The one child policy is a horrible, horrible thing. Leaving aside how it runs roughshod over individual liberty, it's created a demographic disaster for China. You couldn't pick a worse example to point to to support your almost literally insane position, Putin33.

I don't recall the last time China cared about individual liberty, and if you can hold the conflicting notion (you don't have to believe it to acknowledge it) that individual liberty is unimportant, the policy has plenty of merit. They need to control their population, and as an increasingly industrial country they want men, and they are trying to do both at once.

I'm not defending the policy, but from their standpoint, it makes sense in that way.

Good God, you're a dumb person. Not only did you misinterpret my post, you betray your perfect ignorance of the policy in your own.

Smeck (i think) said the family was the only institution which was good at rasing children, and in fairness the one child policy demonstrates how bad things can get when a government tries to regulate how familes reproduce, that an eugenics has a bad name for a very good reason, most people are in favour of unregulated child raising which is not turned into an exercise in the free market...

Looking at individual liberty, China did take drastic measures because it made sense to their leaders; that said there was still a lot of individual liberty, people choose their own partners (even if their parents may have some say) people choose whether to rqaise a child or not.

There have been far worse atrocities in history, look at America slave women raped by their owners, or indentured servant women of irish stock being used as breeding animals with strong african slaves... This was not government policy by any measure, but it also happened for years before a democracy was able to put a stop to it, (and largely with a civil war, at that)

China may have less regard for individual liberty, but i has good reasons to avoid ecological collapse. The collective will/needs of any nation is considered greater the individual's liberty -> this being the reason that individuals who threaten the state are executed (forfeiting the right to life, which comes before liberty). Any state needs to find some balance of rights, and China can honestly say it is doing it's best...

The one child policy has messed up the male:female ratio, but it was far from evil - and it may be better than the alternative higher population, higher poverty and worse ecological situation.

Invictus, how do you know YOUR kids will let you move in with them when you are old, that they will be at your deathbed, and all of that?

Your kids may grow up and not want anything to do with you. They may be broke. Or, with age, you might even end up hating them and who they have become. Most children don't ever truly get along with their parents.

I'm with Putin33 on this one; if we lived in any kind of remotely human society that provided a universal living wage to people, a society in which people did not have to make decisions about whether they should have children based on some kind of hedge with the future for insurance of material interests, or insurance of love out of fear of abandonment once they reach old age and are not economically useful to the establishment because we live in a Dickensian world of grotesque inequality and injustice (that would be "a bad way to go", as Invictus puts it).

I think the dog-eat-dog nature of our world and lack of real safety net actually connects directly to the very reason people may want to have kids for that insurance, but it also connects directly to the reason why your kids may grow up and not want anything to do with you. Most kids stay with their parents because they wouldn't have access to a bed and a meal unless it is at home with your biological parents or possibly legal guardian. But our gene pool is has so much variation, and the world of information is so saturated in the 21st century, that your kids may grow up to have such a radically different mindset from you that, if they had a different means of living growing up, they would go live elsewhere. (Maybe if kids could be allowed to pick different parents at a certain age, maybe a huge portion of them would opt for different parents?) I wonder what the statistics are on people who simply do not get along with their parents? Plenty of kids move away from their parents as soon as they possibly can, and would do it even earlier if they could.


The whole taking care of people in old age, it's this burden that society puts on us because we refuse to take proper care of people as a society. So when old grandpa is dying, instead of providing him with some dignity and a reasonable subsistence, we, as a society, make his family (who may not even like him) bear the entire burden.

Anyway, I believe most people are not actually consciously aware of the majority of the real reasons and influences behind their decision to have children, and a lot of those reasons would be denied even if they did arise to consciousness (peer pressure, for example).

And finally, Invictus, when you imply that people who don't have children will not have anyone to be there for them in old age, that they will probably lead a miserable existence in the end, is kind of offensive. Maybe it's something you need to say to yourself because you secretly resent all the work you put in to raising your kids and you need to believe that all the "free fun" we are having, as you put it, will ultimately be punished by a miserable death, but please don't share that view with others; just say it to yourself if you need to.

Who the hell are you to tell me what I can and can't say?!

You people who think there's something wrong with having children are sick.

You people who think China gives a shit what you think about your individual liberties are disillusioned.

"I'm with Putin33 on this one; if we lived in any kind of remotely human society that provided a universal living wage to people[....]"

How on earth can you use the words "remotely human society" to refer to a type of society that humans have never actually had, anywhere?

" (Maybe if kids could be allowed to pick different parents at a certain age, maybe a huge portion of them would opt for different parents?)"

Of course. In my experience, children have no love or gratitude at all toward their parents. Such concepts are nothing to do with the human condition. Certainly nothing to do with a "remotely human society," I see.

"The whole taking care of people in old age, it's this burden that society puts on us because we refuse to take proper care of people as a society. So when old grandpa is dying, instead of providing him with some dignity and a reasonable subsistence, we, as a society, make his family (who may not even like him) bear the entire burden."

So "dignity" to you means being cared for by a faceless state instead of the people you love whom you've spent your life with?

"Maybe it's something you need to say to yourself because you secretly resent all the work you put in to raising your kids and you need to believe that all the "free fun" we are having, as you put it, will ultimately be punished by a miserable death [...]"

Maybe, but since Invictus is single and has no kids, I'm going to guess no.

" but please don't share that view with others; just say it to yourself if you need to."

Definitely. The rest of us don't want to be perturbed in our view that love and relationships have nothing to do with human existence.

"You people who think China gives a shit what you think about your individual liberties are disillusioned."

I don't think anybody believes China cares what we think, bo. The issue, rather, is that in evaluating China as a model to follow in our ideal society, the fact that we care about individual liberties, and they run roughshod over them, is undeniably relevant.

Of course they don't. If you could read you'd understand that post separated the question of liberty from that of the the demographic implications. Rather than criticizing the policy for its oppressive interference in family dynamics I did so with regards to what it has done to China's population.

Certainly didn't let morals get in the way, Invictus. Usually I'm the one getting called out for letting morals get in the way of your precious laws. I'm just so pathetic and you're stooping to my level. Well done.

@semck ... If you're going to understand Chinese policy, you have to look at it from the standpoint of a place lacking in freedom. Because that's what it is.

You can't be this stupid, bo_sox48.

@bo,

"@semck ... If you're going to understand Chinese policy, you have to look at it from the standpoint of a place lacking in freedom. Because that's what it is. "

Do you know anything about context at all?

China wasn't brought up in a vacuum. It was brought up in response to my question about how population control should be handled in the future. This wasn't a discussion analyzing Chinese policy for the Chinese. It was a discussion about whether to use something like Chinese policy in another state.

And bo, if you're going to understand my approach to implementing the Chinese policy in a nation I'd want to live in, you're going to have to look at it from the standpoint of a person devoted to freedom. Because that's what I am.

Invictus, we're both this stupid. Fun, huh?

Chinese policy doesn't base itself on who you are. You can have opinions, we all do, but you can't rationally analyze a policy based on who you are.

" Invictus, we're both this stupid. Fun, huh?"

No, it's just you.

"Chinese policy doesn't base itself on who you are. You can have opinions, we all do, but you can't rationally analyze a policy based on who you are. "

And again, I didn't ask it to. But the kind of state I'd want to and be willing to live in does, in fact, base itself on who I am and my beliefs. Is this a difficult point?

I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

Of course you don't. Welcome to the world of rationality and THOUGHT instead of Google.

Semck, if you want to analyze the policies of the United States from the viewpoint of an American, great. If you want to analyze the policies of the Chinese from the viewpoint of an American, great. If you want to analyze the policies of the Chinese from the viewpoint of a Chinese person though, you have to actually put yourself in the shoes of a Chinese person.

"If you want to analyze the policies of the Chinese from the viewpoint of a Chinese person though, you have to actually put yourself in the shoes of a Chinese person. "

And I don't, and never did, and doing so has nothing to do with this whole thread or discussion. Which is what makes your current discussion so bizarre.

" Of course you don't. Welcome to the world of rationality and THOUGHT instead of Google."

Are you high?

All vapid nonsense.

http://whitsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Troll_Face.png

All that said, by the way -- it's completely irrelevant to where the discussion was, but Invictus's points were perfectly valid remarks even for the Chinese. Freedom does not cease to be a good merely because one happens to live in an oppressive regime, and it's pretty danged amazing that you sit here in your posh and free American life and say, "Oh, I don't need to worry about those people being oppressed -- freedom is not their context."

You do realize this is exactly the kind of reasoning that led to slavery being accepted for so long, right?

Lame.

Bo, you're a complete idiot.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v514/Benny1/what-trolls-want-you-to-believe.png

'China wasn't brought up in a vacuum. It was brought up in response to my question about how population control should be handled in the future. This wasn't a discussion analyzing Chinese policy for the Chinese. It was a discussion about whether to use something like Chinese policy in another state.'

Exactly, as smeck pointed out, there is not other system (than the 'family') which has ever worked. The Chinese example is a great one of what attempts at control behaviour can go rather badly wrong.

But then every authoritarian government which has attempted to implement any type of social order has had similar issues. Usually famine.

But we also don't want the usual opposite of 'communism'/centralised government control - ie free markets. Nobody wants to buy and sell people.

So we're left with Anarchy, mediated by the natural human tendency to love your family... (this whole economic analogy isn't being very useful)

Basically, Smeck is right and i'm wrong about artificial control of population - the only thing the Chinese example proves. (and Chinese people have lots of freedoms, and wouldn't want to lose them, they are just used to have different/less freedom than Americans might be familiar with - big deal, it's their country let them run it how they like, you wouldn't want me telling you how to implement gun control in the US...)

Ok, but 'Fecundophobia' is a real thing, then it is a example of the idea that the world is (or soon will be) overpopulated.

It is a behaviour we are seeing which likely has it's basis in this idea. And it is a form of discrimination, an attempt to coerce people's behaviour, and perhaps help deal with a potential problem - by using freedom of speech, to verbally assault people - and not taking away personal liberties, like China.

So is it better? Is it the only thing you would expect in a liberty loving country?

Interesting take, orathaic. The last question is easy -- it's certainly better than coercion!

Nevertheless, it's not what my *ideal* would be. If people oppose having more children because they're worried about overpopulation, then that is an easy thing to express and argue for, and you can do it without in any way expressing scorn for those who do have children (who, after all, most likely disagree with you about overpopulation). ("You" here being the generalized you).

Instead, we often see scorn, derision, and mocking. As with so many other issues that divide subcultures in our modern world, understanding and dialog are never even tried. People with lots of kids (or in some circles, any kids) are derided, chided, heckled, and called out by people like some in this thread as completely selfish and deluded.

Surely a more reasonable approach would be to say, "It's extremely understandable that you'd want kids -- most people have through all of history. But I think you shouldn't, for these reasons." Of course, one might say that that's really what the belittlers think, but they feel derision is a more likely tool to achieve their ends. I'm not convinced, though. I see no evidence that the derision and scorn are not real, and that really bothers and puzzles me.

Incidentally, of course, I don't share the concern about overpopulation, but the above is what I think would be a reasonable way to handle it. Thoughts, ora?

@ Octavious

http://www.civil.uwaterloo.ca/maknight/courses/CIVE240-05/week3/Pimentel(1999).pdf


This has most of the info I used.

See p. 31-32 for optimum population.

"One Child policy, work in what sense?"

Work in the sense of how it operated...

" but China is top-heavy population wise now, which is causing a separate demographic problem."

And I'm sure they'd much rather deal with that than India's uncontrolled population expansion.

"The one child policy is a horrible, horrible thing. Leaving aside how it runs roughshod over individual liberty, it's created a demographic disaster for China. "

Demographic disaster? China has limited land, water, and energy resources with which to provide for its massive population. It already has cities that routinely tell people not go outside because the air quality is too poor. What would you have done? Let the population explode uncontrollably out of some religious commitment to unregulated autonomy?

You can't simultaneously bitch about Chinese thirst for energy production and building upteen coal plants per day while yelling at them for controlling the population.

"males being 'more valuable' for economic reasons..."

Because they were an agrarian society to begin with. This likely wouldn't apply in already industrialized countries with more egalitarian notions of property rights.