Manx students go on strike

[Neil Down]

1 hour ago, TheTeapot said:

Isn't the Armadale full of sex offenders?

You'd be the best placed person to know...

[woolley]

8 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

Actually there's no evidence that there's any link between ethnic group and family size.  People from one ethnic group who move to a country which is predominantly inhabited by another tend to adjust their  family sizes to that of the locals, usually by the next generation[1].   This is because family size is dictated by practicalities: availability of contraception and abortion; provision of suitable housing; the possibility of childcare so women can work outside the home.  It's true that there are certain religious sects that tend to encourage large families (Hassidic Jews, Mormons, some US Evangelicals) but they tend to be minorities within their countries.

In fact fertility rates have halved worldwide since 1960, though this has not been the same in all countries.  It has fallen more in East Asia (especially of course China), in South America (especially Brazil) and most of the larger Islamic countries (Indonesia, Iran, Bangladesh).  It's gone down less in Europe where family size was already comparatively low.  But the decline in Africa has been disappointing, which is what I think you are referring to.

The reasons for this are complex, but I think relate to the way that health care is delivered there.  Much of it has been traditionally religious-based, originating in the activity of missionaries.  For many of these contraception and especially abortion are seen as forbidden, even when contraception is allowed it tends to be seen as ungodly or at least not to be a high priority.  What secular and state-provided alternatives have existed have been hit hard over the last three or four decades by demands from lending institutions, such as the IMF, that such facilities should be cut back, charged for or privatised.  So things such as free contraception tend either to be out of reach or unaffordable[2].  And where money is short and health care has to be paid for, treating what ailments you already have tends to take priority over preventative measures. 

And aid organisations tend to concentrate on things that save children's lives (vaccination, clean water, anti-malaria) rather than stopping more being born.  Partly because they see that as the most urgent thing, but they will also be scared of offending powerful donors[3].  So it may well be true that 'political correctness' is stopping certain things being discussed with regard to population growth, but it is right-wing political correctness, driven by the sensitivities of capitalist investors and powerful religious groups.  But you won't find out about it in the papers[4] who want instead to blame it on people for being black or Muslim or whatever.

 

[1]  This may work both ways - it would be interesting to say if those moving to a country with a higher birthrate (such as the UK) from say Poland increase their average family side. 

[2]  If you think about the resistance that there was to the recent abortion bill from the health bureaucrats, you can see the mindset that stops these things being provided for free.

[3]  Trump of course has completely stopped funding to any aid organisation that has any links to abortion, but there were a lot of restrictions on such work already, going back to Reagan and before.

[4]  Strange isn't how the people who complain that "You can't talk about X, nowadays" usually do so in mass-circulation newspapers?

I don't dispute the bulk of what you say in geopolitical and economic terms, e.g. the unrealistic quest for eternal economic growth, but I stand by my original point that in a world with a population that has grown from less than a billion to pushing 8 billion in little more than a century, this really is the elephant in the room. I have read many studies on this subject, even some that predict a population decline starting in a hundred years, but this is cold comfort if, as we are asked to believe, the adverse effects of climate change are going to be rendering our way of life impractical in less than half of that time. Obviously climate change is happening, and man is contributing to it. I am not sold on the idea that we are totally responsible or that we can do anything about it in any case, but it is the wider accepted wisdom that we should try.  Compared to the constant, strident headlines on climate change, the issue of population and the limiting of it is virtually a closed subject and there are overtones of political correctness involved in that.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/total-fertility-rate/

[TheTeapot]

1 hour ago, Neil Down said:

You'd be the best placed person to know...

Why is that then? 

[Neil Down]

46 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

Why is that then? 

You asked the question so assumed you also knew the answer

[TheTeapot]

Oh right, that makes no sense. Normally when someone asks a question it is because they don't know the answer.

[dilligaf]

6 hours ago, Neil Down said:

damn these fat fingers of mine....

Maybe you should not curse your fat fingers if the old adage is true.

[Neil Down]

6 hours ago, TheTeapot said:

Oh right, that makes no sense. Normally when someone asks a question it is because they don't know the answer.

Normally but you don’t do normal...