[niky]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Wishful thinking, not supported by evidence. The US is a prosperous country, and has been for many decades. So are many countries in Europe. If this theory matched reality, shouldn't we be seeing significant population declines by now? Yet every census shows continued growth.

The United States government is rich. US Businesses are rich. Not all Americans are rich. Not all American citizens are rich. You'll find higher growth amongst lower income brackets, especially in terms of unplanned growth and pregnancies.

The recent US election is a good illustration of where all this population is at. Low income bracket and immigrant voters got Obama that big win.

It's not wishful thinking. It's a big problem, of the "chicken and egg" variety, for poor nations.

But why should they? Japan is already horribly overcrowded, which IMHO accounts for the leveling off of population, along with social attitudes that make it ok not to have lots of kids.

It's not levelling off. Japan's native population is in decline. Personally, I think it's a good thing, in the long term. in the medium term, it's a massive problem for the Japanese government, which has to support all those octogenerians.

More questions than that. As for instance, why should we raise their standard of living? How does anyone's standard of living get raised in the absence of resources? What exactly is a standard of living? Who has a higher standard of living, the urbanite living in a few square meters, but with lots of techo-toys, or a Mongolian herdsman living in a yurt?

Development should come from within. Teach a man to fish, and all that. And standard of living? Given that even the poorest of welfare mothers in the US can get decent housing and medical care where nomadic tribespeople are basically dead if they get the wrong bacterial infection, I'd think the answer is pretty obvious.

Prosperity is not the only answer. High income, good education and high cost-of-living all go hand-in-hand. For an office worker who has to support their children through thirteen years of school just to ensure they're qualified for the most menial of jobs, children are a long term investment. For a poor farmer who tills the land by hand, or the urban poor begging on the streets, they're quick extra labor. And apparently third world politicians think the same way, looking at the level of discourse during our last Reproductive Health debates...