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China allows couples to have three children

bbc.com

131–140 of 339 posts

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a hard problem to solve don't even know a developed country that actually managed this problem well.

I am not sure, that this is a problem that needs centralized "solving". I don't want anyone tell me, how much children I can or should have. We got to make sure the work life balance is in order for people to have the time and money to afford a family and give adequate support like daycare etc. But apart from that, I really don't like some buerocrats in some buerau somewhere calculating the "correct" number of births…

Wow... I can't believe you're advocating for something completely normal, like choosing to decide how many children you have, and how creepy it is that some governments literally dictate to you this most private aspect of you and your spouse's life, and you are being downvoted. The shills must be out in full force today.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#132

Just curious are such policies considered a human right violation. For example could US or let's say France implement such law as well? Let's say the government just want's to prevent families having more than 5+ children for whatever reason.

The short answer is yes, it's a human rights violation, and it doesn't matter what others 'consider' it. But no one will say anything because it's the Chinese Communist Party.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#133

Every story about China should include a note that the government decides how many children its citizens are allowed to have. We've grown numb to how terrible this is.

I’m a pretty staunch critic of China, but population control seems like a pretty good thing. I suppose ideally it would be promoted but ultimately voluntary, but I don’t think their single child policy was the worst thing they’ve done by far.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#134
post #93

After the communist "land reform", the Chinese communist party / Chinese Government owns all the land in China. Now, local governments use land control and land sales as their major source of revenue. The end result is that vast majority of Chinese people live in small apartments, which are designed for 1 couple + 1 kid families. In big cities, average apartment size is around 60-80 sqm. In small cities, it could be…

Pardon me, but how is 100-120 sqm small? 60 sqm is small for 4 people yes, but everything else subject to how rooms are organized. We had 105 sqm growing up with 5 people and we had a very large living room + 4 bed rooms, no second bath room though.

Yes. In theory you can have 10 people live in one bedroom, and living room isn't even necessary. You can even share bathroom and kitchen in the apartment building. Sorry, I am too spoiled.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#135

Every story about China should include a note that the government decides how many children its citizens are allowed to have. We've grown numb to how terrible this is.

China also isn’t the first country to screw themselves with misguided family planning policies. Singapore and South Korea have gone through the same thing also.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> there will be nobody to look after you in your old age. What a sick, selfish society. If you can't take care of yourself maybe it's time to go?

What a sick little comment. The world is a lot larger than the rich West and historically children were what we have - in some wealthy places - a social security system for. But in many places where the state is barely functional and family ties are strong children tend to take care of their elders, because that's how it's been traditionally. The best way to reduce that factor in how many children people have is to u…

It looks like in China it's even a law[1] that old people use to take advantage of their children.

Just because it's a "tradition" doesn't make it good. It's been a "tradition" to beat your wife and children as well in many parts of the world or even worse.

If you are miserable why would you like to make your children's life miserable as well?

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7422934/

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#137

Every story about China should include a note that the government decides how many children its citizens are allowed to have. We've grown numb to how terrible this is.

This doesn't seem intrinsically terrible to me, particularly if it's done through incentives and doesn't involve say, murder or sterilisation. If we accept that any biome will eventually have a finite carrying capacity while the possibility of human reproduction is exponential it seems inevitable that there must be some limits to reproduction. Regulation is crude but might be less bad than "direct environmental feedb…

It turns out that as countries develop their birth rates naturally decline and eventually turn negative without requiring the government to set the number of children you can have. Indeed Japan and others are doing almost everything possible to encourage people to have more children and cannot get their populations to return to growth.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#138
post #99

Gotta love HN comment section on a story such as this. People here solving math problems more than questioning the power of a government to tell people how many children they are ALLOWED to have.

>the power of a government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence >Robert Hinrichs Bates argues that the state itself has no violent power; rather, the people hold all the power of coercion to ensure that order and other equilibriums hold up. Should we be discussing this?

According to that argument, the capitol riot was justified.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#140

Every story about China should include a note that the government decides how many children its citizens are allowed to have. We've grown numb to how terrible this is.

This doesn't seem intrinsically terrible to me, particularly if it's done through incentives and doesn't involve say, murder or sterilisation. If we accept that any biome will eventually have a finite carrying capacity while the possibility of human reproduction is exponential it seems inevitable that there must be some limits to reproduction. Regulation is crude but might be less bad than "direct environmental feedb…

Murders or "abortions" in final stages of pregnancy were commonly used in China to enforce this policy. See https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8923482/
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