Africans Will Not Stop Popping Out Babies

Wiðercora · **#41** by **Wiðercora** » Apr 16, 2012 8:37 am

UtilityMonster wrote:
Wiðercora wrote:There won't be a majority vote, China would veto.

That sounds like a baseless statement if I ever heard one, especially considering the fact that China has done more than any other nation to fight population growth.

Yes, but those measures don't include foreign occupation.

johnbrandt · **#42** by **johnbrandt** » Apr 16, 2012 8:39 am

The trouble with educating women and girls is that you're thinking from a western perspective, where women generally actually have a say in their lives. No matter how educated a woman or girl is in a lot of those countries, if she's going to be living in the village or township she came from, nothing will change. She has no power.

Read a few chilling articles about child brides in various parts of the world, and how mothers and grandmothers see nothing wrong with virtually selling off their little girls to some old letch (in fact in a lot of places the older women are the ones actively pushing the deals through) because "if they wait until she's a teenager she mightn't be a virgin and no one will want her!"

It's a whole weird mindset going on, from cradle to grave, that the powerful rule (and make the rules), that men get the last say in everything, and women are just a possession. Educating women that it isn't like that in other countries, and all you will probably do is create an environment where women will stand up to the menfolk, with obvious consequences.

Not saying it isn't worth trying to educate women more, but not sure that unless you educate everyone, anything will change much... :think:

I'm With Stupid · **#43** by **I'm With Stupid** » Apr 16, 2012 8:50 am

johnbrandt wrote: It's a whole weird mindset going on, from cradle to grave, that the powerful rule (and make the rules), that men get the last say in everything, and women are just a possession. Educating women that it isn't like that in other countries, and all you will probably do is create an environment where women will stand up to the menfolk, with obvious consequences.

What obvious consequences could be worse than what they've already got? A lot of these countries have rape on an epidemic level, for example. And of course educating everyone is important, but the most important way to change the lives of women is to remove them from economic dependency on men. Educated women have careers. That means they don't rely on men economically. This creates a more equal relationship, in which a woman who is badly treated can leave her husband without fear that she'll end up on the streets. And of course, they'll be a social stigma attached to this...at first. That's no different to what happened in the West, or what's currently happening in the far East. And the first step is to give women complete control of their reproductive systems, by removing any economic or social barrier to accessing contraception. At the very least, it will mean that a raped woman doesn't also get pregnant.

The child bride issue is a bit more difficult, but I honestly don't think any parents genuinely want to give their child to some old pervert, and they only do so because they feel that's their child's only chance of a decent future. The key in that situation is to offer them another opportunity, and education does that. Not in all cases, and not overnight, but it will work over time.

THWOTH · **#44** by **THWOTH** » Apr 16, 2012 8:59 am

UtilityMonster wrote:I would like to hear proposals on how to deal with this problem.

Reduce poverty, increase health, and educate women as equals.

Wiðercora · **#45** by **Wiðercora** » Apr 16, 2012 9:00 am

THWOTH wrote:
UtilityMonster wrote:I would like to hear proposals on how to deal with this problem.

Reduce poverty, increase health, and educate women as equals.

No, we should invade and force women to have abortions.

JoeB · **#46** by **JoeB** » Apr 16, 2012 9:05 am

With such rapid population growth in the poorest region of the world I expect to see massive famines and much more social upheaval than we see today. If we (the rich bastards of this planet) don't want to get swamped with refugees and asylum seekers we'd better anticipate or help to fix this problem as best we can.
Besides the moral obligation one might feel towards helping those nations manage their population size as best as possible, it's simply in our own best interest.

Or place a massive electrified fence around Africa..

rEvolutionist · **#47** by **rEvolutionist** » Apr 16, 2012 9:06 am

Wiðercora wrote:
THWOTH wrote:
UtilityMonster wrote:I would like to hear proposals on how to deal with this problem.

Reduce poverty, increase health, and educate women as equals.

No, we should invade and force women to have abortions.

Even simpler, we should just kill half the women. That will reduce the birthrate by half. If they get recalcitrant, we can just kill more of them till they get the message.

Wiðercora · **#48** by **Wiðercora** » Apr 16, 2012 9:10 am

rEvolutionist wrote:
Wiðercora wrote:
THWOTH wrote:
UtilityMonster wrote:I would like to hear proposals on how to deal with this problem.

Reduce poverty, increase health, and educate women as equals.

No, we should invade and force women to have abortions.

Even simpler, we should just kill half the women. That will reduce the birthrate by half. If they get recalcitrant, we can just kill more of them till they get the message.

Well, I imagine that any invasion would lead to numerous casualties.

rEvolutionist · **#49** by **rEvolutionist** » Apr 16, 2012 9:16 am

Not a UM invasion, apparently... :grin:

UndercoverElephant · **#50** by **UndercoverElephant** » Apr 16, 2012 9:23 am

MacIver wrote:Don't have time to read the article right now UM, but I have something to chuck in anyway...

From reports and stats that I've seen the moment a female moves from rural area to a urban one the number of hypothetical babies she'll have drops significantly. I'm just wondering if these projections include this fact? Or have they calculated them without taking into account the increased urbanisation of Africa?

If the person who moves has 6 siblings, 4 of whom stay in the countryside, how does this help?

Loren Michael · **#51** by **Loren Michael** » Apr 16, 2012 9:23 am

UtilityMonster wrote:I would like to hear proposals on how to deal with this problem. My initial reaction is quadruple spending on population control measures being taken in Africa. Provide pamphlets about the dangers of having too many children, the benefits of birth control, etc. Make condoms available in every fucking building - let there be no excuse for not using them. Provide free birth control pills to any woman who wants one. Fund massive education centers that are open to the public and have constant lectures going about reducing birthrates. Fund massive advertising campaigns that flat out call people with a lot of children irresponsible - billboards, radio/tv ads, newspaper ads.

Many have blamed the problem on "cultural differences." Well, I suggest the government implement actual population control measures. Tax couples for every single child. Every single damn one, starting with the first. If governments refuse to take action, I think UN occupation and governance is called for. Mandatory abortions might even be necessary.

I think it's a lot easier than you think, to the extent that there's a problem at all.

Low hanging fruit = fixing the toilet problem and reducing the barriers to migration.

Higher-hanging fruit - insofar as it's not clear how it would/should be accomplished - would be local institutional reform.

UndercoverElephant · **#52** by **UndercoverElephant** » Apr 16, 2012 9:24 am

Emmeline wrote:According to stats I've seen (mainly from Hans Rosling) a key factor in reducing family numbers is increasing child survival rates. Other key factors are of course better education and availability of contraception.

Right. So we solve an IMMEDIATE overpopulation problem by trying to reduce infant mortality?

I'm struggling with the logic here.

UndercoverElephant · **#53** by **UndercoverElephant** » Apr 16, 2012 9:26 am

Wiðercora wrote:
Many have blamed the problem on "cultural differences." Well, I suggest the government implement actual population control measures. Tax couples for every single child. Every single damn one, starting with the first. If governments refuse to take action, I think UN occupation and governance is called for. Mandatory abortions might even be necessary.

I'm sure that will go down well.

It is also deeply immoral, because it allows the rich to have as many children as they please, but denies this right to the poor.

Population control legislation has to cover everyone, rich or poor. Otherwise we are introducing artifical selection or a sort of badly-thought-out eugenics.

UndercoverElephant · **#54** by **UndercoverElephant** » Apr 16, 2012 9:29 am

Varangian wrote:
campermon wrote:Educate women and girls.

As in "with an education, they will try to better their lot in life instead of rearing big families"?

That's the theory. Only two problems with it.

(1) It's far too late to expect this strategy to work.
(2) People who better their lot in life nearly always end up using more resources.

UndercoverElephant · **#55** by **UndercoverElephant** » Apr 16, 2012 9:33 am

UtilityMonster wrote:
My fucking god. I thought there was a consensus that people dying needlessly is bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYWcSfWxaf8

Horizon - Why Most of Us Need To Die - Part 1 of 6

We have to accept basic fact #1: THERE ARE ALREADY TOO MANY HUMANS ON THIS PLANET.

Unless you are completely mad, of course:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iodJ0OOd ... ure=relmfu

Loren Michael · **#56** by **Loren Michael** » Apr 16, 2012 9:33 am

UndercoverElephant wrote:
Emmeline wrote:According to stats I've seen (mainly from Hans Rosling) a key factor in reducing family numbers is increasing child survival rates. Other key factors are of course better education and availability of contraception.

Right. So we solve an IMMEDIATE overpopulation problem by trying to reduce infant mortality?

I'm struggling with the logic here.

Is your issue that not enough babies are dying, or that people are having too many babies? Because assuming fixing the former fixes the latter, the logic seems obvious. While it might take a toll on the mother and the family, the death of a baby at a young age doesn't mean that a mother won't have another baby.

Loren Michael · **#57** by **Loren Michael** » Apr 16, 2012 9:37 am

UndercoverElephant wrote:We have to accept basic fact #1: THERE ARE ALREADY TOO MANY HUMANS ON THIS PLANET.

The basic fact is that there is inefficient organization and utilization of the humans that are here, not that there are too many. Basic fact number two is that there is a network of collective action problems that keep inefficient organizational policy in place.

UndercoverElephant · **#58** by **UndercoverElephant** » Apr 16, 2012 9:43 am

MacIver wrote:I used to be really worried about overpopulation. But now I think it may not be as big a problem as I once did. The real problem is over-consumption.

I'd quibble with this and say both overpopulation and overconsumption are symptoms of an deeper cultural/psychological problems. Our whole relationship to the rest of the biosphere is unfit-for-purpose. Regarding both overpopulation and overconsumption, we haven't even reached the point of seriously discussing these things. They are effectively taboo, even in the developed world.

Many of today’s most-respected thinkers, from Stephen Hawking to David Attenborough, argue that our efforts to fight climate change and other environmental perils will all fail unless we “do something” about population growth. In the Universe in a Nutshell, Hawking declares that, “in the last 200 years, population growth has become exponential… The world population doubles every forty years.”

But this is nonsense. For a start, there is no exponential growth. In fact, population growth is slowing. For more than three decades now, the average number of babies being born to women in most of the world has been in decline. Globally, women today have half as many babies as their mothers did, mostly out of choice. They are doing it for their own good, the good of their families, and, if it helps the planet too, then so much the better.

Here are the numbers. Forty years ago, the average woman had between five and six kids. Now she has 2.6. This is getting close to the replacement level which, allowing for girls who don’t make it to adulthood, is around 2.3. As I show in my new book, Peoplequake, half the world already has a fertility rate below the long-term replacement level. That includes all of Europe, much of the Caribbean and the far east from Japan to Vietnam and Thailand, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Tunisia.

I thought we were talking about sub-saharan Africa.

UndercoverElephant · **#59** by **UndercoverElephant** » Apr 16, 2012 9:45 am

AndreD wrote:The best option would be to withdraw all aid to Africa and let natural selection have its way.

By far. The best for Africa, and probably the best for us too. But we must also stop meddling in their affairs for own interests (i.e. we must accept that we can't go in and complicate the situation because we want to get our grubby hands on their non-renewable resources.)

rEvolutionist · **#60** by **rEvolutionist** » Apr 16, 2012 9:45 am

It's not the number of humans that is the problem necessarily, it is the level of consumption of a small part of them (and the potential level of consumption of the others going into the future)

Africans Will Not Stop Popping Out Babies

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