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

#401

Post by ayushnix » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 7:08 AM UTC

kiba wrote: post #33

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 hav…

> So, in short, we should reduce the demand of unnecessary products(like cars).

Yeah, good luck with that.

I live in city in India with relatively less population density than most metropolitan cities and my colleagues want to buy cars because "it'll be easier to drive".

The city of Bangalore is notorious for its insanely bad traffic and yet I've heard people living still wanting to purchase cars. The reason is that "it's better to be inside a car in traffic than outside".

If nothing else, people fall back to "what if there's a medical emergency?"

It feels like there's no escaping cars.

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

#402

Post by anhner » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 7:19 AM UTC

dadjoker wrote: post #260

So sad to see this happen. Paul Ehrlich made a similar prognostication that never came to pass. There are many places in the world that did a similar thing and had to work to reverse it (S. Korea, Russia), by actually paying families to have children, and China recently reversed its draconian one child policy because they have seen first hand the problems it creates. Hopefully India doesn't run into the same problem…

You're sad that people won't overcrowd themselves to death? As developing nations transition grow to developed, population growth tends to fall toward an equilibrion that is also found in nature. It's a trend seen time and time again. Yet you don't see developed countries on the brink of extinction, so I think this fear mongering is unnecessary.

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

#403

Post by raxxorrax » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 7:45 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #107

raxxorrax wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People did abort girls more than boys so that there now are about 30% more boys than girls. Aborting girls was mainly done due to cultural and financial issues. This is nothing short of a catastrophe for the younger generation.

“What is the future owed?” is a complex issue. It’s an intergenerational compact, and the scope boundary is going to be fuzzy. I would argue future generations are owed robust human rights, a reasonably clean and non polluted environment, and the opportunity to live a purposeful life with dignity. Ensuring someone has a partner would fall out of scope. I admit we’ve sort of painted ourselves into a corner and the del…

I think what was taken from these generations compares to humanities darkest chapters. Fact remains that government cannot really control how people conceive children and it should not. Education can support people making individual choices.

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

#404

Post by ZeroGravitas » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 7:56 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #334

closeparen wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recognize it's a filter bubble that talks about these things a lot on the internet, but $1000+/sqft for NY and SF condos aren't lying. People want these things, badly.

I suspect many of the people who want those $1k/sq ft condos in NYC and SF would not appreciate a fossil fuel tax sufficiently high to curb air travel such that even annual vacations to tropical destinations are not possible.

The point of a carbon tax isn't to ban things, but to redirect spending to more efficient uses, even people who like foreign holidays come out ahead as the greater efficiency is a net gain.

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

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Post by mschuster91 » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 8:32 AM UTC

akudha wrote: post #214

inglor_cz wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if said lady only rejoins the workforce for 20 years, the savings are fairly significant. Also, knowing Hungary, this is probably intended as a subtle disincentive for the local Roma ghetto population. All the Central and Eastern European states fiddle with their welfare systems not to incentivize higher birthrates among the Roma ghetto population, even if they do not want to state this aloud. That is why the be…

Not familiar with Roma, whats wrong with them?

Anti-ziganism at work, it's a tried European tradition dating back hundreds of years (per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Romani_sentiment).

Basically, an awful lot of cliches and self-fulfilling prophecies (such as limiting the employment of Sinti and Roma because of a fear of them being criminal leading to the affected going the criminal route just to survive).

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

#406

Post by unmole » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 9:39 AM UTC

bboreham wrote: post #288

baskethead wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are gypsies, aren’t they?

“Gypsies [is] pejorative due to its connotations of illegality and irregularity as well as its historical use as a racial slur.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people

> many other languages, regarding cognates of the word, such as French: Tzigane, Spanish: gitano, Italian: zingaro and Portuguese: cigano, this perception is either very small or non-existent.

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

#407

Post by Retric » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 10:07 AM UTC

tsol wrote: post #362

Retric wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you mean by rich. India’s per capita income is more than 3 times what it was 30 years ago. So it can easily support significant social programs for the elderly, though not to western standards. On top of this western productivity is linked to low birth rates enabling a larger percentage of the population to work. So low birth rates may be required for a wealthy country rather than being just the resul…

But what was the actual per capita income 30 years ago? 3 times not much is still not very much. So I don't see how is a given that they can institute suitable social programs. It's still a question whether or not that'll be the case even for first world western countries

India’s per capita PPP is ~6k$ USD per year, but it’s not equally distributed. Ignoring economic growth and assuming a population distribution that eventually looks like the US (16% of the population over 65) allocating say 8% of GDP to the elderly would provide a standard of living better than most of them had 20 years ago and in fact many would see an income bump at retirement.

Of course that doesn’t pay for significant medical care etc, but I also ignored economic growth. By the time India has US style age demographic breakdown things should look significantly better.

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

#408

Post by beeboop » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

givemeethekeys wrote: post #350

beeboop wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cynicism is a massive contributing factor to my vasectomy. Don't underestimate doom and gloom :)

Cultures that feel threatened tend to produce lots of babies to give them a better chance of survival =).

I'm not worried about my survival, I'm worried about my theoretical children's survival

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

#409

Post by chillacy » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

f00zz wrote: post #87

Callmenorm wrote: post #2

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

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

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

#410

Post by closeparen » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #391

closeparen wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recognize it's a filter bubble that talks about these things a lot on the internet, but $1000+/sqft for NY and SF condos aren't lying. People want these things, badly.

What’s the percent of population living in those condos? 99% of Americans don’t live there.

Judging by the prices, they would like to, and they would if you made enough of them.