Population Control, anyone?

[doubtingmerle]

PHenry42, first let me thank you for addressing this issue in a kind and civil manner, without resorting to personal attacks and repeated misrepresentations of others. It is indeed a pleasure to discuss these things with people who know how to discuss differences in a civil manner. Thank you very much.

First it says that there are 11.2 billion hectares of biosphere. Then it quotes another source which says that we are currently using 13.5 billion hectares of biosphere for economic use. In other words, we are using more than 100% of the earth's surface! We are, according to their analysis, using land that doesn't exist! There's a contradiction in numbers here and the suggestion of a theoretical impossibility, not a case of overexploitation.

I suggest that you read the actual study. The 2010 version is at http://www.footprintnetwork.org/press/LPR2010.pdf .

These figures are average values based on the sustainable average capacity of the earth to produce necessities and remove wastes per hectare, and the average consumption of humans. The report says we use more than the sustainable capacity of the earth, and that is why the usage number is greater than the capacity number. It is not a statement that everybody uses exactly this many acres, or that every acre has exactly this value to humanity.

The earth has, even today, massive unused food production capacity. We could eat plankton from the sea. We could distill fresh water out of the saltwater of the seas. We could recycle our poo if we used it to fertilize our farms instead of using chemical fertilizer. None of these are economically feasible atm, but are reserves that can be tapped into on necessity (which it will be economically profitable to do if food prices rise due to alleged shortage).

If those processes are not economically profitable now, will not the price become much higher when the fuel to do these processes increases? Desalination can be done using unsustainable draws of fossil fuels, but how will you do significant desalination when the cheap fossil fuels are gone? Solar cells and windmills consume enormous amounts of energy just to build the equipment. If future generations are asked to invest enormous amounts of energy into building solar panels to power desalination plants, would they be able to even afford this?

Not to forget that, of current world grain production, about half goes to animal fodder. Meaning that grain turns to meat, but at a conversion that retains at most something like 20% of the input energy. If we stopped using grain to feed animals and instead ate the grain directly, we'd double the total number of calories available for humanity.

This is a most excellent point, and deserves to be displayed on this thread in flashing bold red letters.

Much of the calculated overshoot consists of prosperous countries consuming meat that requires far more acres per person than bread does. If we could only change our diets to require less grain, it would do a lot to solve the problem.

Voluntary efforts to consume less meat will help. But if we really needed to reduce 60% of worldwide grain production, it would probably require some sort of government action. If government action to reduce meat consumption could minimize future starvation, would you be in favor of such action? What would you want the government to do?

 

[AlexBP]

I suggest that you read the actual study. The 2010 version is at http://www.footprintnetwork.org/press/LPR2010.pdf .

These figures are average values based on the sustainable average capacity of the earth to produce necessities and remove wastes per hectare, and the average consumption of humans.

Actually if you read the report you'll see that what it calls the "ecological footprint" is not a measure of the amount of land needed to produce food and other materials for the average person on earth. Instead it says this:

The Ecological Footprint tracks the area of biologically productive land and water required to provide the renewable resources people use, and includes the space needed for infrastructure and vegetation to absorb waste carbon dioxide (CO2). ... This is largely attributable to the carbon footprint, which has increased 11-fold since 1961 and by just over one third since the publication of the first Living Planet Report in 1998.​

​

​

So, since they're including land needed to absorb carbon dioxide, they get a much higher figure than merely the amount of land that goes into growing food and other resources. That means that the report does not in any way, shape, or form suggest what you wants us to believe it says: that humanity is actually using more land for production than we can continue to use sustainably. Hence your entire argument falls apart. (Further, if you're actually correct that fossil fuels will soon run short, then the absorbtion of carbon dioxide will no longer be an issue.)

This is a most excellent point, and deserves to be displayed on this thread in flashing bold red letters.

Much of the calculated overshoot consists of prosperous countries consuming meat that requires far more acres per person than bread does. If we could only change our diets to require less grain, it would do a lot to solve the problem.

Voluntary efforts to consume less meat will help. But if we really needed to reduce 60% of worldwide grain production, it would probably require some sort of government action. If government action to reduce meat consumption could minimize future starvation, would you be in favor of such action? What would you want the government to do?

If there were truly in an emergency situation then it would be legal to temporarily ration how much of certain foods each person could consume per day. After all, we did that during both world wars. Needless to say we would not do that right now since we're not in an emergency, and there's no reason to believe we ever will be again.

Now I get to ask you a question. If we hired some researchs to determine whether sterilizatio at gunpoint is a good way to bring the global population to the desired level and the research found that it was not, would you agree with their conclusion?

 

[doubtingmerle]

Actually it says everything we need to know about determining the sustainable carrying capacity of the earth. Obviously people in Japan are aware of the claims that Earth's population is too large and needs to be brought down. If the Japanese government is making social policy with the aim of encouraging childbirth--and it is doing exactly that--then obviously the Japanese government believes that the claims about population exceeding earth's carrying capacity are hogwash and has decided to ignore them.

Could it be that the Japanese knew about the limited carrying capacity of the earth, and ignored it? After all the late Matthew Simmons, author of Twilight in the Dessert, and leading peak oil authority was an energy advisor to George W. Bush. At that time it was known that cheap supplies of oil were running out, that oil production would probably peak and level off by 2010, and that this would lead to rising prices and economic turmoil. George W. Bush appears to have ignored that information (other than perhaps the war on Iraq, which some people think was an attempt to get oil). He showed no signs of being prepared for what others had told him would happen.

So even if the Japanese were aware of the claims of the limits to the earth's carrying capacity--and you haven't proved that they knew it--it is still very possible that they pulled a George W. Bush and ignored the warnings.

And if the Japanese government, and the governments of most other industrialized and well-educated nations, feel that way, I'm willing to accept what they say.

And if the Greek and Italian governments feel that they can borrow and spend all they want, and pay it off later, are you also willing to accept what they say?

That's odd. Politicians sometimes make extremely short-sighted decisions, if it is to their immediate political advantage to do so.

If governments feel that they can borrow all they want without problems, than I am not willing to accept that what they say about that is true. Are you?

Interesting, as I recall, you spent the whole thread saying things like "Governments should be studying this problem in detail." Yet now, when I point out that what governments are already doing entails that they've reached the opposite conclusion from what you want them to reach, you declare that governments can't be trusted anyway. That was a rapid turnaround.

Huh? I never said that governments cannot be trusted. I said that politicians act for their immediate benefit to stay in power. In a democracy, that means doing what they think will get the most votes.

If a politician said we need to cut back our standard of living, and limit the national birthrate, he probably would not get re-elected. So you don't hear them saying that. But if voters were all over the airwaves demanding that we have programs to limit our national oil usage; that we need extensive funding of sustainability studies; and that we need to have a plan in place for population control, then you would see politicians going along with what people demand.

If you have so little faith in government and believe that politicians are so dishonest, why are this total acceptance of what the Chinese government? How can you argue that the brutal communist government of China is trustworthy while the governments of free and democratic countries are not?

Huh? I said absolutely nothing about giving total acceptance to the Chinese government. Pardon me, but where in the heck are you getting this stuff? I said that they found the policy of limiting to one child to be helpful.

 

[doubtingmerle]

One way to limit the birthrate down to 1.0 children per couple is to allow everybody to have 1 child. If they want additional children, then they must buy a credit from another adult who is willing to sell. Modifications to this plan could allow higher birth rates in poorer countries, which have lower ecological footprints. If a credit could not be found, a payment could be demanded. Details of the plan could of course be negotiated.

Before I make a decision on whether I'd support such a plan, I need to know some rather important details. First of all, you say your goal is "1.0 children per couple". However, couples are not static entities. People are constantly leaving partners and founding new ones. So if Mr. Smith marries Mrs. Smith, they have their one permitted child, then they divorce and each remarries someone else, do the newly formed couples get to have children or not?

It could be one credit per person. To have a child, both the father and the mother would need to have a credit. If they didn't have one, they would need to buy one on the free market.

If a man with no children marries a woman with one child, than either the woman could buy a credit and they could have another child, or the man could sell his.

And there is nothing sacred about it being 1.0 credit per person. We may decide that 1.2 credits per person, for instance, is a better number. Then everybody could either sell his or her extra 0.2 credit, or buy 4 partial credits from others and have another child.

Secondly, anyone who hasn't been living in a cave for the past fifty years knows that a lot of children aren't born to couples at all, but rather to singles. In your plan would single women simply be banned from having children since they aren't included under the "one child per couple" rule? If not, then how does your plan treat them?

No, the expression "one child per couple" was just a shortcut for saying each man has credit to allow him to father 1.x children, and each woman has 1.x credits to become a mother.

Third, who is responsible for peeking into a woman's uterus and making sure that she doesn't have an illegal child in there?

Fourth, when the aforementioned uterus-peeker finds an illegal child, who will be punished and in what way?

Nobody is peeking into wombs. If a woman has a child, then she would need a credit, and the father needs a credit. If they cannot find one on the open market, perhaps the government could sell them credits.

Fifth, you doubtlessly know that thanks to China's "one-child policy" which you've already talked about, many Chinese couples prefer to have a male child, and consequently if their first child is female they often murder that daughter so they can take another shot at having a son. (Read this book if you need a citation.) Under your plan this sort of mass murder would spread worldwide. Would you be willing to endorse a plan that has that as a consequence?

I understand this would have huge problems. I would recommend it only if it prevented overpopulation issues that are far worse. We would need to make laws as best we could to handle such issues.

 

[doubtingmerle]

In this case I'm getting it from post #44, where you said this:

I propose:
1. Detailed study of the issue.
2. If it is agreed that population reduction is the best policy, try voluntary measures and education.
3. If that is not adequate--and it almost certainly would not reduce the birth rate to 1 child per couple--then do something mandatory. The best I can think of is mandatory strerilization [sic] of both parents after childbirth.
​

So you certainly did suggest that childbearing freedom should be stripped away from individuals. You not only suggested it; you said that voluntary measures "almost certainly" would not be adequate and that stripping away childbearing freedom from individuals is "the best I can think of".

Sir, I am in favor of mandatory sterilization after childbirth if necessary as a last resort effort to prevent the mass starvation of billions of children if no better plan can be found.

Please feel free to quote me on that, as long as you quote the entire sentence. You have repeatedly represented the first part of that sentence as though that is my position. That totally misrepresents me. In context in this thread, I clearly am not supporting the mandatory sterilization of others on a whim, and clearly present the qualifications listed in italics.

What about you? Are you in favor of mandatory sterilization after childbirth if necessary as a last resort effort to prevent the mass starvation of billions of children if no better plan can be found. If you answer yes, then we are in agreement. If you answer no, then I will wonder why you consider the mass starvation of billions of children to be the lesser of those two evils. I eagerly await your answer.

The only question then is whether you want the liberal elite to be in control. But of course whenever the government regulates people's lives the liberal elite are in control because bureaucrats are overwhelming from the liberal elite in America and virtually everywhere else.

Sir, I have told you clearly that I am not asking for the liberal elite to control people's lives. I want free and open democracies, with the people making the choice.

And no, the liberal elite is not in control in America. Did you ever hear of the tea party? Right wing conservatives are in control of the house--and right-wingers constantly fillibuster the Senate--and prevent progressives from making any progress. For instance, tax policy today is far to the right of tax policy in Ronald Reagan's first 6 years. Today the richest pay 36%; many Democrats want it to be 39%; but both are far to the right of the 50% rate of Reagan. So with tax policy far to the right of 1985, how exactly is it that you say the liberals are in control?

 

[AceHero]

It's also worth pointing out that the idea of a fixed-size footprint per person is fallacious for another reason: it assumes that all individuals consume the same amount. But individuals consume vastly different amounts. On one end of the spectrum we have groups such as Cistercian monks or the Amish, who eat very little food, burn no automotive fuel, use little or not electricity, and consume very little of anything. On the other end of the spectrum is Al Gore, who's happy having many houses that all consume as much electricity as several of his neighbors and who jets around the world with a sizable entourage and rides in limousines to venues where he lectures people on the need to limit resource consumption.

Obviously the world could support an enormous number of Cistercian monks, but only a small number of Al Gores. Hence it's bogus to claim that there's a certain number of hectares necessary to support one person. Thus the entire line of reasoning in doubtingmerle's study can be safely thrown out.

Not really. I cringe when I read of the lavish lifestyle Al Gore leads, but that doesn't mean everyone who believes we're encountering peak-everything is a hypocrite.

Fifth, you doubtlessly know that thanks to China's "one-child policy" which you've already talked about, many Chinese couples prefer to have a male child, and consequently if their first child is female they often murder that daughter so they can take another shot at having a son. (Read this book if you need a citation.) Under your plan this sort of mass murder would spread worldwide. Would you be willing to endorse a plan that has that as a consequence?

Chinese families dislike having female offspring because tradition holds that men have more importance.

The one-child policy:

It officially restricts married, urban couples to having only one child, while allowing exemptions for several cases, including rural couples, ethnic minorities, and parents without any siblings themselves. A spokesperson of the Committee on the One-Child Policy has said that approximately 35.9% of China's population is currently subject to the one-child restriction. The Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau are completely exempt from the policy. Also exempt from this law are foreigners living in China.

 

[CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN]

Well, yes there have been a lot of problems with the China policy, and yes we can learn from it. Nobody said this would be easy.

China adopted the one-child policy as a temporary 5-year measure, but they have kept it for 25 years because, in spite of the problems, it is still understood to be better than the alternative, mass starvation and overpopulation.

Do you think China would have been better off with mass starvation?

I think China would be better off,if they let God deal with,instead of forcing woman to abort all the way,until the last month of pregnacy.Who's to say that China would ever faced mass starvation.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I think China would be better off,if they let God deal with,instead of forcing woman to abort all the way,until the last month of pregnacy.Who's to say that China would ever faced mass starvation.

And do you think we should just dump raw sewage in our rivers, and the people downstream should let God deal with it?

And would it be OK if upstream farmers pumped a river dry to irrigate, and asked the thirsty people downstream to let God deal with it?

If it is wrong for the people upstream to pollute the river and ask the people downstream to let God deal with it, why would it be right for the people of our generation to overpopulate the world, and then ask Cade and his generation to let God deal with it?

 

[Assyrian]

I think China would be better off,if they let God deal with,instead of forcing woman to abort all the way,until the last month of pregnacy.Who's to say that China would ever faced mass starvation.

List of famines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1810, 1811, 1846, and 1849 Four famines in China death toll.
Estimated death toll: 45 million. [50]
1850–1873 As a result of Taiping Rebellion, drought, and famine, the population of China drop by over 60 million people. [55]
1876–1879 ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) Famine in India, China, Brazil, Northern Africa (and other countries).
Famine in northern China killed 13 million people.
1896–1897 ENSO famine in northern China leading in part to the Boxer Rebellion.
1907, 1911 Famines in east-central China.
1928–1930 Famine in northern China. The drought resulted in 3 million deaths.
1959–1961 The Great Chinese Famine. According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths.
Estimated death toll: 15–43 million. [77]

 

[doubtingmerle]

List of famines...

Good point.

I grew up needing to eat my vegetables and be thankful, because all the starving children in China would have been glad to eat those vegetables if they had them. I haven't heard that line lately.

 

[Supreme]

Good point.

I grew up needing to eat my vegetables and be thankful, because all the starving children in China would have been glad to eat those vegetables if they had them. I haven't heard that line lately.

That's because China is an economic powerhouse, and is the richest it's ever been. It's on course to overtake America as the world's largest economy by 2050, and it has a rapidly growing middle class. On top of that, agricultural reforms in China and heavy government investment in agriculture (like the North China Plain) have slimmed China's chances of having a serious food crisis any time soon.

 

[Assyrian]

Good point.

I grew up needing to eat my vegetables and be thankful, because all the starving children in China would have been glad to eat those vegetables if they had them. I haven't heard that line lately.

A famine can leave a deep mark on a society still felt generations later. In Ireland the potato famine still has strong emotional reverberations 160 years later - you can blame Bob Geldoff and Live Aid on the failure of 19th century potato crops. The Chinese had a famine while we were going through the potato famine, but they have had 6 more since then. No wonder they took such strong measures trying to prevent it happening again.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Actually if you read the report you'll see that what it calls the "ecological footprint" is not a measure of the amount of land needed to produce food and other materials for the average person on earth. Instead it says this:

The Ecological Footprint tracks the area of biologically productive land and water required to provide the renewable resources people use, and includes the space needed for infrastructure and vegetation to absorb waste carbon dioxide (CO2). ... This is largely attributable to the carbon footprint, which has increased 11-fold since 1961 and by just over one third since the publication of the first Living Planet Report in 1998.​

​

[/INDENTS]So, since they're including land needed to absorb carbon dioxide, they get a much higher figure than merely the amount of land that goes into growing food and other resources. That means that the report does not in any way, shape, or form suggest what you wants us to believe it says: that humanity is actually using more land for production than we can continue to use sustainably. Hence your entire argument falls apart. (Further, if you're actually correct that fossil fuels will soon run short, then the absorbtion of carbon dioxide will no longer be an issue.)

​

Peak oil does not resolve the global warming problem. In many ways it makes it worse. So far the world has consumed about 1 trillion barrels of crude oil, and there is about 1 trillion barrels left. Most of the oil that is left will be expensive and require large amounts of energy to produce. So every gallon of gasoline burned in the future will produce more carbon then a gallon burned in the past, for we must account for not only the gasoline in the car, but also the fossil fuels used to produce that gallon of gasoline. Worse, as conventional crude oil supplies decrease, we are likely to turn to coal, tar sands, and shale oil as substitutes. Also, when people get cold, they are likely to cut down forests to get wood for the fireplace. All this will make global warming worse.

If we can leave tar sands, shale oil, and much of the coal reserves in the ground, and limit crude oil and natural gas usage, then the problems with global warming may not be as great as the mass starvation discussed in this thread. We might lose coastal cities, lose much of our agriculture in the tropics, and experience severe storms, but that is all survivable.

However, if we continue to demand gasoline, and rapidly burn through supplies of tar sands, shale oil, and coal that we convert to liquids, this could result in a runaway greenhouse affect that could destroy all of human life. The carbon from fossil fuels would heat up the atmosphere which would evaporate ocean water, which is itself a greenhouse gas that would accelerate global warming further. The resulting warming would heat up tundra and release great quantities of stored carbon dioxide and methane, further amplifying the problem. If we pass a certain temperature threshold, the reaction will run away, with the evaporating ocean water creating more heat then was necessary to evaporate it. This would lead to all of the oceans evaporating completely, leaving the earth as a giant pressure cooker with temperatures well above the boiling point of water. That is worst case. Hopefully we have the decency to cut back fossil fuel usage before we get anywhere near that point.

Our concern here has mainly been, if we leave tar sands and shale oil in the ground, and find ourselves very low in crude oil and natural gas 50 years from now, what will be the carrying capacity of this earth?

That depends largely on how we respond now. Particularly, will we be able to meet our future fertilizer needs? Currently we use natural gas to produce hydrogen, which then combines with nitrogen in the air to make it available as nitrogen in fertilizer. (There is a lot of nitrogen in the air, but it requires huge amounts of energy to get it into a chemical state that is useful as fertilizer.) An alternate process is to build wind turbines to produce electricity to produce eh needed hydrogen. This is inefficient, but it works in the absence of natural gas. A selling point for this idea is that areas such as the Midwest which have a huge demand for fertilizer also have a huge availability of wind energy, so these fertilizer plants could be near the final customers. However, wind turbines require vast amounts of energy to construct. If we are faced with declining energy supplies, will we be willing to make the immediate problem worse by diverting large quantities of fossil fuels to construct wind turbines so we can have future fertilizer? One can certainly hope we will have the foresight to do that. See The Energy Trap | Do the Math.

So if we keep greenhouse gasses in check, will we have enough food 50 years from now to prevent mass starvation? Well, if we have the foresight to build alternate energy sources for fertilizer, and if we get all the phosphorous we need to make fertilizer, and if we find a means of powering all the tractors (gigantic batteries, anyone?), and if we have adequate replacements for petroleum based pesticides, etc., then we should be able to feed a large number of people. Else, we could have mass starvation.

So what is the future carrying capacity of the earth? I don't know. The point is that, if we really need to reduce population, then it will not be easy at all, and we had better get working on it now. That is why I emphasized the need to study this problem, and make rational responses now.

And it will certainly be easier for the next generation to figure out how to feed 5 billion mouths, compared to figuring out how to feed 10 billion mouths.

If there were truly in an emergency situation then it would be legal to temporarily ration how much of certain foods each person could consume per day. After all, we did that during both world wars. Needless to say we would not do that right now since we're not in an emergency, and there's no reason to believe we ever will be again.

Yes, I understand we can ration food. And we could ration gasoline, and ration CO2 emisions, and ration water usage, and ration copper, and ration phosphorous, and ration...OK, you get the point.

And all this rationing could be done on a global scale with multiple governments cooperating. Doing that requires huge bureaucracies, and massive amounts of government interference with life. As you are a strong defender of individual liberties, I cannot see how that would be to your liking.

Also all this rationing in effect says everybody with upper and middle class standards of living needs to take a huge drop in his standard of living.

I think that both reducing individual consumption levels and reducing population are parts of the solution. The details of doing that, however, boggle the mind. Hence this thread, to at least talk about the issues.

Now I get to ask you a question. If we hired some researchs to determine whether sterilizatio at gunpoint is a good way to bring the global population to the desired level and the research found that it was not, would you agree with their conclusion?

All research into sustainability issues is welcome and should be taken into consideration. Also any research that might challenge the findings of any such study should be taken into consideration.

We are facing some very difficult challenges in the next 50 years. Our path forward should be guided by multiple scientific studies into all aspects of the problem and solution.​

 

[AlexBP]

Yes, I understand we can ration food. And we could ration gasoline, and ration CO2 emisions, and ration water usage, and ration copper, and ration phosphorous, and ration...OK, you get the point.

And all this rationing could be done on a global scale with multiple governments cooperating. Doing that requires huge bureaucracies, and massive amounts of government interference with life. As you are a strong defender of individual liberties, I cannot see how that would be to your liking.

It would not be to my liking. As I made clear in my previous post, I would support rationing only in an emergency situation. Things that we do in emergency situations are generally not to our liking. The prospect of the fire department spraying my house with tens of thousands of gallons of water is not to my liking. Nonetheless I might support it in an emergency situation.

 

[AlexBP]

Nobody is peeking into wombs. If a woman has a child, then she would need a credit, and the father needs a credit. If they cannot find one on the open market, perhaps the government could sell them credits.

When presenting your plan you keep saying things like "If a woman has a child, then she would need a credit, and the father needs a credit." But plainly that's not true. All that's needed to produce a child is for a man to come into a woman, if I may use the Biblical term, and a child gets produced in the womb. Nine months later, barring an abortion or misscarriage, the child is born. Carrying children and giving birth are part of a woman's natural bodily function. You're proposing a law saying that her body can't function normally until both she and her husband purchase a credit. I'm asking how you intend to enforce such a law, which seems like a fair question. It seems obvious to me that a necessary first step would be for the government to monitor women to determine whether they are pregnant, which would necessarily involve women being subjected to a physical inspection against their will by government agents. However, if your plan includes some method whereby the government can demand a payment or credit from pregnant women and their husbands without knowning which women are pregnant, I'd be happy to hear it.

When abortion was illegal, there were many back-alley abortions. Because drugs are illegal, there are back-alley drugs deals. If birth is illegal for many, there would obviously be back-alley births, and many women and children would die due to unsanitary conditions and malpractice. Would you also be willing to accept these deaths in addition to all the others that your policy would cause?

Lastly, when you suggest that anyone who has more than one child needs to offer a payment or buy a credit, you're not actually suggesting controlling the population at all. Instead you're suggesting that we prevent poor people from having multiple children while allowing the rich to have as many children as they wish. Furthermore it's no secret that blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and other racial minorities are more likely to be poor while whites are more likely to be rich, both in the USA and worldwide. Hence you're plan looks suspiciously similar to a plan for reducing the number of racial minorities while not doing the same to whites. Which shouldn't come as a surprise, I suppose. Left-wing heroine Margaret Sanger famously said that the best way to improve the world would be to get rid of "Hebrews, slavs, Catholics, negroes, and other undesirables". Her proposal for accomplishing this was remarkably similar to what you're proposing here: "Let them apply for permits to have babies as immigrants have to apply for visas". (This from her book The Pivot of Civilization.)

Then again perhaps I'm juding you too harshly. If you think your proposal would actually have an equal effect on rich and poor and on all races, please feel free to explain why.

I understand this would have huge problems. I would recommend it only if it prevented overpopulation issues that are far worse. We would need to make laws as best we could to handle such issues.

Obviously such laws exist already, yet the murder of millions of female children go on. The plan that you're proposing would surely spur millions of more such murders. Yet this doesn't make you stop and reconsider? You still propose it?

 

[AlexBP]

Huh? I said absolutely nothing about giving total acceptance to the Chinese government. Pardon me, but where in the heck are you getting this stuff? I said that they found the policy of limiting to one child to be helpful.

That's a refusal to answer my question. The Chinese government has a "one-child policy", though as AceHero already mentioned the name is deceptive. (A more honest name would be the "one child for the poor, two for the middle class, and the rich and powerful may have as many as they want" policy.) You have said that you trust the Chinese government created this policy to limit population because they feared starvation, which is indeed what the Chinese government claims. The obvious question is: why are you willing to believe the Chinese government's given reasons for their policy, while simultaneously doubting the honesty of governments in general? And why would you trust governments to determine who can and can't have children while simultaneously not trusting politicians generally?

But if voters were all over the airwaves demanding that we have programs to limit our national oil usage; that we need extensive funding of sustainability studies; and that we need to have a plan in place for population control, then you would see politicians going along with what people demand.

And what do you think are the odds of that happening?

 

[AlexBP]

And it will certainly be easier for the next generation to figure out how to feed 5 billion mouths, compared to figuring out how to feed 10 billion mouths.

How do you know that?

Consider for a moment that while no one has ever died of starvation caused by global food shortage, quite a lot of people have died from starvation caused by secular liberals, and the biggest mass starvation in history was caused by a not-so-fine fellow named Mao tse Tung. Now Mao was dictator of China from 1948 to 1974. In the late 50's he got obsessed with having communist China match the industrial production of the free world, and forced virtually the entire working-age male population to work in cheap iron foundries, where the iron produced was too brittle to build anything. Meanwhile, the tasks of planting, tending, and harvesting crops were given over the eldery, the very young, and the sick. This was called "The Great Leap Forward". As you might guess, those people assigned to do the agricultural work weren't physically able to do it, the amount of food produced in China dropped drastically, and many people starved to death. Estimates vary but it seems that seventy million deaths is a decent figure. Not a small number, even by secular liberal standards.

Now supposing for a moment that worldwide governments did choose massive sterilization at gunpoint. What would be the result. Obviously there would be many results but one of the more obvious would be on enormous shortage of able-bodied young people to do physical work. There's nothing abstract about this. Countries like Spain with low birth rates have had to open their doors to massive numbers of immigrants in order to get workers willing to do physical work. But if the sterilization policy was enforced worldwide there would be any place to get immigrants from, and the entire world would be in a similar position to what Mao's China looked like in 1960. We wouldn't have enough physically able people to harvest crops or do countless other physical tasks. judging by the Chinese example, hundreds of millions of people would then starve to death.

I'm sure you'll come up with some reason why we shouldn't apply the lessons from Mao' mistake to the current debate, but I think we should. Keep one thing in mind. Many people have claimed on many occasions that if we don't forcibly limit births the world will soon run out of this or that or huge numbers of people will starve to death. But we haven't forcibly limited births outside of a few countries and every single one of these doomsday predictions has been wrong. At the same time, many people have claimed on many occasions that if we just put the right bureaucrats in charge and let them force their decisions on everyone else's private life, things will soon be much better. Every country who's done that has soon come to regret it. Why would we want to shape a new policy by combining two old ideas that both have a perfect record of failure?

 

[doubtingmerle]

When presenting your plan you keep saying things like "If a woman has a child, then she would need a credit, and the father needs a credit." But plainly that's not true. All that's needed to produce a child is for a man to come into a woman, if I may use the Biblical term, and a child gets produced in the womb. Nine months later, barring an abortion or misscarriage, the child is born.

Ah, now you would like to teach me about the birds and the bees?

Thanks, but Dad and I already had that talk.

Carrying children and giving birth are part of a woman's natural bodily function. You're proposing a law saying that her body can't function normally until both she and her husband purchase a credit.

Woman's natural bodies would function the way they always have. I said nothing that indicates otherwise.

I'm asking how you intend to enforce such a law, which seems like a fair question.

We would elect governments who would be responsible to enforce the laws. Next question.

It seems obvious to me that a necessary first step would be for the government to monitor women to determine whether they are pregnant, which would necessarily involve women being subjected to a physical inspection against their will by government agents. However, if your plan includes some method whereby the government can demand a payment or credit from pregnant women and their husbands without knowning which women are pregnant, I'd be happy to hear it.

There would be no need to monitor for pregnancy. The credit is due only when the kid pops out.

When abortion was illegal, there were many back-alley abortions. Because drugs are illegal, there are back-alley drugs deals. If birth is illegal for many, there would obviously be back-alley births, and many women and children would die due to unsanitary conditions and malpractice. Would you also be willing to accept these deaths in addition to all the others that your policy would cause?

I am not asking to make birth illegal. Asking for each parent to have a credit to parent a child is no difference than asking each person to pay a per-capita (literally per "head") tax. The per capita tax does not make it illegal to have a head.

Lastly, when you suggest that anyone who has more than one child needs to offer a payment or buy a credit, you're not actually suggesting controlling the population at all. Instead you're suggesting that we prevent poor people from having multiple children while allowing the rich to have as many children as they wish. Furthermore it's no secret that blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and other racial minorities are more likely to be poor while whites are more likely to be rich, both in the USA and worldwide. Hence you're plan looks suspiciously similar to a plan for reducing the number of racial minorities while not doing the same to whites.

Huh? I have discussed not only restrictions on birth rates, but limitations on consumption, which apply mostly to the rich. The details could be worked out.

If it is more fair to give everybody in the lower 25 percentile of wealth credit for 1.5 children and everybody in the upper 25 percentile credit for 0.5 children, that could also be done. Then the rich would need to buy credits from the poor so they could have children. So we address the population problem, and address your concern about distributing the wealth.

We the people should be in charge, and work out such details to be fair to everybody.

Then again perhaps I'm juding you too harshly. If you think your proposal would actually have an equal effect on rich and poor and on all races, please feel free to explain why.

See above.

Elsewhere I have argued for increased taxes for the rich. See http://www.christianforums.com/t7517678/ . So I can hardly be accused of wanting to give the rich opportunity to exploit the poor. The details should be worked out so that it is as fair as possible to everybody.

 

[doubtingmerle]

The obvious question is: why are you willing to believe the Chinese government's given reasons for their policy, while simultaneously doubting the honesty of governments in general?

I never said I doubted the honesty of governments in general. But now that you bring it up, sometimes politicians lie, sometimes they don't. I thought we all knew that.

I don't know what motivated the Chinese rulers. I know what motivates me. I am concerned about the welfare of our children.

And why would you trust governments to determine who can and can't have children?

I don't want the elite in government to make the decision. I want the people to make the decision, and to tell the government they will either do what we say, or we will show them the exit.

 

[doubtingmerle]

How do you know that?

Consider for a moment that while no one has ever died of starvation caused by global food shortage,

And in 1985 nobody had ever died in flight in a space shuttle. So are you telling me that therefore we should conclude that space shuttles never blow up?

We have never had billions of people living in a world with depleted oil reserves, depleted fisheries, seriously depleted top soil, and depleted aquifiers. Since we have never been there before, how do you know that this might not be a disasterous situation to be in?

and the biggest mass starvation in history was caused by a not-so-fine fellow named Mao tse Tung. Now Mao was dictator of China from 1948 to 1974. In the late 50's he got obsessed with having communist China match the industrial production of the free world, and forced virtually the entire working-age male population to work in cheap iron foundries, where the iron produced was too brittle to build anything.

Mao's government was completely opposite of what I propose. He demanded fanatical service to the demands of the elite, while ignoring the people and science. See Communism is Religion .

I ask that the people be in charge, and the decisions be guided by science.

Keep one thing in mind. Many people have claimed on many occasions that if we don't forcibly limit births the world will soon run out of this or that or huge numbers of people will starve to death. But we haven't forcibly limited births outside of a few countries and every single one of these doomsday predictions has been wrong

And how many of those were living in a world with serious depletion of world crude oil supplies, world aquifiers, world topsoil levels, world phosphorous supplies, and world fisheries?