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

science.org

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

#161

Post by lotsofpulp »

soperj wrote: post #160
bhouston wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I predict these issues will cause bigger problems than population expansion ever did. I think that unfettered population growth would have caused massive issues -- you could say that global warming is one of its legacies. But there will be a whole host of new issues as we face this new challenge of moving towards sustainable fertility. I suspect we will see a lot of government intervention with incentives towards l…

>you could say that global warming is one of its legacies Considering that the majority of emissions came from a select few countries(over half from the EU & USA) that don't make up the majority of the population, and they majority of those emissions have happened while there's been smaller population growth, I don't think it's unfettered population growth that's the problem.

I assume people not consuming as much as the people in the EU and USA have a goal of consuming as much as the people in the EU and USA.

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

#162

Post by nynx »

ElectronShak wrote: post #154
nynx wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t really convincing. Newton and Maxwell were incredibly important, but they also lived quite a while ago. Religion has a different role in society these days.

I agree, although I don't look at Christianity as religion, from my understanding of the new testament..Christ was crucified basically because he didn't follow "the law of their fathers"..religion essentially. The aim is not to convince though, but to raise the question, why does our generation think that anything scriptural cannot be treated as fact. Why are newtons laws fact, but not his convictions? Are we so take…

There is an obvious answer to that: Newton's laws match our observations of reality, ignoring relativistic effects. Scripture is written by someone to reflect their opinions. They often have truths in them, but they're just a story. They don't reflect reality any more than Harry Potter does.

To answer your second question: science is not based on a god or gods. Scientific thinking often branched out of religion, but they're separate now and have been for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. And science branched off from many different religions, just not the Christian one you seem to believe in.

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

#163

Post by f00zz »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #128
f00zz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, happened to Brazil. When you've squandered your demographic dividend without escaping poverty it's basically game over.

Reference? (What are you talking about?)

Many developing countries go through a phase when fertility/mortality rates start to decline, and for a while they'll get an economic boost while the working-age population grows at a faster rate than the non-working-age population. That's when East Asian countries laid the foundation for their economic growth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_dividend

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

#165

Post by virgilp »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #70
gizmo686 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a need to a sustainable population rate? There are about 8 billion humans on the planet. We can sustain a sub replacement birthrate for generations. There is a good chance we can sustain it for long enough to solve aging; or at least significantly push back the ~100 year limit to human life. Once we do that, we will need generations of sub replacement fertility just to compensate for having more generations…

It depends what you mean by 'need'. From the perspective of eudaemonia, yes, the surviving population needs goods and services to continue. With a sub-replacement birthrate, there are fewer 'new' people to provide the goods and services for the remaining. This creates inflationary pressure and deprivation. From the perspective of 'will the world end?' no- the Earth will continue to exist even without any people at al…

> the Earth will continue to exist even without any people at all.

Nobody cares about that perspective; it's an obvious and not particularly interesting observation... yeah universe existed without humans and can obviously continue to exist without humans too. When people talk about "world end" they talk about the humanity, not the physical world around us.

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

#166

Post by naruvimama »

jeofken wrote: post #115

If economic prosperity results in 2 kids per woman, would evolution not favour genes that make it unlike a family is economically prosperous? Having 6 kids with different baby mamas and being an absent father is evolutionary success

A society that allows that will collapse when too many people are bad players.

It it also true with societies where men aspire to have 4 wives each. These are societies with too many single men, and a tendency to be violent.

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

#167

Post by mdavis6890 »

sildur wrote: post #82

> When famine struck, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson initially refused to deliver food aid, citing the country’s high birth rate. I hope there is more context with that statement, because it sounds downright evil.

Read Robert Caro's excellent volumes about LBJ. You wouldn't think so, but they are real page turners. And yes, they will leave you with the impression that LBJ was not a wonderful person.

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

#168

Post by baybal2 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #161
soperj wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you could say that global warming is one of its legacies Considering that the majority of emissions came from a select few countries(over half from the EU & USA) that don't make up the majority of the population, and they majority of those emissions have happened while there's been smaller population growth, I don't think it's unfettered population growth that's the problem.

I assume people not consuming as much as the people in the EU and USA have a goal of consuming as much as the people in the EU and USA.

They very much do, but now they have to pay "carbon tax" invented by people who were responsible for most of the pollution until China

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

#169

Post by MandieD »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #54
tharne wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say this. We have this weird habit in the West of trivializing raising one's own children, as if that's not "real work". A lot folks would rather raise their children instead of outsourcing it to strangers just to work a job they hate.

Evidently, a lot of people would like to have financial freedom and accept the costs of outsourcing some portion of child rearing.

Many of us (and by “us,” I mean “mothers”) see it as a balance: I am outsourcing part of my child’s upbringing in order to maintain a career I like well enough that’s capable of supporting us both should life throw some curveballs at us. Say “life insurance” all you like, and my response is “unpredictable inflation”.
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