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Comment by Mz | Hacker News Reader

The One Child policy was a draconian method. A humane solution is to improve education and rights for women globally. Educated, empowered women choose to have fewer children, take better care of them, etc.

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> A humane solution is to improve education and rights for women globally

Why not "improve education and rights for people globally"?

I would like to see the world become a better place for people globally. The problem with your framing is that trying to enhance the "rights" of men has a tendency to make our current problems worse. The things men typically need in order to live more balanced, healthy, full lives is an ability to provide self care instead of relying on a woman to do it, slack time that they rarely get, and so on. You could discuss that in terms of rights, but that isn't really what most people will think of when you talk about rights for men. Rights for children are legally limited because their decision making ability is still formative.

Rights for women have a well established and proven track record of counterbalancing the deficiencies of the so called "patriarchy", a term I loathe but I don't know how else to frame this particular point. Rights for women often revolve around things like maternity leave, which helps protect both the health of the child and the career of the mother. So I make statements like the above in spite of not self-identifying as a feminist because it is the most proven method I know of for moving things forward.

Hm... well, as "rights" I understand things like freedom of speech, including the ability to criticize the government, justice, no persecution, democracy, accessible healthcare, low corruption, etc... I think without these, there's little use for maternity leave or reproductive rights

Well, then I will suggest you have a poor understanding of how most women experience life. And I will also suggest that my position might make more sense if you just think of it in terms of female empowerment and try to not get too hung up on the word rights.

I have heard some bad stories about that - But I think it's important to decouple the policy itself from the way it was enforced.

The policy is very powerful in at least two ways: Firstly, it allows parents to focus all their energy and resources on raising and educating a single child. Then secondly, because Chinese people have fewer children, the assets in China will be inherited by fewer people which means a higher net worth per capita for the next generation.

It's a terrible policy. Have you looked into the gender imbalance in China? Google "China gender imbalance"

This policy will hurt China for decades.

> But I think it's important to decouple the policy itself from the way it was enforced.

I'm not sure you can do that and still enforce such a policy.

Sadly, you have to also start tackling religious issues: Catholicism can not further forbid abortion or use of condoms. This is seriously hurting humanity.

Catholicism also promotes the idea of the sanctity of individual life, places moral burdens on business and political leaders in countries where brutality and exploitation are the norm, and creates a culture that emphasizes and encourages education. (Not to mention the whole "creating the moral foundation Western Democracy takes for granted" thing.)

You don't need to start fighting religion to help the poor; religion has provided, for many, the most effective means of getting out poverty. Also, going in to a place and starting a fight against the local religion (be it Catholicism, Islam, neo-Jobsian technocracy) is a good way to be ignored by the people your trying to help.

I'm not saying to fight religion, but to tackle religious issues. It can not be allowed for an institution like the church continuing to forbid population control. The hopeful solution would be that the church reforms itself.

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