6 ms·

Indian state proposes two-child policy, stringent measures for violators

39 points by ptrkmhms 5y ago

reidjs 5y ago
I can't read the article, so I'm just replying to the concept. I don't see a problem with this at all. Overpopulation may be the most important issue of our lifetime. I'm not a fan of excessive government control, but incentivizing low birthrates is our only hope of saving the environment.
- OJFord 5y ago
  Maybe try blocking some JS, it loaded fine for me and I don't pay for it (I block third party JS by default and didn't need to whitelist anything). The incentives/disincentives don't seem nice to me, rewarding 'voluntary sterilisation'... I suppose I agree in general the concept of such policies is.. ok... But I don't think any rewards or penalties should be based on anything permanent. Even as proposed it's only running until 2030, but people will make irreversible life altering decisions based on it, I don't know, just doesn't seem nice to me.
- sxg 5y ago
  Hard disagree. Birth rates are at their lowest throughout the developed world. In some cases, it’s below the replacement level. The developing world’s birth rate is also dropping as those regions become more developed (China for example, which recently switched to incentivizing additional children).
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    > Birth rates are at their lowest throughout the developed world. India isn't the developed world. According to the UN, the world population is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100. Despite the stagnant fertility rate, growth rate is still targeted in most countries at approx 3-4%, through immigration. I mention this because everyone has a higher environmental footprint in the developed world, through consumption. Everyone wants a home, vehicle, gadgets, good food. If not everyone in the world can enjoy 1st world experiences without encroaching on the environment and destroying it at a catastrophic rate, then we're overpopulated. Meat consumption is already under scrutiny for land-use (particularly in Brazil) as though the problem isn't the growing demand for it, but the meat itself. When scaling up, everything destroys the environment.
    - sxg 5y ago
      > India isn't the developed world. Yes, I'm aware, which is why I included that the developing world's birth rate is also dropping, although starting from a higher baseline level. > When scaling up, everything destroys the environment. Yeah, I agree, but things don't tend to scale up linearly, and I think you're missing the cause/effect interplay between population growth and resource consumption. Yes, as populations grow they require more resources (as you point out), but limits on production of those same resources (eg food, energy) will in turn impose limits on population growth. Population growth isn't some uninhibited unstoppable force. Population shrinking forces also exist, which will likely make the net population rate of change hit an equilibrium.
      - slothtrop 5y ago
        > limits on production of those same resources (eg food, energy) will in turn impose limits on population growth. Historically greater food and resource output could help you grow fast (particularly by intention), but for a long while now population growth is negatively correlated with production on the global scale. The 1st world is high production, the 3rd world is not, and all the while hunger and lack of infrastructure seems to be no deterrent to the fertility rate. Child mortality rate might also compel some to have more children. If one were interested in stops on population growth, access to contraceptives and eliminating poverty would probably be the most powerful way short of a State policy to punish excess births.
        sxg 5y ago
        I see what you're saying, namely that there's a disconnect between food/resource production and population growth in the 1st and 3rd worlds. But I would point out that there are many, many more factors involved beyond just food and other basic resources that influence population growth. Like you mentioned, child mortality rates are one, but cost of education and college are another. The Economist recently had an article about how many families don't have a 4th child because the majority of cars can only seat 2 adults and 3 kids. I still don't see overpopulation as a serious future issue because much of the world is showing the same steady decline in birth rates to near or below population replacement levels.
- comodore_ 5y ago
  incentivizing sterilisations seems like a slippery slope for a democracy. next step is having more than 2 kids will wreck your credit score and this kid will be denied higher education. this is some text book china shit.
- kevinmchugh 5y ago
  Climate change and population growth are separate issues.
  - durovo 5y ago
    Increase in population definitely accelerates climate change. If the world's population doubled to around 16 billion, would humanity's carbon footprint remain the same?
  - prvc 5y ago
    >Climate change and population growth are separate issues. Sperate, but related: the latter contributes to the former.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    Increase in demand doesn't just impact climate change, but encroaches on land and destroys more of the environment.
- outlace 5y ago
  I used to share the concern with overpopulation, but birth rates are often below replacement in developed countries. I now worry more about the long-term survival of humanity than I do about overpopulation. I expect all countries to eventually become developed and follow the same trend, and eventually the population just naturally dwindles because we become a post-survivalist society and don't care about propagating our genes anymore, and we just care about optimizing individual happiness.
  - 11235813213455 5y ago
    It's not as if humans were an endangered species, wouldn't be bad that the population gradually decrease to 4 billions and less
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - lm28469 5y ago
    > I now worry more about the long-term survival of humanity I think humanity as a whole will do just fine: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/world-population-since-10000-bce-ourworldindata-series.svg https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/world-population-...
- Huwyt_Nashi053 5y ago
  It's difficult to understand the mind of a man who cares more for shrubs and jellyfish than the survival of his people. Here's a thought, if you're a conscientious White man concerned about the environment: Make babies. Make a lot of them. Raise them with the same thoughtfulness you have for the natural world. Raise a dozen greenies. I assure you the woman in Niger with 11 kids has never lost a wink of sleep over any endangered Alaskan moths. The children of those with total disregard for the Earth will inherit it. Or yours can. It's your choice.
- Huwyt_Nashi054 5y ago
  It's difficult to understand the mind of a man who cares more for shrubs and jellyfish than the survival of his people. Here's a thought, if you're a conscientious White man concerned about the environment: Make babies. Make a lot of them. Raise them with the same thoughtfulness you have for the natural world. Raise a dozen greenies. I assure you the woman in Niger with 11 kids has never lost a wink of sleep over any endangered Alaskan moths. The children of those with total disregard for the Earth will inherit it. Or yours can. It's your choice.
- Huwyt_Nashi54 5y ago
  It's difficult to understand the mind of a man who cares more for shrubs and jellyfish than the survival of his people. Here's a thought, if you're a conscientious man concerned about the environment: Make babies. Make a lot of them. Raise them with the same thoughtfulness you have for the natural world. Raise a dozen greenies. I assure you the sub-Saharan woman in with 11 kids has never lost a wink of sleep over any endangered Alaskan moths. The children of those with total disregard for the Earth will inherit it. Or yours can. It's your choice. (Why is this getting auto flagged?)
lazyninja987 5y ago
I am wondering how can they enforce it in just one state. I can just cross state lines to have a 3rd child.
- AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
  Presumably if you ever came back to the original state where 2+ are banned, they'd eventually figure out that you have a third child, no?
- OJFord 5y ago
  The dis/incentives are based on welfare and local goverment pensions within that state. They're not proposing 'enforcing' it at all, 'just' disincentivising it; which will equally affect people moving into that state regardless of whether they were before they had a third child or not.
- nine_zeros 5y ago
  A lot of people (hundreds of millions) in rural India will never leave their state of birth to settle elsewhere. Ties to land are too strong and cost of moving is much higher than western countries. The attitude towards free movement is just not like what we are familiar with.
swiley 5y ago
But we can't have the alternative that's worked everywhere that's tried it: educating Women. If that happened the pervasive corruption might be questioned. Instead we'll just kill the extra children.
- ip26 5y ago
  Two thoughts, 1) educating women must take at least ten years to show up in birth rates 2) women with fewer children might have an easier time educating themselves & getting the snowball going
- galuggus 5y ago
  Why would that cause corruption to be questioned?
  - revnode 5y ago
    A substantial aspect of education is learning about how others live and alternative forms of organization. If you don't know any better, the status quo seems like the only outcome possible. If you know others are living better lives and corruption is optional, questions start being asked.
- vsskanth 5y ago
  Strongly Agree. Population control is trying to affect second order outcomes and has shown to create demographic time bombs. The only intervention supported by data is providing and mandating access to good education, jobs, birth control and enforcing legal rights to women. Nothing else even comes close. This policy is being proposed in UP, which performs very poorly on women's equality compared to higher GDP states. All they have to look at the birth rates in southern states with high education outcomes for women - Kerala,Karnataka and TN
- Huwyt_Nashi053 5y ago
  I would hope that we could find a way to decouple reproductive rates from women's education. Otherwise a very strong argument could be made for placing severe restrictions on education for women in most of Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, etc, all of which are experiencing catastrophic declines in their native populations.
someperson 5y ago
India's fertility rate has already fell to about 2.2 children per woman (in 2021). That's already replacement rate. India is one of the few countries with a favorable demographic future right now. The United States and France are also doing ok too (with immigration). But most of Europe and Asia (especially China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan) are facing huge problems: a halving of the population from its peak. And more importantly than the total number of people is the demographic pyramid structure is lost and is difficult to rebuild without a big baby boom (unlikely to happen in those countries). For India to become a superpower in 2100 (no guarantees it will be) it shouldn't ruin its demographic outlook (like China famously did).
- seunosewa 5y ago
  How do you factor climate change into this long term outlook?
- lazyninja987 5y ago
  You can't compare india's situation with other countries. SouthIndia has replacement rate below 2. The hindi belt is still trending 2.3+ The above legislation is introduced in a Uttar Pradesh, which is still overpopulated when compared to other states. The legislation wont work at country level, but i have susupicions if it works at state level. Awaiting for more details.
- shoto_io 5y ago
  I don't understand why a population decrease should be resulting in "huge problems". I am sure it's possible to maintain or even increase happiness and relative wealth while growing smaller. For earth in total, it would be great to see a smaller number of humans.
  - ostenning 5y ago
    A population decrease certainly doesn’t have to be counter productive to the economic status quo. But in today’s paradigm it is.. Our paradigm is all mixed up. It’s upside down. Why do casinos earn billions while exploiting the vulnerable, meanwhile hospitals struggle to get funding? Why do tobacco companies earn billions and poison the population while schools struggle to provide chalk for their teachers? Why does an executive for a superfluous cosmetics or designer clothing company get paid 1000X while we struggle to find enough social workers to try to relieve the massive mental health crises in the west? Why is it difficult to get paid well in an environmental startup, but easy to get paid well in online betting startup? Why does top talent build products that inflict immeasurable damage to children, teenagers and adults, rather than attempting to solve the ecological crisis we face? The juxtapositions I have used I believe are completely solvable by a realignment of the way we govern economic policy and what we as a society value. I don’t think it’s a utopian vision, but rather a realistic and a needed realignment. Realignments need to be made, because what I see today is that our world economy is a destructive debt machine that ultimately is failing the planet and it’s inhabitants
throwaway525142 5y ago
https://archive.is/p4usK https://archive.is/p4usK
pkphilip 5y ago
This isn't about population control. This is yet another attempt to oppress Muslims. This state Uttar Pradesh is headed by an Hindu extremist priest who actively uses the arms of the government to persecute minorities. It is a common trope by the Hindu right wing that Muslims are breeding like rabbits in India and may become larger in number than the Hindus.. and the way to control Muslims is by coming up with measures to restrict the rights of those with more than 2 children. The Hindu right wing has been actively asking Hindus to have many children. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/Produce-more-children-RSS-tells-Hindu-couples/article14582028.ece https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/Produce-... The truth is that the fertility rate (TFR) has been reducing drastically for Muslims as well as Hindus.. though the Muslims have a slightly higher fertility rate but there is no way the Muslims are going to overtake the Hindus in population. https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/muslim-women-family-planning-india-1590955-2019-08-23 https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/muslim-women-family-plan...
- undfg 5y ago
  >It is a common trope by the Hindu right wing that Muslims are breeding like rabbits in India and may become larger in number than the Hindus It's happening in Europe already. It's not far fetched.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    Citation needed. I don’t think Muslims are set to be a majority in Europe any time soon.
  - pkphilip 5y ago
    The ground reality in Europe is nothing like in India - not by a long shot.
known 5y ago
“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason” --Mark Twain (b. 1835) Population is a boon to Chinese regime and bane to Modi regime in India;

39 points by ptrkmhms 5y ago

I can't read the article, so I'm just replying to the concept. I don't see a problem with this at all. Overpopulation may be the most important issue of our lifetime. I'm not a fan of excessive government control, but incentivizing low birthrates is our only hope of saving the environment.

OJFord 5y ago
Maybe try blocking some JS, it loaded fine for me and I don't pay for it (I block third party JS by default and didn't need to whitelist anything). The incentives/disincentives don't seem nice to me, rewarding 'voluntary sterilisation'... I suppose I agree in general the concept of such policies is.. ok... But I don't think any rewards or penalties should be based on anything permanent. Even as proposed it's only running until 2030, but people will make irreversible life altering decisions based on it, I don't know, just doesn't seem nice to me.
sxg 5y ago
Hard disagree. Birth rates are at their lowest throughout the developed world. In some cases, it’s below the replacement level. The developing world’s birth rate is also dropping as those regions become more developed (China for example, which recently switched to incentivizing additional children).
- slothtrop 5y ago
  > Birth rates are at their lowest throughout the developed world. India isn't the developed world. According to the UN, the world population is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100. Despite the stagnant fertility rate, growth rate is still targeted in most countries at approx 3-4%, through immigration. I mention this because everyone has a higher environmental footprint in the developed world, through consumption. Everyone wants a home, vehicle, gadgets, good food. If not everyone in the world can enjoy 1st world experiences without encroaching on the environment and destroying it at a catastrophic rate, then we're overpopulated. Meat consumption is already under scrutiny for land-use (particularly in Brazil) as though the problem isn't the growing demand for it, but the meat itself. When scaling up, everything destroys the environment.
  - sxg 5y ago
    > India isn't the developed world. Yes, I'm aware, which is why I included that the developing world's birth rate is also dropping, although starting from a higher baseline level. > When scaling up, everything destroys the environment. Yeah, I agree, but things don't tend to scale up linearly, and I think you're missing the cause/effect interplay between population growth and resource consumption. Yes, as populations grow they require more resources (as you point out), but limits on production of those same resources (eg food, energy) will in turn impose limits on population growth. Population growth isn't some uninhibited unstoppable force. Population shrinking forces also exist, which will likely make the net population rate of change hit an equilibrium.
    - slothtrop 5y ago
      > limits on production of those same resources (eg food, energy) will in turn impose limits on population growth. Historically greater food and resource output could help you grow fast (particularly by intention), but for a long while now population growth is negatively correlated with production on the global scale. The 1st world is high production, the 3rd world is not, and all the while hunger and lack of infrastructure seems to be no deterrent to the fertility rate. Child mortality rate might also compel some to have more children. If one were interested in stops on population growth, access to contraceptives and eliminating poverty would probably be the most powerful way short of a State policy to punish excess births.
      - sxg 5y ago
        I see what you're saying, namely that there's a disconnect between food/resource production and population growth in the 1st and 3rd worlds. But I would point out that there are many, many more factors involved beyond just food and other basic resources that influence population growth. Like you mentioned, child mortality rates are one, but cost of education and college are another. The Economist recently had an article about how many families don't have a 4th child because the majority of cars can only seat 2 adults and 3 kids. I still don't see overpopulation as a serious future issue because much of the world is showing the same steady decline in birth rates to near or below population replacement levels.
comodore_ 5y ago
incentivizing sterilisations seems like a slippery slope for a democracy. next step is having more than 2 kids will wreck your credit score and this kid will be denied higher education. this is some text book china shit.
kevinmchugh 5y ago
Climate change and population growth are separate issues.
- durovo 5y ago
  Increase in population definitely accelerates climate change. If the world's population doubled to around 16 billion, would humanity's carbon footprint remain the same?
- prvc 5y ago
  >Climate change and population growth are separate issues. Sperate, but related: the latter contributes to the former.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  Increase in demand doesn't just impact climate change, but encroaches on land and destroys more of the environment.
outlace 5y ago
I used to share the concern with overpopulation, but birth rates are often below replacement in developed countries. I now worry more about the long-term survival of humanity than I do about overpopulation. I expect all countries to eventually become developed and follow the same trend, and eventually the population just naturally dwindles because we become a post-survivalist society and don't care about propagating our genes anymore, and we just care about optimizing individual happiness.
- 11235813213455 5y ago
  It's not as if humans were an endangered species, wouldn't be bad that the population gradually decrease to 4 billions and less
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- lm28469 5y ago
  > I now worry more about the long-term survival of humanity I think humanity as a whole will do just fine: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/world-population-since-10000-bce-ourworldindata-series.svg https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/world-population-...
Huwyt_Nashi053 5y ago
It's difficult to understand the mind of a man who cares more for shrubs and jellyfish than the survival of his people. Here's a thought, if you're a conscientious White man concerned about the environment: Make babies. Make a lot of them. Raise them with the same thoughtfulness you have for the natural world. Raise a dozen greenies. I assure you the woman in Niger with 11 kids has never lost a wink of sleep over any endangered Alaskan moths. The children of those with total disregard for the Earth will inherit it. Or yours can. It's your choice.
Huwyt_Nashi054 5y ago
It's difficult to understand the mind of a man who cares more for shrubs and jellyfish than the survival of his people. Here's a thought, if you're a conscientious White man concerned about the environment: Make babies. Make a lot of them. Raise them with the same thoughtfulness you have for the natural world. Raise a dozen greenies. I assure you the woman in Niger with 11 kids has never lost a wink of sleep over any endangered Alaskan moths. The children of those with total disregard for the Earth will inherit it. Or yours can. It's your choice.
Huwyt_Nashi54 5y ago
It's difficult to understand the mind of a man who cares more for shrubs and jellyfish than the survival of his people. Here's a thought, if you're a conscientious man concerned about the environment: Make babies. Make a lot of them. Raise them with the same thoughtfulness you have for the natural world. Raise a dozen greenies. I assure you the sub-Saharan woman in with 11 kids has never lost a wink of sleep over any endangered Alaskan moths. The children of those with total disregard for the Earth will inherit it. Or yours can. It's your choice. (Why is this getting auto flagged?)

lazyninja987 5y ago

I am wondering how can they enforce it in just one state. I can just cross state lines to have a 3rd child.

AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
Presumably if you ever came back to the original state where 2+ are banned, they'd eventually figure out that you have a third child, no?
OJFord 5y ago
The dis/incentives are based on welfare and local goverment pensions within that state. They're not proposing 'enforcing' it at all, 'just' disincentivising it; which will equally affect people moving into that state regardless of whether they were before they had a third child or not.
nine_zeros 5y ago
A lot of people (hundreds of millions) in rural India will never leave their state of birth to settle elsewhere. Ties to land are too strong and cost of moving is much higher than western countries. The attitude towards free movement is just not like what we are familiar with.

swiley 5y ago

But we can't have the alternative that's worked everywhere that's tried it: educating Women. If that happened the pervasive corruption might be questioned. Instead we'll just kill the extra children.

ip26 5y ago
Two thoughts, 1) educating women must take at least ten years to show up in birth rates 2) women with fewer children might have an easier time educating themselves & getting the snowball going
galuggus 5y ago
Why would that cause corruption to be questioned?
- revnode 5y ago
  A substantial aspect of education is learning about how others live and alternative forms of organization. If you don't know any better, the status quo seems like the only outcome possible. If you know others are living better lives and corruption is optional, questions start being asked.
vsskanth 5y ago
Strongly Agree. Population control is trying to affect second order outcomes and has shown to create demographic time bombs. The only intervention supported by data is providing and mandating access to good education, jobs, birth control and enforcing legal rights to women. Nothing else even comes close. This policy is being proposed in UP, which performs very poorly on women's equality compared to higher GDP states. All they have to look at the birth rates in southern states with high education outcomes for women - Kerala,Karnataka and TN
Huwyt_Nashi053 5y ago
I would hope that we could find a way to decouple reproductive rates from women's education. Otherwise a very strong argument could be made for placing severe restrictions on education for women in most of Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, etc, all of which are experiencing catastrophic declines in their native populations.

someperson 5y ago

India's fertility rate has already fell to about 2.2 children per woman (in 2021). That's already replacement rate. India is one of the few countries with a favorable demographic future right now. The United States and France are also doing ok too (with immigration). But most of Europe and Asia (especially China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan) are facing huge problems: a halving of the population from its peak. And more importantly than the total number of people is the demographic pyramid structure is lost and is difficult to rebuild without a big baby boom (unlikely to happen in those countries). For India to become a superpower in 2100 (no guarantees it will be) it shouldn't ruin its demographic outlook (like China famously did).

seunosewa 5y ago
How do you factor climate change into this long term outlook?
lazyninja987 5y ago
You can't compare india's situation with other countries. SouthIndia has replacement rate below 2. The hindi belt is still trending 2.3+ The above legislation is introduced in a Uttar Pradesh, which is still overpopulated when compared to other states. The legislation wont work at country level, but i have susupicions if it works at state level. Awaiting for more details.
shoto_io 5y ago
I don't understand why a population decrease should be resulting in "huge problems". I am sure it's possible to maintain or even increase happiness and relative wealth while growing smaller. For earth in total, it would be great to see a smaller number of humans.
- ostenning 5y ago
  A population decrease certainly doesn’t have to be counter productive to the economic status quo. But in today’s paradigm it is.. Our paradigm is all mixed up. It’s upside down. Why do casinos earn billions while exploiting the vulnerable, meanwhile hospitals struggle to get funding? Why do tobacco companies earn billions and poison the population while schools struggle to provide chalk for their teachers? Why does an executive for a superfluous cosmetics or designer clothing company get paid 1000X while we struggle to find enough social workers to try to relieve the massive mental health crises in the west? Why is it difficult to get paid well in an environmental startup, but easy to get paid well in online betting startup? Why does top talent build products that inflict immeasurable damage to children, teenagers and adults, rather than attempting to solve the ecological crisis we face? The juxtapositions I have used I believe are completely solvable by a realignment of the way we govern economic policy and what we as a society value. I don’t think it’s a utopian vision, but rather a realistic and a needed realignment. Realignments need to be made, because what I see today is that our world economy is a destructive debt machine that ultimately is failing the planet and it’s inhabitants

throwaway525142 5y ago

https://archive.is/p4usK https://archive.is/p4usK

pkphilip 5y ago

This isn't about population control. This is yet another attempt to oppress Muslims. This state Uttar Pradesh is headed by an Hindu extremist priest who actively uses the arms of the government to persecute minorities. It is a common trope by the Hindu right wing that Muslims are breeding like rabbits in India and may become larger in number than the Hindus.. and the way to control Muslims is by coming up with measures to restrict the rights of those with more than 2 children. The Hindu right wing has been actively asking Hindus to have many children. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/Produce-more-children-RSS-tells-Hindu-couples/article14582028.ece https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/Produce-... The truth is that the fertility rate (TFR) has been reducing drastically for Muslims as well as Hindus.. though the Muslims have a slightly higher fertility rate but there is no way the Muslims are going to overtake the Hindus in population. https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/muslim-women-family-planning-india-1590955-2019-08-23 https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/muslim-women-family-plan...

undfg 5y ago
>It is a common trope by the Hindu right wing that Muslims are breeding like rabbits in India and may become larger in number than the Hindus It's happening in Europe already. It's not far fetched.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  Citation needed. I don’t think Muslims are set to be a majority in Europe any time soon.
- pkphilip 5y ago
  The ground reality in Europe is nothing like in India - not by a long shot.

known 5y ago

“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason” --Mark Twain (b. 1835) Population is a boon to Chinese regime and bane to Modi regime in India;