throwaway_789 wrote: post #422
TeMPOraL wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain to us what exactly is bad about eugenics in general, that is not related to Nazis doing their Nazi things because of their Nazi ideology?

Eugenics has an unacceptably high -- and excruciatingly documented -- risk of mutating into a demographic weapon wielded by racial groups that have attained dominance by historical coincidence against other racial groups. It is a long-dormant existential threat to large populations. The fact that this cluster of comments is discussing "licensing" the fundamental right of humans to reproduce is in itself a triumph of…

> The fact that this cluster of comments is discussing "licensing" the fundamental right of humans to reproduce is in itself a triumph of dystopian rhetoric.

We're discussing limits on reproduction because this "fundamental right" is most likely going to fuck up the planet. Don't confuse basic capability with a "right".

> Also, excluding Nazis from arguments against eugenics is like excluding Bolsheviks from arguments against communism. Spare me your precious Godwin's Law, Nazism is eminently relevant here.

Yeah, I'd like to exclude Bolsheviks from arguments against communism too. It's not about Godwin's Law, but about having an actual argument other than "somebody tried that before once and it didn't work". How about exploring why it didn't work and how we can avoid that particular failure mode while reaping the rewards, without throwing the entire concept out?

Nazis are

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#425

Post by lotharbot »

Retric wrote: post #415
lotharbot wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top of the curve can be unpleasant. It doesn't have to be. The worst is when population goes past carrying capacity and then crashes. That's when you get mass die-offs. Population can settle down at carrying capacity simply through reduced birth rates matching up with death rates. That's the situation we see in much of the western world, with better availability of birth control etc.

The top of the curve is unstable. A new plant virus destroys a major crop and suddenly billions starve.

Every part of the curve faces that sort of instability. The number of crops actually growing isn't particularly higher than the number needed to sustain the population, and we can't just spin up enough food for billions of people even if we do have plenty of land to do it on.

With humanity, "carrying capacity" is unlikely to be food-limited.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#426

Post by TeMPOraL »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #406
TeMPOraL wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because "it's eugenics , and eugenics is bad, just look at the history!" appeal to 'historic tone-deafness' is not a valid argument. Yes, Nazi Germany did some shitty stuff for ideological reasons and tarnished the "eugenics" label, but it doesn't invalidate the basic idea of influencing human reproduction and/or selecting for preferred traits and/or direct DNA interventions.

That's like saying "Lenin and Stalin did some bad stuff, but it doesn't invalidate the basic idea of Marxism" (which Marxist True Believers still assert). After seeing too many examples of it working out badly and none at all of it working well, we regard the idea as invalid. In practice, eugenics seems to move from "some genetic makeups are more fit for the current environment than others, and we should strive for t…

> That's like saying "Lenin and Stalin did some bad stuff, but it doesn't invalidate the basic idea of Marxism" (which Marxist True Believers still assert).

Because it doesn't. I will assert that even though I'm not a Marxist True Believer.

> After seeing too many examples of it working out badly and none at all of it working well, we regard the idea as invalid.

And that's just plain stupidity, which is exactly what I'm complaining about. It's "someone tried that before some time ago and it didn't work, therefore let's label this stupid and throw it away" kind of attitude. The real reason we're ignoring the entire idea is because communist propaganda has lost and US propaganda has won, and it has little to do with actual merits of the idea itself.

You could utter similar dismissals for fire before we mastered it, or for gasoline before we created ICEs, or for powered flight before Wright brothers. What I was asking for is an actual discussion of the idea - pointing out where the idea is wrong, and talking about how can we modify it to avoid its problems while reaping the rewards.

Which fortunately you did in the rest of your comment, so forgive me for the text above, but I really really disagree with the sentiment of your first paragraph.

--

> And if you disagree with this, show me historical examples of eugenics movements that stopped at reasonable places.

I don't think we had many of such examples - the only ones we label "eugenics" happened within the last 100 years, and involved powerful people with ideology doing stupid and harmful things because doing things because of an ideology is generally stupid and harmful.

> Unrelated comment: Another danger of eugenics is exposed by my wording of the starting point: "some genetic makeups are more fit for the current environment than others..." That's clearly true. But the current environment is not necessarily the one that future generations will face; leaving them some genetic diversity (even if it creates some disadvantages) may be a net win. Remember sickle cell anemia.

Yeah, that's a strong point I'm going to agree 100% with. Too strong adaptation to current environment means you'll be really out of luck when the environment changes.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#427

Post by throwaway_789 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #424
throwaway_789 wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eugenics has an unacceptably high -- and excruciatingly documented -- risk of mutating into a demographic weapon wielded by racial groups that have attained dominance by historical coincidence against other racial groups. It is a long-dormant existential threat to large populations. The fact that this cluster of comments is discussing "licensing" the fundamental right of humans to reproduce is in itself a triumph of…

> The fact that this cluster of comments is discussing "licensing" the fundamental right of humans to reproduce is in itself a triumph of dystopian rhetoric. We're discussing limits on reproduction because this "fundamental right" is most likely going to fuck up the planet. Don't confuse basic capability with a "right". > Also, excluding Nazis from arguments against eugenics is like excluding Bolsheviks from argument…

> reproduction ... is most likely going to fuck up the planet

Malthusian fallacy. The idea of a "population bomb" has been indoctrinated into the modern mind of certain political orthodoxies since the late 1960's. It has yet to pass, because it is wrong. The jeremiads of Malthus and Ehrlich are myopic and dangerously lacking in imagination.

We will engineer ways to feed ourselves, generate potable water, control our climate, clean our air, and thrive -- all with a human population that monotonically grows over long periods of time.

> Don't confuse basic capability with a "right".

What does that even mean?

The fact that the same people who fight for esoteric rights of privacy and free speech disproportionately flip their semantic switch to cast the most fundamental human right in scare quotes is difficult to fathom.

> It's not about Godwin's Law, but about having an actual argument other than "somebody tried that before once and it didn't work". How about exploring why it didn't work and how we can avoid that particular failure mode while reaping the rewards, without throwing the entire concept out?

Here's an "actual argument": modern history. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics. Arguments that an idea is grievously misguided based on broad appeals to disastrous periods in recent history brought about by that idea are valid in matters of social policy debate, which this is.

We throw the entire concept out because it is intellectually rancid. The taboo is justified. We should not touch eugenics, just like we should not touch proposals for disenfranchising women or chattel slavery.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#428

Post by throwaway_789 »

Panoramix wrote: post #342
Idontagree wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah, the good old "future generations will solve it, so let's trash this place"

Strawman. Strong environmental protections and positive population growth can coexist.

And, of course, we should be striving in our generation to solve these existential challenges, rather than squandering our time optimizing sales funnels and click-through-rates.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#429

Post by Animats »

oska wrote: post #390
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. and > It would have been much, much worse without it. I have my own graph that questions these two (widely made) assertions. It shows the decline in total fertility rates for two countries over the last 50 years. Those countries are China and Thailand [1]. You can see that both countries had almost exactly the same TFR in 1965 (just over 6.0) when both countries were still mainly agrari…

Thailand has 3x the arable land per capita of China. Thailand is a major food exporter. China is a major food importer.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#430

Post by srtjstjsj »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #369
Retric wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US, Japan, and EU have negative population growth if you exclude immigration. What more do you want?

Africa and India to play ball. The wealthy West limiting its procreation doesn't buy much for the Earth when somewhere else, poor families are pumping out children by the dozens.

The westerners are consuming far more resources per family of 4 than the African family of 10
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