First off, if there's a one child policy then the human population would decline to zero relatively quickly. At 7.6 billion people, the final person alive will be 34 generations from now. That sounds like a long time, but it's not.
Second, there's documented benefits to having two children in terms of maturity, development, and learning.
Drainthefecesswamp wrote:
Maybe the OP means "one child per person?" So if my wife and I have a child, one of us has to register it as our one allowable child. We could then have a second child, which the is the one allowable child for the other one of us.
This is the only idea in this thread that makes sense. With a one child per couple policy, you'd eventually end up with a population of zero. With an unrestricted number of kids per couple, you'd eventually run out of room to fit everyone.
Vision 2050 wrote:
In no particular order of importance, the following benefits would occur:
- Pollution and waste would go down.
- Traffic would go down.
- Agricultural demand + hunger would go down.
- Resource depletion would be much less of a concern.
- Demand in the housing/real estate market would go down, making things more affordable. Homelessness would go down.
- Poverty would go down. Inheritances would no longer be split up among many siblings.
- Wages would rise and unemployment would go down, since the labor supply would shrink.
- Crime/violence would go down, as an aging population is generally less prone to crime.
- Parents would focus their resources on only one kid, so the next generation will have better lives.
None of these issues are directly related to population size. Overpopulation is just a myth generated by the white global North to make people think that all the problems in the world are the result of people of color in the global South having too many children. This myth is intended to divert attention away from the fact that all of these environmental, economic and social ills are the result of a capitalist political and class structure which can all be overcome without any draconian restrictions on family size.
Pollution and waste are the result of capitalism's failure to account for the cost externalities of production. It costs consumers nothing to throw away a plastic bottle, but that plastic bottle can end up in the ocean and harm wildlife. Capitalism fails because it does not assign a cost to pollution and waste to consumers. But if you can fix that with regulations. People used to dump motor oil into storm drains. That is now illegal. A tremendous amount of plastics can be reduced by doing things like banning plastic bags.
Traffic is the result of the domination of the automobile and poor planning of urban development. Those can be fixed by investing in public transit and banning automobiles in high density urban areas. Also, urban density that causes traffic problems is the result of a few metropolitan areas being crowned winners and becoming packed with hundreds of thousands of new residents when rural and urban areas that fall out of favor (Detroit, Cleveland, etc.) are basically empty with tons of cheap real estate.
Agricultural demand is largely driven by meat and fish consumption. There is enough highly productive arable land in Nebraska to feed most of the world. All you need to do is reduce meat and fish consumption to sustainable levels. Also, hunger has nothing to do with food supply. During the Ethiopian famine, farmers were exporting cattle and grain. The problem was that the drought and crop failures meant that no one had any money to buy food and the government was more interested in putting down the Oromo insurrection than feeding people.
Resource depletion is not an issue when you shift to renewable energy and have effective programs for recycling and reuse. Also, people in the global North consume many times over what people in the impoverished global South consume. Consume less and you fix the problem.
The real estate issue is the same as traffic. If you sent half of the tech companies in Silicon Valley to small to midsize cities in the midwest, you could fix the real estate problem in a minute. The US has tons of land and very little density compared to many other parts of the world.
In a capitalist society, growth is highly dependent on population. When population size is stagnant or declines, you have economic recession or stagnation. When population size grows, you have economic growth. Of course, the last 30 years in the US have shown that economic conditions have little to do with wage growth. If you want higher wages, empower unions and raise the minimum wage.
Crime and violence are social ills that have little to do with population size. Some of the most dense cities in the world like Singapore are the safest. That is because there is very little poverty and good social programs.
There are a lot of benefits to children to growing up with siblings. Only children face a lot of challenges and do not necessarily do better by having more attention from their parents. And things like quality prek and k-12 schools, universal childcare and free college have a lot more to do with child development than dedicated parental attention and resources.
Precious Roy wrote:
[quote]Vision 2050 wrote:
you can fix that with regulations. People used to dump motor oil into storm drains. That is now illegal. A tremendous amount of plastics can be reduced by doing things like banning plastic bags.
Agricultural demand is largely driven by meat and fish consumption. There is enough highly productive arable land in Nebraska to feed most of the world. All you need to do is reduce meat and fish consumption to sustainable levels.
Resource depletion is not an issue when you shift to renewable energy and have effective programs for recycling and reuse. Also, people in the global North consume many times over what people in the impoverished global South consume. Consume less and you fix the problem.
Ridethelightning wrote:
Never voluntarily limit your own freedom for any “perceived” benefit. You’ll never get it back.
That is the issue right there. Either you give up your freedom to have more than one kid, or you give up your freedom to consume whatever you want and eat whatever you want. Me? I'd choose the former. You can pry that steak, salmon, and plastic bags from my cold dead hands.
Go away Roy, you are an embarrassment to those of us who weren't aborted.
Vision 2050 wrote:
In no particular order of importance, the following benefits would occur:
- Pollution and waste would go down.
- Traffic would go down.
- Agricultural demand + hunger would go down.
- Resource depletion would be much less of a concern.
- Demand in the housing/real estate market would go down, making things more affordable. Homelessness would go down.
- Poverty would go down. Inheritances would no longer be split up among many siblings.
- Wages would rise and unemployment would go down, since the labor supply would shrink.
- Crime/violence would go down, as an aging population is generally less prone to crime.
- Parents would focus their resources on only one kid, so the next generation will have better lives.
All of your points are absolutely right. I cant believe all the idiots on here thing the system now isnt failing. The world is a complete disaster right now. Yeah that garbage you guys throw away doesnt dissappear you freaking idiots.
Precious Roy wrote:
Vision 2050 wrote:
In no particular order of importance, the following benefits would occur:
- Pollution and waste would go down.
- Traffic would go down.
- Agricultural demand + hunger would go down.
- Resource depletion would be much less of a concern.
- Demand in the housing/real estate market would go down, making things more affordable. Homelessness would go down.
- Poverty would go down. Inheritances would no longer be split up among many siblings.
- Wages would rise and unemployment would go down, since the labor supply would shrink.
- Crime/violence would go down, as an aging population is generally less prone to crime.
- Parents would focus their resources on only one kid, so the next generation will have better lives.
None of these issues are directly related to population size. Overpopulation is just a myth generated by the white global North to make people think that all the problems in the world are the result of people of color in the global South having too many children. This myth is intended to divert attention away from the fact that all of these environmental, economic and social ills are the result of a capitalist political and class structure which can all be overcome without any draconian restrictions on family size.
Pollution and waste are the result of capitalism's failure to account for the cost externalities of production. It costs consumers nothing to throw away a plastic bottle, but that plastic bottle can end up in the ocean and harm wildlife. Capitalism fails because it does not assign a cost to pollution and waste to consumers. But if you can fix that with regulations. People used to dump motor oil into storm drains. That is now illegal. A tremendous amount of plastics can be reduced by doing things like banning plastic bags.
Traffic is the result of the domination of the automobile and poor planning of urban development. Those can be fixed by investing in public transit and banning automobiles in high density urban areas. Also, urban density that causes traffic problems is the result of a few metropolitan areas being crowned winners and becoming packed with hundreds of thousands of new residents when rural and urban areas that fall out of favor (Detroit, Cleveland, etc.) are basically empty with tons of cheap real estate.
Agricultural demand is largely driven by meat and fish consumption. There is enough highly productive arable land in Nebraska to feed most of the world. All you need to do is reduce meat and fish consumption to sustainable levels. Also, hunger has nothing to do with food supply. During the Ethiopian famine, farmers were exporting cattle and grain. The problem was that the drought and crop failures meant that no one had any money to buy food and the government was more interested in putting down the Oromo insurrection than feeding people.
Resource depletion is not an issue when you shift to renewable energy and have effective programs for recycling and reuse. Also, people in the global North consume many times over what people in the impoverished global South consume. Consume less and you fix the problem.
The real estate issue is the same as traffic. If you sent half of the tech companies in Silicon Valley to small to midsize cities in the midwest, you could fix the real estate problem in a minute. The US has tons of land and very little density compared to many other parts of the world.
In a capitalist society, growth is highly dependent on population. When population size is stagnant or declines, you have economic recession or stagnation. When population size grows, you have economic growth. Of course, the last 30 years in the US have shown that economic conditions have little to do with wage growth. If you want higher wages, empower unions and raise the minimum wage.
Crime and violence are social ills that have little to do with population size. Some of the most dense cities in the world like Singapore are the safest. That is because there is very little poverty and good social programs.
There are a lot of benefits to children to growing up with siblings. Only children face a lot of challenges and do not necessarily do better by having more attention from their parents. And things like quality prek and k-12 schools, universal childcare and free college have a lot more to do with child development than dedicated parental attention and resources.
This is the dumbest opinion i have ever read. You literally dont understand what population means i think. OMg i am now dumber because I read this.
The long, long run wrote:
Drainthefecesswamp wrote:
Maybe the OP means "one child per person?" So if my wife and I have a child, one of us has to register it as our one allowable child. We could then have a second child, which the is the one allowable child for the other one of us.
This is the only idea in this thread that makes sense. With a one child per couple policy, you'd eventually end up with a population of zero. With an unrestricted number of kids per couple, you'd eventually run out of room to fit everyone.
You know, they'd probably reverse the policy when they get down to the last 20 or 30 people.
Look how social security works in the US.
Working age people pay a social security tax which is then paid to older people who are no longer working.
Currently, there are more working age people than old people.
If you have a one child policy then every generation would be half the population of the previous.
So instead of a large number of people helping a small number of people, you would have a small number of people contributing to a retired population that is larger than the working population.
That's not gonna work.
What you really need is for people to die sooner.
Vision 2050 wrote:
In no particular order of importance, the following benefits would occur:
- Pollution and waste would go down.
- Traffic would go down.
- Agricultural demand + hunger would go down.
- Resource depletion would be much less of a concern.
- Demand in the housing/real estate market would go down, making things more affordable. Homelessness would go down.
- Poverty would go down. Inheritances would no longer be split up among many siblings.
- Wages would rise and unemployment would go down, since the labor supply would shrink.
- Crime/violence would go down, as an aging population is generally less prone to crime.
- Parents would focus their resources on only one kid, so the next generation will have better lives.
None of those things are valuable in and of themselves. What makes them valuable is that they contribute to greater happiness and less suffering. A world in which 100 people get to lead moderately happy lives is probably better than a world in which two people get to lead really happy lives. What you are advocating is a world in which there are fewer people but a higher level of average happiness. At some point on the spectrum, that becomes a good trade off. Clearly, a world in which there are so many people that no one is actually leading a life worth living is not desirable. But we are nowhere near that point.
Only one child globally. That’s makes no sense.
Who gets to have the child? What happens when they grow up ... do we have another one?
Seriously though ... you can’t tell people not to make babies. People make babies, it’s what we do.
Vision 2050 wrote:
In no particular order of importance, the following benefits would occur:
- Pollution and waste would go down.
- Traffic would go down.
- Agricultural demand + hunger would go down.
- Resource depletion would be much less of a concern.
- Demand in the housing/real estate market would go down, making things more affordable. Homelessness would go down.
- Poverty would go down. Inheritances would no longer be split up among many siblings.
- Wages would rise and unemployment would go down, since the labor supply would shrink.
- Crime/violence would go down, as an aging population is generally less prone to crime.
- Parents would focus their resources on only one kid, so the next generation will have better lives.
No doubt your parents feel This way.
killermike wrote:
A world in which 100 people get to lead moderately happy lives is probably better than a world in which two people get to lead really happy lives.
True, because the population sizes are so tiny.
But which would be better, a world in which 100 billion people get to lead moderately happy lives, or a world in which two billion people get to lead really happy lives? I'd argue for the latter.
Size matters wrote:
killermike wrote:
A world in which 100 people get to lead moderately happy lives is probably better than a world in which two people get to lead really happy lives.
True, because the population sizes are so tiny.
But which would be better, a world in which 100 billion people get to lead moderately happy lives, or a world in which two billion people get to lead really happy lives? I'd argue for the latter.
Assuming those two billion people don't have more total happiness among them than the 100 billion, the 100 billion would be better. A world with more net happiness is better than a workd with less.
More importantly for the question here, though, is that seven billion people is not that tipping pount. We are not at a point where decreasing the population by 20% would increase total net happiness.
Though sobering, Japan is going to be a good case study on the consequences of depopulation due to lower than replacement fertility rates. As the population is just starting to decline from it's peak. The ratio of old to young is projected to keep increasing through 2060.
So beginning stages, and this is happening:
"The government plans to raise the nationwide sales tax to 10 percent from 8 percent in October to generate extra revenue for rising welfare costs."
"TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan should raise its sales tax above the planned 10 percent to cope with increased social welfare costs as the population ages and declines, most economists in a Reuters poll said, with some recommending it should be over 20 percent."
Here are just a couple items where your comments are not fully thought out.
1. You claim wages would rise because of a smaller supply. But there would also be a smaller demand since there would be less consumers buying products and services.
2. It is true that in 2 parent families there would be more focus on the one child which you suspect will somehow make that child a better person. But there is always another perspective. When your parents have no siblings, you have no aunts/uncles and no cousins. Sometimes those people never learned to resolve conflicts, never learned to share, nebver learned to care about others.
3. The burden of aging parents is not shared by siblings.
4. Many government programs that are pay as you go are pyramid schemes relying on a growing population. One perfect example is social security in the US. SS is headed for bankruptcy in the US and cutting the population would bring that on sooner.
5. Less taxes may mean less demand for government services but not necessarily types of services. Maybe with less people there will be less lanes needed on a highway but the highway will still be needed. Many extras (parks etc) will need to be eliminated because they can not be justified with less resources and less demand. If you are the child that was never born, you won't care but if yuo are the child that was born, you will care.
Ridethelightning wrote:
Never voluntarily limit your own freedom for any “perceived” benefit. You’ll never get it back.
So . . . one should only consider limits to freedom for those things without any perceived benefit? Seems weird to me, but OK.
SMH
sbeefyk2 wrote:
First off, if there's a one child policy then the human population would decline to zero relatively quickly. At 7.6 billion people, the final person alive will be 34 generations from now. That sounds like a long time, but it's not.
Second, there's documented benefits to having two children in terms of maturity, development, and learning.
34 generations is 1,000 years. And you don't think that any adjustments could be made in those 1,000 years?
SMH
Enforcing a one child policy requires a dystopian police state. Monitoring people's sex lives? Forced abortions? Involuntary sterilizations?
No thanks.
The long, long run wrote:
This is the only idea in this thread that makes sense. With a one child per couple policy, you'd eventually end up with a population of zero. With an unrestricted number of kids per couple, you'd eventually run out of room to fit everyone.
Unlimited does not imply an average of greater than 2 forever.