The chinese government is stupid

[Lisnpuppy]

Gee that has never happened in a debate topic before!

 

*cough*

[ginnyfizz]

Of course not.... :whistling:

 

At any rate, I think the way to describe the Chinese government would be to call them ruthless in the way they seek to achieve things, rather than stupid. The problems described with regards to the bias against girl children, with often fatal results for the unfortunate little mites, is a cultural rather than a governmental thing, and it isn't exclusive to China. Baby girls have been abandoned to die or actively done away with since ancient times and in every continent. The fact that an ultrasound scan can tell you the sex of an unborn child has had the unfortunate result of creating a rise in demand for selective abortions, inevitably of baby girls, on cultural rather than medical grounds. (Yes I am well aware that determining the sex can also be used when sex linked hereditary conditions are in the equation.)

[grannywils]

I wasn't really going to get into this one because I disliked it's title, but I just have a couple of quick comments. And, Ginnyfizz, I know you've missed me. I agree with a lot of what you say here. Although I would not call the government ruthless, I would call it lacking in any sensitivity to it's people; but certainly not stupid, as was stated in an earlier thread by someone else.

 

Where we agree is with respect to the frequest cultural bias against girl children and women in general, unless and until they become important to the society for some reason, at which time the government suddenly will begin to tell them how important they really are. Example, the Rosie the Riveter ads during the WW2 here in the U.S. We needed woman to work in the factories, so now they were important. But when the boys got back, all of a sudden ads and articles started appearing about how important it was for women to be at home with their children. This was because the boys needed their jobs back, and some of the women had discovered that they liked going out to the workplace.

 

But anyway, I digress. What I wanted to say was that we are again getting off the topic of this particular thread, which has to do with the Chinese government. My only thought is that it has been in existence for longer than many in existence today, and that it has probably had more manifestations than most. So maybe it has learned somehow to survive. I'm not sure that has always been to the benefit of it's people. That is pretty much all I have to say at this moment.

[Burnagirl]

I quote from an article dealing with the "one-child" policy

 

 

China population (i) - gender ratio problem and "one-child policy"

There is a report in New England Journal of Medicine (NEMJ) titled "The Effect of China's One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years"

 

http://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff434/yuri-chick/sexratio1jm.jpg

 

To be precise, it is no longer a one-child policy any more

 

In most rural area, a second child is permited if the first is a girl

In some cities, couples who do not have siblings are allowed to have 2 children

 

No control for "endangered" minority of small population, and 3 children for larger minorities such as Tibetan, Uighur and Mongolian. There is no enforcement so effectively the policy does not apply, especially in rural areas where more children were born per couple

The imbalance in gender ratio is troublesome, and may lead to various social problems and even unrest. (even though some argue Darwinian selection would take care of itself and even result in improvement in the gene pool)

 

A note on the rural two-child policy. In theory, the policy of allowing a second child if the first is female will not change the gender ratio at birth, because each birth in independent.

 

This is a classical problem for high school probability. Assuming natural birth, the gender ratio of the first child is 104, so is the second child. In fact, if track record has anything to do with reproduction, the ratio of girls will only be higher for this sub-group of couples

In practice, this is also demonstrated to be true according to data from the NEMJ paper.

 

Rural biase is less severe than that in urban, because of the 2nd child policy

The high gender biase for second child is largely due to selective abortion

However, the average of all birth order is the same for urban (1.16) and rural areas (1.15), with different policies. In fact, rural figures is even less biased! (perhaps a result of less incentive for selective abortion for the first child)

I do not know when the two-child policy was implemented in rural China, ........ back in the 1980's , when it was one-child for all. Presumably the availability of gender prediction technology such as ultrasound (though illegal, but widely used) co-incide with the introduction of two-child amendment, which saved a lot of female fetus.

The rationale for more relax policy for the rural area is perhaps an answer to gender biase (less discriminance, and virtually no infancide in urban). However, there is an adverse effect to the "quality" of the next generation (education opportunity and arguably "gene pool"), since now that rural birth is 50% higher than that in urban (on top of the exisiting gap in fertility rate).

 

end quote.

[Lisnpuppy]

Shame of you! Where are your references? Volume Date, Volume number, title and pages? Geez!

 

Actually that is an interesting article though I would like to see more of it. I suspect others will also if they should want to argue that point.

[Burnagirl]

Shame of you! Where are your references? Volume Date, Volume number, title and pages? Geez!

 

Actually that is an interesting article though I would like to see more of it. I suspect others will also if they should want to argue that point.

 

 

 

I just knew that it was a good idea to save the adress ... http://sun-bin.blogspot.com/2005/12/china-population-i-gender-ratio.html and another if you're really in the mood

for a bit of a read ... http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMhpr051833

 

Enjoy ... hehehe

[Lisnpuppy]

Shame of you! Where are your references? Volume Date, Volume number, title and pages? Geez!

 

Actually that is an interesting article though I would like to see more of it. I suspect others will also if they should want to argue that point.

 

 

 

I just knew that it was a good idea to save the adress ... http://sun-bin.blogs...nder-ratio.html and another if you're really in the mood

for a bit of a read ... http://www.nejm.org/...6/NEJMhpr051833

 

Enjoy ... hehehe

 

Thank you...actually I did read it. :)

And yes it was fun.

 

I do not believe China's government is stupid. I just think that the Chinese mindset and culture are so different than ours (Western Minds) that we often can not see the reasoning from their perspective.

[Ghogiel]

Erm, this is rather flawed logic and smells quite a bit like too much vegan propaganda. While yes, the raw food value of a cow does not equal the raw food value of what it takes to feed that cow, there is no good alternative for animal proteins, and if you did the dietary research, you would see rather alarmingly that strict vegans are significantly more prone to certain diseases, and even decreased brain function if they've been following that diet for long enough. Furthermore, the output of a single cow is not merely in the meat we eat, but in all the other things which are rendered from that animal. There are also benefits from the manure, which is used to fertilize crops, and the emitted gasses which are now often collected and used to fuel local operations instead of drawing from the power grid.

 

All that food that goes into a single cow hardly goes to waste, and actually helps establish a chain of renewable resources which makes other things possible. There is much more to food value than just what fills you. Let's be honest, if a livestock animal didn't put out more than was put into it, they wouldn't exist, period.

No one said anything about not eating animal proteins. :S so all that don't be a vegan stuff is pretty much irrelevant.

 

And actually Quinoa is a very high quality protein, comparable to egg protein, which is pretty much the most usable form of proteins found in any our staple food sources. Fish and eggs are the king. and quinoa is up there with them, It's supposed to be a super food. It's alright I suppose, but I wouldn't want to live on it. I need sushi as often as possible. :yes:

 

"there is no good alternative for animal proteins" seriously? WTF? You are probably thinking of amino acids, which are quite difficult to get balanced in a vegan diet, but not impossible. I flat out do not recommend a vegan diet to anyone. It's too costly, limiting, time consuming, and you can't eat anywhere. Plus there are many healthy nutritional foods that are off the menu... for what seems to me- no logical reason. But what ever floats your boat.

 

And to top it off> nutritionally, beef isn't actually that good. in fact, if you are looking for an optimium healthy diet, you should probably avoid it as much as possible. there are far more nutritional things you could eat as an alternative. :)

 

lets not mention the fact that you will want to be eating organic beef, if you really want to eat it at all.

 

anyway by all accounts, the amount of deforestation into grazeland that beef production accounts for, and the amount of return for it's resources, and all the rest, really does make beef farming a rather resource hungry and inefficient form of food production, for something that wouldn't even make it near a healthy optimum diet, is it worth being so fixated with it? Manure can be produced by any other farmed animals, chicken or pigs. So it is hardly even worth considering that as a factor in determining how efficient cattle farming is, apparently it is rather inefficient. :shrug:

 

From there, the issue gets complicated. and the factors and variables pile up into a big mess.

[Lisnpuppy]

I am going to play Annoying Topic person here:

 

With all do respect Ghogiel....

 

as Vagrant said this matter was wildly off topic from the original debate post. It is obvious you feel strongly on this and wanted to comment on the other post (and it is well-written) but I would encourage you to start another topic if you want to continue down this line.

 

It really has nothing to do with the debate topic and this has been noted.

 

Thank you. :thumbsup:

[Ethre]

To raise one cow for market takes the same amount of resources that would be needed to feed a few hundred people for a year .yet that cow if given to those few hundred people wouldn't even provide enough for one meal.

Erm, this is rather flawed logic and smells quite a bit like too much vegan propaganda. While yes, the raw food value of a cow does not equal the raw food value of what it takes to feed that cow, there is no good alternative for animal proteins, and if you did the dietary research, you would see rather alarmingly that strict vegans are significantly more prone to certain diseases, and even decreased brain function if they've been following that diet for long enough. Furthermore, the output of a single cow is not merely in the meat we eat, but in all the other things which are rendered from that animal. There are also benefits from the manure, which is used to fertilize crops, and the emitted gasses which are now often collected and used to fuel local operations instead of drawing from the power grid.

 

All that food that goes into a single cow hardly goes to waste, and actually helps establish a chain of renewable resources which makes other things possible. There is much more to food value than just what fills you. Let's be honest, if a livestock animal didn't put out more than was put into it, they wouldn't exist, period.

 

At one time they did put out more than what is now currently put into them ,the cow we know is a product of selective breeding that has occurred over a milenium .The amount (resources) that is put into them is from the cattle industry itself ,I know this because my grandmother when she was alive raised cattle ,I myself used to herd and feed them. Its not vegan propaganda cause I'm no vegan (love my T bones) but that doesn't mean I'm going to minimize the impact our consumption habits are having.Same is true for the breeds of swine that are currently utilized in industrial farming only difference in eating habits between the two is that pigs are like goats ,they can eat a wide variety of foods ,cattle on the other hand are limited in what they can eat and if you want the maximum return of your investment you feed it the best grain you can ,which is also the kind of grains humans would eat.

 

PS just realized something, The ratio of resources used is not on a year basis for the cattle ,it generally is at the end of 3 years when a cow will be sent to market ,sometimes 4 ,mind you it still comes out that you could feed a lot more humans by not raising the cow.

Mmmm, sirloin . . .

 

A couple of points:

1) I agree with you both, there is no way around it - animal production (of any kind) will be less efficient than plant production. Its a move up the supply chain - the further up you get, the less efficient you get.

(Of course animals raised purely on (what would otherwise be) discarded byproducts are a slightly fuzzy issue. Yes, they are less efficient than the original plant, but would the byproducts have been used for something else? )

2) On the other-hand, animal production can often use more marginal resource areas. In the case of cattle, for instance, there are thousands of sections of grazing land which would not otherwise be utilized in agricultural production. Compared to many grasses, most food crops require more water and more fertile soil (and sometimes a more temperate climate). When animals are fattened they consume resources that generally could have been used to provide food directly, but this is not the case with much grazing.

3) Regarding other byproducts of cattle:

-Manure: very useful (in moderation) byproduct.

-Gasses: Idealistic, but only practical in constrained (think feedlot) locations. This is not something that will be happening anytime soon on grass-raised animals.

4) A cow will "put out more than was put into it" - but only when you consider the increase in value of the beef when compared to the alternative productions for the resources utilized. If beef is in demand, cattle will be more valuable and hence more will be raised. If beef is not in demand, the resources will be utilized in other manners. Output vs Input here refers more to money than to actual products/benefits.

 

Just my observations (raised on a ranch, worked in commercial ag). I hope this is comprehensible as I am a little low on sleep. Good night everybody.

 

EDIT: Apologies, as has been pointed out this has gone horribly off-topic. I am sorry to have perpetuated that trend.

On topic though, wouldn't a gender imbalance actually assist China in stopping population growth?

Edited September 30, 2010 by Ethre