Monday, October 28, 2013

The Western academic origins of China's One Child Policy

A great essay on the academic origin of China's One Child Policy:

In our latest Freakonomics Radio podcast, “Misadventures in Baby-Making,” we describe an academic paper by a Dutch mathematics professor that might have been one of the inspirations of the controversial One Child Policy in China. 
Here’s the story: in the early 1970s, Geert Jan Olsder co-authored the paper “Population Planning; a Distributed Time Optimal Control Problem.” He saw population as a mathematical constraint problem, where an optimal birth rate could be found: 
“Given a certain initial age profile the population must be “steered” as quickly as possible to another, prescribed, final age profile by means of a suitable chosen birth rate.” 
The model considered the natural birth rate and mortality rate, an economic constraint, and time. And like any good empirical scientist, Olsder makes this warning in his paper: 
“This paper is not concerned with the social and political problems involved in establishing the best mechanism for a program of population management….The optimal birth rate may unbalance the age distribution during the time interval concerned, which could give rise to economic and social problems.” 
He meets Song Jian, a visitor from China with a Ph.D. in engineering from Moscow University. According to Olsder, they went out for beers and talked about population planning. Olsder thought nothing of it. 
Song was a ballistics missiles specialist, but by the end of the 1980s he had established a theory of population control in Chinese political and science circles. Susan Greenhalgh, an expert on the One Child Policy who served 10 years at the Population Council, notes in her book that Song formed his theory largely based on ideas from the Club of Rome publication The Limits of Growth — a 1972 Malthusian work that hinted at catastrophe if resources and population were not balanced. It applied straight forward equations to economic outlooks without data, an approach that economists have since dismissed
Armed with The Limits of Growth, along with computations and models that called for drastic policy change, Song took his hard science approach to powerful party leaders in Beijing. Here’s Song’s bio from the China Daily website: 
“With his knowledge of cybernetics, Song worked out a theory of a bidirectional limit to the total fertility rate. This helped the Chinese leader to formulate the state family planning policy, particularly the “one couple, one child” policy.” 
The rest is history. Three decades later, the policy has led to severe gender imbalances in some parts of China, which is also facing a potential demographic disaster due to its aging population. Ironically, China might have the opposite population problem now: too low a birth rate
For more on Song Jian and the One Child Policy, check out Mara Hvistendahl‘s piece inScience.

Western population control junk science is the foundation for China's One Child Policy.

The frauds and misanthropes who peddle this totalitarian trash bear a direct responsibility for China's brutal policy, which is one of the worst crimes against humanity in history.  

17 comments:

  1. So millions of people have to die so they can find the "right" number of human beings on the planet.

    TRISH

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    1. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 28, 2013 at 7:58 AM

      One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.
      --- Josef Stalin

      Delete
  2. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 28, 2013 at 7:56 AM

    Thanks for posting that, Doc. The level of hubris required to apply linear programming, a powerful optimization technique widely used in operations research, to human population control and reproductive policy is breathtaking. It's a perfect example of the consequences of a confluence of radical materialism and political power.

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    1. Adm and Trish:

      Well said. The application of mathematical techniques to control by force the most intimate aspect of family life is the apogee of totalitarianism.

      We tend to think that the great totalitarian atrocities of the 20th century have ended-- communism is on its deathbed and Nazism is no more. But we live in a world that accepts totalitarianism with equanimity in many aspects of our lives.

      The mavens of population control deserve the same approbation as Nazis. Yet they are honored and extolled for their work.

      Delete
    2. I meant opprobrium, not "approbation". I haven't had coffee yet.

      Delete
  3. Conclusion: applied mathematics leads to totalitarianism.

    Hoo

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    1. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 28, 2013 at 10:58 AM

      You're silly.

      Delete
    2. As silly as people who tie Darwinism to Nazism.

      Hoo

      Delete
    3. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 28, 2013 at 11:28 AM

      Much, much more silly than that.

      Delete
    4. I agree that both are silly and leave it up to you to plumb the depths of silliness.

      Hoo

      Delete
    5. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyOctober 28, 2013 at 1:58 PM

      Thank you. Both are silly, in the sense that a Big Mac and Jupiter are both big.

      Delete
    6. Materialist apologia 101:
      Social Darwinism could not possibly be linked to Darwinism. Eugenics has no link to scientific racism, but is instead based on the myth that all men are created equally.
      Further, National Socialism has no links to socialism and communism is simply misunderstood by the hundreds of millions of it's victims.

      Delete
    7. Anon,

      You could also link gas chambers and organic chemistry, or fire bombing of Dresden and theory of combustion.

      Hope you understand what I mean.

      Hoo

      Delete
  4. This is one of the reasons Nixon went to China.

    The NWO offered China rapid industrialisation (moving US car production to China for example) and other goodies.

    They wanted population reduction in return.

    Western depopulation is happening just as quickly although the methodology is different.

    John R.

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    Replies
    1. Sorry, what depopulation is that? Or do you mean depopulation of people of the right color or creed?

      Delete
    2. troyOctober 28, 2013 at 8:07 PM
      'Sorry, what depopulation is that? Or do you mean depopulation of people of the right color or creed?'

      Sorry troy; I do not follow.

      JR

      Delete
  5. Wouldn't the Chinese have implemented their one-child policy without having been aware of the Dutch mathematician's paper? I doubt it. It doesn't take much fancy math to figure out ways to limit population growth.

    Egnor just needed someone to project his daily dose of hatred on.

    ReplyDelete