India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman • Hacker News Board

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#31

Post by WastingMyTime89 » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:19 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #3

My "modest proposal" for humane population reduction is: every individual is born with the right to have one child. A couple then, can have two children, which is below the natural replacement rate of 2.1 leading to a gradual reduction in human population naturally. People who don't want to have kids or can't for whatever reason could sell their right to others who want to have more than their normal allotment while…

You don't need a modest proposal for human population reduction. As soon as having a lot of children stop being a necessity for survival in old age, population naturally seems to stop at an average of two children simply because for most it's not enjoyable to have more.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#32

Post by raxxorrax » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #11

raxxorrax wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does not work. Education and access to medicine does.

Well I agree that those work as well. I am afraid your post is too pithy about "does not work" to credit that bit though.

As we have seen in China, if you limit the number of children people become selective about them. In this case in regards to gender, which will develop into a large problem for the country in the future because they now have very unbalanced demographics. This will doom a lot of people to have no partner.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#33

Post by kiba » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #3

My "modest proposal" for humane population reduction is: every individual is born with the right to have one child. A couple then, can have two children, which is below the natural replacement rate of 2.1 leading to a gradual reduction in human population naturally. People who don't want to have kids or can't for whatever reason could sell their right to others who want to have more than their normal allotment while…

I don't see why I want to reduce human population.

The real problem isn't population but our insane demand and energy intensive process needed to support the lifestyle of the global wealthy.

Put it this way: Cars required insurance, road infrastructure, gasoline or battery, steel, electronics, etc to make car a viable transportation option both for logistics and to drive people around in general.

Whereas we could have invested in rails which required less of everything to do the same thing. Even better if we use bicycles more, which is the most efficient form of transportation.

A car is a luxury that we made into a requirement pretty much everywhere in north America, which in turn makes our lifestyle more expensive than it needed to be.

So, in short, we should reduce the demand of unnecessary products(like cars). Then we can think about to make stuff in a more efficient manner and more green manner, or find more efficient products, such as using heat pumps.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#34

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

manojlds wrote: post #28

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #24

If lifespans increases then the population will still grow for some time. And it's increased steadily for the past 70 years.

Rural India wasn't affected at all by covid, and main period was April-May 2021.

I was just making a pedantic statistical observation. E.g. if people lived for 01000 years then even a tiny amount of births and population still increases. If people live forever, population grows forever.

For every increment in lifespan, population grows until death rate matches whatever birth rate has been achieved.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#35

Post by Retric » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

twobitshifter wrote: post #21

They didn’t mention the last two years as possibly contributing to less childbirth. There could be counteracting effects there, stuck together with nothing to do, vs nobody to meet and nothing to do - but it at least deserves a mention. This 2019-2021 drop could bounce right back up if people chose to delay childbirth.

India has had falling birth rates for decades and it was already close to replacement rate in 2019, so a bounce back is going to have a negligible impact on demographics. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/india-s-falling-fertilit...

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#36

Post by random314 » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

manojlds wrote: post #28

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #24

If lifespans increases then the population will still grow for some time. And it's increased steadily for the past 70 years.

Rural India wasn't affected at all by covid, and main period was April-May 2021.

This is 100% false

https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/s...

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#37

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #3

My "modest proposal" for humane population reduction is: every individual is born with the right to have one child. A couple then, can have two children, which is below the natural replacement rate of 2.1 leading to a gradual reduction in human population naturally. People who don't want to have kids or can't for whatever reason could sell their right to others who want to have more than their normal allotment while…

The enforcement of this ends up treating all the corner cases in really inhumane ways. And in order to even get there you need to go through the more progressive stage of actually making sure that contraception and abortion are available.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#38

Post by dotnet00 » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

coding123 wrote: post #20

dotnet00 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the country does not get richer faster than it gets older, the increasingly older population will suffer, having to work till they're older and getting less financial support (healthcare, pensions etc) because there would be proportionally fewer healthy young people to pay in to the system.

Nah - that's more of a system of control. You can definitely have a poor country where people are not slaves to mortgages. It's called building your own house. Many countries allow that.

I'm not talking about mortgages though...

Consider healthcare, usually older people need it more than younger people. If you have a higher proportion of older people in a population compared to younger people, you have a larger proportion of the associated costs being carried by a smaller proportion of the population, this means decreasing healthcare quality, increasing the pool of people paying in by increasing retirement age or increasing taxes. None of which are particularly good.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#39

Post by jetsetgo » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

teraku wrote: post #6

Callmenorm wrote: post #2

Isn't this going to create another problem. Where the country gets old before it gets rich?

This. China faces it right now, where they are rich, but not rich enough yet

That's true for majority of countries across the world. Not just China.

Re: India defuses its population bomb: fertility falls to two children per woman

#40

Post by baybal2 » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

The "population bomb" is the invention of eugenicists trying remake themselves into demographers in a bid to stay relevant.

The very same people who funded "sterilisation vans" in Asia were rooting for abortion bans in the West, and promoting "traditional family," in other words plain, old HITLERITES.