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Fojar38 posted:It's strange since I could've sworn that projections said that the Chinese population was going to shrink to under a billion and the global population was expected to plateau. Population projection isn't an exact science and projections that take climate change into account typically have high-population developing countries experience population stagnation and decline as their economies crash and resource crises take their toll. That really depends on how you think about projections. One of the problems is we're trying to predict poo poo decades to centuries off in the future, which we just can't. But my understanding is that there are basically two major, end scenarios that everything else more or less falls between Very Good Technology improves a lot and we find new ways to produce food, fix global warming, and gently caress off into space some. We start harvesting asteroids, industry, food production, and living space are created off-planet. Enough space infrastructure allows us to create living space more or less as fast as we need it. Exponential growth isn't a thing anymore but we don't have to care about the hard limits of Earth. Standards of living improve across the board. Very Bad Global warming creates a feedback loop of the type we're terrified of. The Earth gets hot, farm land dries up, massive droughts and crop failures spark WW3. Growth becomes negative, population collapses, and billions die within a few decades. The oceans become anoxic, fish species go extinct by the thousands, and humanity is left struggling to survive in the steaming rubble of civilization. Both scenarios are plausible. We can kind of sort of influence which one happens but the problem with future prediction is that stuff we can't control is affecting things as well. It's also possible that population will level off, global warming will sort itself out somehow, and we'll just chug along at 9 to 11 billion people for the foreseeable future.
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Jun 2, 2014 04:29
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I was mostly thinking about how this concerns China and other developing nations. I'm not that worried about climate change in the west, as the west has the technology, stability, and money to adapt to it to a sufficient degree that most people won't notice it (according to what I've seen no actual scientifically reputable report has predicted the end of civilization or the apocalypse from climate change) but in places like China the challenge will be enormous simply due to China's size.
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Jun 2, 2014 04:37
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Fojar38 posted:It's strange since I could've sworn that projections said that the Chinese population was going to shrink to under a billion and the global population was expected to plateau. Population projection isn't an exact science and projections that take climate change into account typically have high-population developing countries experience population stagnation and decline as their economies crash and resource crises take their toll. You may have been thinking of a certain documentary in which a US Air Force expert explains the drastic reduction of overall Chinese population.
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Jun 2, 2014 04:45
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Fojar38 posted:I was mostly thinking about how this concerns China and other developing nations. I'm not that worried about climate change in the west, as the west has the technology, stability, and money to adapt to it to a sufficient degree that most people won't notice it (according to what I've seen no actual scientifically reputable report has predicted the end of civilization or the apocalypse from climate change) but in places like China the challenge will be enormous simply due to China's size. Enough global warming would gently caress up literally everything. There is also currently a pretty major economic link between the western world and China. If China implodes it's going to send ripples out through the rest of the world, guaranteed. In that case it's a matter of how much global warming happens and what effects it has. There are a lot of variables involved and a lot of "well gently caress we don't really know" levels of stuff.
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Jun 2, 2014 04:59
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Enough global warming would gently caress up literally everything. There is also currently a pretty major economic link between the western world and China. If China implodes it's going to send ripples out through the rest of the world, guaranteed. Yeah and really there's already a major push to replace a lot of the coal plants in China (though mostly that's due to air quality than any global warming effects) with nuclear plants. At the very least they're actually going in the right direction, unlike e.g. Germany who decided to fire up a bunch of new coal plants.
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Jun 2, 2014 05:02
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Enough global warming would gently caress up literally everything. There is also currently a pretty major economic link between the western world and China. If China implodes it's going to send ripples out through the rest of the world, guaranteed. We can deal without cheap electronics. China can't deal without food. on the left fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Jun 2, 2014 |
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Jun 2, 2014 05:38
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computer parts posted:Yeah and really there's already a major push to replace a lot of the coal plants in China (though mostly that's due to air quality than any global warming effects) with nuclear plants. At the very least they're actually going in the right direction, unlike e.g. Germany who decided to fire up a bunch of new coal plants. ToxicSlurpee posted:In that case it's a matter of how much global warming happens and what effects it has. There are a lot of variables involved and a lot of "well gently caress we don't really know" levels of stuff. Not sure on how long a scale that's going to happen, but it seems like every year the scientists looking at the numbers go "Hey guys, remember when we said we would see a rise of a foot? Yeah, probably going to be a meter instead." on the left posted:We can deal without cheap electronics. China can't deal without food.
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Jun 2, 2014 07:14
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quote:The invisible hand of the free market will finally return jobs to the West. How much longer are manufacturing jobs even going to be a thing in the west as automation and robotics continue to grow more and more sophisticated? I'm sure that there are specialized parts that need human interaction to make but it seems like the west would be far able to absorb losing access to cheap Chinese manufacturing than China would be able to absorb losing western capital.
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Jun 2, 2014 07:19
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on the left posted:We can deal without cheap electronics. China can't deal without food. Except that we kind of can't, actually. Oh sure we can live without them but America's economic system is an extremely consumerist model based on rapid consumption and discarding of goods for the next one, necessary or otherwise. We don't need to have millions of people buying a new cell phone every year or two but that's the way things are set up. We eat poo poo loads of meat, buy way more living space than we need on average, and generally conspicuously consume like crazy. Our source of cheap plastic poo poo drying up would force a major change on American society which may or may not happen gracefully. One major snag on the global warming front in general is that Americans absolutely hate being confronted with how wasteful and inefficient they are. Some people refuse to recycle because it's slightly inconvenient (gently caress, I have to have more than one bin and actually sort some of my trash?  ) or because it's associated with those goddamned dirty hippies. Like it or not, getting away from cheap mass produced goods would require a major cultural shift that would utterly infuriate a lot of people.It's part of why there is still so much inequality in the world. Yeah a lot of Americans think it's terrible that so much of the world is living in poverty and agree that somebody should do something about it. What they are not willing to do is give anything up in the process.
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Jun 2, 2014 07:34
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Like it or not, getting away from cheap mass produced goods would require a major cultural shift that would utterly infuriate a lot of people. Assuming it's jobs coming back, and not just manufacturing of course. Though even then the products would need a market, which would necessitate something like a basic income if there weren't enough jobs.
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Jun 2, 2014 07:44
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Except that we kind of can't, actually. Oh sure we can live without them but America's economic system is an extremely consumerist model based on rapid consumption and discarding of goods for the next one, necessary or otherwise. We don't need to have millions of people buying a new cell phone every year or two but that's the way things are set up. We eat poo poo loads of meat, buy way more living space than we need on average, and generally conspicuously consume like crazy. Our source of cheap plastic poo poo drying up would force a major change on American society which may or may not happen gracefully. We wouldn't have to live without cheap electronics, I was implying that the terms of trade would dramatically be tilted against high population/low agricultural productivity nations such as China. They would have to continue making cheap electronics for agricultural powerhouse countries or face massive starvation and famine. China and other countries realize this and it's why they have tried to buy up farmland and resources in Africa.
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Jun 2, 2014 09:00
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Fojar38 posted:How much longer are manufacturing jobs even going to be a thing in the west as automation and robotics continue to grow more and more sophisticated? I'm sure that there are specialized parts that need human interaction to make but it seems like the west would be far able to absorb losing access to cheap Chinese manufacturing than China would be able to absorb losing western capital. You might want to read this. It's got projections on which fields of work are most vulnerable to technological improvements in the next 20 years. Transportation, administration, and service jobs are very vulnerable right now. The report expects up to 47% of jobs in the US to become fully automated.
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Jun 2, 2014 09:31
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Freakazoid_ posted:You might want to read this. It's got projections on which fields of work are most vulnerable to technological improvements in the next 20 years. Transportation, administration, and service jobs are very vulnerable right now. The report expects up to 47% of jobs in the US to become fully automated. Isn't it amazing how if we only had a different economic system, that number would be a source of joy and hope for the future rather than dread?
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Jun 2, 2014 12:25
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TheBalor posted:Isn't it amazing how if we only had a different economic system, that number would be a source of joy and hope for the future rather than dread? You must justify your continued existence, citizen.
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Jun 2, 2014 12:53
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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TheBalor posted:Isn't it amazing how if we only had a different economic system, that number would be a source of joy and hope for the future rather than dread?
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Jun 2, 2014 15:08
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I've always seen the one-child policy in China cited as something that, all issues of morality aside here, was needed in some form or another to control what was then a very poor country's exploding population. The discussion earlier produced a link with a graphic showing China's population more or less staying at current levels through 2050, and I understand the one-child policy is being relaxed in rural areas. What I've never seen mentioned, even earlier when the one-child policy and aging populations were being simultaneously discussed, were possible scenarios in which China's population does continue to hover around 1 billion, but with a much older median age. I'm assuming the relaxation of the one-child policy is meant to mitigate this effect (as well as produce males able to work on family farms), and I'd assume they'll relax it further over time as needed. I know the CPC would probably never publicly comment on it, but has there been any indication that they're aware of it, and are going to try to avoid a Japan-level population population crisis? I'd imagine even with the government tightly controlling population, there'd still be a window in which the levels would be all out of whack, and that'd definitely cause problems down the road. Then again, an older population is likely to riot, so there's that.
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Jun 2, 2014 15:30
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dinoputz posted:I've always seen the one-child policy in China cited as something that, all issues of morality aside here, was needed in some form or another to control what was then a very poor country's exploding population. The discussion earlier produced a link with a graphic showing China's population more or less staying at current levels through 2050, and I understand the one-child policy is being relaxed in rural areas. What I've never seen mentioned, even earlier when the one-child policy and aging populations were being simultaneously discussed, were possible scenarios in which China's population does continue to hover around 1 billion, but with a much older median age. The Chinese government definitely wants to keep fertility levels from reaching exceptionally low levels- I mentioned a couple negative examples of that somewhat further back in the thread (using propaganda campaigns to convince people that unmarried women are worthless and terrible and also stigmatizing marriages that don't produce children). Also, more relaxed rules for families in rural areas have been around for the entirety of the policy. What is new is the policy that a couple anywhere in China can have two children if just one is an only child (as opposed to both).
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Jun 2, 2014 15:38
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dilbertschalter posted:Also, more relaxed rules for families in rural areas have been around for the entirety of the policy. What is new is the policy that a couple anywhere in China can have two children if just one is an only child (as opposed to both).
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Jun 2, 2014 16:13
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dilbertschalter posted:The Chinese government definitely wants to keep fertility levels from reaching exceptionally low levels- I mentioned a couple negative examples of that somewhat further back in the thread (using propaganda campaigns to convince people that unmarried women are worthless and terrible and also stigmatizing marriages that don't produce children). The Chinese government can try to boost fertility levels, but I don't think I've heard of too many modern governments that have had success with boosting rates through their policies. I think France is the only country that has really achieved any sort of measurable success with pro-natalist policies, and even then it's not particularly impressive (they're still basically just at replacement rate).
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Jun 2, 2014 23:19
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I think in theory at least the Chinese would be better at it than most other countries. For the simple reason that China is doing it with a much poorer population base in the rural areas. And fertility rate seems to be inversely correlated with income.
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Jun 4, 2014 18:44
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New Division posted:The Chinese government can try to boost fertility levels, but I don't think I've heard of too many modern governments that have had success with boosting rates through their policies. I think France is the only country that has really achieved any sort of measurable success with pro-natalist policies, and even then it's not particularly impressive (they're still basically just at replacement rate). Many Chinese families want a boy so badly that they're willing to break the law, which still mandates relatively heavy financial penalties and forced abortions if broken, in order to have one. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that if all family planning laws in China were dropped or greatly reduced, China would boost their rates pretty quickly.
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Jun 5, 2014 16:27
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Many Chinese families want a boy so badly that they're willing to break the law, which still mandates relatively heavy financial penalties and forced abortions if broken, in order to have one. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that if all family planning laws in China were dropped or greatly reduced, China would boost their rates pretty quickly. This isn't necessarily true. As I said before, in societies where education is super important (i.e. East Asia) children are very "expensive," which leads to a dramatic decline in birth rates. Japan isn't a good comparison, as it isn't a son preference society, but Taiwan and South Korea both are and they experienced dramatic drops in fertility long ago. South Korea's fertility rate was already below well below replacement level by the mid-1980s and Taiwan was only a few years behind. I think it's very possible that China's birth won't get back over replacement level, even after further relaxations of the One Child Policy.
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Jun 5, 2014 16:43
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Many Chinese families want a boy so badly that they're willing to break the law, which still mandates relatively heavy financial penalties and forced abortions if broken, in order to have one. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that if all family planning laws in China were dropped or greatly reduced, China would boost their rates pretty quickly. I think this is actually only true in rural areas. IIRC urban areas have an even gender ratio which tilts slightly towards females.
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Jun 5, 2014 21:06
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Typo posted:I think this is actually only true in rural areas. IIRC urban areas have an even gender ratio which tilts slightly towards females. The majority of China's population is still rural though. Henan for instance is a far cry from Shanghai or Beijing, even in the urban areas. Chinese census statistics are pretty unreliable as well because I'm pretty sure they're based on hukou registration. EDIT: People only follow the One Child Policy in the cities as well, unless they're rich, because it's uniformly enforced there. In the countryside, the central government has less control. It's one of the reasons they still have, "Love the Party" banners out there. People often get around it out there by not registering their children though rural hukous usually get 2 shots at a boy. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Jun 6, 2014 |
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Jun 6, 2014 01:29
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