4 ms·

The most important bit is hidden several paragraphs in: Anderson asked villagers about selective abortions and found them open about the fact that they use ult

by tjic 17y ago

The most important bit is hidden several paragraphs in: Anderson asked villagers about selective abortions and found them open about the fact that they use ultrasound to determine the baby's gender and help them decide whether or not to keep it. I'm pro-life. I realize that not everyone is. I think that everyone, though, can be concerned that large segments of humanity are testing unborn children for "undesirable" traits and aborting them. We're facing a demographic timebomb. Societies with more men than women are violent, and start wars.

silencio 17y ago
I don't like the idea of abortions based on gender either, but changing societal beliefs of gender differences/inferiority/discrimination in the long term will be more helpful than the knee-jerk "no abortions!"/"no abortions by gender!" reaction. The latter just hurts the women that do need abortions for a medically necessary reason, whatever it happens to be. The former will be longer-term and may not be appealing to someone who is pro-life (uh, whatever that label is supposed to mean), but will also help with the far greater issues involving violence and death of adult women as mentioned in the article linked.
mynameishere 17y ago
The people in developing countries are going to feel mighty stupid when they realize that as modernity increases the value of women increases.
GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
I've heard that in China the situation is changing. Women are relatively scarce, so the groom's family often has to pony up a substantial "bride price" (reverse dowry?). This is helping to balance out the "value" of boys and girls.
- huherto 17y ago
  So in 20 years is going to be a surplus of women?
  - quantumhobbit 17y ago
    I know this is weird but I want to try and model this effect mathematically. The new gender ratio driven by a function of the current gender ratio for 20-somethings. Too many boys, would lead to girls and vice versa. There would likely be a damping effect of cultural inertia that would prevent rapid oscillations. I suppose one would also have to take in to account intergenerational marriages, death rates .etc.
    - nostrademons 17y ago
      This is how the sex ratio got to 50% in the first place, evolutionarily. If there's an excess of women, men will find it relatively easier to find a mate, and so women whose genes cause them to bear an excess of sons will pass more of those genes down into the third generation. If there's an excess of men, men will find it relatively hard to find a mate, and so women whose genes cause them to bear an excess of daughters will pass more genes onto the third generation. It balances out at a 50/50 steady-state. Curiously, the sex ratio can get skewed by environmental conditions, in a manner similar to what you describe. Men have more reproductive variability than women - the number of children a woman can bear is largely limited by her uterus, while the number of children a man can bear is limited by the number of women he can convince to sleep with him. So when times are good, or if a mother is high-status within her particular group, she tends to bear more sons to take advantage of their reproductive success. While when times are lean, mothers tend to bear more daughters. A similar effect occurs on the level of individual traits. Couple who carry genes that disproportionately affect the reproductive success of one sex tend to have more children of that sex. For example, someone did a study of Hollywood actors, and found out that 60% of their children are daughters - presumably because Hollywood actors are better-looking than average, and beauty benefits girls more than boys. Taller and more muscular parents tend to have more sons, etc. And what's the mechanism for this, since everyone knows sex is carried on the male's Y-chromosome, and women shouldn't be able to influence it? Sex-selective abortion. Apparently, females of most mammalian species will absorb the blastocyst into the womb (or otherwise abort very-early-stage fetuses) if environmental conditions aren't right for a child of that sex. So China and India are just using technology to do what biology has done for tens of millions of years.
- telegraph 17y ago
  I'm having trouble finding the source (it was in the NYTimes a few months ago), but China has also undertaken a pretty sizable PR campaign encouraging people to have daughters to try and address the ridiculously skewed gender ratios, especially in rural areas (sometimes as high as 2:1 for males).
  - GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
    Probably this article in the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124415971813687173.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124415971813687173.html
- perneto 17y ago
  It's worth noting that the practice of the groom's family paying the bride's family is nothing new in China - at least according to my flatmates from Hong Kong. The rationale is that the parents invested time and money into their daughter's upbringing, but since she's leaving their family to join the groom's, she won't be supporting them in their old years. There's still no pension system in HK - there's one in mainland China though.
ahoyhere 17y ago
I don't want to start a war with you. But in the interest of calm, reasoned discussion... Can't we agree that the most important bit is actually after the first part of the article, where it states that: * Once she and Ray broke down the numbers by age group, they found that the majority of excess female deaths came later in life: 66 per cent in India, 55 per cent in China and 83 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa.* They are dying after childbirth, after toddlerhood, because of unequal access to food, medical care and other social services. In China, not only have they tended to undervalue potential daughters, but women kill themselves at a higher rate than men. And in India, full-grown women are being tortured to death because their families have not paid the dowry. That sounds a lot worse to me.
- ars 17y ago
  It's interesting how the article implied all the things you write - but without actually saying any of them, since they are not supported by their own research. The number of suicides and kitchen fires is in the 10s of thousands, but the number of missing is in the 10s of millions. That is less than a 1/10 of a percent. Notice they did not once actually say how the vast majority died. My personal belief is they died in childbirth, since before modern medical care that is unfortunately a common thing (and in those counties that care is not available to either gender). Of course that belies their argument about discrimination causing it. This is one of those articles where they go in with the conclusion they want: "discrimination" and then look for facts to support it. Notice at the end how they ask: "How often are men given mosquito nets to protect themselves from malaria, but not women? How many women die because they are not taken to the hospital when they are sick?" They ask that, and thus imply it - but never actually show that it's actually the case. It's a masterful job over all. Not too many people can write like that, implying so many things, and leaving such a picture in peoples minds, without ever actually saying any of those things.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
swombat 17y ago
Societies with more men than women are violent, and start wars. True. Then again, higher numbers of women make a greater contribution to overpopulation. Decreasing the number of women might screw the next generation and sort out the one after that. That's probably an outrageous view, but so's your point.
- tjic 17y ago
  > higher numbers of women make a greater contribution to overpopulation. "Overpopulation" is a phrase used by folks who see humanity as a problem. The more people we have, the more minds we have. The resources of the solar system are infinite, in any sense that matters. The more minds we have working on our problems, the better.
  - benmathes 17y ago
    The resources of the solar system are infinite, in any sense that matters. The resources of our planet, however, are not. Do you see a significant number of humans moving off our planet within a couple generations? I admit it's possible, but are you willing to gamble on that?
    - ars 17y ago
      Oddly enough the resources of the planet have never been greater. Measure available resources per person over history and the graph only points up. Somehow we seem to find what we need when we need it. Keep in mind that the earth is a closed system - none of the resources are ever lost. You just have to find where they went, and get them again. And the more we need, the better we are at finding them. The only real input is energy, and that too is infinite. Nuclear power (with reprocessing) can last us for centuries, and I'm sure we'll figure out fusion before that runs out.
      - radu_floricica 17y ago
        I'm an optimist too, but there are a few statistics less pleasant. The average person in developed countries consumes over 10 times what somebody in poorer countries consumes (I won't look up the exact number right now... I remember 30 from the last source but I think 10 is reasonable). I'm talking about resources available with our current technology. We still have to grow crops for calories and forests for wood. Anyways, if more countries are to reach developed status then no matter how you look at it we have a problem. It's not the apocalypse, but we'll feel it.
Tichy 17y ago
Isn't it more concerning that people have to resort to abortion? I doubt anybody actually likes to do it. Therefore I doubt that morals will help much - there is probably an upper limit of the price that morals can induce on abortion. Just as there seems to be an upper limit to the deterrent to crime that the death penalty can provide.

by tjic 17y ago

silencio 17y ago

I don't like the idea of abortions based on gender either, but changing societal beliefs of gender differences/inferiority/discrimination in the long term will be more helpful than the knee-jerk "no abortions!"/"no abortions by gender!" reaction. The latter just hurts the women that do need abortions for a medically necessary reason, whatever it happens to be. The former will be longer-term and may not be appealing to someone who is pro-life (uh, whatever that label is supposed to mean), but will also help with the far greater issues involving violence and death of adult women as mentioned in the article linked.

mynameishere 17y ago

The people in developing countries are going to feel mighty stupid when they realize that as modernity increases the value of women increases.

GiraffeNecktie 17y ago

I've heard that in China the situation is changing. Women are relatively scarce, so the groom's family often has to pony up a substantial "bride price" (reverse dowry?). This is helping to balance out the "value" of boys and girls.

huherto 17y ago
So in 20 years is going to be a surplus of women?
- quantumhobbit 17y ago
  I know this is weird but I want to try and model this effect mathematically. The new gender ratio driven by a function of the current gender ratio for 20-somethings. Too many boys, would lead to girls and vice versa. There would likely be a damping effect of cultural inertia that would prevent rapid oscillations. I suppose one would also have to take in to account intergenerational marriages, death rates .etc.
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    This is how the sex ratio got to 50% in the first place, evolutionarily. If there's an excess of women, men will find it relatively easier to find a mate, and so women whose genes cause them to bear an excess of sons will pass more of those genes down into the third generation. If there's an excess of men, men will find it relatively hard to find a mate, and so women whose genes cause them to bear an excess of daughters will pass more genes onto the third generation. It balances out at a 50/50 steady-state. Curiously, the sex ratio can get skewed by environmental conditions, in a manner similar to what you describe. Men have more reproductive variability than women - the number of children a woman can bear is largely limited by her uterus, while the number of children a man can bear is limited by the number of women he can convince to sleep with him. So when times are good, or if a mother is high-status within her particular group, she tends to bear more sons to take advantage of their reproductive success. While when times are lean, mothers tend to bear more daughters. A similar effect occurs on the level of individual traits. Couple who carry genes that disproportionately affect the reproductive success of one sex tend to have more children of that sex. For example, someone did a study of Hollywood actors, and found out that 60% of their children are daughters - presumably because Hollywood actors are better-looking than average, and beauty benefits girls more than boys. Taller and more muscular parents tend to have more sons, etc. And what's the mechanism for this, since everyone knows sex is carried on the male's Y-chromosome, and women shouldn't be able to influence it? Sex-selective abortion. Apparently, females of most mammalian species will absorb the blastocyst into the womb (or otherwise abort very-early-stage fetuses) if environmental conditions aren't right for a child of that sex. So China and India are just using technology to do what biology has done for tens of millions of years.
telegraph 17y ago
I'm having trouble finding the source (it was in the NYTimes a few months ago), but China has also undertaken a pretty sizable PR campaign encouraging people to have daughters to try and address the ridiculously skewed gender ratios, especially in rural areas (sometimes as high as 2:1 for males).
- GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
  Probably this article in the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124415971813687173.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124415971813687173.html
perneto 17y ago
It's worth noting that the practice of the groom's family paying the bride's family is nothing new in China - at least according to my flatmates from Hong Kong. The rationale is that the parents invested time and money into their daughter's upbringing, but since she's leaving their family to join the groom's, she won't be supporting them in their old years. There's still no pension system in HK - there's one in mainland China though.

ahoyhere 17y ago

I don't want to start a war with you. But in the interest of calm, reasoned discussion... Can't we agree that the most important bit is actually after the first part of the article, where it states that: * Once she and Ray broke down the numbers by age group, they found that the majority of excess female deaths came later in life: 66 per cent in India, 55 per cent in China and 83 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa.* They are dying after childbirth, after toddlerhood, because of unequal access to food, medical care and other social services. In China, not only have they tended to undervalue potential daughters, but women kill themselves at a higher rate than men. And in India, full-grown women are being tortured to death because their families have not paid the dowry. That sounds a lot worse to me.

ars 17y ago
It's interesting how the article implied all the things you write - but without actually saying any of them, since they are not supported by their own research. The number of suicides and kitchen fires is in the 10s of thousands, but the number of missing is in the 10s of millions. That is less than a 1/10 of a percent. Notice they did not once actually say how the vast majority died. My personal belief is they died in childbirth, since before modern medical care that is unfortunately a common thing (and in those counties that care is not available to either gender). Of course that belies their argument about discrimination causing it. This is one of those articles where they go in with the conclusion they want: "discrimination" and then look for facts to support it. Notice at the end how they ask: "How often are men given mosquito nets to protect themselves from malaria, but not women? How many women die because they are not taken to the hospital when they are sick?" They ask that, and thus imply it - but never actually show that it's actually the case. It's a masterful job over all. Not too many people can write like that, implying so many things, and leaving such a picture in peoples minds, without ever actually saying any of those things.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

swombat 17y ago

Societies with more men than women are violent, and start wars. True. Then again, higher numbers of women make a greater contribution to overpopulation. Decreasing the number of women might screw the next generation and sort out the one after that. That's probably an outrageous view, but so's your point.

tjic 17y ago
> higher numbers of women make a greater contribution to overpopulation. "Overpopulation" is a phrase used by folks who see humanity as a problem. The more people we have, the more minds we have. The resources of the solar system are infinite, in any sense that matters. The more minds we have working on our problems, the better.
- benmathes 17y ago
  The resources of the solar system are infinite, in any sense that matters. The resources of our planet, however, are not. Do you see a significant number of humans moving off our planet within a couple generations? I admit it's possible, but are you willing to gamble on that?
  - ars 17y ago
    Oddly enough the resources of the planet have never been greater. Measure available resources per person over history and the graph only points up. Somehow we seem to find what we need when we need it. Keep in mind that the earth is a closed system - none of the resources are ever lost. You just have to find where they went, and get them again. And the more we need, the better we are at finding them. The only real input is energy, and that too is infinite. Nuclear power (with reprocessing) can last us for centuries, and I'm sure we'll figure out fusion before that runs out.
    - radu_floricica 17y ago
      I'm an optimist too, but there are a few statistics less pleasant. The average person in developed countries consumes over 10 times what somebody in poorer countries consumes (I won't look up the exact number right now... I remember 30 from the last source but I think 10 is reasonable). I'm talking about resources available with our current technology. We still have to grow crops for calories and forests for wood. Anyways, if more countries are to reach developed status then no matter how you look at it we have a problem. It's not the apocalypse, but we'll feel it.

Tichy 17y ago

Isn't it more concerning that people have to resort to abortion? I doubt anybody actually likes to do it. Therefore I doubt that morals will help much - there is probably an upper limit of the price that morals can induce on abortion. Just as there seems to be an upper limit to the deterrent to crime that the death penalty can provide.