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by sildur 1640 days ago
> When famine struck, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson initially refused to deliver food aid, citing the country’s high birth rate.

I hope there is more context with that statement, because it sounds downright evil.

5 comments

Here is what I've heard argued from that ideological standpoint.

One off famines should be remedied with relief efforts which mandate the recipient country increase its food storage to be able to absorb the next one.

Chronic food shortages are a symptoms of overpopulation of the area, either because of lack of farming technology, terrain, etc. Supplying food aid only compounds the problem by increasing an unsustainable population. The remedy is to remove the mismanagement and relocate, and reducate the willing population and let nature take its course for those unwilling to adapt.

Sounds harsh but a famine of 1 million people being supplied with aid turns to 1.2 million the next time and 2 million the time after. A net increase in misery and suffering.

In reality faced with a starving person face to face, I believe most people would feed the hungry.

India’s food insecurity was caused due to bad policies of the British rulers that left the country in a bad shape when they left. India experienced terrible famines and deaths of millions of people under British Raj. It took a while but India is not only self sufficient but a net exporter of raw and processed foods with a population of 1.2B. So it wasn’t that the country was not capable of supporting its population or managing famines. Its natural wealth was plundered for over 150 years and the country was left in ruins. UK still needs to pay India and other colonies reparations.
India hit the latitudinal jackpot. Good soil..monsoons and temperate. Peninsula with water on three sides. China isn’t so lucky. India is much younger demographics and gender divide is more even. Luckier than China is many ways even though they are close to each other wrt total population currently. India is getting greener every year Altho that would be because of increase in co2. We haven’t understood climate change fully yet. India can halve it’s population in 80-100 something years and still be a formidable world power to reckon.

It is important tho that everyone procreate and have at least 1/2 surviving child. Large families by individuals shouldnt be incentivized. Human beings are wonderful and we must maintain genetic diversity as an insurance against extinction or genetic congenital vulnerabilities. Also important to preserve genetic material and work on longevity and medical breakthroughs. I wonder how long our generation can expect our lifespan to be and if we can eradicate diseases in our lifetimes.

India has traditional family structures like multi generational families or joint families. These are helpful tools to mitigate the (socio-economic-cultural)pitfalls of too many and too small nuclear families…if india can work on halving or even bring down population to 350-500 million in a balanced manner demographically(age wise and gender wise), the future is bright.

I hope nothing is coercive or manipulative ..punitive or incentivizing to have or not have children.. people should have children because they want the best for their progeny and in the best interests of their next generation.

Perhaps once stabilized, we can increase children per person but that could be 150-250 years from now. It’s key not to drop the ball now. It’s a balance between resource management and population is a numbers game.

Let’s not forget our automated future which might eliminate work. Or longevity/anti ageing breakthroughs. Who knows what the future holds but in my imagination it’s always an utopia.

Read Robert Caro's excellent volumes about LBJ. You wouldn't think so, but they are real page turners. And yes, they will leave you with the impression that LBJ was not a wonderful person.
Almost as if no word leaders are "wonderful people". There are a few exceptions, like Jimmy Carter and APJ Abdul Kalam.
Jimmy Carter did some bad stuff too. From his Wikipedia page:

> During Carter's presidency, the U.S. continued to support Indonesia as a cold war ally, in spite of human rights violations in East Timor. The violations followed Indonesia's December 1975 invasion and occupation of East Timor. It did so even though antithetical to Carter's stated policy "of not selling weapons if it would exacerbate a potential conflict in a region of the world."

He might have said as much publicly but the reality is that India was a lot closer to the USSR so LBJ thought it was despicable that they were coming to the US asking THEM for help
Well, India was pro-USSR during the cold war and openly opposed US's involvement in Vietnam war.
Wait till you read up on Churchill's involvement with India. Some of it puts the Nazis he famously fought to shame.