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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

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the crisis artificial? The amount of agricultural land China needed to sustain its population is totally calculable. the Chinese population grow threefold from 1912 to when the policy was introduced, had it been growing like that, today China would have HALF of the world's population. it's understandable to think it might an ecologically unsustainable growth.

I totally understand you. Peoples come in here and just go on criticize policies because they don't know the reality of living in an overpopulated country with limited ressources. In Africa, Burundi, my country of 28km2, we have more than 90% of the litigations in the courts about land and properties. Siblings kill each other for land! We have 5.4 children/woman. One of the biggest natality rate in Africa. Only surpa…

> What do you think we need to do?

Generally speaking: reduce child mortality (better health care), urbanize/industrialize, educate women.

Every country that has done with over the last ~200 years has seen a drop in fertility rates.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind to examine the full dataset if they are available. And the report is kind of only 20ish pages, excluding the references and covers. After rereading as you suggested, it also said 'Urumqi is also a Han-majority city .... In 2018, the city’s birth-rate grew by about 25 percent compared to the pre-2017 baseline, from 8.5 births per thousand people to 12 per thousand.' So at the same time Han in Urumqi were…

Now you're comparing apples to oranges, in addition to cherry picking. You're comparing birth rates of a major city full of unmarried Han who have been lured to the area by government incentives and other work arrangements, to a predominantly rural area. Those birth rates will always be divergent; anywhere in China, and most of the rest of the world. The part about Han being purposely incentivized to move to Xinjiang…

You have a love for fruit, don't you? But that's not apples and oranges, nor are they cherries. That's the most specific data you can find in that report on the actual birth rate. You're more than welcome to share more data and maybe we can examine.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're comparing apples to oranges, in addition to cherry picking. You're comparing birth rates of a major city full of unmarried Han who have been lured to the area by government incentives and other work arrangements, to a predominantly rural area. Those birth rates will always be divergent; anywhere in China, and most of the rest of the world. The part about Han being purposely incentivized to move to Xinjiang…

You have a love for fruit, don't you? But that's not apples and oranges, nor are they cherries. That's the most specific data you can find in that report on the actual birth rate. You're more than welcome to share more data and maybe we can examine.

The actual data is public record. Official from the Chinese government.

It's linked in the Methodology appendix on page 28 of the report. I copied it here for you since it seems you haven't made it that far yet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dH-GMlRZ8Kc1Lp5or5vS...

Understandable considering you were confused about the report only being "20ish pages".

As for the fruit: Yes, what a wonderful bounty you've brought for us on this fine Memorial Day.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines seem like the most straightforward approach, though there are certainly tradeoffs with anything.

Doesn’t work on the rich or poor…

That’s an opinion.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a love for fruit, don't you? But that's not apples and oranges, nor are they cherries. That's the most specific data you can find in that report on the actual birth rate. You're more than welcome to share more data and maybe we can examine.

The actual data is public record. Official from the Chinese government. It's linked in the Methodology appendix on page 28 of the report. I copied it here for you since it seems you haven't made it that far yet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dH-GMlRZ8Kc1Lp5or5vS... Understandable considering you were confused about the report only being "20ish pages". As for the fruit: Yes, what a wonderful bounty you've br…

It's really wonderful for you to link the dataset here. I think neither of us would have the time to compile the dataset manually. Admittedly and regrettably I didn't check the appendix.

So the conclusion was from Xinjiang's 2017 and 2018 birthrate, which respectively as included was 15.88 and 10.69, so that's where the 50% drop came from. However, the same index for China overall was 12.43 and 10.94, where we see around 20% drop. I don't think it can be categorically concluded it's some racially-motivated policy. (whether it's a good policy or bad is a whole different matter.)

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual data is public record. Official from the Chinese government. It's linked in the Methodology appendix on page 28 of the report. I copied it here for you since it seems you haven't made it that far yet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dH-GMlRZ8Kc1Lp5or5vS... Understandable considering you were confused about the report only being "20ish pages". As for the fruit: Yes, what a wonderful bounty you've br…

It's really wonderful for you to link the dataset here. I think neither of us would have the time to compile the dataset manually. Admittedly and regrettably I didn't check the appendix. So the conclusion was from Xinjiang's 2017 and 2018 birthrate, which respectively as included was 15.88 and 10.69, so that's where the 50% drop came from. However, the same index for China overall was 12.43 and 10.94, where we see ar…

So to summarize our discussion:

Me: Here’s an article about this report.

You: The press is misrepresenting the abstract.

Me: Nope. Here’s the full report.

You: The report draws the wrong conclusions. Besides, they don’t even share the dataset.

Me: Nope. Here’s the dataset linked in the report.

You: The data show that Xinjiang birth rates declined 30% more than they did in the rest of China. As you can see I was right all along.

I’m curious how you managed to make this journey. It doesn’t seem like you’ve been participating in this discussion in good faith, frankly. I could be wrong though. In that case, I would recommend you actually read what people are trying to show you before attempting to criticize it. You are clearly working backwards from your priors.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#318
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No problem was ever solved by deliberately reducing the potential number of people available to solve it. If humanity faces resource constraints, the way to solve them is to get as many net-positive-resource people as possible working on solutions. One person could devote one lifetime to solving a problem. Or, they could have 4 kids, everyone devotes half of one life time (the other half to raising kids), and now the…

We aren't facing resource constraints, we're facing overuse of resources. The problem of overpopulation is not one of an inability to feed, house and water people - the problem is the impact we have upon our own environment.

The single greatest thing we could do to improve our species' odds of survival today is reduce ourselves in number. Because we are currently causing a mass extinction event.

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#319
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Rare to see such high quality content here. I share your analysis. But I believe Xi came at a time the mainland needed to be strengthened, to avoid being trumped over again (opium war like) He is still needed? Maybe, because you said: > The last 4 years saw rising nationalism in the US, and it has also been rising in Europe and in China. This is not good. It is not good. Eventually the future for the mainland is brig…

Look, I understand the sentiment and context. China saw what happened in the USSR, and what's happening in India, and they are rightly fearful that a mob of 1 billion people who have not risen to the level of the 300-400 million middle class Chinese, pose an existential threat to the stability of the country if a power vacuum were left. They need to bring up the rest of the country to, ironically, prevent a communist revolution to the current "state capitalist" system they have.

The US came frighteningly close to instability during the Great Depression until FDR launched massive infrastructure projects, created social security, built 40,000 schools, created the GI Bill, etc.

But there is a such thing as overdoing it. I don't believe the current censorship is actually creating stability. Most educated Chinese know what's going on, can use VPNs, and the creativity of using anti-censorship terms on Weibo, shows people still want to criticize the government. (for example, mentioning Chloe Zhao was banned, so Chinese netizens started using her pinyin initials or English initials like CZ to refer to her, and the algorithms didn't pick it up)

Scarily enough, Xi has created such an atmosphere of nationalism, that "cancel culture" on behalf of "patriots" these days is enough to ruin someone, you don't even need the government to censor. If you criticize the government or China online these days, netizens will crush you.

See here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-xi-jinpings-china-nationalis...

Re: China allows couples to have three children

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really wonderful for you to link the dataset here. I think neither of us would have the time to compile the dataset manually. Admittedly and regrettably I didn't check the appendix. So the conclusion was from Xinjiang's 2017 and 2018 birthrate, which respectively as included was 15.88 and 10.69, so that's where the 50% drop came from. However, the same index for China overall was 12.43 and 10.94, where we see ar…

So to summarize our discussion: Me: Here’s an article about this report. You: The press is misrepresenting the abstract. Me: Nope. Here’s the full report. You: The report draws the wrong conclusions. Besides, they don’t even share the dataset. Me: Nope. Here’s the dataset linked in the report. You: The data show that Xinjiang birth rates declined 30% more than they did in the rest of China. As you can see I was right…

Well, I guess you know how to spin a story. My point the whole time has been that percentages can be misleading without the actual number presented, still you seemed to be only cares about the percentages.

It's quite easy to see that birth rate in Xinjiang falls around the national average in 2018. Stil, I'm glad you found the actual dataset in the appendix.

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