[DesuMaiden]

It might sound draconian, but I think it is necessary. You can't keep on increasing population in a country that is already overpopulated. China is already severely overpopulated. You can't double its population again. So it put a halt to population growth in China. I think that's a good thing.

I think the whole world needs something like that. A policy that limits how many people can be born. A two-child policy perhaps? No more than two children per family and per women...yeah it might sound draconian, but we need to stop infinite population growth. That's because as a species we are doomed if we keep on increasing population.

[vtsnowedin]

It has been in force sense 1979 and without it there would be 250 million more Chinese. So without it China would be in much worse shape then it is today. It is too late for other overcrowded countries to adopt it now. They need a zero child policy for a decade or more. Of course religious and ethnic realities will keep that from happening so war, famine and plagues are in store for the near future.

[DesuMaiden]

It has been in force sense 1979 and without it there would be 250 million more Chinese. So without it China would be in much worse shape then it is today. It is too late for other overcrowded countries to adopt it now. They need a zero child policy for a decade or more. Of course religious and ethnic realities will keep that from happening so war, famine and plagues are in store for the near future.

lol a zero child policy. I hope that doesn't mean they become extinct. But either way the countries in Africa are having far too many kids. Africa seriously needs population control. The African continent only has 1 point something billion people, but by the end of this century, Africa is predicted to have 4 billion people. Clearly a 2, 3 or even 4% population growth rate per year is not sustainable.

[careinke]

With a zero child policy, the population starts declining immediately, or at least within seconds. If I were Dog, I would make women sterile after their first child. Then I would re-evaluate after the population receded to less than a billion.

[vtsnowedin]

With a zero child policy, the population starts declining immediately, or at least within seconds. If I were Dog, I would make women sterile after their first child. Then I would re-evaluate after the population receded to less than a billion.

No it would take at least nine months as there are always some buns in the oven. Your talking 100 percent compliance and I expect that will be hard to achieve. Even if you could do 100 percent and after nine months the death rate was the only factor it would take a lone time to get back to one billion. I don't know as that is fast enough to save the ecosystem.

[DesuMaiden]

With a zero child policy, the population starts declining immediately, or at least within seconds. If I were Dog, I would make women sterile after their first child. Then I would re-evaluate after the population receded to less than a billion.

Only if the world population is under 1 billion can we enjoy higher standards of living around the world. You can't have a huge population and everyone enjoying a very high standard of living. That's impossible because the Earth only has limited amounts of resources. For example, there is no way every family in the world can own a computer because there isn't enough rare earth minerals (REM) to make that many computers. The same goes with cars. There is no way every family can own a car because there isn't enough oil to make that many cars. You have to live within the limits of what the Earth can provide and have a stable population that doesn't grow.

[SeaGypsy]

It might sound draconian, but I think it is necessary. You can't keep on increasing population in a country that is already overpopulated. China is already severely overpopulated. You can't double its population again. So it put a halt to population growth in China. I think that's a good thing..

Actually it didn't halt population growth. Since implementation was never absolute & many rural regions had exemptions, the policy certainly reduced population growth, but had a complete implementation occurred the result would have been reduction of population, negative growth. The reality is that the policy as implemented roughly reduced population growth from close to 2% per annum to about half of 1%, so roughly by 2/3rds. The policy has now broadly been loosened further as the economic growth has overtaken population growth to an extent threatening labour supply in the long term. Millions of SE Asians are now migrating to China for work, with wages tiny by western standards but roughly double those in average ASEAN countries.

[DesuMaiden]

It might sound draconian, but I think it is necessary. You can't keep on increasing population in a country that is already overpopulated. China is already severely overpopulated. You can't double its population again. So it put a halt to population growth in China. I think that's a good thing..

Actually it didn't halt population growth. Since implementation was never absolute & many rural regions had exemptions, the policy certainly reduced population growth, but had a complete implementation occurred the result would have been reduction of population, negative growth. The reality is that the policy as implemented roughly reduced population growth from close to 2% per annum to about half of 1%, so roughly by 2/3rds. The policy has now broadly been loosened further as the economic growth has overtaken population growth to an extent threatening labour supply in the long term. Millions of SE Asians are now migrating to China for work, with wages tiny by western standards but roughly double those in average ASEAN countries.

That's correct.

[SilentRunning]

I think China's 1 child policy should be continued, and expanded to the entire planet.

[DesuMaiden]

I think China's 1 child policy should be continued, and expanded to the entire planet.

I agree. It is absurd to have infinite population growth on a finite planet.

[dashster]

I would like to see a calculation of how many children each couple did have on average. As someone said, it looks to have been above 1.

It is a shame that the world's most populated country is the only one that has taken steps to curb population growth. The United States - the third most populated country - still sees population growth as part of the solution, a way to make things better. Although it might not be correct to say that everyone thinks it makes the country better. A lot of people will say something that suggests that they think that because there was immigration, and that since people and their descendants have benefited from it, it must always continue.

[DesuMaiden]

I would like to see a calculation of how many children each couple did have on average. As someone said, it looks to have been above 1.

It is a shame that the world's most populated country is the only one that has taken steps to curb population growth. The United States - the third most populated country - still sees population growth as part of the solution, a way to make things better. Although it might not be correct to say that everyone thinks it makes the country better. A lot of people will say something that suggests that they think that because there was immigration, and that since people and their descendants have benefited from it, it must always continue.

To believe that population growth is a good thing is stupid. The Earth's resources are finite, and there is only a fixed amount.. The moment you increase population the less resources each person gets. That's because you need to divide the finite resources amongst more people. If you want your country to be rich, you don't have any population growth at all because the more people there are the poorer your country will become. You can't have more and more people and expect higher standards of living because the Earth only has finite resources.

[frankthetank]

but but but...don't you run into a demographic time bomb in that scenario? A country full of senior citizens? Right now China has lot of good working age people to build the rail lines, the trains, the American plastic trinkets...but in 20 years? 30? they'll be old and useless (j/k!) ... no but...they won't be spring chickens anymore. Someone how you have to figure out a good number and balance the birth/death rate. You just can't stop having kids for 10 years.

It doesn't matter because 6 billion and declining oil is going to lead to huge problems... I'd guess die off comes once we hit some number of oil production. Whatever is left will get used by military/police/1%...scraps to the minions. Might not need a 1 child policy when that comes, because nobody will be able to afford (feed) a kid.

[vtsnowedin]

You can get to an age distribution pyramid that is shaped like a rocket ship and has an even number of people of all ages prior to the elderly years.
The trouble is right now there are two billion people in the world that are under twenty and could easily have four billion children in the next twenty years.
www.prb.org/presentations/g_age-distribution.ppt

[Tanada]

Science Fiction authors came up with the fairest solution to population stability I have ever heard about many decades ago. Everyone has a birthright to provide a genetic descendent to replace themselves, but to use your birthright you have to get permission from whomever runs the population replacement system. Each year the replacement program issues permits equal to the number of deaths in the preceding year to keep things in perpetual balance. If the goal is to reduce world population that you use the easy and mostly painless practice of permits being lower than the death rate by 1 to 5 percent to prevent a massive demographic transition problem. If you get a permit but do not wish to have a child you may sell the permit on the open market for as much as someone else is willing to pay you.

During Hunter Gatherer times having a child was culturally frowned upon unless your group was able to provide the support necessary. If you became pregnant without cultural approval there might not be enough food to take care of you during the last few weeks of gestation and first couple weeks after delivery when you were weakest and least able to help provide your own support. It wasn't about being cruel or unfair, it was about survival of the entire tribal clan group. Sadly we have so filled the Earth with our petroleum based agriculture we will soon find ourselves in the same situation.

I have said before in various ways that China made a mistake with the 1 child policy because it was not universally enforced and where it was enforced it created a terrible demographic distortion that will continue causing problems for many years to come. If they had adopted a zero population growth policy balancing birth rate to the death rate they would have eliminated the distortion and come out way ahead. They also could have proven the system is valid, fair and workable. Instead they chose a very poorly thought out system that is causing all sorts of problems today.

[ROCKMAN]

"I would make women sterile after their first child." Actually it would be much cheaper and more effective if we castrated the majority of men. We wouldn’t touch the best of the gene pool...like engineers and geologists. Especially geologists. LOL.

To be more exact China doesn't have a "one child" policy. They have a "one boy child" policy. Due to their culture the Chinese have a severe preference of male children. BTW there are tens of millions of men who will never marry because they’ve screwed up their gender demographics. The Chinese actually have a slang expression for them that translates as “barren branches”. This pool of men is a prime source for military recruitment. As a result there are millions of baby girls abandoned every year. Of course, it’s illegal to abandon a baby in China. Just like it’s illegal to drive above the speed limit in the US. And both are still very common. Every morning of every day thousands of girl babies are left in front of govt building in China. The govt then ships them off to huge facilities to care for them. And I use the term “care” loosely.

But China being practical has turned the situation into a revenue stream by adopting out the girls to foreign families. Which is how I came to ”buy” my daughter 14 years ago. The system actually works out well for US citizens over 40 that want to adopt. For some strange reason US adoption agencies were very hesitant to deal with folks over 40. OTOH the Chinese would only adopt out to folks who were 35 yo or older. And private adoptions are very expensive for us old farts. At the time the fee for adopting my daughter was as little as 10% of what a private adoption would have cost. And that include a 10 day “vacation” in China. Years ago there was a TV show set in the LA airport. In one scene a worker looked at her watch and said: “They’ve just landed!!!”. And she and coworker rushed to the gate and watched a large number of old farts getting of the plane from China carrying their babies. We tend to travel in large groups as arranged by each US agent handling the process on this end.

And growing up in Texas she may look like a classic China doll. But at one time that image would quickly disappear when she spoke. Around her 9th birthday we had a long chat about NOT talking like her schoolmates. So far that’s working OK. Sometimes I refer to her as my “little red neck Chink”.

And no: she’s NOT going to become a geologist. She’s thinking chem engineer after giving up on the idea of being a vet. But at 14 yo such ideas are always in flux.

[dinopello]

Congrats on your daughter, ROCKMAN. Three of my neighbors have adopted Asian babies - 2 girls (China and Vietnam) and 1 boy (Thailand). They all seem like great kids.

Demographically, it seems like a zero-old-people policy would work better. Like Logan's Run.

[ROCKMAN]

dino - I like that idea also. All we would need is keep a few old geologists around to find what oil is left. And, of course, a few nurse aides to help change the diapers on those old geologists need to be retained.

The sad part is that regional conflicts are starting to nibble away at some of our "excess" population. Not the most humane way to deal with the situation.

[DesuMaiden]

Africa right now needs a one child policy being implemented because there are too many babies being born in Africa. Africa's population is expected to go from 1 point something billion people to over 4 billion by the end of this century. Almost all of the growth in population in this century will be from Africa. Most African countries have a fertility rate per women of over 5 children. That's unsustainable. You can't keep on increasing population at 2, 3 or even 4% per year. That's just not possible.

I believe there will be a massive die-off in Africa sometime in the near future. Remember all populations that go up in a vertical trajectory have to crash down. It happens with all populations that are in overshoot. You cannot deny this law because it is a law as fundamental as gravity and thermodynamics.

It is not just Africa's population. It applies to the world population as well. The main reason I believe this crash in population will happen is because of peak phosphorous. The only reason we can feed 7 billion people is because of phosphorous, which we get from phosphate rock. But phosphate rock is a nonrenewable resource, taking tens of millions of years to form. Eventually we will run out of phosphate rock. And when we run out of phosphate rock, we will no longer have enough phosphorous to grow enough food to feed the world population. And when that happens, there is a die-off because there isn't enough phosphorous to grow enough food for the population. You can't survive without food. It is the most basic and essential need. Basically, take the phosphate rock away, you take away the phosphorous for growing food, take away the food, and the population goes away. It is that simple.

Peak phosphorus = end of industrial civilization perhaps even more so then peak oil. But both peak phosphorous and peak oil will have a play in the collapse of industrial civilization.