Population Control, D&D

Forced population control as the PRC has practiced in the past (seizing newborns and executing them) is undesirable. Birth control is desirable. The US and Europe have declining population rates, so it probably is not as apparent to most of us the problems of overpopulation. This isn't a new debate though - see Ehrlich and Ehrlich's book from the early 70s/late 60s.

 

Here's a link to a pretty objective study that says the world can sustain 15 billion at the American Standard of living. link

Not only that, but the birth rate of a country must be at 2.1 % if the country is to be able to sustain itself. This is why we see European countries losing their native populations. link to 2.1%

So basically population control is a bunch of smoke up your ass.

Their end conclusion is that at the rate the world is growing now, they estimate population will top off at 9 billion midcentury and then might even start to decline.

Regardless the earth can handle that many people.

 

Doctors would "induce premature labor," says Chi An, who is a trained nurse. "Then, after the cervix had dilated and the crown of the baby's head was exposed, he would inject pure formaldehyde into the fetal brain through the fontanel, or soft spot." If the cervix did not dilate fully, the doctor would "reach in with forceps and crush the baby's skull" (Mosher, 255).

http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.16390/article_detail.asp

In June of 1995, Britain’s Channel Four television aired a documentary called The Dying Rooms. In it, Kate Blewett, Brian Woods, and Peter Hugh recorded what they found when they surreptiously filmed several orphanages run by the Chinese government. They found infants and children tied to their cots and left unattended without food or medical attention until they died. Some particularly haunting footage shows a little girl in the last stages of starvation, abandoned in one of the "dying rooms" that give the film its title. When the film-makers called later to inquire about the girl, the orphanage denied that she had ever existed.
Then in January 1996, a Chinese doctor who had been on staff at a Shanghai orphanage from 1988 to 1993, and is now living abroad, testified (with corroboration from medical reports and photographs she smuggled out) that at her one institution alone, 400 children were allowed to die, mostly by starvation, over a five-year period. (Orphanage personnel admit on camera in "The Dying Rooms" that as many as 90 percent of the children admitted to some institutions die there.) A January report on this subject from the group Human Rights Watch/Asia estimates from central government reports that deaths of children in China’s state-run orphanages run in the thousands every year.

Some Chinese officials have denounced these revelations as "lies" and "malicious fraud" motivated by personal enmity. In January, Western reporters were taken by Chinese authorities on a tour of one model orphanage that had apparently been set up in some haste for their benefit. One journalist noted that its computers were so new their packing boxes were still in the building. Other Chinese officials admit that there are many deaths in state orphanages, but blame them on cold weather, lack of electricity, and a shortage of resources in a country where 80 million people live in poverty.

But poverty doesn’t explain why Chinese orphans are given sleeping pills instead of food, tied to cribs and chairs, left unchanged when soiled, denied medical care, and allowed to die of neglect. According to press coverage of the Human Rights Watch/Asia report, state orphanages in China select out children for "summary resolution" (i.e. death by neglect) quite methodically. Typical state-run homes have become little more than "assembly lines" for the elimination of unwanted babies.

 

Did you check the links? It's pretty darn objective.

 

Good god almighty, Hayes... is this on the level??
I'm not religious, and am against the death penalty, but if this story is true, some people have a serious, serious price to pay. If this was done with the knowledge of the Chinese government, and any of those responsible are still in power, then why are we having anything to do with them?

Dollars. **** it.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

Well it is a logical fallacy to think that reducing the number of children through whatever means will somehow be good. It fails to understand that their is a simple replacement birth rate of 2.1% that needs to be maintained for countries to sustain their population. This is not happening, which means that exponential birth rates are not going to stay out of control and are even going to dip, resulting in a loss of population. We see this effect in Europe, as native Europeans are not reproducing. The result is immigration is bringing in a completely different culture from the Islamic nations, changing the very faces of European Countries. This is real bad.

Further, there isn't even a population problem or an energy problem. This doesn't mean that we should live studpidly and waste resources. It just means we have to learn how to live smarter, which doesn't really entail the curtailing of the life processes of reproduction. The only resource that is in danger is oil, to which this guy says will probably last 50 to 100 more years but that there are different means of sustaining and producing oil.

 

Is this what partial-birth abortions essentially are?

 

Under this logic, every culture should keep reproducing at exponential rates - you have an incentive problem.

 

Regardless of that, the fact is over time we'll have about two cultures, Islam and Christians who don't believe in birth control.

Responsible reproduction is still a factor, families shouldn't have more children than they can provide for, but their are alternatives to birth control and abortion that don't get factored in, and we act like birth control and abortion will solve those problems when they are simply a cover.

Natural Family PLanning. I'm having to take classes on this and the number one thing they teach is, its not the rhythm method.

 

All I have to say is, WOW, do you guys truly believe the claims in this quote.

As a Chinese who grew up in rural area of south China, I believe I have seen many harsh things in poor areas and fairly open-minded. Still, I firmly believe it is ridiculous to describe the state run orphanage in China is equal to a killing machine.

First, talking about 400 babies let die in 5 years in an orphanage and it was in Shanghai, the most developed area in China. Let’s say that it’s averagely 400 babies introduced to the orphanage annually so it’s about 20% either starved or ill-treated to death. Thus it would not be surprising that 40-50% would be mal-nutritioned. Then I guess in my hometown, it is probably the babies either dead or mal-nutritioned since words like “typical”, “methodically” are all over the place in this article.

Then I personally know quite a few American families who adopted daughters from the orphanages in my hometown and a city next to it. Most of them, some have visited the orphanages personally, feel their daughters were well taken care of there. I have also seen the photos these parents shared, and I think the living conditions are even better than their natural parents (since they are likely poor farmers) could afford. So these two stories don’t meet anywhere close. Who do you believe? If you think what all these parents (dozens of them each year) saw were staged shows, well, what can I say?

Nevertheless, I admit that in a county of more than one billion, some evil deeds do exist. I have read a few like stories like baby girl traffickers published in Chinese media. But every single time they were condemned by the government as well as normal Chinese. It is a total misconception that this kind of inhumanity is normal practice in China. Why? This kind of story sells to American. That is also why so many illegal immigrants can get legal residence as asylum by using essentially the same stories.

BTW, as for the authenticity of the documentary film, search for “Harry Hongda Wu” and you will see that you could easily be misled by so-called insiders.

 

I didn't have to go to classes to learn it, and it cost me a small fee, and while I don't get laid as much as, say bigtexxx -- who I am assured, gets laid a lot -- using a jimmy hat has proven effective thus far in preventing the world from being overrun by mini-samfishers, thank god.

 

And there's the religious difference. A condom isn't really going with nature whereas knowing that the body has a cycle is working with nature. And there's some in both camps that will argue the intent is the same, not to have kids, but I don't really agree with that. I'm not really going to NFP myself, but it is pretty awesome.

Once again, though, it comes back to the whole sex before marriage difference inherent in how people think. But thats a whole 'nother can o' worms.

And yes bigtexxx gets laid so much it makes us virgins whince at the thought of living up to his procreative acts.

Oh yeah, NFP is slightly more effective than condoms. Like 99.1% to 99.0% or something like that.

 

The descriptions of PRC policy re: forceps crushing skulls is pretty well and heavily documented. The orphange part I just google'd up. My understanding is that these practices are becoming less prevalent as the old guard has moved out of power and the one child policy has been losened, but my point was merely to point out that the sort of policies pursued by the PRC in the past are not the kind of solution to population problems that I would support.

 

Sure like you can make us discuss a controversial issue.

I would agree with Twhy's piece that the Earth could support more people but the problem is that region by region though that isn't the case. For instance we couldn't have a billion people living in the American West. Also as population rises all sorts of problems arise that greatly increase mortalilty and quality of life as resources are denuded in overpopulated regions. The only way to balance that out would be through mass migration and as we see in Europe the US and the rest of the developed World mass migration isn't going to be accepted.

 

If you're reason for doing it is to save future resources, sure, but the average American uses up 20 times more of the worlds resources in his/her lifetime than the average Chinese person.

 

This reminds me of the best solution to all of our problems.

Universal Mandated Abortion

Not only would it end overpopulation it would also end crime, racism, deficits, war and any other problem caused by and plaguing humanity within a few generations.