3 ms·

China's 1 child policy (now 2 child, I guess) is a difficult to fully form an opinion on. On one hand, "population crisis" is something a lot of people are con

by netcan 11y ago

China's 1 child policy (now 2 child, I guess) is a difficult to fully form an opinion on. On one hand, "population crisis" is something a lot of people are concerned about^ and the policy was a direct and practical way of tackling it. On the other, it is unmistakably totalitarian. Going to 2 is a strange choice. It's just as totalitarian, but probably has a fairly negligible effect on average fertility rate. I guess they don't see ^On a tangent, I don't totally buy population crisis and judging from how rarely I hear it mentioned these days I think I'm not alone. There is obviously some natural limit on human population, but I don't think we're near it. The fact that we hear less concern about it is says something interesting about the zeitgeist. I think people believe in technological progress more in 2015 than they have since the space age and nuclear age of 50 years ago, maybe more than ever. At our current rate (ignoring the projected gradual reduction) we'll double every 65 years. I can certainly see us absorbing doubling population density in that time considering all the empty oceans, deserts, the potential for landless food productions, megacities and all that jazz. I mean, If the US & Australia went to the population densities of Germany and France (moderately dense with quite a lot of open spaces), we would be good for another 100 years. Basically, I think we have the space.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> Going to 2 is a strange choice. Its not really a strange choice, its been "1 with lots of exceptions that mostly make it 2" for some time (there were exceptions with a limit of 2 instead of 1 for many rural areas, for families where at least one parent was an only child, etc.) Going to 2 is a pretty obvious simplification that doesn't really change much except the degree of administrative overhead, plus the policy has hurt perception of China in the developed world, and changing it to two from one along with well-managed press relations get you lots of "China to end one-child policy" headlines around the world, and with most people not reading below the headline, that's a huge propaganda win for doing essentially nothing but making a totalitarian policy administratively simpler. And, really, it was always the plan: the OCP was originally conceived of as a single generation policy to bring the population down, which would be replaced with a stable population policy; it didn't exactly work out that way in a crisp sense, but a going from a one-child policy with very limited exceptions, to a growing set of exceptions, to finally a two-child policy is, in outline, generally consistent with the original blueprint. > There is obviously some natural limit on human population, but I don't think we're near it. The practical limit is going to be dependent on pre-existing environmental conditions, technology and distribution of lifestyles and other factors; its a moving target. (And not necessarily moving consistently in one direction.) > The fact that we hear less concern about it is says something interesting about the zeitgeist. think people believe in technological progress more in 2015 than they have since the space age and nuclear age of 50 years ago, maybe more than ever. I don't think that's the issue. I think that the fact that Gen X and the Millenials have been less economically secure than preceding generations (reversing the trend toward greater security) means that increasingly, people are focused on more immediate, personal concerns. Plus, to the extent that there is a concern for broader, global environmental issues, the focus has been climate change rather than overpopulation (the two concerns overlap considerably, but climate change is more specific and concrete than generalized carrying capacity concerns.) > At our current rate (ignoring the projected gradual reduction) we'll double every 65 years. And, IIRC, in the mid-1960s, that was about 32 years. Which difference also contributes to the reduction in concern for overpopulation since then: we may be closer to whatever limit exists, but we're approaching it much more slowly now and that rate is still dropping.
laotzu 11y ago
We've definitely got the space and the resources. The demographic-economic paradox shows that solving the problem of overpopulation is simply a matter of distributing the renewable surplus we have of food water and shelter to the close to 50% of the world which struggles to obtain. This would create a positive feedback loop which would in turn pay for itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox >There exists a realizable, evolutionary alternative to our being either atom-bombed into extinction or crowding ourselves off the planet. The alternative is the computer-persuadable veering of big business from its weaponry fixation to accommodation of all humanity at an aerospace level of technology, with the vastly larger, far more enduringly profitable for all, entirely new World Livingry Service Industry. It is statistically evident that the more advanced the living standard, the lower the birth rate. -Buckminster Fuller, Foreword to Grunch of Giants https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/grunch-of-giants.pdf https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/grunch-of-giants.pdf
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I think the angle people are missing is that "totalitarian" doesn't always mean bad. Some problems are generally unsolvable by a democracy (coordination problems in general), you have to introduce some way of unilateral decision making to make progress, if you want to progress faster than by a random walk.

by netcan 11y ago

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Going to 2 is a strange choice. Its not really a strange choice, its been "1 with lots of exceptions that mostly make it 2" for some time (there were exceptions with a limit of 2 instead of 1 for many rural areas, for families where at least one parent was an only child, etc.) Going to 2 is a pretty obvious simplification that doesn't really change much except the degree of administrative overhead, plus the policy has hurt perception of China in the developed world, and changing it to two from one along with well-managed press relations get you lots of "China to end one-child policy" headlines around the world, and with most people not reading below the headline, that's a huge propaganda win for doing essentially nothing but making a totalitarian policy administratively simpler. And, really, it was always the plan: the OCP was originally conceived of as a single generation policy to bring the population down, which would be replaced with a stable population policy; it didn't exactly work out that way in a crisp sense, but a going from a one-child policy with very limited exceptions, to a growing set of exceptions, to finally a two-child policy is, in outline, generally consistent with the original blueprint. > There is obviously some natural limit on human population, but I don't think we're near it. The practical limit is going to be dependent on pre-existing environmental conditions, technology and distribution of lifestyles and other factors; its a moving target. (And not necessarily moving consistently in one direction.) > The fact that we hear less concern about it is says something interesting about the zeitgeist. think people believe in technological progress more in 2015 than they have since the space age and nuclear age of 50 years ago, maybe more than ever. I don't think that's the issue. I think that the fact that Gen X and the Millenials have been less economically secure than preceding generations (reversing the trend toward greater security) means that increasingly, people are focused on more immediate, personal concerns. Plus, to the extent that there is a concern for broader, global environmental issues, the focus has been climate change rather than overpopulation (the two concerns overlap considerably, but climate change is more specific and concrete than generalized carrying capacity concerns.) > At our current rate (ignoring the projected gradual reduction) we'll double every 65 years. And, IIRC, in the mid-1960s, that was about 32 years. Which difference also contributes to the reduction in concern for overpopulation since then: we may be closer to whatever limit exists, but we're approaching it much more slowly now and that rate is still dropping.

laotzu 11y ago

We've definitely got the space and the resources. The demographic-economic paradox shows that solving the problem of overpopulation is simply a matter of distributing the renewable surplus we have of food water and shelter to the close to 50% of the world which struggles to obtain. This would create a positive feedback loop which would in turn pay for itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic-economic_paradox >There exists a realizable, evolutionary alternative to our being either atom-bombed into extinction or crowding ourselves off the planet. The alternative is the computer-persuadable veering of big business from its weaponry fixation to accommodation of all humanity at an aerospace level of technology, with the vastly larger, far more enduringly profitable for all, entirely new World Livingry Service Industry. It is statistically evident that the more advanced the living standard, the lower the birth rate. -Buckminster Fuller, Foreword to Grunch of Giants https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/grunch-of-giants.pdf https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/grunch-of-giants.pdf

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I think the angle people are missing is that "totalitarian" doesn't always mean bad. Some problems are generally unsolvable by a democracy (coordination problems in general), you have to introduce some way of unilateral decision making to make progress, if you want to progress faster than by a random walk.