I hate the Chinese method of population control, but are they right?

[Lancer]

Can your country feed itself? If not, what do you think will happen when the countries that export food to yours can no longer do so? Sooner or later the populations of supplier nations are going to increase to wipe out their surplus. When they do those countries importing food are going to go hungry. As I see it, the only country facing up to its population problem is China. Their methods are harsh and the excesses within the system are horrifying, but maybe they'll be able to avoid an even more horrifying die off from starvation.

Anyway, I've changed my view on the Chinese population control issue recently, not because I like it any more but because the alternative seems worse.

Well?

Also...anyone... has Colon been around recently? Is he still planning a trip to the US?

[Sandman]

I thought that they were relaxing the policy, due to the rise of the 'little emperors'.

[Kepler]

It's practical, but that doesn't make it right. It's right to encourage people to have fewer kids in non-punitive ways (e.g., education, women's equality, absolutely free birth conrol, opportunity for young people).

[Lancer]

Little emperors?

little help?

[nationalist]

No. Government has a right to determine how many children you have. That is a fundamental, natural right shared by all living things. Besides, overpopulation is not a problem in the U.S. I think that the reason it is a problem world wide is due mostly to poor government rather than sheer number of people. A country can't feed itself if its agriculture is destroyed yearly by civil war.

[Lancer]

Being practical doesn't make it wrong either Kepler. In the Philippines, where I was until recently, families are still having lots of kids,eight,nine not unusual. In poor countries having lots of kids is looked on as insurance for you later years. The country is family oriented and kids look after their parents...

It's a hard system to break with education and condoms, because it has worked for countless generations and still does. The education will get nods and smiles and then thrown out as being nonsensical, the condoms will just get thrown out. The old people who are really hurting in that culture are the ones without kids.

I can't see a voluntary system working.

[Lancer]

nationalist, Japan, Holland, France, Germany,...none of these can feed themselves.

[Krayzeenbk]

If you take a well-educated population from a pretty well developed nation and remove all sense of economic security from it, the population will decrease

Just look at Russia

1.27 children per woman

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

(as opposed to the U.S., where there is economic security - at least when compared to Russia)
2.06 children per woman

[Kepler]

Originally posted by Lancer
Being practical doesn't make it wrong either Kepler. In the Philippines, where I was until recently, families are still having lots of kids,eight,nine not unusual. In poor countries having lots of kids is looked on as insurance for you later years. The country is family oriented and kids look after their parents...

It's a hard system to break with education and condoms, because it has worked for countless generations and still does. The education will get nods and smiles and then thrown out as being nonsensical, the condoms will just get thrown out. The old people who are really hurting in that culture are the ones without kids.

I can't see a voluntary system working.

But at the same time, being impractical doesn't make a voluntary system wrong.

I would oppose giving the state the right to say "it is illegal to have more kids" and the power to enforce it.

Let's take the converse. Say a country has a labor-intensive agricultural economy and a severe population shortage. Can the state order it's female population to become impregnated and carry to term or face punitive action?

To me, both cases amount to state invasion of privacy. People must either do the right thing of their own free will or deal with the natural consequences. That's a human right (IMHO).

[nationalist]

Lancer, those countries aren't starving either. My comment on feeding itself was geared more to African countires. The countires that you mentioned do fit into my ideas, however. They have governments and economies stable enough to procure food by other means, i.e. international trade. African warlords intercept food imports before they can reach the market or the people.

[Lancer]

Kepler, the premise doesn't apply. The Chinese system might eventually prevent a famine. If it does it could be considered humane...in comparison. Kind of like nuking Japan in WW2. Nasty business but it prevented an even more costly invasion...maybe. Anyway, I just use that for comparison, I don't want to discuss it or even dwell on such horrors.

Forcing people to have kids is totally different. Consider an evacuation from an area about to flood. Authorities know that some people will die while moving them out of the way, sick, elderly...yet the move them, they force them out. Some do die in the move, but many are saved from the flood. The business of government is to protect the people. The Chinese always think in terms of hundreds of years...they are protecting their people from the coming famine.

nationalist, you should reread the opening post. I'm considering not only those countries that are starving, but those that will be when they can no longer import food. Sooner or later food exporting countries will consume their surplus...what then?

[Az]

oh , we're far from that . Don't forget Lancer that our farmers are destroying lots of produce to keep prices up.

[Ecthy]

Good point, Dalgetti

We were amazed when our economics teacher told us about how prices get together in different kinds of markets, at least when it came to stock / auction markets.

Same for export goods like coffee or fruits, btw. (OK, fruits are food, too )

[Az]

Btw, Israel imports only grains.

[Lancer]

Dalgetti, Ect, sure, there's lots of extra food now. The population of the US is only around 300 million and we can feed many more, and do. Also, as you say we destroy food to keep prices up. Consider however, that when I was a kid I heard the US population was 154 million. I'm 42 now and we're pushing 300 million. It'sd been 30 years, sure. However if the trend continues there will be 600 million by 2030, 1 billion, 200 million by 2060.

Now I know the trend is not continueing at the same rate, but who knows what effect illegal immigration will have as it icreases as it has every year...

Even if the population of the US is a billion by lets say, 2070, how are we going to feed ourselves AND the rest of the world too?

The curve of available food must meet increasing population someday, and I'd say someday soon. Within the lifetimes of some of the younger posters here perhaps.

...except in China of course.