Feb 26 2011: Because if we knew, we would go mad... Think about all the violence that the state commits while supposedly protecting the public: some 1000 black men died between 1969 and 2001 in police custody in the UK (www.injusticefilm.co.uk/reviews.html), people are rutinely abused in prison (www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/dec/11/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime1)... Think of all the violence that is the underbelly of this wonderful capitalist system (80% of all the coltan, which goes into mobile phones, computers, aviation, comes from Congo: women are raped so as to scare the population into leaving the land for mining development; children of Guatemalan coffee plantation workers go hungry so that we can have cheap coffee...) If we really thought of all the violence that goes into our Western way of life we would go mad.... so we go by the fiction that we that enjoy the fruits of capitalism are good and law abiding (we also happen to be white which is convenient in keeping the fiction) and we don't look too deep into how we have what we have...
Feb 25 2011: Certainly, I don't think anyone is optimistic enough to think all the billions at the bottom of the food chain can develop in the American way... or in the European way for that matter. Expectations of material wealth will have to be curved.
I am particularly interested in your misgivings about cities... In fact, I should think that it is easier to provide services for people when they congregate in high density population centers: schools, hospitals, public transport, libraries, housing, sanitation... If anything I think that cities are part of the solution not the problem.
Feb 18 2011: Hans Rosling's figures are interesting. However, even more interesting would be trying to explain why the working poor in certain countries -namely Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe- don't have enough children to replace themselves and the poor in Africa have many more children that would seem sensible from our point of view. The obvious answer is that those poor Europeans can't afford children (please notice that virtually all countries were total fertility rate approaches two have either financial incentives to have children or working salaries allow for decent living standards), but then poor Africans can't either....So that can't be the answer. I am aware that Europeans have better access to contraception but as far as I am aware Bushmen and other hunters and gatherers don't need any fancy technology to control their numbers, they practise infanticide.... Sad, but it is better to raise two healthy children than 6 malnourished ones. My point being that if other Africans perceived children as detracting from their standard of living, they would also practise infanticide... Before anyone gets upset, infanticide has been quite a common way of controlling population growth for most of human history -in Great Britain the death of infants due to overlaying reached epidemic proportions.
So, my question is, why does the perception of children varies so much from country to country and also within the same country from decade to decade?
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A comment on Conversation: Why are we surprised that our troops would torture other humans in war?
A reply on Conversation: Why do so many think that population growth is an important issue for the environment? Don't they know the facts of demographics?
I am particularly interested in your misgivings about cities... In fact, I should think that it is easier to provide services for people when they congregate in high density population centers: schools, hospitals, public transport, libraries, housing, sanitation... If anything I think that cities are part of the solution not the problem.
A comment on Conversation: Why do so many think that population growth is an important issue for the environment? Don't they know the facts of demographics?
So, my question is, why does the perception of children varies so much from country to country and also within the same country from decade to decade?