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More ridiculous is the idea that a nation deserves extra credit for being ridiculously overpopulated. In China's case, it's doubly absurd given that the CCP str
by whatyoucantsay 9y ago
More ridiculous is the idea that a nation deserves extra credit for being ridiculously overpopulated. In China's case, it's doubly absurd given that the CCP strong-armed an already too large populace into having more children for decades before wisely but again brutally reversing course with its famous one child policy.
> "The 1950s census showed that China had 557 million people, and some professionally-trained demographers began urging that policies be put in place to limit population growth. Mao Zedong condemned such views on the grounds that under socialism a large population was a great resource, not a threat. Consequently, some of the most prominent proponents of birth control were labelled rightists and removed from power… by the time Mao died in 1976, China’s population exceeded 900 million."
-Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (2010). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, p. 327.
In the future, we will likely see an even larger devastation of the environment from India and other countries with large and growing populations.
- richardknop 9y agoWell yes, I agree with you. China, India and don't forget about Africa (most countries in Africa now have average age around 20-25 years old and are multiplying populations very quickly). Not sure what can be done about it. I guess mother nature will sort that out once we run out of resources. It will be like a defensive reaction of an organism, human race might just get purged from the Earth.
- thanksgiving 9y agoI don't want children. I imagine I'm not the only one. Get a dog or a cat or a goldfish or a cactus instead.
- richardknop 9y ago99.9% of people disagree with you. You might not be the only one but you are part of tiny minority which doesn't influence anything. For every person like you who doesn't want kids there are hundred families somewhere in developing world with 5-8 children.
- andrewaylett 9y agoNot as many as you might think: Total Fertility Rate drops rapidly as survival rate and economic activity picks up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#/media/File:Trends_in_TFR_1950-2050.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#/media/Fi...
- elygre 9y agoHans Rosling had a great TED talk or two on the subject!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- thriftwy 9y agoI would just like to say that I have no urge to be purged anywhere on the grounds of africans or indians multiplying. They can purge themself all the ways they like.
- mathgeek 9y agoWhen it comes to the environment being the source of change, you may not have a choice in discrimination.
- ForHackernews 9y ago> Not sure what can be done about it. All you have to is educate women and give them reliable access to birth control. In every country where women are empowered to control their own lives and their own fertility, they have chosen to have fewer children. We don't need some horrible Malthusian resource crunch, we just need feminism.
- jdietrich 9y agoThe UN forecast that the global population will reach an absolute maximum of about 11 billion by 2100. Some forecasts are even more conservative, suggesting a peak of 9 billion by 2050. The global birth rate has peaked and is now in overall decline, with most of the developed world being well below the replacement rate. Most of the population growth we'll see over the next century is simply due to more people living longer lives. The fertility rate in China is massively below replacement at 1.57 births per woman. India is barely above replacement at 2.4. The fertility rate in India today is lower than the fertility rate was in the US in 1970. The global fertility rate has halved in 50 years. Even in the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the fertility rate is declining. The fertility rate in Rwanda has more than halved from 8.4 in 1980 to 3.8 today. As far as I can ascertain, Niger is the country on earth with a persistently high fertility rate. Population growth is a solved problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E
- oblio 9y agoWe can take this both ways: up until the 60s or so the West also viewed more people as a forte. It's just that it started from a lower base, the US started from 100 million people when China was at 300+ million...
- richardknop 9y agoAlso after WW2 most young men in Europe were dead or maimed so in 50s and 60s governments supported population explosion so Europe would replenish tens of millions of young people it lost in the war and could rebuild its decimated economy.
- Feniks 9y agoHa Mao almost sounds as a Catholic priest! Capitalism saves us all. Children become too expensive so couple's will only have 2. Or none, if Korea and Japan predict a trend.
- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago> More ridiculous is the idea that a nation deserves extra credit for being ridiculously overpopulated. I don't think the idea is "extra credit", but rather a matter of scale changing the nature of the problem, just as you wouldn't directly compare the problem of networking 10 computers to the problem of networking 1000 computers.