Meow

Does anyone think that the Chinese one child policy was/is the way forward?

How do you stop people having so many children when they really cannot afford to do so - on every level?

LaLaLayla

China's One-Child Policy looks good on paper, alas it has led to the mass infanticide of baby girls. Current estimates are around 16-30 million.

In order to stop people having so many children, you need to address the reasons why they have them in the first place. The main reason is poverty. For some parents, their children are their only wealth. They can work to provide for the family, and then look after the parents when they get old.

littlejimmy

We need a good war or plague or an asteroid strike to restore some balance to the ecosystem. Population growth was always going to get out of hand when humans settled into agriculture and tried to usurp the laws of nature. It got even worse after industrial advances made agriculture even more efficient, and then oil made it even more so. Medical advances have made us live longer and longer. Malthus was possibly onto something.

Of course, we also have this crazy situation where great swathes of the world live in poverty and ignorance for one reason or another. If the population does need a massive correction, who is going to take the responsibility? Who has the right to and then who WANTS to make the decisions?

The least worst option may be something occuring naturally to take the decision out of our hands.

Depressing, really. Especially when you have children.

Meow

That, sadly, is a self-perpetuating problem.

I suspect that, like many other issues, it's too complicated and too politically divisive for anyone, or any organisation, to really do anything about it.

shiva

We all owe the Chinese thanks for that one. Nobody likes it but in the long run it's probably saved far more from starvation and deprivation than were killed for being the wrong sex. Horrid though it may be

LaLaLayla

One way would be to increase the 'value' of girls, by educating them and criminalising ancient dowry practices.

auzdafluff

So you were born on Jan 6th 19.. Haha. I'm not that cruel. But seriously, be careful. There's been a bit of a backlash in the IT circles about this because it's fairly easy to work out people's birth dates from it.

Patsy Stoned

Mother Nature is a bitch darling, but she is also wise..which is why disasters tent to strike in high population/poverty areas....these disasters wipe out more people per sq mile so eventually it will balance out.

shiva

However the next biologicall disaster is far more likely to devastate the well off west and it's cities and it will be because of our penchant for air travel.

DesertOcean

Good post-at least you"get it"

Worth a read:

http://questioneverything.typepad.co...-counting.html

Norm_uk

What no one is saying is these wars and asteroid strikes have to hit the developing nations with silly cultural and religious ideas about having more children than you can possibly raise to a reasonable educational level...

...but I think that would be advocating genocide - unless you're Turkey or Sudan you'll never get away with that

N.

littlejimmy

Two s in one thread. Ace.

Norm_uk

How embarrassing... a house full of condiments and no food.

N.

littlejimmy

That gets a