Global one child policy

[Thereturn]

With overpopulation and everything that comes with it, one of the solutions that comes to mind is a 1 child policy, globally, for the next somewhat years. Would you be in favour of this or not? Why?

Personally id say this is a pretty big infringement on our autonomy, on the other hand, its needed. So if not for life, id say its cool.

[Yunru]

With overpopulation and everything that comes with it, one of the solutions that comes to mind is a 1 child policy, globally, for the next somewhat years. Would you be in favour of this or not? Why?

Personally id say this is a pretty big infringement on our autonomy, on the other hand, its needed. So if not for life, id say its cool.

Looks at china. It didnt end well. A limit on 5 should be a thing.

[PC2]

With overpopulation and everything that comes with it, one of the solutions that comes to mind is a 1 child policy, globally, for the next somewhat years. Would you be in favour of this or not? Why?

Personally id say this is a pretty big infringement on our autonomy, on the other hand, its needed. So if not for life, id say its cool.

No I wouldn't support that policy because overpopulation is entirely mythical. I've never once heard someone give a criteria for what exactly it means for a planet to be overpopulated, largely because it's not a coherent concept.

If anything we should have the opposite policy where we encourage more children.

[Thereturn]

No I wouldn't support that policy because overpopulation is entirely mythical. I've never once heard someone give a criteria for what exactly it means for a planet to be overpopulated, largely because it's not a coherent concept.

If anything we should have the opposite policy where we encourage more children.

80% of the planets landmass is used for agraculture to provide for food or food for animals we eat. I call that overpopulation.

[callipygoustp]

80% of the planets landmass is used for agraculture to provide for food or food for animals we eat. I call that overpopulation.

You should do some research beyond a superficial level.

[Yadryonych]

No.

/10chars

[Cosmic Janitor]

Terrible idea. The population growth is measured in a few %/a. Trying to regulate it to 0 with crude numbers like "1 child per couple" fucks way too much with the system and only leads to socio-economic disasters like the millions of surplus chinese men in certain age ranges. From a quick google search the difference between the biggest population growth offenders with 4%/a over the average western nation which is almost struggling to keep theirs up with a few percentage points around 0-1 (which includes migration..) to countries in flat out decline a hard policy not a good descision.

Regulating systems on these scales with slow methods like laws and policy is wholly inadequate and stands no chance to react to the "fast" changes in demographic. Yet it can't even properly react to the slow changes, as the shifts in socio-economic trends are hard to forsee, like parents getting kids when they are older, which is wholly outside of the scope of such laws. It would also just flat out crush some ecnomies of weaker countries and cause even more people to mirgrate to richer ones, which usually doesn't tend to be a desireable outcome.

Since this is about overpopulation and resources, the best way to tackle this issue would be to make poor countries richer and as sexually lethargic as western nations while - and this is really important - have them skip the dirty part of the (2nd/3rd) industrial revolution while reigning in western nations and their excessive wastefull ways of consumerism (like sealing each slice of cheese in plastic). We'd also need to fix the expectation of infinite growth in our financial system, but one pipe dream after another I guess .

[Queen of Hamsters]

Considering birthrates going down in developed countries posing a tangible threat, I'd say... No.

[Very Tired]

Look up how it worked in China. Things don't always have the simple cause and effect relationship you hope they are going to have. Especially when it comes to laws like this.

And good luck enforcing any sort of law globally.

[PC2]

80% of the planets landmass is used for agraculture to provide for food or food for animals we eat. I call that overpopulation.

Agriculture is only utilizing a small fraction of the planets surface area for food production and we're not anywhere close to any kind of "population cap" at 7.7 billion people. Even if most of the planet's surface area was already used for food production it still wouldn't mean we're near a cap because as agriculture advances the amount of water needed per sq foot decreases and the density of crops harvested increase as food producers find new innovations.

[Zaktar]

Who would enforce this?

[EnclosedOne]

the problem with china's one child policy wasn't the policy itself it was the fact that only males can (or could) inherit things like property. Males also tend to be stronger and sturdier so poor families wanted males to help out on the farms because they'd only get one child. This lead to a whole shit ton of female babies being murdered in favor of trying again for a male and eventually you get the problem they have now - too many males and not nearly enough females.

basically their 1 child policy failed because in their society women are are seen as inferior to men despite the fact that only women can make more babies

[Cosmic Janitor]

basically their 1 child policy failed because in their society women are are seen as inferior to men despite the fact that only women can make more babies

Well, I think it's a fair assumption that the result would be similar in most other countries that actually contribute to the overall population growth with high birthrates. Countries with low birthrates also tend to be the ones where this wouldn't be an issue.

[Hellobolis]

80% of the planets landmass is used for agraculture to provide for food or food for animals we eat. I call that overpopulation.

only because we optimize agriculture for yield per worker instead of yield per acre. most of the farmland is also underutilized in other ways. you can get a lot more food out of that land before it really becomes an issue.

(and even after that is all optimized you can start using artificial light to grow food, at which point you are only really limited by energy generation).


but more on topic: whose army is going to enforce such a policy?

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Agriculture is only utilizing a small fraction of the planets surface area for food production

as a percentage of the planets surface sure. as a percentage of arable land it's pretty much all used though. but yeah where nowhere near the limit for food. just look at google maps satelite view: anything that isn't mountains/forest/desert is used for farms.

[Poe]

How would you enforce such a thing ?

Especially since these days, many people are having children without getting married and while having multiple sexual partners. How would you conclude which males have a child and which do not ?

[PC2]

only because we optimize agriculture for yield per worker instead of yield per acre. most of the farmland is also underutilized in other ways. you can get a lot more food out of that land before it really becomes an issue.

(and even after that is all optimized you can start using artificial light to grow food, at which point you are only really limited by energy generation).


but more on topic: whose army is going to enforce such a policy?

- - - Updated - - -

as a percentage of the planets surface sure. as a percentage of arable land it's pretty much all used though. but yeah where nowhere near the limit for food. just look at google maps satelite view: anything that isn't mountains/forest/desert is used for farms.

Yeah exactly, one thing about "arable land" though is that what can count as arable land goes up over time since people can transform previously uninhabitable areas such as dense jungles or deserts and then make them viable for food production. For example if you take the amount of arable land now and compare it to the arable land thousands of years ago it's much higher now since we have better techniques and civil engineering that let's us bring production to more places.

Since this is about overpopulation and resources, the best way to tackle this issue would be to make poor countries richer and as sexually lethargic as western nations while - and this is really important - have them skip the dirty part of the (2nd/3rd) industrial revolution while reigning in western nations and their excessive wastefull ways of consumerism (like sealing each slice of cheese in plastic).

No that's the complete opposite of what should happen, as those countries develop the birth rate will be going down everywhere which is terrible for civilization. Non-Western nations don't need to be become sexually lethargic, the West just needs to be like the rest of the world and be at replacement level plus a couple percentage points.

We'd also need to fix the expectation of infinite growth in our financial system, but one pipe dream after another I guess .

No, infinite growth is the only reasonable expectation and growth is the only way to remain sustainable. Being at an economic equilibrium is literally the most unsustainable idea that someone could come up with.

[Trassk]

Your never be able to enforce that even if world governments agreed on it. People will still have sex, women will still give birth. And when people break laws, what do you expect to happen? Will additional children be thrown in incinerators?

[PACOX]

Maybe people should spread out some.

[Yadryonych]

as a percentage of the planets surface sure. as a percentage of arable land it's pretty much all used though. but yeah where nowhere near the limit for food. just look at google maps satelite view: anything that isn't mountains/forest/desert is used for farms.

Here's a hint: farms used to be forests too.
And also, hydroponics exists and requires no soil at all

[PC2]

Maybe people should spread out some.

You mean out of dense urban areas into rural areas or what? The stats seem to indicate that countries level off at around 85% urbanization but there will always need to be some minimum amount of rural population in order to service all the rural industries.

IMO, people should just go wherever they want. (As long as it's legal)