Earth's Second Dark Age: From Eugenics War to First Contact?

[T'Girl]

Is that a problem?

Is that a necessary?

^What you say about Japan proves my point.

Not at all Christopher, having a low/no population growth isn't unique to the West, but it might be something that China and India could acquire from Western societies, something they wouldn't have had before.

And some Western countries, notably in South America and the Caribbean, have rather high birth rates.

While there are obviously some Western origins in terms of the cultures, these are mixed with Native American cultures and in the case of Brazil also aspects of African culture. So strictly speaking South America and Caribbean societies are not in fact "Western."

 

[Nerys Myk]

Is that a problem?

Is that a necessary?

That was my thought when I read MLB's post. It was almost what I posted.

 

[Christopher]

The birth rate in the US has actually gone down. US population keeps going up because of immigration. Lower birth rates seem to be linked to education, particularly of women, and higher standard of living.

I never said the US birth rate was high -- I said that there are plenty of non-Western countries whose rates are even lower. I provided a link to a page that gives detailed statistics. That should make things clear enough.

^What you say about Japan proves my point.

Not at all Christopher, having a low/no population growth isn't unique to the West, but it might be something that China and India could acquire from Western societies, something they wouldn't have had before.

But why assume it would learn it from Western societies when there are plenty of others they could learn it from? Frankly that sounds very old-fashioned and colonialist, implying that Westerners have a superior understanding and the primitive Orientals need our wisdom to cure them of their folly. The British Empire tried that already and it turned out pretty damn disastrously.

 

[T'Girl]

But why assume it would learn it from Western societies ..

Because this was the society that came to help them recover and rebuild.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Is that a problem?

Is that a necessary?

That was my thought when I read MLB's post. It was almost what I posted.

It's only a problem if one injures oneself while patting oneself on one's back.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Is that a necessary?

That was my thought when I read MLB's post. It was almost what I posted.

It's only a problem if one injures oneself while patting oneself on one's back.

It a casual comment. No muscles, joints or tendons were damaged.

 

[Christopher]

But why assume it would learn it from Western societies ..

Because this was the society that came to help them recover and rebuild.

That's an entirely circular argument. They learned it from the West because they learned it from the West? Try again.

 

[T'Girl]

Try again.

No thanks, I'm quite content with my last post. Appreciate the offer though Christopher.

 

[Sci]

But why assume it would learn it from Western societies ..

Because this was the society that came to help them recover and rebuild.

That's an entirely circular argument. They learned it from the West because they learned it from the West?

Welcome to discussions with T'Girl: The support merely repeats the thesis.

 

[Tomalak]

Actually it's not about availability per se. The population of Los Angeles is under 30% non-Hispanic whites. Okay, it's only about 11% Asian/Pacific Islander, but that's a higher ratio than there is among Trek regulars. If the actor pool in Hollywood were truly representative of the available population, there'd be a lot fewer Anglo-Saxons and a lot more Asians. The reason the actor pool is so dominated by whites is because of entrenched white privilege in the system.

Well quite, demographics in the population at large doesn't translate to available actors. Things would perhaps be somewhat improved today, but certainly in Star Trek's nineties heyday, it would have been difficult to show an ethnically diverse crew. Besides, humans shouldn't be so dominant anyway, but that's again down to cost of prosthetics.

I appreciate the efforts of Trek novelists to redress the balance, with regard to LGBT people as well.

 

[dswynne1]

Population control was first advocated by Indian philosopher Kautilya, who studied the pros and cons of controlling the size of the population (he felt that too small of a population was "evil"). Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle both felt that a small population was more efficient and manageable than a larger one. Population control as a matter of policy was adopted by the eugenicists, starting with William Goddell (who advocated castrating and spaying the insane) Francis Galton, cousin to Charles Darwin, who first coined the term "eugenics". Margaret Sanger, pioneer for abortion rights, was an advocate of population control, stemming from being both a child of a rather large family, as well as a nurse practitioner for the poor. Later, population control was adopted by environmentalists, starting with Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University, when he published his book "The Population Bomb".

So, while, technically, population control isn't a "Western" concept, it has been promoted by Westerners. Ironically, as someone here pointed out, improved economics and education status has done more to lower populations than anything else.

IMO, of course.

 

[Christopher]

^Still, there are already plenty of non-Western cultures that have lower birth rates than the US or most European countries. So the original assertion that population control was something that China and India would need to learn from the West in the future, as if the idea were still some kind of Western monopoly to this day, is completely ridiculous.

 

[dswynne1]

^Still, there are already plenty of non-Western cultures that have lower birth rates than the US or most European countries. So the original assertion that population control was something that China and India would need to learn from the West in the future, as if the idea were still some kind of Western monopoly to this day, is completely ridiculous.

I did indicate that "population control" isn't a Western concept (I forgot to include the Chinese philosopher "Confucius" was another advocate for population control"), but it was the West that promoted it as a matter of policy, starting with eugenics through the environmental movement.

 

[Christopher]

^I was responding to Elvira's assertion above that China and India in the wake of Trek's Third World War would need to be "'infected' with Western values" before they could learn to practice population control. Which is nonsense, because India was actually the first country on Earth to institute a governmental family planning program back in the 1950s and has already halved its population growth rate in the past half-century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_India

Whereas China has achieved population growth reduction due to a number of factors even aside from the controversial "one child policy," including less severe policies enacted in the '70s and improving social circumstances for women due to modernization since then, which has also led to lower fertility rates in other Asian countries as well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7000931.stm

So it's not something that the Asia of the future will need to learn from the West in the wake of WWIII. That's just wrong. The countries Elvira cited have already been pursuing population control for quite a long time.

 

[T'Girl]

Still, there are already plenty of non-Western cultures that have lower birth rates than the US or most European countries.

The scenario was not just that a outside society possessed a culture of low population growth, but it could transfer that concept to the Chinese and Indian people "during the rebuilding process."

So if you consider the list of countries with a low or no population growth, how many also have a historical track record of coming to the aid of other countries in dire need, going into disaster zones and former war zones with massive amounts of personnel, equipment and material support?

")

 

[Christopher]

^But the flaw in your argument is that China and India even need to learn population control measures. If you'd look past your ethnocentric assumptions and read the damn links I provided, you'd know that both cultures have already been developing a "culture of low population growth" for decades. They don't need Westerners playing "White Man's Burden." They're already intensely aware of the problem and working toward a solution on their own.

 

[Ithekro]

We do sometimes see people of various Asian ethic groups in Starfleet or in civilian areas (when we see those). Though it is possible that those were formerly immigrant families to Europe or the Americans. There still seems to be a Japanese population going on, though not via Sulu since he's from San Francisco and his family has been there since at least the 20th century.

Bashir's family is Middle Eastern ( I think).

Uhura is from Africa.

Worf's human family is from someplace in Russia, as is of course Chekov.

But most others are from Europe or America.

The captain of the USS Yorktown in Star Trek IV I think was Indian, or from somewhere in that region of the world.

 

[T'Girl]

There still seems to be a Japanese population going on ...

Sato is from Japan.

Bashir's family is Middle Eastern ( I think).

The character does have a British accent through, it could have been something he picked up in school and deliberately kept. I don't remember if Bashir's parents possessed the same accent.

Uhura is from Africa.

Not canon of course, LaForge however is originally from Africa per info on a display.

 

[Christopher]

^Richard Bashir had more of a working-class English accent, meaning that Julian's polished accent is an affectation. I don't remember Amsha's accent.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Amsha spoke with more of a middle-eastern accent. Can't remember the exact one, but it was definitely not English like Richard's was.