3/01/2013

LKY – Declining populations make peaceful neighbours



This is an article purportly written by LKY and published in the ST today and in the March edition of Forbes magazine. His thesis or views in the article is simply that an expanding population is good reason for countries to conduct wars while a declining population will kill the urge to do so. He then went on to quote Japan and Germany in the Second World War when their respective TFRs were 4.1 and 2.6

LKY then concluded that countries like US and Europe, including China with low TFRs would be less likely to go to war for the same reason as the old Japan and Germany, for lebensraum or living space. They wanted more space for a growing population then. Today, Japan and Germany would be less likely to go to war as their TFRs are low, both about 1.4.

The countries that are likely to go to war according to his article would be India and the African countries, all with high TFRs. India has a TFR of 2.6 while the Africans vary from 4 to 7. Africans are highly dangerous!

It is thus glaringly inconsistent and incoherent to use a single factor like TFR to determine the temptation of a country for war. There are definitely more than just the TFR that will push a country to war. The Africans, even if they want more space than the Sahara Desert, would not have the means and ability to do so. War will come to them more because they are weak like in Mali.

In the case of the USA, the most belligerent warring state of modern history, TFR is totally irrelevant. And today’s Japan is likely to go to war with China and North Korea to keep the islands it seized as war booties. Nothing to do with TFR surely.

What about Singapore with a TFR of 1.2, which is definitely a very peaceful country, a good neighbour. But when it pushes its TFR to 2.1 would Singapore then become a warring state, wanting lebensraum for its expanding population? I think if one is to apply this logic, it is safer and better for Singapore to maintain the present 1.2 TFR, maintaining the current population than to go with the White Paper recommendations for 6.9m population and leading to a need for more living space and … how about war? 2.1 is relatively more prone to war than 1.2 right? Logical?

What do you think?

18 comments:

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Confirmation bias. Non sequitur

It goes like this:

Premise 1: Germany and Japan had high TFRs prior to WW2
Premise 2: Germany and Japan went to war
Conclusion: High TFRs mean countries become war-like


Similarly:

Premise 1: The sky is blue
Premise 2: The sun "rises" in the east
Conclusion: Therefore blue skies cause the sun to rise in the east; OR the sun rising in the east causes blue skies


I'm surprised. As an Oxford-trained lawyer, and a master at suing the shit out of people he doesn't like (and winning), I thought he would know better.

Perhaps its old age.

Anonymous said...

Retarded Twart.

He might as well as Defense budget spent as a % of GDP to allude such countries have propensity to go to war, overtly or covertly. Historical facts also speaks for itself!!

Bejesus, if Forbes is an institution, they ought to freeze him permanently into a non-tenure and non-writing position immediately.

Anonymous said...

How come the old man can still talk cock and sing song.

Anonymous said...

Kena sabo.

Anonymous said...

With all the hawks running Japan, and their revisionist agenda couple with ultra rightists thinking, Japan is going to return to militarism, making obnoxious demands on China and threatening a preemptive strike against North Korea.

It will be great if the North Koreans do a preemptive strike by landing a big bomb into Tokyo to shut the Japanese up. They are talking so foolishly to think that warfare today is still child's game. The Koreans are as good and powerful as the Japs today and would not be slaves again.

Anonymous said...

Can strokes stimulate a writer's creative imagination?

Anonymous said...

There are many reasons to start a war and TFR is only one of them, remotely related. The truth is it is better for the world to have low TFR than high TFR so other species can still exist else will be wiped out by humans. Deforestation and urbanisation do come with a cost and it can be devastating and irreversible for quite a while.

Anonymous said...

Saddam Hussein declared war on Kuwait because (according to LKY`s theory on the causes of war) because of its higher TFR. Similarly the US declared war on Saddam Hussein because it had a higher TFR. Only LKY can spout such rubbish and get published without fear of ridicule.

Veritas said...

Highly TFR could result to upheaval, but that is no unavoidable. Most revolution occur during the "young bulge".

In Singapore, the TFR is low, but our ponzi FT is equivalent to a TFR of 4-5. Thats why we see 5000 people going to Hong Lim to protest.

If LKY could important people at a rate of equivalent TFR of 1.9, no one will turn out at Hong Lim park.

The reason for high TFR causing upheaval is due to competing of resources, jobs and a large segment of young man in poverty, without sexual access.

Anonymous said...

The article is so ridiculous it's laughable. I wonder how it got past the editors of Forbes.

Anonymous said...

By publishing this kind of thoughts by him, someone is trying to rubbish him. The logic, if there is any, is a farce.

Anonymous said...

The risk of getting a dictator rises as the TFR increases. Now we know why there are so many dictators born in the early/mid 20th century when TFR was high.

jjgg said...

Malaysia will declare war on Singapore n Singapore will declare war on Brunei ..hopefully this has not been the backbone of our military policies..rather choose to believe that wars are the devices of megalomaniacs believing in their own absurdities...

Anonymous said...

TFR factors work together with economy condition
and resources situation.

Anonymous said...

while Expanding population is good, expanding opp party in parliament is bad accord to PAP. PEARL OF WISDOM INDEED when it comes to PAP's interest and money-making agenda !

In USA, there is "remember the Alamo", in SinnerCity we have "Remember the traitors"

guess which idiot says this

"Right now we have Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong, Steve Chia. We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in Parliament. Their job is to make life difficult for me, so that I screw up and they can come in and sit where I am. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I’m going to spend all my time thinking what’s the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters votes, how can I solve this week’s problem and forget about next year’s challenges?”"

Anonymous said...

[url=http://instr.besdocs.ru][b]Большая база инструкций[/b][/url]
[url=http://instr.besdocs.ru][img]http://instr.besdocs.ru/images/instr.png[/img][/url]
градусник nokia
ключ динамометрический инструкция по эксплуатации
трамадекс 100
печь электа
z900m
инструкция форд фокус1
пульт mak2002
moulinex masterchef 5000 инструкция
invt
инструкция по ремонту нева впг 10 скачать бесплатно
apc smart ups 2200va инструкция
bri 10w инструкция
зингер самба эдитьон 9027 n410503052 инструкция
инструкция по ремонту и эксплуатации navigator ex50qt 4b
что такое рино капельница

Anonymous said...

I think we may have missed the point about this article. If you read between the lines and see through all that war-TFR smokescreen, what LKY is saying is that the current crop of ministers have got it all wrong by seeking to rapidly expand our population. A country that is seeking to increase its population as quickly as us with our limited physical infrastructure will end up not being at peace with either ourselves or our neighbours. We will inevitably cause an overspill into neighbouring lands - not through wars and conquests, but by forced or voluntary migration. It is already happening with Iskandar being promoted as the overspill territory. Sooner or later, this will cause resentment amongst our neighbours, just as there is already deep resentment amongst ourselves.

Anonymous said...

I all the time emailed this web site post page to all my associates, for the reason that if like to read it after that my contacts
will too.

Here is my web site rmr calculator