Right to reproduce = doom of humanity?
So I was catching up on my "Stuff You Should Know" podcasts and listened to the one about China's One Child Policy. It was interesting. That China was thinking far enough ahead to lay down limits on population expansion so as to control the strain on resources. On some levels, it has even appeared to work.
That got me wondering if such a policy could ever be put into place in the US. We aren't there yet, but with unbridled immigration, our population continues to expand regardless of the lower birthrates in the middle and upper classes.
How hard would "right to procreation" supporters and religious agendas fight against a policy that was aimed at the greater good?
I do believe that such a policy is for the greater good because logically there is a finite amount of resources that will only support a hard population cap. With less war and disease taking its toll, people are living longer leaving less room for future generations.
As a husband who is part of a couple that has had difficulty getting pregnant (and is now looking into adoption), I'd be grateful for one child. Would I want two? Maybe (let's see how one goes first). But I know people with 6-9 kids. Are they doing their part to hasten the world to its distruction? I'm not sure.
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McChuck wrote:
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Hell no. That couldn't happen in the U.S.
If you want to know what the reaction would be to an attempt at this policy, just check out some of the crazy sh!t being spouted off about the damned CENSUS by Glen Beck and the like and then multiply it by a factor of a million. Racism would become virulent and deadly as a big chunk of the paranoid masses would be convinced that whites were being targeted for extinction.
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I don't think we could make it work. Does anyone know the gender balance in China after the one child policy? I remember reading reports that families tended to choose males for their one child and that skewed with overall balance.
Also, we've been hearing about Malthus for a long time now. Somehow we've managed to keep ahead of the curve. If we don't, this is the sort of problem what will "work itself out naturally" so to speak.
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1.3 boys to 1 girl. If it continues, I eventually see China's only answer would be war to kill off males and get women.
A Cigar, much like Scotch and Monogamy, is an acquired taste.
McChuck wrote:
I'm sure Wikipedia has this and it would take me all of 5 seconds to find, but ... source?
And this wouldn't happen in the US as it stands today. Who knows what the future holds after China officially announces they own us and repopulate us with those extra 0.3 boys they have.
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Actually, the only reason why the US has any population growth at all is because of immigration (and I would hardly call it 'unbridled immigration') and the higher birth rate of recent immigrants. Without that, we'd be in the same boat as chunks of Europe and Japan: facing a shrinking population.
Given the racist tendencies of a chunk of America, I'm surprised no one has started offering bounties for more white children in an attempt to hold off the browning of America. That demographic trend is going to hit sooner and harder than having too many people and there are plenty of folks who aren't happy about it. Heck, California has until the end of the decade until Hispanics outnumber whites and it's likely that that whites will be less than 50% of the nation's population by 2060 or so. Going from Jim Crow to being a minority in just a few generations is going to be really hard for some people to accept.
Yonder wrote:
What bothers me is those are projections based on today. And I mean at current US consumption, and averave food yield and access to potable water. We have solved world hunger and nutrition thanks to genetically modified plants. We also help the water table as those plants require less pesticides and fertilizers. Coal power plants are retiring with wind, water, nuclear to fill in the gaps. This means less seepage into the soil and water with mercury, boron, arsenic, sulfur.
The assumption that we will continue current waste is what I take issue with.
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The far projections are that our population will hit one billion between 2100 and 2010. That's more than three times our existing population. Unless we become three times a efficient in how we grow food, how much water we use, how much energy we consume, etc., the added population *will* have a huge impact.
We haven't solved world hunger. Agriculture has simply have managed to (mostly) stay ahead of the population curve at the global level. And we haven't decreased the use of fertilizers and pesticide. The big yields are only possible with heavy use of both. Within the US you also can't assume that the Midwest will remain productive agricultural land. If the global warming projections hold true, a big chunk of the Midwest--where we grow our grain--will become drought-stricken lands.
As for energy, we will need a tremendous amount of new generation capability, especially considering we are one of the biggest consumers of electricity, oil, gas, etc. in the world. The petroleum industry is going to have problems keeping production up to meet the demands of an increasingly energy hungry China and US at our current levels of consumption. Triple the number of Americans and up the number of Chinese consuming more oil and energy and things will get nasty.
As for water, we're already experiencing severe shortages and huge water rights conflicts between farmers and cities and farmers and conservationists. Triple the population in cities and triple the need for water to grow crops and it will really get interesting (more so when global warming makes water supplies much more erratic with droughts, floods, less snow, etc.).
Yonder wrote:
Not to mention the fact that average vehicle fuel efficiency hasn't gotten any better since 1900.
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Only in the US. China has better standards than we do.
Yonder wrote:
Only because they're as poor as chinamen. Once they stop holding down their currency, every noodle shop owner will want a Chinese made H2 Hummer complete with bamboo seat cover.
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We've all seen examples of biological parents who so horrifically abused the role that we thought to ourselves, "No way they should be allowed to be parents."
The idea that some government officials will be able to decide who can reproduce and who can't is pretty terrifying to me though.
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Even though China has clearly had some unintended consequences, I don't think the idea necessarily has to lead to killing baby girls.
The problem is, as with all regulation, deciding who gets to make the rules, who gets to breed, and how many kids they get to have.
As for necessity, given how fat America is, I think we'll be OK for a good long while.
In terms of our culture, it's a bit stickier (so to speak). Evolution seems to favor the stupid. In terms of sex there are many more reckless, stupid decisions you can make that will increase the odds of pregnancy than rational, careful ones. Lots of sexual partners? No birth control? Drunken sex orgy? Watch those idiotic reality shows about that woman who thinks she's a clown car? Can't afford an abortion? I have no figures to support my claim but I do worry that the beginning of Idiocracy isn't too far from the truth. That the "intelligent" proceed so cautiously that they fail to realize there is almost never a "really good" time to have a child, whereas the idiots seem to trip on the step of their trailer and fall in (or out of) an unprotected vagina. No offense to any present who have children and have clearly found the happy medium.
All I know is I don't particularly like children, though it is my understanding that they will become important at some point in the future (which is the reason I carry honey and keep on the look out for cats). I would welcome a system that would allow me to sell my "child credits" to the highest bidder.
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You could donate sperm. Pays pretty well.
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Overpopulation is not a problem if you just get people educated. Specifically, if you get women educated. In every first-world country, birth rates are below replacement rates. As societies become more affluent and women gain education, birth rates steadily drop.
Do that, get the world educated and up to a reasonable basic standard of living, and the overpopulation problem will go away all by itself.
Elewis17 wrote:
As far as I'm concerned, Hispanics are generally categorized as "white" unless they have a big helping of indian in them. The country stopped being truly "anglo-white" back in the 1840s when the government let in too many Irish. Waves of eastern slavs and Italians used to send anglo-whites into spasms of disgust in the 1900s, but today anglo-whites mostly accept Rudy Guiliani as one of their own (he is Italian catholic- so...)
Basically, I think this idea that in 50 years white people will be a minority group won't end up as reality. Hispanics will end up like the poles, slavs, Irish, Italians, and others, and will simply become a different brand of "white" in the "it's them or us" dialog.
This topic reminds me of the Quiverfull movement. I have a coworker who adheres to this philosophy. He and his wife have 8 homeschooled children between the ages of 2 and 18.
If one were to ask him if they plan to have any more kids his response would be "If God wants us to have more children then I guess we'll have another." Really? You think God has anything to do with whether you get your wife pregnant for the 10th time?
It sickens me to think of children as "arrows for God"; also I believe it's irresponsible to have that many children in this day and age.
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The 1.3 stat was from the podcast, though I realize that was for urban families, with the national average being around 1.18:1.0. But again, this from a podcast that was recorded sometime in October.
The next great war will be over clean water. Of that I have no doubt. Water will be the precious resource that will be in short supply.
A Cigar, much like Scotch and Monogamy, is an acquired taste.
McChuck wrote:
I believe the US is the sole exception to the birthrate
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Paleocon is entirely right --DanB
I agree with everything that Paleocon said... --Boudreaux
Paleo is right on. --Legion
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I don't think we really are. Sans immigration, I don't believe we're actually at replacement rates anymore.
Elewis17 wrote:
It turns out that a lot of the stereotypes we have about birthrates by nation are about as wrong as they can be. link. I never would have guessed that the majority of Asian nations are well below the birthrate curve.
I think Paleocon is right about pretty much everything. -- Mex
Paleocon is entirely right --DanB
I agree with everything that Paleocon said... --Boudreaux
Paleo is right on. --Legion
I love Paleocon. --- SallyNasty
As you can see, it's precisely when humans are poorly educated, stressed, and starving that they have the highest birthrates.
Also note that China is only a little lower than the US, even with birthrates forced down by law.
Elewis17 wrote:
Yup. And foreign born women have more children than native born women. Take out immigrants and children of non-natives (who are predominantly Hispanic) and we're at 1.8/1.9 children per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1.
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Well, they already have a much more reasonable answer -- immigration and mobility. Chinese are looking for brides in the poor rural country-side, as well as neighboring countries. Seems to be working out well enough.
As far as it's been observed so far, the cultural implications of the skewed male/female ratio have not actually translated into implications in the economic sphere. The net impact of one-child policies has been either neutral, or positive.
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Yeah, apparently Canada doesn't like sex.
A Cigar, much like Scotch and Monogamy, is an acquired taste.
McChuck wrote:
With all the other manipulations going on in the world economy, I think it's very unlikely that you could usefully sort out that signal from the ancillary noise.
Elewis17 wrote:
We like it just fine. We also like birth control.
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Fedaykin98 wrote:
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