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kaigouor a philosopher, or a historian.
Okay, the theories on world population control are pretty diverse, and as far as I know, China is the only country (so far) to actually attempt some kind of a major population control. In contrast, Japan's population is holding steady and/or decreasing minutely, as a result of the economic pressures and social changes resulting in people waiting longer to have children, having fewer children, and some folks not bothering at all.
But here are the primary situations facing the worldbuilding experiment I'm working on:
1. the population is significantly higher than the resources can support
2. the government (secular) has been forced to institute controls on the birth rate
3. for various reasons, a significant # of the population is sterile
Without sitting down and figuring out numbers, I'm postulating that if the death rate continues at a steady pace (barring sudden natural disasters and war), it's still too low to balance out the birth rate against the actual population. So, more deaths required, fewer births allowed, until the population reaches a point that's feasible and manageable against the number of resources.
China, currently, has a huge number of baby girls up for adoption, who have been abandoned to the government's care. Part of the feasibility of doing this is that there are other countries who have resources/room for the children. If, however, that were not an option, I'd think the government would be forced to clamp down harder, rather than have the burden of unwanted children shifted onto them. I do know that a Chinese friend told me that although she's a Chinese citizen, she may have as many children as she wants (especially while out of the country, and it helps that she's educated middle-class for China). The clincher is not that her children will be forcibly removed, but that if she returns to China with her two sons, she will lose all health insurance/support, education options, etc, for her second child. As far as the government would be concerned, her second child simply would not exist; China's cost of living is apparently quite high in contrast to possible incomes, so the cost makes such an option completely out of the question for 99.9% of the population. (I'm disregarding, of course, the issue of minorities being exempt from this rule, as well as the fact that my friend could have two sons because she was outside China when they were born and thus out from under the government's control.)
What are the theories on overpopulation? Would such a situation result in anarchy? I've posited a lottery setup for potential parents taking their turn at a chance to have children - "this year, seventy-three children can be born; seventy-three fertile couples will have a chance to concieve; those who cannot will be removed from the lotteries and the unborn # added to next year's lottery". Might a black market situation where the mafia hires itself out to slaughter/destroy large neighborhoods in hopes of introducing more deaths to raise the # of parental couples selected in the lottery? I can't think of any historical examples of such, to demonstate that such callous disregard could occur on the level required, if the proportion were greater than one to one, say, five deaths for every birth. CP has pointed out that even now, we have a recurring pattern of negligence for the elderly - cutting back medicare, attempting to privatize social security - and wouldn't the same possibly occur for those people ranked as 'neutrals' (sterile by birth, drug exposure or malnutrition)? That would shift the gender wars dramatically: male, female, neutral, based solely on one's ability to reproduce. If someone were determined to be neutral and infertile, would this create a second-class citizenship? Is there any historical example of situations where this has occured? I'm thinking of the mulattos and quatroons in Louisiana, where recognition of black ancestry was enough to drop one on the social scale, but it's not like you can look at a person and know they're fertile or infertile.
Glad to hear any/all speculation.
This world-building stuff is kinda fun.
Okay, the theories on world population control are pretty diverse, and as far as I know, China is the only country (so far) to actually attempt some kind of a major population control. In contrast, Japan's population is holding steady and/or decreasing minutely, as a result of the economic pressures and social changes resulting in people waiting longer to have children, having fewer children, and some folks not bothering at all.
But here are the primary situations facing the worldbuilding experiment I'm working on:
1. the population is significantly higher than the resources can support
2. the government (secular) has been forced to institute controls on the birth rate
3. for various reasons, a significant # of the population is sterile
Without sitting down and figuring out numbers, I'm postulating that if the death rate continues at a steady pace (barring sudden natural disasters and war), it's still too low to balance out the birth rate against the actual population. So, more deaths required, fewer births allowed, until the population reaches a point that's feasible and manageable against the number of resources.
China, currently, has a huge number of baby girls up for adoption, who have been abandoned to the government's care. Part of the feasibility of doing this is that there are other countries who have resources/room for the children. If, however, that were not an option, I'd think the government would be forced to clamp down harder, rather than have the burden of unwanted children shifted onto them. I do know that a Chinese friend told me that although she's a Chinese citizen, she may have as many children as she wants (especially while out of the country, and it helps that she's educated middle-class for China). The clincher is not that her children will be forcibly removed, but that if she returns to China with her two sons, she will lose all health insurance/support, education options, etc, for her second child. As far as the government would be concerned, her second child simply would not exist; China's cost of living is apparently quite high in contrast to possible incomes, so the cost makes such an option completely out of the question for 99.9% of the population. (I'm disregarding, of course, the issue of minorities being exempt from this rule, as well as the fact that my friend could have two sons because she was outside China when they were born and thus out from under the government's control.)
What are the theories on overpopulation? Would such a situation result in anarchy? I've posited a lottery setup for potential parents taking their turn at a chance to have children - "this year, seventy-three children can be born; seventy-three fertile couples will have a chance to concieve; those who cannot will be removed from the lotteries and the unborn # added to next year's lottery". Might a black market situation where the mafia hires itself out to slaughter/destroy large neighborhoods in hopes of introducing more deaths to raise the # of parental couples selected in the lottery? I can't think of any historical examples of such, to demonstate that such callous disregard could occur on the level required, if the proportion were greater than one to one, say, five deaths for every birth. CP has pointed out that even now, we have a recurring pattern of negligence for the elderly - cutting back medicare, attempting to privatize social security - and wouldn't the same possibly occur for those people ranked as 'neutrals' (sterile by birth, drug exposure or malnutrition)? That would shift the gender wars dramatically: male, female, neutral, based solely on one's ability to reproduce. If someone were determined to be neutral and infertile, would this create a second-class citizenship? Is there any historical example of situations where this has occured? I'm thinking of the mulattos and quatroons in Louisiana, where recognition of black ancestry was enough to drop one on the social scale, but it's not like you can look at a person and know they're fertile or infertile.
Glad to hear any/all speculation.
This world-building stuff is kinda fun.
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no subject
Date: 22 Nov 2004 10:29 pm (UTC)Aw, I bet you tell that to all the neuroscientists.
I agree that sequence has a lot to do with it; also the conditions pre-war/catastrophe. I'd argue, however, that in a totalitarian state where the resources/available technology can barely keep up with feeding and keeping all the people warm, a lot of people are going to go hungry and be cold, while the government spends money on researching spear-head technology instead. *coughNorthKoreacough*
And the death rate won't stay constant either -- I think that was the point I started out to make, then forgot all about. There'll be a whole generation, maybe two, where a considerable part has been killed in war/biocatastrophe or will die from delayed effects. The death rate is going to increase further, as the old and sick succumb to hardships, the level of fitness required to survive has just been raised . You might also have an accelerated death rate among the neutrals, due to genetic and developmental damage, and with them being the majority of the population, the average life-span might decrease significantly.
I'm not sure how a government would respond to damage to the gene pool, since there's no guarantee that a fertile couple will produce fertile offspring -- the odds may even be against it in your universe. They might be facing extinction a few generations down the road...so it does make sense that what restrictions there are would be lifted.
Now my brain hurts too. Chokma, please.
no subject
Date: 22 Nov 2004 10:52 pm (UTC)Then there would be resentment among those who can't bear children, and I imagine there would be a black market development of people selling their children to wealthier families who desperately want their own chance at a child...hrm, I really don't like the idea of children as commodities (as a society-wide notion) but it does happen on a small scale, even now (and it's not like they're treated as commodities, for the most part, by adoptive parents; it's just the process by which they're obtained that's a bit cold-blooded to me).
What prompts a baby boom, anyway? I know WWII prompted one, where so many soldiers returned home longing for stability and peace and family - all the things that they'd been fighting for. The US baby boom lasted 17 years; Japan's (in the 80's, I think) lasted only three. If there were a massive baby boom like that again *and* predicted natural disaster on the horizon, would only the totalitarian states - (like China, North Korea, Soviet Union) which have control over so much of the people's lives - be the ones with the capability to forestall a continued increase in population against oncoming resource deficits?
Hrmmmm. Must go eat chocolate and ponder.