Confronted By Aging Population China Allows Couples To Have Three Children
China will now allow married couples to have up to three children as the country attempts to halt a declining birthrate.
The policy is a dramatic change for a country which, less than a decayde ago, still performed forced abortions and sterilizations of women who had more than one child. The new three child limit raises the previous ceiling of two children. It is a recognition from the country's top leaders that China will need to undertake drastic measures to counter a rapidly aging society.
"Implementing the policy and its relevant supporting measures will help improve China's population structure, actively respond to the aging population, and preserve the country's human resource advantages," China's Politburo, a top Communist Party governing body, wrote in a statement published on China's state news agency Xinhua on Monday.
Only five years ago, China officially ended its One Child policy, a raft of restrictions that for more than three decades strictly limited couples to only one child. Those who had two or more children in violation of the policy were fined heavily. Pregnant women were sometimes effectively kidnapped by local family planning officials who cajoled, intimidated, or forced women to end the birth.
Also at BBC.
See also: China's new three-child policy sends baby and maternity stocks soaring
'Too much of a burden': Chinese couples react to three-child policy
Previously: China's 'Missing Girls' Theory Likely Far Overblown, Study Shows
China "Three-Child Policy" Hinted by Stamp Design?
Japan's Population Declines by 448,000; China May Reverse Childbirth Restrictions
Related Stories
It's common for media and academics to cite the statistic that China's one-child policy has led to anywhere from 30 million to 60 million "missing girls" that has created a gender imbalance in the world's most populous nation.
But a University of Kansas researcher is a co-author of a study that has found those numbers are likely overblown, and that a large number of those girls aren't missing at all—it was more of an administrative story that had to do with how births are registered at local levels in China.
"People think 30 million girls are missing from the population. That's the population of California, and they think they're just gone," said John Kennedy, a KU associate professor of political science. "Most people are using a demographic explanation to say that abortion or infanticide are the reasons they don't show up in the census, and that they don't exist. But we find there is a political explanation."
The 2010 Chinese census found the sex ratio at birth was 118 males for every 100 females. Globally the average is about 105 males to females. In 2015, Chinese state media announced all couples would be allowed to have two children, signaling the end of the controversial 35-year-old policy, but scholars and policymakers are examining how the ban could have lasting social influence in China on everything from elderly care to political stability.
China hints at three-child policy with 'happy family' stamps
Speculation is mounting in China that the country is set to further relax its two-child policy and allow people to have more children.
Postage stamps unveiled earlier this week to mark the incoming Year of the Pig in February 2019 have led many social media users to question whether a loosening of family planning restrictions could be imminent.
The stamps show a parent pig couple and three piglets. On the surface, it hardly appears to be a policy announcement. But users on the popular Sina Weibo microblog have pointed out that two years ago, before the one-child policy was abolished, China issued Year of the Monkey stamps featuring two baby monkeys.
And in recent months, the Chinese government has been strongly encouraging couples to have more than one child. Local authorities have even been offering incentives, such as tax breaks, and education and housing subsidies.
A 2015 UN report projected that China's population would decline to about 1 billion by 2100, although some experts put the number even lower.
Related: China's 'Missing Girls' Theory Likely Far Overblown, Study Shows
Japan suffers biggest natural population decline ever in 2018
Japan suffered its biggest natural population decline ever this year, government statistics show.
The fast-graying nation also posted a record-low birthrate, as the estimated number of babies born in 2018 dipped to 921,000 -- the lowest since records began in 1899 -- according to a report published Friday by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The number of newborns is estimated to have shrunk by 25,000 from 2017, and the figure remains under the 1 million mark for the third year running.
Deaths in 2018 also hit a postwar record high of 1.369 million, with a natural population decline of 448,000 -- the highest ever.
Beijing eyes two-child policy U-turn, but 'lonely generation' has moved on
For nearly 40 years, the Chinese government harshly restricted childbearing through the one-child rule in order to control population growth. That may soon change. Beijing appears to be on the cusp of abolishing all of its family planning rules — and is even encouraging young couples to have more children as a matter of patriotic urgency.
But attitudes toward parenthood have changed. Even though there is a two-child policy in place now, many Chinese still don't want to have more than one child — or any at all. "I think having one child is enough," said Chen Yiwen, a 25-year-old accountant and newlywed. "I won't be tempted to have more — even if the family planning policy is abolished." [...] "Besides, we already have two little babies — a poodle and a corgi," she said.
Related (JP): Japan Has Aged Out of its Economic Miracle
Toyota's $392 Robot Baby for Japanese People Without Companions
Gatebox: Your New Holographic AI Assistant "Waifu"
Japan's Fertility Crisis is Creating Economic and Social Woes Never Seen Before
Japan Has 1.48 Jobs for Every Applicant
Why a Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death
Related (CN): China's 'Missing Girls' Theory Likely Far Overblown, Study Shows
China "Three-Child Policy" Hinted by Stamp Design?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:14AM (2 children)
You will have as many children as we allow.
You shall be impregnated.
Fuck China. Fuck CCP. Fuck Han Chinese.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:54AM (1 child)
I don't think its correct to attack the Han peoples. Han is made up of a multitude of subgroups differentiated by region and language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese), among those are the Wu and the Cantonese who were some of the key groups in the establishment of the Republic of China.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:08AM
Who cares. It's called war propaganda. The USA won't get through the hangover after its latest economic punch bowl bender without WW3. Nuclear apocalypse, here we come.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:25AM (1 child)
Fuck Jackie Chan, cocksucking bootlicker.
Chow yun-fat is my man.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:52AM
50 cents army at it again.
Chow yun-fat, you the man.
Amitahb Backhan, often compared with you, got nothing on you.
History will remember and honor you.
Unlike that cocksucker Jackie Chan - bootlicking scum.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:34AM (2 children)
That's a heck of a load for a stork to carry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:41AM
The Han Chinese ate all the storks, there are no storks in China no mo.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday June 01 2021, @02:02AM
They're using bats now. Bats from the Wuhan area.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:39AM (4 children)
They could have kept the 1-child policy, but offered waivers to smart women. Get above 110 on an IQ test, and you can have 2 kids. IQ 120 means 3, IQ 130 means unlimited.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:45AM (1 child)
He Jiankui showed them the way to do eugenics. Just create 1000 IQ children two at a time.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @02:01AM
What about bears of very little brains? [babylonbee.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:55AM
Easier to just only have rich kids in the big cities take IQ tests so they can boast on the world stage about their scores
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @07:21AM
Ha ha he thinks they want smart women.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:49AM
with weapons of mass reproduction
It's war! [dailymail.co.uk]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @03:45AM (2 children)
Niggers, kikes, towelheads, wetbacks, chinks, dune coons, pajeets, japs, pakis, gooks, injuns, and all other darkies hate America. That's why I hate all darkies. My hate is strong and I'm damned proud of it. In fact, my hate is getting stronger as I talk to you people. However, I'm not racist and there's nothing racist about my post. I don't hate darkies because I'm racist, only because darkies hate America. The left will try to label me as a racist but that's because they also hate America.
Climate change will destroy the Earth. Overpopulation will cause more carbon emissions and heat the Earth even more, leading to more disease, famine, and mass extinctions. Overpopulation isn't being driven by humans, but by chinks, niggers, pajeets, wetbacks. Notice which countries have rapidly expanding populations and which ones don't. Chinks are vectors for disease, eating disease-infested animals, then spreading the disease globally.
Chinks should have more abortions and forced sterilizations, not less. Three children per chink couple is three children too many. Earth cannot support the chink and pajeet populations but the left is happy to let them continue to keep dumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere in the Paris climate agreement. We need drugs to cause sterilization and to covertly add them to the water in every chink city. When we show that they're effective at preventing chink overpopulation, we can move on to pajeets and niggers.
The left will whine about my post and attack me, but that's because they're the true racists and sexists. I am a strong independent woman who thinks for herself and does not blindly follow leftist propaganda.
Melissa
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @04:41AM
Shhhh, I'm covertly sterilizing darkies. Don't tell anyone.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:01AM
yep, off to a very effective start with convincing me this post is worth reading
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @04:54AM (35 children)
Almost three years they tell the rest of China what they had already decided.
My take on this is that if the Chinese government pays attention to the economy and women's empowerment, they won't have to devote resources to caring or policing how many kids are born.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:23AM (24 children)
"Women's empowerment." Empowered to live as men, and therefore not act as women and have babies.
It is maladaptive in Darwinian terms for women to think and live as men. Men and women are COMPLEMENTARY, not the SAME, or EQUAL, as the dullards call it.
Feminism is a dead end.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:24AM (15 children)
Now explain why "Darwinian terms" are relevant here.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:55AM (14 children)
Difference AC here but his argument is obvious. Women who adopt the lifestyles of men will disproportionately fail to reproduce, which means they will be eliminated from the gene pool.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:00AM (13 children)
Now, why should that happen? We aren't in an evolutionary regime now. Things are changing far faster than evolution can affect.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:14PM (4 children)
Not true. People who choose the non or very low reproductive lifestyle will be replaced by those who don't. Bye bye white people, hello Middle Eastern Muslims and Nigerians. Because of immigration, this is what is already well underway. The anti-white racism we see now is the result of other races being numerous enough now that they can make a play for taking over, or at least be used by the Democrats as their "power base" since they have given up on white middle class Americans.
You can't beat Darwin if you don't reproduce.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @03:35PM
Unless they don't. A high reproductive lifestyle doesn't mean your kids survive or that they'll choose a high reproductive lifestyle themselves.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:13PM (2 children)
What will they do when they run out of white people's money? Turn the whole country into Detroit?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @01:01AM
You should google the Tulsa race massacre you bigoted dumbshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @07:26AM
Let's ask the welfare States what they do when they run out of money. Yep, all those go-it-alone tough guy States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @02:22PM (5 children)
Because having children is already brutal on your career. And actually caring for your child is enough to kill it. Breast feeding a squeeling child is generally not going to be conducive to doing much else, certainly not doing it well.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @04:30PM
Oh look. Widespread pressure against having lots of kids. Who knew?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @04:33PM (3 children)
Oh bullshit. You can take a year off to take care of your baby and after that there is daycare.
You do not have to cancel your career as a woman if you don't want to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @07:14PM (2 children)
Having 1 child is not sustainable. On average each couple needs to have more than 2 children, and that is the bare minimum for population stability. And the 9 months leading up to the birth result in an incremental "handicap" on a woman's performance.
And having a kid isn't like having a dog. Just tossing your kids in daycare from the earliest possible age and giving them the bottle is not only going to result in a likely maldevelopment, but not even beginning to tackle the issues you will face. They, like you, will invariably have little issues and problems that you will want to sort out. You will actually want to raise them to try to create whatever you envision as a good human being. Memories and development start from an extremely young age. And them becoming sleep terrorists starts even earlier...
Trying to climb the corporate ladder and be a mother at the same time is generally just going to result in you doing a horrible job at both. So we increasingly have women pursuing the corporate life convincing themselves that they'll just have their children a bit later in life. But that later never comes. And so we're building this world where in about 40 years we're going to increasingly have just the explosion of lonely isolated individuals with no family. And we can see it coming decades away because it's inescable if we don't change our trajectory, yet we continue to inch towards it day by day undeterred by reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @10:33PM
I am the husband in my family and have 3 kids. The first were twins. So my wife took a break from work twice. She has not suffered at her job because of this. Mind you, she is not "climbing a corporate ladder", and in fact, most people don't. Most people don't get very high up a "ladder", and that's OK, and many jobs are not "corporate." If you PRIORITIZE having children, you make it happen. We saved up enough money so she could take an extended break. As for daycare, there is "corporate" daycare (big setting, many kids, employees who may not care much), and there is personalized daycare that is small sized and run out of a woman's home. You do the best you can by avoiding the first. The kids will be alright. Kids are resilient with good parents.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 02 2021, @03:55AM
Well, these lonely isolated individuals are grown ups, right? And there will be a bunch of them, right? Let's let them solve this. In a democracy, it's greatly empowering for people to solve their own problems rather than for some busy-bodies to decide what they need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @11:22PM (1 child)
Evolution is not a natural force, it's the process by which speciation occurs. Evolution happens quickly when changes are rapid and extreme, and it's slow when the change is slow. Selection never stops, not even for the unmatched human who ego.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 02 2021, @03:45AM
Bottom line is that the minimum unit of change is the generation. You can't evolve faster than the next generation reproduces. For humans that's roughly two decades. A lot happens in two decades these days.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:59AM (7 children)
So if "men and women aren't equal", as you say, are women greater, or lesser, than men?
I think this heavily relies on what your definition of "feminism" is, and how much it aligns with reality.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:01AM
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:07AM (3 children)
Everyone is different. When someone says two things are complementary and you ask which which is better, you are a piece of shit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:11AM
Which is better, male shit, or female shit?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 01 2021, @03:24PM (1 child)
It was half a math joke.
You can be different while still being "equal." Equal rights, equal respect, etc.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @10:39PM
Wrong room.
See, you begin with "These two Trump supporters walked into a manhole..." and you think you're on the way to a punchline they'd like, but then somebody would say "manhole" is sexist, and then somebody else would say you're racist, then you give up and compare male shit to female shit, like I did. That goes nowhere, so you drag out a 20-year-old Simpsons quote, and give up entirely.
Thanks for trying, though.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:09AM (1 child)
Lenny : If you ask me, Muhammad Ali, in his prime, was much better than anti-lock brakes.
Carl : Yeah, but what about Johnny Mathis versus Diet Pepsi?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @08:36AM
9/10 kids can't tell the difference.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:47AM (9 children)
Errr, wat?
I do believe we should aim for 100% equality of opportunity, but focusing on "women's empowerment", at least in the contemporary western vernacular, has been going in the opposite direction. In many western nations, including the United States, a woman who chooses to dedicate her life to raising a great family is now seen as increasingly quaint, and is seen as something rather less than mindless toiling til you final days as a corporate pawn. And, shockingly enough, the organizations that own and control our media in the United States are these same corporations pushing this agenda.
The reason there is a demographic crisis in much of the Western world is largely because we've gone down this route of elevating corporate life over personal. And so there has been a rather extreme shift in fertility rates in all of the worst ways. Houses that are:
- highly educated, higher income, more secular, more liberal => far below replacement rates of fertility
- low educated, low income, more religious, less liberal => far above replacement rates of fertility
And this applies domestically as much as it does internationally. The intro to Idiocracy [youtube.com] has gradually become something of a documentary of what's happening to humanity.
The future of tomorrow will be decided by many factors, but one of the largest will simply be who's alive. Views and values do shift between generations, but in general people tend to still adapt to the values of the households in which they were born. If everybody pushing for nominally liberal agendas dies out for failure to effectively reproduce, you're going to be left only with the people who have 'taken another path.' And as much as I despise the former group for their myopia, I fall even further from the latter group. The Western World is collapsing, and China knows this. And I think most people know this, even if they're in denial. And I think pinpointing some of the reasons is relatively easy. And the whole mindset of corporate > all, including even family, is one major factor.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:56AM (6 children)
So we allegedly is a demographic crisis because the wrong people are multiplying. Where are those people coming from? Answer: the great majority come or recently descended from the developing world. Hence, the real demographic crisis is in the developing world. And it's getting fixed. Human fertility dropped globally. We got this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:19AM (5 children)
No, it's because the "right people" aren't multiplying. When people are reproducing below sustainable levels, it means they will gradually go extinct - the status quo of the rest of the world is irrelevant.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:02PM (4 children)
How long will that take again? You speak of things that take many generations to occur. A lot of non-evolutionary change will happen between now and then. My take is that we're already moving to solving most of the big problems of a poor Earth such as overpopulation, poverty, war, pollution, injustice and corruption, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @07:52PM (3 children)
I'm not one to mock genuinely held views and values, but suffice to say we've a pretty different worldview then.
In general we're reaching an inflection point in the world. Since WW2, and arguably well before it, the United States has been the defacto world leader largely due to our economic prowess. Even our military is little more than a reflection of our economy. Today China already [wikipedia.org] dwarfs our economy and they're projected to continue to accelerate upward. India is also not far behind. Soon, China will have a larger economy than the US and EU combined. And India will be nipping at their heels. The point of this all is that roles are changing.
The issue is that countries that have been on top decades, if not centuries, don't generally just go gentle into that good night. If you haven't noticed what's happening, it's looking like we're headed into a conflict with China. Overt conflict between large, developed, nuclear powers is something that hasn't happened since the Cold War. And if we're stupid enough to actually make this a "hot" war, then it's something that's never happened.
I love being alive at the time we're at because I just find the world interesting as can be. If I could pick a time to experience in history, whatever's happening right now would certainly be way up on the list. However, I expect the big problems are just beginning. Worrying about the coastlines moving inland, in a century, will seem like a quaint affair if things head towards where it looks like they are.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 01 2021, @09:57PM (2 children)
Or somebody else is that stupid - you mention plenty of other parties. What's missing from this analysis is that the weird tricks that the US used to get ahead still work. Bringing in hard workers via immigration, and getting out of the way of the people and economy both still work. That's two areas where most of the other significant players in the world, including China, the EU, and India are all weak.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @01:44PM (1 child)
It wasn't about "hard workers", immigration or anything like that. It was about a dramatic technological advantage. When a US worker could produce 50 times as efficiently as a Chinese worker, it didn't matter that China had 4x as many workers. Now that technology is starting to equalize, if not only because the exponential growth pattern has started to slow down, population is becoming the main variable. And 340 million people aren't going to compete against 1.4 billion.
To say nothing of the fact that it seems like we've severely damaged the state of our labor market with a year of economic hari-kari followed by printing money like it was going out of fashion.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 02 2021, @11:06PM
Actually, they'll compete just fine. A factor of four is not that significant a difference. Especially since it'll likely shrink over the course of the century.
That sort of thing is the real problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:19AM (1 child)
It is quaint indeed to think that all there is in life is getting hitched to some creepy Christian mullah and having 15 kids with him. Hallelujah derpa llama Jeebus amen!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @02:18PM
Think, for once. The whole issue here is precisely because people are playing into idiotic stereotypes. The goal is not to have extremes but a balance. The reason is that somebody who works themselves to death as a corporate pawn today may feel "empowered" because they can go buy useless crap, but ask anybody over the age of perhaps 40 or so what happens to "friends" as the years and decades pass on by. The "empowered peoples" of today will be tomorrow's Kudokushi [wikipedia.org].
The worst part about this is that you can see it all coming from literally decades away, but it's like obesity - Americans, in particular, have become so unable to control themselves, and so prone to lying to themselves, that even if it's imminently approaching, and could be easily reversed, it will nonetheless almost certainly come to pass. Instead all you need to do is to strike a balance between Kudokushi and going full Sharia Law. Somebody who is working and raising a family will never do an especially great job of either, but if people insist on going corporate - then it's vastly better than the alternative of going full corporate. Because, you never go full corporate.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:29AM (3 children)
... hundreds of thousands of chinese families suddenly have an extra child
...while many of these children appear to be five to ten or more years old they are being declared under the new three child policy as infants
...news at 11
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:51AM
Hahah, it will be interesting to see how/if this applies retroactively. I live in a nation near China, and have worked with a large number of Chinese who moved in no small part because they wanted (or ended up) having more than 1 or 2 children, depending on the timeframe of their leaving. They generally would have preferred to stay in China, but valued their family more than their residency. There's no doubt a fair number of Chinese will soon be repatriated.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:23AM (1 child)
Just about the right age to start working in CCP factories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @09:41AM
Comrade, the socialist revolution protects the innocent children from the abuses of the bourgeoisie.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:10AM (5 children)
China had population growth with the one-child policy so they bumped it up to two, yet the vast majority didn't have any more kids. Nothing magical about bumping it up to three will suddenly make people have a second. Between the poverty and pollution in the rural parts, and the drive for "fulfilling" careers in the cities, young people just don't want to bother with kids.
Population growth (with the exception of immigration) is projected to fall pretty much everywhere except for Africa by 2100 for all sorts of different reasons.
Looks more and more like the rat utopia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink [wikipedia.org]
https://demystifyingscience.com/blog/2020/7/22/rat-dystopia [demystifyingscience.com]
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:32AM (4 children)
There's actually something quite interesting here. Keeping this real short, most people don't realize that Iran also had a major fertility reduction program [wikipedia.org] in place. And it was also extremely successful. About the time that Europe started saying "come on over" to the Mideast, they tried to roll back their program and get the fertility kicking back into gear. It's shown some progress, but it's been extremely slow going. And there's no easy explanation for this. Generally the same is also true of China. China has industrialized rapidly, yet a large chunk of the country (around 40% last I checked) remains the exact same rural places that at one time were kicking along with fertility rates of 6+.
I feel in many ways that we may have just pulled a "Great Leap Forward" on a global scale. In the late 50s, Mao observed in China that sparrows were constantly eating grain which was leading to largely reduced harvests. And so Mao dictated we should simply kill all the sparrows. And the program was largely successful. Of course, those sparrows, which indeed were eating plentiful grain, were eating even more insects. And those insects now lacking a natural predator bloomed in size. And Chinese grain production plummeted to critical levels, contributing to a famine that would kill tens of millions of Chinese. He, then, decided to stop pushing for sparrow annihilation.
Unforeseen consequences.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @10:52AM (3 children)
Yes, there is. It's economics. And that parents want a better world for their children.
The funniest thing is these scary headlines. You know, the world is not about to run out of the Chinese or the Americans or the Japanese or anyone else. Fewer kids today simply means a little bit more space for the next generations. From population bombs to demographic crises, how about a big fuck you to these idiots that come up with these pointless headlines.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @01:20PM (1 child)
No. It's because having children in a highly industrialized society is an expensive financial burden. The family has also been discarded as the fundamental unit of society in favor of the atomized individual. Women have been told a "career" and self-actualization should be their goal, so many don't even get serious about finding a husband until their peak fertility years are mostly over.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @09:45AM
Oooh you make it sound so romantic. I'll breed with you in 30 minutes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @02:09PM
Yeah man, Iran rocking that $8k/year GDP (a whopping $13k in parity adjusted) is just causing dramatic change...
At least test your hypothesis in the most obvious way before blathering or you're just wasting your time and, more importantly, mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @02:22PM (1 child)
Where we don't have to limit population with rules, population is limited as each couple decides:
'OMG we just cannot afford child right now' or 'career-wise, right now is not a good time for a child'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @04:27PM
These sound like good reasons if children are not your main priority. On the other hand, if children ARE a top priority, you make it work rather than come up with excuses because let's face it, it's never "the best" time to have children.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @03:20PM (2 children)
everyone can make babies but only HALF can have them.
same rights for ALL!
"pi" cannot honestly be a integer, no matter the law.
big talk, leather jacket and a motorcycle still makes every "pi" nice and round again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @11:31PM (1 child)
Pi can be an integer, we just have to count in base-pi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @09:47AM
Savage! I use base sqrt(pi).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DutchUncle on Tuesday June 01 2021, @05:27PM (5 children)
My son and his friends and colleagues are all asked by their parents (and other elders) when they're going to have kids. Their reply is always "Are you going to pay the expenses?" Their rent is 4 to 8x what ours was, their income isn't. We all thought society would work better by now (yes, 2016 demonstrated that there are a lot of reactionary people around, which is why it doesn't).
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 01 2021, @06:16PM (3 children)
Slow economic collapse.
My grandparents generation owned vacation homes. Kids these days will never own houses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @01:06AM (1 child)
Thanks to conservative policies that glorified privatization and profits over lives. Top marks for you racist fucks, ruining everything everywhere for the sake of a few old rich fucks.
Will you lot get woke before we go broke?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @02:11PM
I sometimes wish I could share with people what I know in an instant, because you might see the world in such a different way. Though presumably you think the same of me?
The housing market crash killed the middle and lower class in America. It's been blamed on banks, hedge funds, and all sorts of stuff. But I think relatively few people know exactly what caused it. Banks like to lend to people who are likely to pay back the loan. But this poses a problem, in terms of social issues, because certain minority groups tend to default on loans at a disproportionately high rate. And so banks did not tend to loan frequently to these individuals - not because of their race, but because of the economic status, credit rating, and so on. Activists claimed this was racist, and tried to rectify the situation. And they were successful.
This is where government-sponsored-enterprises get involved in the show, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in particular. These organizations, which were privately owned but government directed, helped enable unqualified individuals obtain loans. The way this worked is that they would buy loans from banks and then sell these loans to investors. Since the loans were backed by both the government and real assets (houses), they were seen as sound investments even though the actual individuals who the loans were offered to were considered high-risk.
This was successful at first, and so the government became more and more enthusiastic about this program and began imposing quotas on banks to make an ever larger percent of their their loans to higher risk individuals. And so they began to lending to less and less qualified individuals. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in turn, were also lowering their standards for buying the loans to also enable this to happen. And so what happened was very predictable. By giving everybody effectively unlimited lending potential, home prices started to soar. Remember those "house flipping shows" where 'I bought this house, installed granite counter tops, and made a $20k profit!'? This is where and how that all came from.
And then, at some point, the bubble burst. The high risk individuals, who banks would not have otherwise lent to, started to regularly default on their loans. And so there was a surge of houses on the market, and housing prices started plummeting. Suddenly the fact that the bad loans were backed by assets were meaningless, because the assets had dramatically devalued. And now all of the securities built on top of these assets also started to tumble. And suddenly the entire economy, like a house of cards, started coming down.
---
You might think we learned from this, but we didn't. We did literally the exact same thing with student loans. By guaranteeing loans, we removed all negatives to reckless lending. And so university costs predictably skyrocketed. And now we live in a world where people are going hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for low-tier educations that will likely do little but leave them permanently in debt. The reason that our parent's parents paid off university with a summer job (and then had enough for a housing downpayment on the side) is precisely because there was no effort to try to create a "more equal" market. But as we try to create more equal markets we invariably just end up breaking everything.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @09:51AM
Yeah but they have a fridge and a TV. Which would you rather have? A vacation home in the mountains with fresh air, a running stream and a wood stove every night - plus free no-commit BJs from the neighbor's wife. Or a fridge.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 01 2021, @10:36PM
Either kids are a priority or they are not. If they are, you make it happen. Perhaps that means some economic sacrifice.