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China allows couples to have three children

bbc.com

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Re: China allows couples to have three children

#181
post #65

Good luck. With a shrunken generation of family to help due to 30+ years of one-child policy, and almost no social support (China does not really have socialized healthcare in practice) there's no one to help take care of larger families. But there is a HUGE number of rapidly aging parents and grandparents to take care of. Add a culture that puts accumulating wealth as the #1 virtue, and it becomes nearly impossible…

> Today Quebec has the lowest provincial birthrate in Canada. Not remotely true. As of 2016 Quebec has a fertility rate of 1.59 children per women which is higher than the Canadian average (1.54), Ontario (the largest province by far, 1.46) as well as BC (1.40) and the Atlantic provinces (1.42-1.58). See https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91-209-x/2018001/article...

Ah that's new to me thanks! I recently saw numbers showing something different (wish I could find that link), and I was remembering this interview from 2019 - https://www.tvo.org/video/the-worlds-shrinking-problem

I found it interesting that the authors looking at the history of efforts to financially simulate birthrate found that it has never worked to reverse the decline. @21:15

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#182

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…

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…

> In China, mass organised protest against the national government is not tolerated, but nobody cares if you write some stuff on social media.

Is there a typo somewhere or are you really saying there is no consequence for posting on social media in China? Because that's certainly not the case[1,2,3], unless all of Western media is misleading about this.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-23990674

[2]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-now-sending-twitter-us...

[3]: http://www.internetfreedom.org/Background.html#Firewall_of_S...

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#183

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.

It seems the problem is in the use of force. Apart from that, if there's a group of people that would make better than average parents, and whose kids would be more likely to contribute more to society than they consume, then shouldn't that group be encouraged to have and adopt as many kids as they can afford to support?

[flagged]

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#184

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.

Western countries attempt to manage this through taxation and benefits. There are plenty of countries that encourage having children with tax benefits. The UK controversially introduced a limit to how much you’ll get in state support if you have more than 3 children- https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claiming-benefits-for-2-or-more-...

Taxation and benefits is not even in the same universe as forced sterilization and abortions.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#185

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.

It seems the problem is in the use of force. Apart from that, if there's a group of people that would make better than average parents, and whose kids would be more likely to contribute more to society than they consume, then shouldn't that group be encouraged to have and adopt as many kids as they can afford to support?

Putting aside the ethics of eugenics, the tacit assumption there is that encouraging children is a good thing.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#186
post #17

There is some question on whether the one-child policy was even needed. If you look at a graph of "children per mother" chart before and after the original policy went into effect, it's quite evident that rates were dropping for more than a decade beforehand: * https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/october/china... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birth_rate_in_China.svg * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O…

There is another graph here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/F... Which shows a massive male surplus particularly in the young demographics, way larger than you would biologically expect. How can we claim this policy has no effect if clearly people are still killing female infants?

> How can we claim this policy has no effect if clearly people are still killing female infants?

Strong statement. Evidence please.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the problem is in the use of force. Apart from that, if there's a group of people that would make better than average parents, and whose kids would be more likely to contribute more to society than they consume, then shouldn't that group be encouraged to have and adopt as many kids as they can afford to support?

[flagged]

> Despite full Maoist Communism in China, descendants of former landlords and rich peasants today earn 16% more than descendants of others.

> They couldn't inherit wealth from grandparents, parents were barred from university in Cultural Revolution, but they inherited something

https://twitter.com/whyvert/status/1301012672138285059

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#188
post #61

There is some question on whether the one-child policy was even needed. If you look at a graph of "children per mother" chart before and after the original policy went into effect, it's quite evident that rates were dropping for more than a decade beforehand: * https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/october/china... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birth_rate_in_China.svg * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O…

China (and India) are dealing with population numbers never before seen, at a scale that is inconceivable without special training or focus (whats the difference between a million and a billion? about a billion). It is a mathematical possibility that growth rates overshoot and settle into patterns of boom and bust - and a bust in human populations can get really ugly. "It hasn't happened in the last 2 centuries" isn'…

They deserve no sympathy, it was sheer madness, and it is.

> As ideas go it isn't an obvious mis-step in the class as, say, Communist economic policies.

No, it's an exemplary case of completely bonker policies in rank with "4 pests" campaign.

Sadly, stuff like that is very much intentional, and are signature of Maoesque political thought:

You intentionally make populace outraged over something very obvious, and then keep obsessing over it for no reason making people think it's a big thing, when it isn't.

When people people have something more close, personal, and painful to be outraged about, it shifts people's attention from an even more obvious fact of complete governance failure, and communist occupation of the country.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#189
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another graph here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/F... Which shows a massive male surplus particularly in the young demographics, way larger than you would biologically expect. How can we claim this policy has no effect if clearly people are still killing female infants?

> How can we claim this policy has no effect if clearly people are still killing female infants? Strong statement. Evidence please.

Not exactly “killing infants” but abortion.

https://www.npr.org/2016/02/01/465124337/how-chinas-one-chil...

https://www.bmj.com/content/338/bmj.b1211

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