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I spent a year traveling around India early in the new millennium and of course being shocked by the overpopulation. But when I mentioned that overpopulation in
by OfSanguineFire 3y ago
I spent a year traveling around India early in the new millennium and of course being shocked by the overpopulation. But when I mentioned that overpopulation in conversations with locals as a bad thing, I was surprised to occasionally hear claims that no, that overpopulation would allow India to export more people and thus have a bigger impact on the world stage. Moreover, advocacy for population control was said to actually be a Pakistani and/or Chinese plot.
- xNeil 3y agoA lot of the response in India regarding overpopulation came about during the 1970s, when the Prime Minister's son, worried about overpopulation, started a Compulsory Sterilisation Program, the horrors off which I have heard a lot about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjay_Gandhi#Compulsory_sterilization_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjay_Gandhi#Compulsory_steri...
- j-bos 3y agoScott Alexander had an interesting article about the mind and incentives behind those sterilizations. Section 2 delves into the topic: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/galton-ehrlich-buck https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/galton-ehrlich-buck
- xNeil 3y agoThank you very, very much for the link sir! Learnt a whole lot from it.
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoLook up India’s population density and fertility rate. Not as dire as you think. Indians consume much less resources per capita than Wester countries too.
- verteu 3y agoKeep in mind India's fertility rate was much higher at the time of the anecdote (~3.35 children/woman in 2000 vs 2.05 now).
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoThere were predictions even then of rate tampering down. If someone was so concerned about India's population, they should have looked at projections before speaking down to the locals.
- verteu 3y agoPlenty were concerned about overpopulation in the 2000s, including Indian government. Hence, (eg) National Population Policy 2000.