Is Population growth a taboo subject?

[jandrews]

What it comes down to is everyone is basically willing to make sacrifices as long as it doesnt affect them. If I wanted 3 kids, I would say no more than 3 kids for anyone. If I wanted no kids, I might say just 2 kids per couple or 1 per person. If I was middle class I would say make the poor stop having children. No one wants to sacrifice anything themselves.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: magomago
China's child tax is becoming weaker, and I learned the other day that there are talks of removing it simply because no one thinks that if it was removed they would have another population boom in the cities(although they had to revise peak population estimates from 1.3 billion to 1.6 billlion...since we are already at 1.3 billion But to give them credit, without population controls they estimated they would have peaked at around 2.3 billion people). The life styles of the cities simply isn't conducive to having 5-6 children (Small apartments, little privacy, no economic incentive for multiplie children). The countryside can be considered another story, but even where people outright ignore the quotas of the government, they are most likely on their own without too much gov assistance in the first place.

The real "solution" needs to come through a variety of means, with these only being cherry picked as to what I can think of

*Firstly - as other posters echoed - we ALREADY in the "first world" don't have that many kids, and without our immigration our populations would be declining. Countries that have incredibly strict immigration quotas - a la Japan - are decreasing. Foxery - how do you cite a place like Tokyo? Japan already has negative population growth.

*"Modernizing" (however we should carefully define this) will decrease the population simply because the new lifestyle doesn't promote children. If you are poor, your children become economic capital such that they support you. they become the types of goods you can produce. Those with a different lifestyle have their own forms of this economic capital, and thus their incentive is about producing fewer children. This holds true especially if you are a farmer with little to no mechanization because all labor then comes from a human.

*Technology will help us. But as Hayabusa Rider pointed out , we CANNOT rely on this. To allow a fire to burn a house down, all the while saying "the firemen will come" isn't going to help if there isn't any firemen in the entire region. Technology let us leap over fears of overpopulation and mass starvation in the 1970s, but we can't necessarily rely its going to happen again. If anything, planning for current technologies that exist is what should be done. We shouldn't necessarily forecast technologies that are still in research. We can't be AMD in the late 90s computer slump who plowed forward; its better to act as intel in this type of case

*Giving aid to countries isn't necessarily going to help them NOT be hungry by filling them with more food. We assisted India in increasing ag output and guess what happened? Population boom and even MORE people are now hungry. The real solution will be to let them develop to a point that having as many children isn't the desired factor.

* we have NO right to dictate who can or can't have children. If you want to have 6 children - you have every right to have six children regardless of if you are in America or in Africa.

* Lastly - this ISN'T a short term solution by any means. The fact that the only real proven method of having people voluntarily wanting less children is to a life style that does not promote it. Other methods we could institute, such as spreading a plague, causing starvation, and engaging in war is unethical imo. We've already seen the devastating effects of them in history and there is no reason we shouldn't pursue an alternative amount...especially considering the scale it would have to be preformed on.

* Oh and second to last...no one is still really sure exactly what should be done. We should still discuss it in order to gain a better understanding and become aware, but we need to hesitate at actually controlling the population and dictating who can or can't have children.

Yup. This is why I'm conflicted about Outsourcing. It's easy to see how Outsourcing hurts people in the First World and it always appears that it's done simply to maximize Profits, but there's always the possibility that there is a higher purpose to it. That purpose, being to raise standards of living in places of the world where Population needs to be controlled. Prosperity is a proven way to slow population growth and it has the added benefit of avoiding potential conflict with the Free Choice to have children.

Of course I can't provide any proof of that, but whether intentionally planned or just a possible side benefit(assuming that eventually the same reproduction phenomena occurs in Developing nations) doesn't really matter much.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: jandrews
Well, one large problem is by having more kids people can get more benefits and free money. I am 26, dont ever want kids myself. Yet for some reason the guy who has 8 kids would get 8 1500 dollar tax credits from the government (or more). I can understand tax breaks to help families support their kids but if kids are being treated badly without the tax credit the parents are just going to spend that money elsewhere anyway. I imagine this problem will never be solved by peaceful or reasonable means. People have the opinion that they will have as many kids as they want and no one can tell them otherwise.

I think the idea of the Welfare Baby Factory is blown way out of proportion to the reality. I'm sure many examples can be found, but I'd wager that most of those isn't someone trying to make money as much as it is someone who can't afford Birth Control.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: nullzero

Originally posted by: loki8481
won't population growth just take care of itself via mass starvation?

Starvation, Disease, and War are natures way of limiting the population growth so that we won't all die. The problem is humankind has become too good at avoiding and prolonging death as of late without reducing the size of offspring. You can be sure that when resources, land, food, etc. become more scarce war will instinctually become more common.

Why is that a "problem"? There is no "natural" limit, only the limit imposed by our own ability to support ourselves. As our technology improves, that limit increases...I'm not sure what's wrong with that. And contrary to all the apocalyptic scenarios people are dreaming up, I see no reason that trend is going to reverse itself. Resources, land, food, etc are all things that have no unbreakable limit, all those things have been improved by technology over the years to support more people, I don't imagine that is going to change for quite a while now.

The problem is faith. Your assumption is that there is always a timely technological fix, a deux ex machina already there. You haven't factored in human stupidity and greed and most importantly short-sightedness.

I remember the Oil Crisis. If ever there was a red flag, it was then. Carter started some relatively small programs which Regan killed ASAP when he took over. Star Wars forever, but dealing with real problems? No way.

Now we find ourselves with dwindling oil and rising global standard of living expectations. Even if we could replace oil, it's a raw material for so many other things and that's not easily replaceable. Then we add several billion other people wanting the same standard of living. What happens to the finite resources? Where does the wood for homes come from? Well, we cut down the forrests for that already. Steel? We mined that. Plastic? We burned that in our cars.

At some point our needs will outstrip our cleverness.

We won't automatically become extinct because if there are wars for resources there will probably be survivors, and as the population falls things can be recycled, but many things are gone forever, and a scarred planet the result.

Do not rely on human wisdom to solve all problems.

I admit it takes a certain amount of trust in human wisdom, and there are certainly potential stumbling blocks, but while it might be possible that there wont' be a timely technological fix to every problem...there always has been before. THAT'S what makes this something more than just "faith", I don't see our current problems as any worse than those the human race has already overcome through innovation and wisdom. There is a tendency to think that our particular struggles are more fundamental or unique, but the truth is that our problems are not special, and there is no reason to think that they are any more insurmountable than those faced by our ancestors.

I do see your point of view, but you're missing the fact that new technology ALWAYS looks like deus ex machina when considered before it's invented, it's only in rhetrospect that it seems like a reasonable or obvious development. We went from running, to riding animals, to trains and cars, to airplanes to spaceships...do you really think at any point people were saying that the next stage in travel was clearly going to happen? Because I seem to remember that most people scoffed at the idea of anything better, a fact that is true in almost every field.

It's difficult to imagine progress before it's made, but it would be silly to conclude that progress is impossible.

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: magomago
China's child tax is becoming weaker, and I learned the other day that there are talks of removing it simply because no one thinks that if it was removed they would have another population boom in the cities(although they had to revise peak population estimates from 1.3 billion to 1.6 billlion...since we are already at 1.3 billion But to give them credit, without population controls they estimated they would have peaked at around 2.3 billion people). The life styles of the cities simply isn't conducive to having 5-6 children (Small apartments, little privacy, no economic incentive for multiplie children). The countryside can be considered another story, but even where people outright ignore the quotas of the government, they are most likely on their own without too much gov assistance in the first place.

The real "solution" needs to come through a variety of means, with these only being cherry picked as to what I can think of

*Firstly - as other posters echoed - we ALREADY in the "first world" don't have that many kids, and without our immigration our populations would be declining. Countries that have incredibly strict immigration quotas - a la Japan - are decreasing. Foxery - how do you cite a place like Tokyo? Japan already has negative population growth.

*"Modernizing" (however we should carefully define this) will decrease the population simply because the new lifestyle doesn't promote children. If you are poor, your children become economic capital such that they support you. they become the types of goods you can produce. Those with a different lifestyle have their own forms of this economic capital, and thus their incentive is about producing fewer children. This holds true especially if you are a farmer with little to no mechanization because all labor then comes from a human.

*Technology will help us. But as Hayabusa Rider pointed out , we CANNOT rely on this. To allow a fire to burn a house down, all the while saying "the firemen will come" isn't going to help if there isn't any firemen in the entire region. Technology let us leap over fears of overpopulation and mass starvation in the 1970s, but we can't necessarily rely its going to happen again. If anything, planning for current technologies that exist is what should be done. We shouldn't necessarily forecast technologies that are still in research. We can't be AMD in the late 90s computer slump who plowed forward; its better to act as intel in this type of case

*Giving aid to countries isn't necessarily going to help them NOT be hungry by filling them with more food. We assisted India in increasing ag output and guess what happened? Population boom and even MORE people are now hungry. The real solution will be to let them develop to a point that having as many children isn't the desired factor.

* we have NO right to dictate who can or can't have children. If you want to have 6 children - you have every right to have six children regardless of if you are in America or in Africa.

* Lastly - this ISN'T a short term solution by any means. The fact that the only real proven method of having people voluntarily wanting less children is to a life style that does not promote it. Other methods we could institute, such as spreading a plague, causing starvation, and engaging in war is unethical imo. We've already seen the devastating effects of them in history and there is no reason we shouldn't pursue an alternative amount...especially considering the scale it would have to be preformed on.

* Oh and second to last...no one is still really sure exactly what should be done. We should still discuss it in order to gain a better understanding and become aware, but we need to hesitate at actually controlling the population and dictating who can or can't have children.

China's one child policy is not going anywhere.

http://afp.google.com/article/...hn_Izf43LQMb7ZPxe1J5vg

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: nullzero

Starvation, Disease, and War are natures way of limiting the population growth so that we won't all die. The problem is humankind has become too good at avoiding and prolonging death as of late without reducing the size of offspring. You can be sure that when resources, land, food, etc. become more scarce war will instinctually become more common.

Doom!
Gloom!
Do you want this country to fail!
Will you celebrate?

-----------

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Anyway, are you trying to suggest that even the almighty free market economy and the human mind as the ultimate resource and chic talk about how we still have plenty of room in the U.S. can't overcome all of this? Are you just an excrement-grubbing socialist protectionist preaching doom and gloom? Don't worry, the free market will sort it all out and technological advances will save us!

That Malthus guy was full of it! (Pay no attention to the starving people in Africa.)

 

[piasabird]

The worst problem is that when nature gets to the point of creating some new disease like say bird flu, some person will get on a plane and take it to the western world. Nature's way is very indiscriminate. A good plague will kill a lot of people in overpopulated areas real fast.

 

[manowar821]

Yeah, I think so. We're kind of trained from childhood that breeding relentlessly is our way of life, and it's bull-shit. Whether it be from nationalist or fundamentalist value systems, it's all the same. We're *expected* to pop out little monsters over and over as a sort of extended Manifest Destiny, and this is most certainly not exclusive to the USA. To even dare tell someone that perhaps they should limit themselves to 1-2 kids over a lifetime is just absurd to many people.