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Why is there too many people in China? What is the standard to determine the right population?

by erispoe 11y ago

jdavis703 11y ago
The kinds of socio-economic figures measured by NGOs like per capita GDP and infant mortality and life expectancy. If you increase GDP you can give your people healthier/better lives.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > If you increase GDP you can give your people healthier/better lives. Sort of. You'll still bump up against physical system constraints, at least until we're swimming in an excess of renewable, clean energy. It would take many Earth's worth of resources to have the quality of life American's have. Clean energy goes a long way to solving that, but again, physical systems have limitations.
BookmarkSaver 11y ago
There are too many people on the planet to start with, and 1/6 of them is in China. The effect that they are having on the environment (both in "nature" and in their own living spaces) is atrocious, but there are too many people to reasonably switch to a sustainable model. Additionally, if you account for the fact that a gigantic portion of their land is basically uninhabitable (the Gobi Desert), they have an unreal population density (among non-trivial sovereign nations). If their population keeps expanding unchecked, they'll stop being able to feed everyone.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  > there are too many people on the planet to start with Earth doesn't have too many people. The people inhabiting it are just, currently, quite wasteful with resources.
  - BookmarkSaver 11y ago
    At the trajectory we are going, there are too many people. Rather than simply assuming a solution would appear, China took action.
  - WildUtah 11y ago
    Earth doesn't have too many people. The people inhabiting it are just, currently, quite wasteful with resources. What's the goal here? We could have many more people each living in misery, crowding, and poverty. Or we could have fewer people with each one being rich and free and having access to parks and open space to breathe and relax. More people isn't somehow good in itself. Children are great but one or two is enough.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
      > We could have many more people each living in misery, crowding, and poverty. Or we could have fewer people with each one being rich and free and having access to parks and open space to breathe and relax. A false dichotomy. The latter experience can be given to the former's population. More people isn't somehow "good", but it's not bad.
      - jquery 11y ago
        > The latter experience can be given to the former's population. How? Keep in mind only a small fraction of the world's population is even capable of being a tourist. Imagine how that changes when everyone is well-off enough to travel at will. Imagine your favorite beach, favorite museum, or your favorite national park and multiply the number of visitors by 10, 20, 40, etc. Waiting-lists for years to visit the Louvre. Prices so high that only the 1% of the 1% can afford to visit Maui. Maybe you are assuming that VR will solve these issues? Perhaps a Matrix-like future awaits us.
        hightechlowlife 11y ago
        Most of us discussing this are already living a Matrix-like reality. 80%+ of life in front of a screen, with that last bit of time at the gym (with screens), cafe/bar (with screens), or maybe an inner-city park (with cellphone screen out). A diet primarily consisting of processed grain, factory meat and barren vegetation. Blaming our inevitable neuroticism on a chemical imbalance or moral failure, not the alienated zoo life we live -- or worse, distracting ourselves so thoroughly we don't notice it. Of course this kind of person is going to think we can fit billions more on the planet. Our wellbeing probably does rely on technology like VR and automation, but with so many mentally ill, I would say our current situation is already unacceptable (and has been for thousands of years). Adding billions more to the equation isn't going to help.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > There are too many people on the planet to start with The issue isn't whether that's true. The issue is who gets to decide what the right number is and what we all do about it. To most of us, the moral hazards (and realities!) of coercive birth control are severe.
  - jquery 11y ago
    The moral hazards of uncontrolled population growth are far more severe. The only question is whether we control population via a statutory law (as China did), or through extreme costs-of-living (as "liberal" Western countries do). I'd argue a statutory law is far more humane. Not only more humane, but more fair. Why should the people who provide the least resources to their children be the ones to create the most human progeny?
    - humanrebar 11y ago
      Given that coercive abortion and gender selection are realities and the problems of overpopulation are more theoretical, I wonder what your definition of humane is. And again, who decides which is more humane? If you and your cohort wants to stop reproducing as a good example, nobody is stopping you.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        > who decides which is more humane? Your elected government? Isn't that what you elected it for? Or just hold a referendum or something. The "who decides" question is a problem here. It doesn't matter who, it only matters that the decision has to be made and then carried out. The coordination has to arise or be enforced, but happen the coordination must. What you're implying by asking this question has many names. In politics, it's "total anarchy". In biology, it's "cancer". In infrastructure projects, it's called NIMBYsm. Imagine trying to run a large company with the rule "we're all equal, who gets to decide?" - how long would it survive? Like it or not, Earth will have to have a "top management" layer. Run it top-down, run it co-op style, whatever - but after some size, you can no longer ignore the looming coordination problems and their deadly consequences. Yes, as with everything, there are failure modes. Coercive abortion and gender selection happen mostly because of misalignment between "one child rule" and the economics, so the people selfishly prefer to spawn an offspring that will give better economic payoff. But incentive structures we can manage. We could manage it better if we stopped just asking "who gets to decide?" and instead picked someone to decide. Also, the only problem with "coercive abortion" is the "coercive" part; if you believe that abortion is ok, then gender selection via abortion is also ok. If you don't believe gender selection via abortion is ok, then you also must disagree with general abortion as a practice. EDIT: Also2, we have a "who gets to decide?" problem when it comes to inconvenience ourselves and spawn less children, but we do not have that problem when it comes to decide who to bomb the living shit out of, killing their children, along with parents, grandparents, livestock and future. Strange, isn't it?
- adamnyberg 11y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UbmG8gtBPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UbmG8gtBPM
superuser2 11y ago
Ecosystems have carrying capacities. There is only so much water and arable land. There are only so many resources in the mines/oil wells waiting to be extracted. Technology (like GMOs) can help you make incrementally more efficient use of those resources, but not as fast as unbounded exponential population growth. At some point, the average standard of living has to come crashing down. The biologically necessary quantity of food and water is not available for everyone. Even with unlimited labor to supply factories, there are no more raw materials to make gadgets and medicine out of. A country in that situation has basically one reasonable course of action: kill the neighbors and take their resources. China is arguably being a good world citizen by trying not to put itself in that position. You may find this statist interference with a natural process distasteful, but consider the alternative: only the fittest get to survive.
- nickbauman 11y ago
  Arguably 1/2 of the molecules in our bodies come from the artificial nitrogen extraction process developed during WWI. Without that, Earth's human population would have been limited to half of what it is now back in the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Haber_process
  - Retric 11y ago
    The earth could probably support 100+ billion people at reasonable comfort levels with slightly better technology as long as we give up the idea of life outside of zoo's. That said, past experience has demonstrated the Human population can easily grow at 5% per year. At that rate it's doubling every 15 years. Trying to double the universes food supply every 15 years is just not possible indefinitely. PS: 2^n is crazy. It takes less time than you might think before the mass of humanity is growing faster than a sphere expanding at the speed of light could support.
    - TTPrograms 11y ago
      Uh, the current growth rate is around 1% per year, and it's decreasing as countries enter the first world. That's a doubling every 70 years. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth We've got a lot of efficiency left in terms of agriculture as well, so there isn't much reason to think reaching the carrying capacity of the planet is a particularly pressing issue. The amount of food that we already grow that we don't eat roughly 1/3 already, and the vast majority of land doesn't contribute to agriculture.
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
The problem isn't really population per se, it's population growth. China instituted the one-child policy so they could slow down their population growth to more manageable levels. We could have 10 billion people on this planet and we'd be fine, so long as we were resource-efficient.
- 5h 11y ago
  Lots of people alive now will likely live on a 10 billion person earth http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+population+1900+to+2050 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+population+1900+t...
vinceyuan 11y ago
China is a very big country. But only a small portion of the land is suitable for living. Almost 94 percent of Chinese people live in the Southeast part of the country which covers 43 percent of its land area; while the other six percent people live in the northwestern areas which cover 57 percent of the territory. [1] And people like to live in cities. Can you imagine there are 23.9 million people [2] in Shanghai City? [1] http://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/country.htm http://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/country.htm [2] http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/shanghai-population/ http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/shanghai-popul...
CapitalistCartr 11y ago
Here is an incrementing population tally; note how fast its growing: http://m.worldometers.info/world-population/ http://m.worldometers.info/world-population/ Its not current population so much as the growth rate. China is 2/11 of the World. That's between 1/5 and 1/6, so small changes they make have dramatic effects decades down the road. Our current population is almost certainly not sustainable doing things the way we are now, but we are changing that. Population growth is only sustainable with dramatic changes in the way we live, yet we are adding people by the billion.
beachstartup 11y ago
> What is the standard to determine the right population only someone who's never been to china would ask about the 'standard' for determining overpopulation. it's abundantly clear as soon as you step off the airplane and take a look around. it's just too damn crowded. what is the standard for determining that water is wet?
- jquery 11y ago
  When I visited China with my wife, she had told me beforehand her parents lived in a "rural" area. What I imagined was acres of farmland and long dirt roads. The reality of "rural" China was closer to the density of Bay Area. It was incredible how dense everything was, even in the less dense areas.
6t6t6 11y ago
Malthusian catastrophe. Population tends to grow exponentially, but not the resources. Historically, the excess of population have been controlled through wars and famines. The CP wanted to control with laws instead... The thing is that in developed countries this kind of laws are not necessary because people just don't have children because they are too expensive.

Why is there too many people in China? What is the standard to determine the right population?

by erispoe 11y ago

Why is there too many people in China? What is the standard to determine the right population?

The kinds of socio-economic figures measured by NGOs like per capita GDP and infant mortality and life expectancy. If you increase GDP you can give your people healthier/better lives.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> If you increase GDP you can give your people healthier/better lives. Sort of. You'll still bump up against physical system constraints, at least until we're swimming in an excess of renewable, clean energy. It would take many Earth's worth of resources to have the quality of life American's have. Clean energy goes a long way to solving that, but again, physical systems have limitations.

BookmarkSaver 11y ago

There are too many people on the planet to start with, and 1/6 of them is in China. The effect that they are having on the environment (both in "nature" and in their own living spaces) is atrocious, but there are too many people to reasonably switch to a sustainable model. Additionally, if you account for the fact that a gigantic portion of their land is basically uninhabitable (the Gobi Desert), they have an unreal population density (among non-trivial sovereign nations). If their population keeps expanding unchecked, they'll stop being able to feed everyone.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> there are too many people on the planet to start with Earth doesn't have too many people. The people inhabiting it are just, currently, quite wasteful with resources.
- BookmarkSaver 11y ago
  At the trajectory we are going, there are too many people. Rather than simply assuming a solution would appear, China took action.
- WildUtah 11y ago
  Earth doesn't have too many people. The people inhabiting it are just, currently, quite wasteful with resources. What's the goal here? We could have many more people each living in misery, crowding, and poverty. Or we could have fewer people with each one being rich and free and having access to parks and open space to breathe and relax. More people isn't somehow good in itself. Children are great but one or two is enough.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > We could have many more people each living in misery, crowding, and poverty. Or we could have fewer people with each one being rich and free and having access to parks and open space to breathe and relax. A false dichotomy. The latter experience can be given to the former's population. More people isn't somehow "good", but it's not bad.
    - jquery 11y ago
      > The latter experience can be given to the former's population. How? Keep in mind only a small fraction of the world's population is even capable of being a tourist. Imagine how that changes when everyone is well-off enough to travel at will. Imagine your favorite beach, favorite museum, or your favorite national park and multiply the number of visitors by 10, 20, 40, etc. Waiting-lists for years to visit the Louvre. Prices so high that only the 1% of the 1% can afford to visit Maui. Maybe you are assuming that VR will solve these issues? Perhaps a Matrix-like future awaits us.
      - hightechlowlife 11y ago
        Most of us discussing this are already living a Matrix-like reality. 80%+ of life in front of a screen, with that last bit of time at the gym (with screens), cafe/bar (with screens), or maybe an inner-city park (with cellphone screen out). A diet primarily consisting of processed grain, factory meat and barren vegetation. Blaming our inevitable neuroticism on a chemical imbalance or moral failure, not the alienated zoo life we live -- or worse, distracting ourselves so thoroughly we don't notice it. Of course this kind of person is going to think we can fit billions more on the planet. Our wellbeing probably does rely on technology like VR and automation, but with so many mentally ill, I would say our current situation is already unacceptable (and has been for thousands of years). Adding billions more to the equation isn't going to help.
humanrebar 11y ago
> There are too many people on the planet to start with The issue isn't whether that's true. The issue is who gets to decide what the right number is and what we all do about it. To most of us, the moral hazards (and realities!) of coercive birth control are severe.
- jquery 11y ago
  The moral hazards of uncontrolled population growth are far more severe. The only question is whether we control population via a statutory law (as China did), or through extreme costs-of-living (as "liberal" Western countries do). I'd argue a statutory law is far more humane. Not only more humane, but more fair. Why should the people who provide the least resources to their children be the ones to create the most human progeny?
  - humanrebar 11y ago
    Given that coercive abortion and gender selection are realities and the problems of overpopulation are more theoretical, I wonder what your definition of humane is. And again, who decides which is more humane? If you and your cohort wants to stop reproducing as a good example, nobody is stopping you.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      > who decides which is more humane? Your elected government? Isn't that what you elected it for? Or just hold a referendum or something. The "who decides" question is a problem here. It doesn't matter who, it only matters that the decision has to be made and then carried out. The coordination has to arise or be enforced, but happen the coordination must. What you're implying by asking this question has many names. In politics, it's "total anarchy". In biology, it's "cancer". In infrastructure projects, it's called NIMBYsm. Imagine trying to run a large company with the rule "we're all equal, who gets to decide?" - how long would it survive? Like it or not, Earth will have to have a "top management" layer. Run it top-down, run it co-op style, whatever - but after some size, you can no longer ignore the looming coordination problems and their deadly consequences. Yes, as with everything, there are failure modes. Coercive abortion and gender selection happen mostly because of misalignment between "one child rule" and the economics, so the people selfishly prefer to spawn an offspring that will give better economic payoff. But incentive structures we can manage. We could manage it better if we stopped just asking "who gets to decide?" and instead picked someone to decide. Also, the only problem with "coercive abortion" is the "coercive" part; if you believe that abortion is ok, then gender selection via abortion is also ok. If you don't believe gender selection via abortion is ok, then you also must disagree with general abortion as a practice. EDIT: Also2, we have a "who gets to decide?" problem when it comes to inconvenience ourselves and spawn less children, but we do not have that problem when it comes to decide who to bomb the living shit out of, killing their children, along with parents, grandparents, livestock and future. Strange, isn't it?
adamnyberg 11y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UbmG8gtBPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UbmG8gtBPM

superuser2 11y ago

Ecosystems have carrying capacities. There is only so much water and arable land. There are only so many resources in the mines/oil wells waiting to be extracted. Technology (like GMOs) can help you make incrementally more efficient use of those resources, but not as fast as unbounded exponential population growth. At some point, the average standard of living has to come crashing down. The biologically necessary quantity of food and water is not available for everyone. Even with unlimited labor to supply factories, there are no more raw materials to make gadgets and medicine out of. A country in that situation has basically one reasonable course of action: kill the neighbors and take their resources. China is arguably being a good world citizen by trying not to put itself in that position. You may find this statist interference with a natural process distasteful, but consider the alternative: only the fittest get to survive.

nickbauman 11y ago
Arguably 1/2 of the molecules in our bodies come from the artificial nitrogen extraction process developed during WWI. Without that, Earth's human population would have been limited to half of what it is now back in the 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Haber_process
- Retric 11y ago
  The earth could probably support 100+ billion people at reasonable comfort levels with slightly better technology as long as we give up the idea of life outside of zoo's. That said, past experience has demonstrated the Human population can easily grow at 5% per year. At that rate it's doubling every 15 years. Trying to double the universes food supply every 15 years is just not possible indefinitely. PS: 2^n is crazy. It takes less time than you might think before the mass of humanity is growing faster than a sphere expanding at the speed of light could support.
  - TTPrograms 11y ago
    Uh, the current growth rate is around 1% per year, and it's decreasing as countries enter the first world. That's a doubling every 70 years. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth We've got a lot of efficiency left in terms of agriculture as well, so there isn't much reason to think reaching the carrying capacity of the planet is a particularly pressing issue. The amount of food that we already grow that we don't eat roughly 1/3 already, and the vast majority of land doesn't contribute to agriculture.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

The problem isn't really population per se, it's population growth. China instituted the one-child policy so they could slow down their population growth to more manageable levels. We could have 10 billion people on this planet and we'd be fine, so long as we were resource-efficient.

5h 11y ago
Lots of people alive now will likely live on a 10 billion person earth http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+population+1900+to+2050 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+population+1900+t...

vinceyuan 11y ago

China is a very big country. But only a small portion of the land is suitable for living. Almost 94 percent of Chinese people live in the Southeast part of the country which covers 43 percent of its land area; while the other six percent people live in the northwestern areas which cover 57 percent of the territory. [1] And people like to live in cities. Can you imagine there are 23.9 million people [2] in Shanghai City? [1] http://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/country.htm http://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/country.htm [2] http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/shanghai-population/ http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/shanghai-popul...

CapitalistCartr 11y ago

Here is an incrementing population tally; note how fast its growing: http://m.worldometers.info/world-population/ http://m.worldometers.info/world-population/ Its not current population so much as the growth rate. China is 2/11 of the World. That's between 1/5 and 1/6, so small changes they make have dramatic effects decades down the road. Our current population is almost certainly not sustainable doing things the way we are now, but we are changing that. Population growth is only sustainable with dramatic changes in the way we live, yet we are adding people by the billion.

beachstartup 11y ago

> What is the standard to determine the right population only someone who's never been to china would ask about the 'standard' for determining overpopulation. it's abundantly clear as soon as you step off the airplane and take a look around. it's just too damn crowded. what is the standard for determining that water is wet?

jquery 11y ago
When I visited China with my wife, she had told me beforehand her parents lived in a "rural" area. What I imagined was acres of farmland and long dirt roads. The reality of "rural" China was closer to the density of Bay Area. It was incredible how dense everything was, even in the less dense areas.

6t6t6 11y ago

Malthusian catastrophe. Population tends to grow exponentially, but not the resources. Historically, the excess of population have been controlled through wars and famines. The CP wanted to control with laws instead... The thing is that in developed countries this kind of laws are not necessary because people just don't have children because they are too expensive.