Wifely Duties
POSTED BY: piratenews
UPDATED: Saturday, January 9, 2010 04:47
VIEWED: 62964
PAGE 10 of 19
Quote:
And, uhm - WHICH government polices are making it harder ? Be specific !
Rue, what started this whole conversation? If there is no public option to help people pay for insurance they can't afford, and it is against the law for them to not have insurance, then they must buy insurance from the insurance companies. If they can't afford this, then how can they afford to have (more) children?
Quote:
you have not begun to think
Quote:
You need, I think, to break out of your own head - it's really small in there and the only thing you'll find is yourself !
I've shown you respect, Rue. Well, except for the potato thing, that was kinda sassy, but I took it back and I'll also apologize for it. Calling me a pea brain is unnecessary, we knew you disagree with me. You could also choose more accurate insults that I couldn't breathe a word against. I mean, you haven't even called me bat shit crazy yet. Am I not bat shit crazy? o_0 @_@ Wheee!
You seem to think that when a culture experiences demographic transitions that places within the culture don't lag behind. There's poor in America and Europe too, and they tend to have more children. Probably because they can't afford birth control. Oh, look, benefits for the better off for conforming to the system.
I guess China isn't cross culture enough though.
Anyway, it looks like you're very interested in squishing me right now, and I'm not interested in a flame war and sort of would prefer to remain unsquished.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Byte
I did not call you a pea brain. I think your POV is limited to an extremely small group of people and not representative of millions, perhaps billions, of people. I was hoping you would expand you dataset to include those many you seem to have ignored, who represent many cultures across the globe, many eras - and many people in fact who had no thought to the fate of the planet (b/c culturally, it was not an issue).
Where I work and in my neighborhood there are several Hispanic families I know quite well. The parents came from Mexico and from families with 9, 11, 14 children. ALL of their children, who are educated, had had zero, one or two children - no more. Here we have the demographic transition in one generation - despite the fact that culturally, they were raised to value family. My Ethiopian coworker came from a family of 14 children as well as another couple dozen 'adopted' children. He and his wife (also Ethiopian) had exactly two children. He was explicit in stating that the reason to have so many children 'back in Ethiopia' (in the backwaters where he came from) was b/c they were considered social security. BTW It was his wife who wanted fewer children for her own personal reasons.
Out of the dozens of couples I know very well - all highly educated - I only know of one couple who had no children strictly out of concern for the planet.
And while the poor in thhe US many not be able to afford birth control - the poor in Europe have free access to it b/c they have their health needs provided for (Ireland making an exception for birth control).
And, as you seem to have slid past, China had its GREATEST reduciton of birth rate BEFORE the one urban child policy (a polciy you insist on mischaracterizing and which has the support of 80% of the population)) - due completely to improving economics.
I have pointed out the fatal flaw in your logic stating that people who are concerned about being able to afford children have fewer as a result - by highlighting the FACT that the poorest people who can afford them the least have the most. And paradoxically, the better-off who can afford them the most have fewer.
As for your proposal that it was EUROPEANS who were making it harder to have children by their polices, and having family-friendly polices was only a 'band-aid', you STILL have not provided any kind of data, evidence, or, anything ...
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Oops, sorry Byte. A serious brain fart induced by scanning too many posts too quickly. (Still, you and DT are very much alike in this, so the mistake is understandable.)
Quote:Doubtful. We would have to invent essentially closed-cycle human production.
But if we had some improvements, we could cut down on a lot of the land being used, and increase our output.
Quote:The problem is now, Byte, not in the distant future when we "might" go off-world. And if we had the $$ and the will to go off-world, wouldn't we have the $$ and the will to improve our earth?
And if we were to actually invest in establishing some freaking off world colonies, the human race might have some long term potential without having to make any potentially murky decisions.
Quote:Pacific Islanders ... faced most immediately with the quandary of limited resources and exponential population growth, chose survival BY population control. It was either that, or face complete social and biological catastrophe, as the Easter Islanders did. The earth is just a bigger island; its not infinite. Survival and population control are not "opposing" forces, I see them as synergistic.
Yes, you're right, population decrease would ALSO make us use less land, but if you go that route, you still have to ask yourself, "what populations do we decrease?" That's not a decision that I think anyone should make, because it's impossible to be neutral when it's your nation, YOUR people's reproductive future at stake. Furthermore, without force (China), the population is unlikely to accept such a measure because it goes against basic instincts. Unless it's whitecoated, or they're preconditioned to accept it, a population will always choose survival over lofty sounding noble goals.
The reason why people have so many children is severalfold:
1) As long as you have sex, in the absence of birth control, you will have children. Children are born in concentration camps, in famine, as a product of rape. They're automatic, just as shitting follows eating. They come, whether you want them or not.
2) In farming societies, children are a resource: hands to work the land, and a cushion for your old age. Because so many children died young (~50%) parents planned on "extras". Once clean water and sanitation are introduced, those "extras" pile up.
The conditions for low birthrate are also severalfold
1) As soon as labor is no longer manual labor, children become a drain. Long years of support and education, with no productivity in the meantime, makes children an economic bust. Such is modern life!!
2) Once women have a chance NOT to have children, and they have other things to do with their lives, they stop. Children are not as much fun as being a child yourself.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
My data was that the birthrate of European nations is low despite government aid (which I never denied existed)and my conclusion was that 1) the government programs are not helping the birthrate, even the ones that are incentives for more children, 2) there are other factors at work, or 3) both.
Quote:
I have pointed out the fata flaw in your logic that people wo are concerned about being able to afford children have fewer as a result - by highlighting the FACT that the poorest people who can afford them the least have the most.
It's not a fatal flaw, it's a question of demographics. As I said above, the poorest of Americans tend to have the most children. I don't disagree with you there. It's as true world wide as it is here because it IS a form of social security, whether the parents expect the children to take care of them, or whether mortality rates are just that high. But the people who are the most educated and have the most resources have the least children. This is because they feel like they want to focus all those resources on those one or two children (and because pregnancy really is a bitch). But it's also still a question of resources and economic security. They don't have more children because resources are limited by a capitalist system. These family level considerations are easily converted into arguments about the resources and population and environmental problems faced by humanity. Hence the reason I extrapolated.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
The problem is now, Byte, not in the distant future when we "might" go off-world. And if we had the $$ and the will to go off-world, wouldn't we have the $$ and the will to improve our earth?
I think we should try to do both.
I don't disagree with any of the facts you posted.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
"My data was that the birthrate of European nations is low despite government aid (which I never denied existed)and my conclusion was that 1) the government programs are not helping the birthrate, even the ones that are incentives for more children, 2) there are other factors at work, or 3) both."
There IS something going on - and it's a completely natural phenomenon called the DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION, which happens everywhere and across the ages. I keep pointing this out. It doesn't require a massive conspiracy to consider that maybe, just possibly maybe, given a choice women find better things to do than have children. 
"... even the ones that are incentives for more children ..."
Are there others that DISincetivise having children ? A question you have yet to answer.
As for whether or not the programs are helping, the only way to know that is to stop having them and seeing if the birth rate drops.
"This is because they feel like they want to focus all those resources on those one or two children (and because pregnancy really is a bitch)."
And THIS is completely unproven on your part. Whereas I have shown that IN CASES WHERE THIS DYNAMIC DOESN'T HOLD lower birth rate is STILL the outcome.
"But it's also still a question of resources and economic security. They don't have more children because resources are limited by a capitalist system. "
And resources AREN'T limited even more by the capitalist system in Bangladesh ? You simply can't say that A (lack of recoures) is a cause of B (fewer children) when MORE of A (poverty) causes LESS of B (more children).
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Government here introduced a pretty hefty baby bonus to combat aging population situation which did result in an increase in the birth rate - it has also increased the number of people who have babies for a bit of a quick cash injection which I'm pretty certain is not a great motivation for having children
I don't believe in global conspiracies to increase or decrease populations - the world is too complex and chaotic for anything like that to happen
i think there is a tendancy in the west to have fewer children because we are largely motivated by materialism and having children takes money from the pot - both in earning capacity and what you have to spend to rear them. Other less individualistic cultures tend to value children more because they tend to expand the economic pot rather than reduce it and because culturally people's expectations focus on family a lot more - which increases status and so on - whereas in modern western cultures, family tends to be a sideline to career and money
As for the alleged utopia that was the 1950's and 60's - I'm pretty sure that the whole nuclear family - dad at work and mum at home - was a kind of blip in history - it was a time of unprecedented prosperity and also a time when the world (perhaps as a subconciously unit) was seeking to replenish its population after many years of war and hardship.
Prior to that, wealthy women stayed at home - often along side their wealthy husbands - to pursue a life of leisure - whereas the bulk of the population - men, women and children worked hard and made do with all sorts of circumstances to have and care for children.
As for the original riduclous post - women of course can be totally subservient to their husbands in terms of their sexual needs and to society for its reproductive needs if you consider that women needs, desires and wishes are of less importance than men's - in other words that their value as human beings is less.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:That doesn't make sense. On the one hand, you agree that poor people have more children, even in capitalist societies. On the other hand, you say that under capitalism people are limited by resource considerations from having children. Both statments can't be true, so you must be pointing to something else.
But it's also still a question of resources and economic security. They don't have more children because resources are limited by a capitalist system. These family level considerations are easily converted into arguments about the resources and population and environmental problems faced by humanity. Hence the reason I extrapolated
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Are there others that DISincetivise having children ? A question you have yet to answer.
I already told you, this conversation started out discussing one such program, mandatory health care with no public option.
I feel like I'm not getting anywhere in this discussion, or maybe am being ignored now.
Quote:
maybe, just possibly maybe, given a choice women find better things to do than have children.
Did I ever argue that they didn't? Did I ever say that I don't think that some of the things we do instead are good things? I'm talking cause and effect. What ideology that I see, and how it effects birthrate. You're the one bringing all this other stuff in.
Quote:
"But it's also still a question of resources and economic security. They don't have more children because resources are limited by a capitalist system. "
And resources AREN'T limited even more by the capitalist system in Bangladesh ? You simply can't say that A (lack of recoures) is a cause of B (fewer children) when MORE of A (poverty) causes LESS of B (more children).
DIFFERENT DEMOGRAPHICS. A rural and or poor group is going to have a different response than a middle class group, because they have different survival tactics.
I'm just repeating myself now.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME