China to begin two-child policy • Hacker News Board

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#121

Post by Retric » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

brlewis wrote: post #118

EStudley wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one's denying that. "Brutal and cruel" was referring to forced abortions of pregnant women with more than one child.

Perhaps nobody's denying that China doesn't value personal freedom as highly as the west does, or that you can have a beautiful, rich and fullfilling life with 2 children or less. Some, myself included, do deny that it could benefit the earth if more governments would enforce limits on children. I think humans are important to the future of the earth, and treating them in a cruel and brutal fashion will cause more pr…

US, Japan, and EU have negative population growth if you exclude immigration. What more do you want?

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#122

Post by electricblue » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #115

electricblue wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vasectomy is currently the only permanent sterilization procedure without serious health risks. Barring some strange shift in cultural attitudes where fertile males suddenly become irresistible to every female on earth it should do fine until we find a better way for both genders. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

In that case... I hope you have some strange shift in cultural attitudes planned for preventing females from being forcibly used by fertile males. I'm not saying we need a perfect method... I'm saying we need a method that acknowledges the realities that many populations around the world live in. Female victimization is a reality in a lot of places on this planet. (To be completely fair... it's a reality even here in…

Do you have any proof that rape makes a significant contribution to population growth or just grasping at straws?

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#123

Post by drzaiusapelord » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

monk_e_boy wrote: post #108

Keyframe wrote: post #72

Are there any psychology/sociology studies how one-child policy impacted China's society? It has been documented how having one child vs siblings impact one's psyche. I wonder what kind of impact it has on a culture/society as a whole if most are from single-child families.

I've wondered that, also. I have a number of friends who are teachers, all of whom say that you can spot a single child within about 5 minutes of observing them. They just act differently. Watching the difference in my oldest child when the second came along and was old enough for them to play together - it was astounding. There must be some optimal number of siblings for mental health. More than 1 less than 4 ?

Care to describe the difference?

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#124

Post by throwaway_789 » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:43 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #102

throwaway_789 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't lead to eugenics, it would very much already be eugenics.

Eugenics is about altering genetics by controlling breeding. Licensing decisions could be based on a broader range of criteria than just genetics. Genetics might not even come into it.

Unlikely. The perceived benefits of eugenics would be too tantalizing for those social engineers in control of "licensing" the right to reproduce. Robust markets for DNA sequencing and clinical already exist. It'd be a vanishingly small step to pivot those platforms for eugenics.

The licensing proposal is odious even if we were to (naively) discount conventional eugenics. Licenses would likely be tied to "merit", which is rather inextricably linked to socioeconomic class.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#125

Post by hguant » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:43 PM UTC

bigfudge wrote: post #93

hvs wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a communist gov't. The people "letting the gov't decide" has little do with it.

No matter the history, using communist as a synonym for totalitarian is lazy.

Communist governments, in order to function, pretty much have to be totalitarian - unless you can think of another way to have a one party system with complete control over the economy.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#126

Post by o0-0o » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

chriskanan wrote: post #112

Keyframe wrote: post #72

Are there any psychology/sociology studies how one-child policy impacted China's society? It has been documented how having one child vs siblings impact one's psyche. I wonder what kind of impact it has on a culture/society as a whole if most are from single-child families.

See this Science paper: https://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6122/953 Their main finding: "[We find that the one-child policy] has produced significantly less trusting, less trustworthy, more risk-averse, less competitive, more pessimistic, and less conscientious individuals."

In my personal experiences dating women from China that now live in the US: There is also a loneliness, depression, and generalized malaise to their thoughts due to being an 'only child'.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#127

Post by UK-AL » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:46 PM UTC

trymas wrote: post #80

anunderachiever wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you place all 7.3 billion people onto an area of the size of Austria, every one has more than 11m² to their own. Of course this illustration is a simplification but it brings the world population back to perspective.

But problem is resource consumption, no? It's a complete speculation, because I can't cite this, but isn't Earth not capable of sustaining 7+ billion people? Exponential population growth brings even greater exponential rise of greenhouse effect, oil consumption, deforestation, etc. IMHO it is the main problem of overpopulation.

Nobody knows what its capable of sustaining. There's stuff like using resources more efficiently, recycling etc. We aren't good at these things yet, consumption could go a lot higher with improvements to those.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#128

Post by funkyy » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:47 PM UTC

sethbannon wrote: post #56

From the article "All couples will now be allowed to have two children". So it seems China isn't so much ending its one-child policy, as augmenting it by one to a two-child policy. This means the brutal and cruel enforcement will continue, only it will kick in at the third child instead of at the second.

China managed to succeed in increasing people wealth and loosening laws (still bad for Western standards, but huge step comparing to China 30 years ago). Only because West thinks this is "brutal and cruel" dosent mean our laws would ever worked there.

Some tried giving Arab countries democracy and it turned out they never really wanted it and most of the dictators were much better alternative (still bad, just better - to clarify).

Same with China - imagine them exploding with an extra 1 Billion people over next 20 years. Who will feed them? What would be social implications of such a move?

Our freedoms are not always applicable in other parts of the world.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#129

Post by ocean3 » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

s_dev wrote: post #9

Overpopulation is an interesting problem, it exponentially affects every other problem we have -- some balance will have to be found between ultimately telling people they can't kids or maintaining that those people have autonomy over their own lives and can make such a decision. I don't know what the solution is - perhaps making the developing world developed as fast as possible.

making the developing world developed as fast as possible - With the cost of living increasing in India more parents prefer having 2 kids mostly in cities.

Re: China to begin two-child policy

#130

Post by sjwright » Thu, Oct 29, 2015, 1:50 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #67

s_dev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think perhaps you're conflating world population with the Chinese population. Overpopulation can occur in small areas without the world being too overpopulated as a whole -- most of them in SE Asia. If theres lots of people and limited resources, the math simply won't hold up. It affects issues like the environment and human health.

Singapore is doing fine at high population density.

Singapore doesn't exist in a vacuum. An enormous amount of foreign low population density agricultural land is sustaining their lifestyles.