China allows couples to have three children • Hacker News Board

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#161

Post by tehwebguy » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

thefounder wrote: post #136

jacquesm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

You should know they have this in Pennsylvania too

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#162

Post by marcus_holmes » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

adamors wrote: post #59

marcus_holmes wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you were joking, but totalitarian regimes have done this before (Romania's orphan crisis was the result of similar policies, iirc). The poverty/immigration dance - if you reduce poverty, women have less children. Eventually you reach the point where you need to allow immigration to provide enough workers to keep your aging population from starving. Immigration is an existential threat if your country is based…

Romania's orphan crisis was the result of restricting abortions to a select few categories of women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770

thanks for the clarification :)

From the wikipedia page: > aimed at the creation of a new and large Romanian population by restricting abortion and contraception.

Same idea, different mechanics

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#163

Post by imtringued » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

pelorat wrote: post #120

NicoJuicy wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One child policy is one of the major things that led China's historic revolution out of poverty. It's a very controversial policy, but you're free to prove me wrong. People could be employed longer without an abundance of young people taking their jobs.

I'm more inclined to think it was industrial espionage on an industrial scale.

It started with a British colony that made it easy to do business, then China stole the good parts of the British colony and created special economic zones.

Industrial espionage isn't even wrong. There is this absurd idea that a country should isolate itself from its neighbours and do everything on its own. How are you supposed to catch up or even overtake developed nations if all you do is reinvent things that have been available for decades? You can't.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#164

Post by roody15 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

Interesting side note on china during the one-child policy era. This policy was enforced on the masses but highly educated people were given waivers. If you were a engineer, professor or any highly skilled professional you were encouraged to have lots of children.

China’s one child policy was mainly about population control but also had a eugenics component to it as well.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#165

Post by mcculley » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #159

mcculley wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am amused at the phrase "communist buerocrats [sic]". I live in the United States, where a particular bastard hybrid of socialism and crony capitalism requires that every birth be well documented by bureaucrats.

It has less to do with socialism and cronyism and everything to do with your rights. Your birth certificate is your primary evidence of citizenship. Literally every right you enjoy springs from that one document.

I get that. I am amused that anyone would think that only “communists” have bureaucracy.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#166

Post by dcolkitt » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

xyzzy123 wrote: post #130

lammalamma25 wrote: post #127

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…

The most precious resource by far is human ingenuity. Home Sapients are not like other organisms. Every additional person increases the rate of innovation across the entire species. Because of cultural transmission there are increasing returns to scale that don't exist in other species.

For that reason, we are exempt from the normal laws of Malthusian ecology and carrying capacity. More people translates into higher, not lower, living standards. That's why over the past 200 years the population has increased seven fold, while the percent living in poverty has fallen to unprecedented lows. The greatest risk by far is not having enough people. Population control robs us of future Einsteins, Borlaugs, and Turings.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#167

Post by 74B5 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #94

infinity0 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is not a totalitarian regime - you shouldn't believe all the propaganda out there, you should actually go there yourself and you'll find that you can live your life quite normally and happily. China's identity isn't based on a single ethnic identity - the various restrictions (such as the now-3-child-policy, and permanent immigration between cities) apply to everyone. In fact ethnic minorities generally get pre…

I lived in China, in Shanghai, near the French Concession, speak Mandarin, read 汉字，(not fluently, but HSK5-6), and have been to pretty much every province in China. About as privileged as you can be as an ex-pat, and I can still say, IMHO, it's pretty totalitarian. Totalitarian: "relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state." Is China centraliz…

Thank you for writing this epos. Your points are valid and even thou many chinese would disagree (I think), the parallels you draw between western and chinese phenomena are striking.

From afar (I have never been to china), I have to admit with a cold shiver, that the chinese control over the media might be working as intended. Usually, wealth and security encourage laicistic world views but like you said, nationalistic tendencies are on the rise everywhere and very useful for totalitarian regimes.

Maybe, the CCP even manages, with stronger measures, to rule away the demographic crisis, they are heading for and western governments will be even more jelly. It’s very concerning.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#168

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #166

xyzzy123 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The most precious resource by far is human ingenuity. Home Sapients are not like other organisms. Every additional person increases the rate of innovation across the entire species. Because of cultural transmission there are increasing returns to scale that don't exist in other species. For that reason, we are exempt from the normal laws of Malthusian ecology and carrying capacity. More people translates into higher,…

“Every additional person increases the rate of innovation across the entire species.”

This is a wild claim. Not everyone is a net positive contributor to the species. The world’s resource are already consumed beyond their replenishment rates, and hundreds of millions of people suffer from abject poverty and constant food insecurity. Total fertility rate decline curves are objectively positive for humans as a species and resource contention.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#169

Post by hutzlibu » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

mcculley wrote: post #165

yardie wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has less to do with socialism and cronyism and everything to do with your rights. Your birth certificate is your primary evidence of citizenship. Literally every right you enjoy springs from that one document.

I get that. I am amused that anyone would think that only “communists” have bureaucracy.

Maybe I don't actually think that and just refered to their special kind of buerocrats?

I sort of hate buerocracy in all its shapes, but given the choice between a western style buerocrat and a marxist buerocrat, I choose the former.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#170

Post by hutzlibu » Mon, May 31, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

WillDaSilva wrote: post #129

hutzlibu wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Stuff like this can and does result from bureaucrats / policy-makers deciding what an ideal number of children (for the well-being of the society) is. You say "that regulates itself", but clearly the things you listed (work-life balance, economic prosperity, dayc…

I have a young family, so I can tell you that I do know a bit how things go and how many things don't work so well - to which I do in fact blame the various regulations.

Because you know, what worked best for us? All the things that are not regulated, like grandparents watching over the childs or teenage babysitter. The very well regulated state kindergarten?

It was a nightmare so far, even though we have a quite good kindergarden compared to the various stories I heard so far of what is possible, as well. And sure, Corona was not helping with that either, but I know quite some people in social jobs and I listen to their stories since way before corona.