Quote:While excoriated as a tyrranical policy, the Chinese "one child" policy successfully, for about a generation, suppressed a geometric population growth.
For those not aware, I would like to stress that in my visits to china in the Late 90's, policy's been extremely relaxed, mostly about financial incentives, and some family in Urban mainland China have had 2 children born in the late 80's and through the 90's.
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For instance, the state newly allowed single-child husbands and single-child wives to have two children between each other. (Chinese Reproductive Policy at the Turn of the Millennium, pg 382) This process of fine-tuning persists even today: according to a report issued this month, re-marrying couples in Shanghai are allowed to have one child between each other even if they've each had one child from their previous marriages. (www.cpirc.org.cn/enews20031010.htm) The new birth planning law is flexible enough to even accommodate individuals who have gone through divorce or separation.
Quote:A revised and liberalized birth planning policy: China is making brave steps to achieve sustainable growth, even though whether it can achieve that goal fully can only be told in time
These are from the about.com article
Occhi makes the observation that, "smart, modern low-rate breeders are slowly non-breeding themselves into a marginal sliver of the population", one that's commonly held. I've had some time to premeditate on that thought (years, I can a bit slow).
Quote:To quote a Fundy acquaintance of mine: "We breed, those city slicker elitists don't."
City slickers were country born, but city bred. You may breed'em, but we'll teach'em to want more, reach farther.
Let's not forget that Urbanization started out and continues to have migrated from rural areas.
My longer observation has concepts influenced by Sun Tzu. There's only one victory, success. If merit breeds success, it matters greatly that we have people of great merit--but, professionally merit is not bound by blood or culture (though obviously some individual practices are boons and hinderances). Merit and success are defined in and of themselves, not to any one plutocracy. Knowledge, when useful, can be applied to the benefit of everyone. So too can man be trained, when given the initiave and opportunity, and reach beyond his starting point. As a personal anecdote: I'm no saint, but I can honestly say I've taken small parts in helping many young folk grasp beyond their initial perceived limits. Birth isn't the only way to build a better human. Nor would socioeconomic construct be absolute in determining success and failure (cultural backround and identity, starting poor, starting with a crazy family out to kill you, or being surrounded by those that keep you down, lacking initial communication... etc, though it certainly helps to be priviledged away from some of these things). I've seen success of dysfunctional families on television as a reflection to a success from dysfunctional family members in real life. It is sometimes possible to outgrow* your start, thus it doesn't matter where you're born, you can make a difference for the positive.
Yeah, the elitists as individuals do die eventually, but knowledge, ideas and success can carry on through children not by birth.
I'm young. I have some hope for the future. Fortunately, it isn't completely blind or unfounded.
Edited additions: *I attribute this partly to human's ability to reach rapid "Mental Clarity when facing execution" and breach stagnant ideas. Facing annihilation tends to allow for reassessment of beliefs, actions and value. Poor reasoning, and negative irrational behaviour can die with the people that uphold them.