Say what?
Michael: "They have overgrown the capacity of their land to feed them. They NEED to import food. That is a problem."
Dien:" Japan needs to import food too. They seem to do alright. Singapore as well. Singapore even has to import its fresh water (it imports it from neighboring Malaysia)."
What on earth does that have to do with India. India is a third world nation with over ONE BILLION people. Most of them are poor.
Japan is a modern country with about 80 or 90 millions people. Less than 10% of India's population.
Singapore, also a modern country, has even fewer people.
Dien: If you have money coming in, you can use it to buy food. I've read that there's enough food produced in the world to more than feed everybody. When there are famines, it's usually due to political situations (like civil wars) or economic situations (can't afford to import food). As long as you don't have civil war-type problems, and you have the income to import food, I don't see it as a problem, at least not with the current population."
You might as well say, as long as you are a modern advanced democratic nation there is no problem.
But India is NOT that kind of nation. So there is a problem.
Dien: "And I think we still have more capacity to grow food, if we want to. The shallow waters of the oceans are practically untapped for farming. However, these areas can be used to farm edible seaweeds, for fish farms, lobster farms, etc. This already happens now, though on a very small scale."
What has this got to do with India as it currently is right now?
Michael: "The overly large population leads to disease situations. The infrastructure cannot keep up with the demand being placed on it. That is a problem."
Dien: "Japan has some of the most densely packed populations in the world, but don't seem to have a big problem with spreading disease. Yes, it is something that needs to be managed. Again, the problem is more the economy - if you have enough income, you can solve the problem through technology."
Again with Japan. You cannot compare a modern 21st century advanced country with a third world country like India. The resources and technology are not present in India. Their large population is disease prone because it is too large for the available infrastructure.
Put 100,000 people in a tent city with only a tiny stream for water and the same disease condition will appear.
Michael: "The large population is breeding faster than resources can be utilised to accomodate them. That is a problem."
Dien: "On the other side of the equation, new technology allows us to use our resources more and more efficiently. And new technology even "creates" new resources for us to use. For example, our ocean coastal areas are practically unused. A new technology like ocean farming allows this area to be used for food production. (As I said, this is already happening, though right now it's on a very small scale. I predict this industry will grow over the next few decades.)"
This may be true - BUT - it is little consolation for India in its present condition.
It does not matter what technology can bring IF. The point is India's condition right now. And right now, they use very little technology where it matters. And their people breed faster than the infrastructure can be created to handle them.
Just look at how they get around on trains - packed in like sardines and even riding on the roof. If there were more lines and more services this would not happen. But the population is breeding faster than new lines and services can be added.
Dien: "Anyhow, better educated populations tend to reduce their birth rates naturally. With further education, you would expect the same would happen with India."
This is what I was alluding to in my post. It's not just education. It has got to be lifestyle. A better educated farmer in the middle of nowhere will still slash and burn if he needs land because his crops are not producing the yield they once did.
Michael: "Left to Mother Nature, all the overcrowded populations would go through a natural die off and balance would be obtained."
Dien: "That's the Malthusian argument. As I said, he predicted that widespread famines would happen decades ago, based on the same argument you're making. They didn't happen, because he didn't take into account the effect of new technology."
It's not any arguement unless you change the condition. It IS mother nature. It is a natural thing. ALL animal species go through it.
I am saying "if left to mother nature" and you are comparing that to a situation that is NOT left to mother nature.
Those two different situations cannot be compared as if they are the same thing.
Michael: "As I think of the difference between the western world and the third world countries trying to "modernise" I realize the west got civilized/modern while populations were small, and then the populations grew at a balancing rate with the technology and infrastructure."
Dien: "What about Japan? It's progress after WWII was incredibly rapid."
Japan does not have one billion people. And the size of its population NOW is not anywhere near what it was in 1945. You also seem to forget the Marshal Plan
Dien "I think China - the country with the world's largest population - is rapidly modernizing. It's expected by many people to be the next "economic superpower".
I hear from those I know in university that overseas students from mainland China are being taught in increasing numbers in Australian universities. That means that (1) these students (or the Chinese government, for those on scholarships) have the money to pay for this expensive education, and (2) many will bring this knowhow back to China, which will contribute further to China's economic growth."
China may be modernizing. India is modernizing too. But that is irrelevant to the point I made... which was...
"As I think of the difference between the western world and the third world countries trying to "modernise" I realize the west got civilized/modern while populations were small, and then the populations grew at a balancing rate with the technology and infrastructure.
See the highlighted text... Trying To Modernize. Meaning, they are not modernized yet. They have a LONG way to go.
China may be sending truckloads of students over to the west to get educated. But that doesn't mean that hundreds of millions of their people are not in abject poverty and on the brink of starvation.
Dien: "For India, I think the answer lies in education, especially in getting the literacy rate up. When people can read, then they can start to educate themselves. New technology helps to solve the problem too. It helps to solve the problem of spreading disease, and helps to solve the problem of food creation. And once people become educated, experience shows that the birth rate goes down. So I think that education is the solution."
Education by itself never solved anything. It does not reduce the birthrate by itself. It does not make a country forge ahead by itself. It does not reduce/remove disease.
A WHOLE lifestyle change needs to take place. Lifestyle is what reduces the birth rate, not schooling.
Look in our modern worlds... the welfare crowd breed faster than the "doers." Our civilization is an inverted pyramid... the masses and majority supported by the minority.
Our public education system has not stemmed the birth rate of the masses. They can read, write, work computers, and do loads of stuff a poor person in India only dreams of. And yet, they still breed like rabbits.
Change their lifestyle though. A lifestyle with the good old fashioned work ethic and striving for better in life, and education and less breeding is a by-product of that.
But that just ain't gonna happen in India because of their firm class structure.
As I said... they need to undergo DRASTIC changes to join the modern world. And these changes have to be across the board... not a bit here and a bit there.
Dien: "A well-educated population brings in more than it uses. So, in some cases, a big population can be a plus. It's due to this that China is often predicted to become the next "economic superpower". A big population means more ideas, more inventions, more new technology. However, you need education to tap this potential.
(Economists call this "human capital". When you have an educated population, it has "human capital" - that is, it becomes a resource, just like any other "natural resource". This is how resource-poor countries, like Japan and Singapore, can become quite wealthy countries - since they've built their "human capital" through education, and encouraging the development of technology.)"
You seem to forget the vast amounts of money spent on these countries to bring them up to scratch. You cannot compare a post war Japan or Singapore with India or China.
Relying on "education" as the savior of all the country's woes is fool hardy. Specially when history so often shows it is the uneducated who are responsible for the world we have today...
The Wright brothers were not aircraft engineers. The irony is that they would not be allowed near a plan today - even though they accomplished the first powered flight. Not bad for a couple of push bike repair guys.
Henry Ford wouldn't make Mail Boy at Ford because he doesn't have a degree.
And so on.
There are plenty of highly trained unemployed people. And everytime they do a course they become more trained... but remain unemployed.
Too much time is spent focusing on education. I'm not saying some education is not necessary. Of course it is in this modern world. But to function, get by and even succeed and become a millionaire can all be achieved with some basic reading, writing and math functions. I don't need to know logs and trig and differentiation to become rich or to help people or to get ahead. Read. Write. Operate a calculator. That's all that's needed to know. The rest... the real world stuff... is not taught in school and can/is picked up along the way.
What good is an education if never given the chance to use it. What good is it to someone who just wants to have sex and breed. There's an awful lot of people even in the modern world who seem to be (are) pre-occupied with sex. Sex and booze. They are like animals... they live to satify their animal instincts. Their ability to read - and even drive a car - has not driven them out of them.
This is the problem faced by India. (I've always wondered how people like that can feel like having sex when they haven't eaten in three days.)
If the population stops increasing so fast, then everything else can catch up. Simple.
Michael Ross
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