Global Demographic Collapse has Arrived!

Japan's population was reported in decline for the first time only last year.

https://www.washingt...m=.0f147027afa0

The file below shows something of even greater demographic concern: the large and ongoing decline in the number of young people in Japan.

Their population of young people has been in exponential decline for decades. There are now only 50% in the 0-5 age range versus the

40-44 age range. A similar pattern would also be seen in other modern nations if they had also chosen to not mask it with open immigration policies.

Such declines constitute a nearly unprecedented demographic collapse. If this trend in Japan were to continue throughout the 21st Century,

then it would not be entirely unreasonable to suggest that Japan would no longer have a sustainable or functioning society.

One of the great ironies of this development is that conflict all over the world is now becoming less likely. Germany's stated objective during the

Second World War was to acquire Lebensraum. With the widespread demographic collapse that is now underway in nearly every nation and almost

every region of the world, such living space can be achieved peacefully as nations gradually empty. During the 20th Century the accepted logic was

that people needed to fight for space due to the population crisis that Malthus had foresaw two centuries earlier. However, during the 21st Century the

more probable strategy to gain space will be to simply wait that can be clearly foreseen in the above figures at the start of this thread.

One notable precedent for such demographic upheaval occurred in Europe during the Black Death. The resulting dramatic population collapse

resulted in much greater political, social and economic rights for those lacking power in these societies. It should not be entirely unexpected that

a similar outcome is now in the offing.  

Edited by mag1, 10 August 2017 - 11:08 PM.

Japan's population was reported in decline for the first time only last year.

https://www.washingt...m=.0f147027afa0

 

From your link, the change was documented in the census between 2010-2015, so it's not just "last year."

From other sources it has been declining since 2001: https://www.google.c...RUS&hl=en&dl=en

check also the demographic problem in Russia.

Edited by jack black, 14 August 2017 - 05:50 PM.

Thank you, Jack.

I was not entirely sure when the population decline started to occurred in Japan.

It certainly feels as though Japan's population has been in decline for decades.

Generally with a census all they can tell you is the population at two points in time separated by 5 years, which is not especially exact.

The url you provided actually clarifies that the decline in population is projected to have started in 2010 and it picked up noticeably over the last

year or two. It will be very interesting to see how Japanese political sentiment shifts as this long term demographic force expresses itself.

Most worrisome is the loss of all of that top end nerd power.

The disappearance of 1 million potential nerds / nerdettes (18 year old Japanese) is a serious loss for all of humanity.

One can only dread how much more human potential will not be born in Japan and across all other nations in the world due to this demographic collapse.

I am sure that we can all be grown ups about this, we can let bygones be bygones, and wedgies and other indignities to nerd nation to be forgiven.

With that said, (also as an appeal to the adults in the house), we can also recognize that we need nerds. Life is getting complicated.

A singularity event will not make things easier. It should be self-evident who will be the ones who can solve our problems.

The problem is that many of those people are not being born anymore.

All those cures and all those inventions that will not manifest because those people were never born.

The totality of humanity's psychometric potential is in decline.

However, with the recent unlocking of the human genome along with CRISPR perhaps we can get back on track.

With genetic engineering we might be just around the corner from nerd world.

Yes, the demographic situation in Russia is even bleaker.

Very low fertility rates, very low life expectancy, a certain amount of a panic to run to the airport and get out of there before everyone else has.

Edited by mag1, 15 August 2017 - 01:03 AM.

Pwain, yes that is exactly correct, though I suppose you could have more elderly with lower age specific mortality rates and still have population decline.

Demographic trends certainly exhibit the ice berg effect: once it heads in one direction the momentum is going to keep it moving

in the same direction for up to a century.

Anyone have a url for a Japanese population projection?

It is not hard to see with the population pyramid that over the next few decades things will become choppy.

As soon as you replace the 10 million person part of the pyramid with the 5 million person part, you're down 5 million.

Wonder when they blink?

This looks scary - - very scary.

At some point they are probably going to have to reconsider their cultural assumptions.

Tokyo --> cosmopolitan New York?

Does not seem likely, though the demographic reality at street level does not look appealing.

I would love to see them stay the course.

If they were not to cave in and reverse their immigration policy, then they would have to intensify their robotics R&D.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

If they are put in a corner and have to solve these interesting robotics challenges, they will.

Edited by mag1, 15 August 2017 - 03:08 AM.

When I looked at the population pyramid, a projection of 100 million at 2100 did not make sense to me

(I read somewhere there was a 100 million target. I had not remembered that this target was for 2050).

The below figure shows that the 2100 target is actually 40 million!

Some of the comments on this issue appear to show more concern with how Japan will cope with relatively more older people than

the absolute decline in population numbers.

This is going to be very very interesting to watch.

When I looked at the population pyramid, a projection of 100 million at 2100 did not make sense to me

(I read somewhere there was a 100 million target. I had not remembered that this target was for 2050!).

The below figure shows that the 2100 target is actually 40 million! It's nearly a perfect bell curve. The population at the start of the

22nd Century will be almost exactly where it was at the start of the 20th.

Some of the comments on this issue appear to show more concern with how Japan will cope with relatively more older people than

the absolute decline in population numbers.

This is going to be very very interesting to watch.

The negative differential is easy to spot. Yet, it is only when you make it past the top of the hill and then start sliding down do

people finally perceive how serious a problem that this will be. Demographics does not turn on a dime.

Anyone have any indicators for the Japanese real estate market? REITS?

Would be instructive to have a time series for how these events play out: it might not be exactly as one might typically predict.

For example, some of the major cities could conceivably see an in migration as other areas retreated.

Centrality might intensify.

Japan would be such an interesting place to live, though I fully respect their cultural tradition of wanting to maintain their life as they have always known it.

I don't need anyone waving signs that read: "Honky go home" to get the message. Yet, given their demographic situation, it would not be impossible to imagine that

a rethinking of such a stance might at some time become inevitable.

Edited by mag1, 15 August 2017 - 03:42 AM.

There's a factor in Global Demographic Collapse that makes it must more dire and disastrous than you guys are forecasting, a factor that people shy away from discussing here on Longecity. It's a factor that at least for the time being is beyond the overtone window of polite conversation. And Longecity is a fairly polite place.

That factor is white genocide; which is a very real thing if you're willing to accept the United Nation's official definition of genocide: 

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Edited by jroseland, 08 October 2017 - 04:15 PM.

A bid shortsighted.

 

Early human migrations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Further information: History of human migration and Pre-modern human migration

 

Earliest human migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents began 2 million years ago with the migration out of Africa of Homo erectus. This was followed by the migrations of other pre-modern humans including H. heidelbergensis, the likely ancestor of both anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals. Finally, the recent African origin paradigm suggests that Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa around 100,000 years ago, spread across Asia approximately 60,000 years ago, and subsequently populated other continents and islands.

We all came from Africa, and those migrating early enough all turned white. So will the late-comers. In about a 100,000 years.

Thank you everyone for posting!

This topic is important and I am glad that the conversation has been restarted.

I was KOed for the last month by the potential for 1500 IQ people (see url below, last page or so of the thread).

My best guess is that we are  on the precipice of extreme intellectual enhancement.

http://www.longecity...e-6#entry828006

We are now perhaps 5 years away from a perceptible increase in human IQ from basic genetic technologies {The start of the Genetic Singularity).

Genetic engineering will then amp until reaching 1500 IQ people. The Singularity would then be less than 20 years out.

Give or take we are about 25-35 years away from the Singularity- infinite technology.

I have tried to avoid considering some of the more difficult racial aspects of the Global Demographic Collapse that is now underway.

jroseland mentions some sobering reminders about the challenges of the future.

It is true that I am starting to see white fright flight popping up in my locale. Russians, French, Chinese ... I am aware of quite a few people

that had to get away from their homelands and try to live someplace else. In the past I might have given a more xenophobic welcome, though

there is now a greater sense that these people are true refugees. It must be all to obvious to many that live in these societies that social collapse

is everywhere around them.

Russia is experiencing a demographic emergency. Low life expectancy and low fertility and high out migration = a near term demographic crisis.

At some point there simply might be a mass rush to the exits. How would we cope with 100 million Russian refugees? 

In this century, population collapse will occur in many highly or moderately developed nations with large populations such as the US, Japan, Russia, and others.

While some of the least developed nations including, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria etc. now have rapidly growing populations and will continue to climb up the

lists of the most populous in the world.

We need to all be concerned about this. When AIDS hit, the world community was able to formulate an effective response

to help those in need who lacked resources especially in Africa. If the balance shifts to a world in which more of the people are in need of help than can offer help,

then a disaster (such as AIDS) simply might be considered too big to solve. Everyone needs to strive to save capital for a rainy day.   

It is of course highly ironic that the peoples of the future now no longer see a future and are in the midst of truly extreme demographic collapse.

Yet, the people, who can best be thought of as being beyond our conception of time, are our future.

Edited by mag1, 08 October 2017 - 07:28 PM.

 

 

Now perhaps you're a progressive liberal and you're quiet skeptical of white genocide (or perhaps you'd cheer on white genocide, which is weirdly popular in progressive liberal circles)

 

i find this post so offensive, it discredits everything else you write (not just in this post).

i agree with you just on one thing: idiocracy. i watched that movie and idiocracy truly came to the USA. look at the idiot president the white trash masses elected themselves. "white genocide" indeed!

Edited by jack black, 11 October 2017 - 03:06 PM.

Race is a social construct: https://www.scientif...ientists-argue/

of course it is. when you have children of mixed parentage, they are always called black and never white. here you go. IMHO, Barack Obama is more white than black, yet the racists hated him anyhow.
 

 

 

 

Now perhaps you're a progressive liberal and you're quiet skeptical of white genocide (or perhaps you'd cheer on white genocide, which is weirdly popular in progressive liberal circles)

 

 

i find this post so offensive, it discredits everything else you write (not just in this post).

 

i agree with you just on one thing: idiocracy. i watched that movie and idiocracy truly came to the USA. look at the idiot president the white trash masses elected themselves. "white genocide" indeed!

 

Just out of curiosity, how exactly does that post offend you? Could you explain the feelings that came up from reading that post and perhaps why you felt them more in-depth? I'm very interested. Not being sarcastic or attacking you or anything.

 

 

 

 

Now perhaps you're a progressive liberal and you're quiet skeptical of white genocide (or perhaps you'd cheer on white genocide, which is weirdly popular in progressive liberal circles)

 

 

i find this post so offensive, it discredits everything else you write (not just in this post).

 

i agree with you just on one thing: idiocracy. i watched that movie and idiocracy truly came to the USA. look at the idiot president the white trash masses elected themselves. "white genocide" indeed!

 

 

Just out of curiosity, how exactly does that post offend you? Could you explain the feelings that came up from reading that post and perhaps why you felt them more in-depth? I'm very interested. Not being sarcastic or attacking you or anything.

 

i find it offensive that someone implies progressive liberal people have nothing else better to do than cheering any type of genocide (even if it's just imaginary).

Edited by jack black, 16 October 2017 - 08:51 PM.

Wow, please do not flame me for this.

A little extreme on both sides I think.

"Now perhaps you're a progressive liberal and you're quiet skeptical of white genocide (or perhaps you'd cheer on white genocide, which is weirdly popular in progressive liberal circles)"

"look at the idiot president the white trash masses elected themselves. "white genocide" indeed!"

Not a fan in any respect, but the attitude indicated about whom the Trump voters were is part of the reason he got elected. Many are hard working people who could not accept the perceived or experienced lack of any help or engagement from previous administrations, and the alternative candidates. My feeling is that until candidates address the apparent lack of recognition, they will have problems going forward. I have heard much complaining about the election, and not much addressing issues for all parts of the Country, and demographics.

 

Many are hard working people who could not accept the perceived or experienced lack of any help or engagement from previous administrations, and the alternative candidates.

look, I'm a hard working person too, who perceived or experienced lack of any help or engagement from previous politicians. but i was not naive thinking that a narcissistic outsider well known for cheating everyone to make a buck will make our lives somehow better.

do you go to a local butcher for you health needs? no, i didn't think so.

I think niner was so on the mark with his idea that the run up to the Singularity will be difficult to transition through.

We are charging forward to an increasingly uncertain future and the social strain is clearly visible.

The emergent problems that we are seeing (as described in some of the threads below) give a glimpse behind what middle America

and the heartlands of many other nations are now experiencing. We have entered a time of truly profound change and people all over

the world are starting to lose faith in the political and other leaderships that have always been able to help get us through past trouble.

This profound loss of confidence by the people in the elite might be a long term trend. While perhaps certain recent populist

choices have not been overly helpful, more mainstream choices might not be able to meaningfully to help us either.

http://www.longecity...crispr-editing/

http://www.longecity...ost-human-jobs/

What exactly should be done to resolve the profound global demographic crisis?

The approaching Genetic Singularity and Singularity Events?

The impending collapse of the retail economy?

If someone with a reasonable amount of credibility could clearly communicate a solution to these problems, then

our elites could reassert their intellectual legitimacy. The fact that this does not appear to be in the works should

give us all pause.

The gnawing concern is that these serious problems and others have no viable solutions.

If true, then we really are up the creek and current leadership simply serves the purpose of reminding us how far up the creek we are.

if we face both demographic decline and increase in automation (i have no doubt about both), the net effect will more or less neutral. one thing is for sure: healthcare will absorb the jobs relieved by automation. Those will be low paying jobs i'm afraid, while the profits will go to multinational companies of course.

If anyone needs a pick me, then take a look. 

The Figure below shows the projected TFR of the world in 2035-2040.

20 years from now virtually the entire world will have below replacement fertility.

This will be a massively positive development for humanity.

Conflict will become nearly impossible.

No nation could maintain hostility for any length of time before severe demographic stress would emerge.

Further, other nations could intensify such demographic forces by allowing a large scale influx of migrants from such a nation.

The future looks bright!

https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Maps/

Edited by mag1, 06 November 2017 - 01:05 AM.

It cannot be a positive thing when adult diapers are larger sellers that baby diapers.  The Japanese are breeding themselves to extinction.  And working themselves to death as well.  

poonja, thank you for commenting.

I am so joyful that we now have this world of super low fertility!

Look at the thumbnail above.

Nearly the entire world is shaded in dark blue during the 2035-2040 time interval.

This is amazing!

We should have a global celebration!

It is an overwhelmingly positive change for the better.

The universe is filled with overwhelming abundance and peace.

We are so fortunate that the right choices were made that allowed us to reach

this time of unparalleled tranquility and happiness.

We are so blessed.

It is now clear how to achieve this utopia:

Don't have kids!

Or at least have fewer kids!

Or wait to have kids.

Or wait and have fewer kids.

By changing behavior in this direction, many good things happen.

Wealth accumulates.

Educational standards improve.

Technology advances and many many other positives.

Yet, if you look on that same thumbnail you will see a few isolated places in the world

that have not reached the deep blue azure skies that we live under. Unremarkably,

all of those areas outside of Sub-Saharan Africa have recently or are currently experiencing

severe geopolitical stress.

If necessary one could consult online references for an update on what latest tragedy has befallen

Yemen, or Iraq/Syria or Afghanistan/Pakistan. Of course, as we well know from

the last several decades of global history, their tragedies have become our tragedies. We have tried

to help these places develop into more mature societies, though this becomes a near impossibility when

the average age in many of these nations is in the teens. If only they could realize how much better their

lives could be by decreasing their fertility.

What are the chances that the 3 or 4 most unstable nations outside of SSA are the only ones which are not all blue? 

If you were to roll 3 150 sided dice (one side for each nation), hitting those three should be 1 in a million. Yet, given the

power of fertility to destroy communities it is essentially a sure thing. 

However, not so long ago all nations lived the high fertility lifestyle. We remember this week the struggles that our nations

experienced with high fertility. The brutality of the conflicts that occurred in the twentieth century is nearly impossible to 

comprehend now. They were our family and our people in those trenches and it has taken all these decades to get back on track.

I feel so incredibly lucky that my life was not directly impacted by those events. If I were given a billion dollars to go back and

live my life over 100 or 75 years ago, there would be no chance that I would take the money. How could there be happiness

in a world with such destruction?

It is the changing of reproductive behavior that has resulted in an enormous dividend for all of us. We should all

feel it a great privilege to live in our world of near total peace.  

Much of this shift can be directly attributed to a large demographic shift. The inverted population pyramids that exist in several nations

are without precedent. Coping with the demands resulting from a geriatric society will be a new frontier of human experience

for the 21st Century. The 20th Century to a large extent was defined by the challenges imposed by youth. In the current context,

coping with the relentless wave of dementia will be the central concern for communities. 

Given Japan's current dementia crisis, they simply have no time or energy left over for conflict with other nations.

Those nations who require babysitting services will need to increasingly look elsewhere, as most developed nations

are now deeply challenged by widespread dementing illness in their populations. Large percentages of those in their

30s and 40s are coping with caregiving responsibilities related to dementia. Japan is already confronting the implications

of their entire nation being essentially an intensive care unit.   

The prospect that failing nations can finally go out of business is also such a powerful positive looming in the near future.

In business, companies grow, develop and finally close. This is understood to be a sign of a healthy vibrant economy.

Yet, entire nations have, up till now, never been deterred by failure. For a nation to exist all that needs to occur is for people

to reproduce. It is the most minimal of standards of existence conceivable. How surprised can one be to see the resulting

minimal levels of basic humanity demonstrated in many of these nations that have succeeded through essentially requiring

no demonstration of success?

With the super low fertility rates currently present, we should finally have the great pleasure of seeing entire nations

faced with the stark reality of either providing their citizens with a life of happiness and prosperity or simply folding up and disappearing

from the map. This is not an overstatement. Some nations might no longer have a viable existence by the end of this century.

Demographic forces are profoundly shape life now and they will become yet even more prominent as we move through the 21st Century.

Those who might try the retro-political tactics of the 20th Century will quickly be faced with the prospect of leading a nation without people.

We have so many things to be grateful for in this world of massively low fertility.

Edited by mag1, 18 November 2017 - 02:40 AM.

There are plenty of groups of people who have lots of children, all over the world. Aggregate statistics be damned.

Moreover it isn't hard to imagine the mechanisms by which humans overcome recent trends of very low fertility. Contraceptives are one thing and religion has an answer to this problem: to immunize your mind against their use.

Lower intelligence and higher impulsivity is also a factor that can help boost fertility in an environment filled with contraceptives. No matter how much access you have to contraceptives and no matter the poverty certain people will ignore their use, just like they will ignore all kinds of things that might benefit themselves.

Hence the world will become dumber and more religious, at least for some time until a new environment gives other incentives or there is a new breed of smart non-religious people that are less susceptible to contraceptives and other things that lower their fertility.

Here's more inspiration from the past for you (not saying these people are much different from you or I, necessarily):

Race is a social construct: https://www.scientif...ientists-argue/

When are they going to get rid of Canine taxonomy altogether? From what I know that is much more messy than now-living human phylogenetics. 

anyway: http://thealternativ...stence-of-race/

 

Hence the world will become dumber and more religious, at least for some time until a new environment gives other incentives or there is a new breed of smart non-religious people that are less susceptible to contraceptives and other things that lower their fertility.

 

you can skip the "will" part. idiocracy is happening in front of our eyes. have you noticed who is the US president now?

I find democracy pretty dumb in general. It doesn't make sense to spend 1 vote wisely with great consideration (even if you could figure out how to run a complex society, or figure out who would be best suited) when the statistical significance of your vote is near meaningless, meanwhile it does matter what the sum total of votes is, and hence there is a major problem. It is like when people choose whether or not to pee in a public swimming pool, one individual peeing in the pool does not affect anything significantly so there is little incentive to not pee in the pool, but with enough people doing it you get enough irritating substances forming when the urine reacts with the chlorine to cause concern.  https://www.npr.org/...is-in-that-pool

Yeah, I remember hearing that these breeding patterns have basically been going on since the invention of the condom, smarter people having less kids. 

Edited by Keizo, 01 December 2017 - 05:11 PM.

Keizo, thank you for commenting!

I am so very happy about this ongoing demographic collapse.

There will be so many benefits.

For example, the recent move to the peace table by the opposing parties in Syria

can in no small measure be attributed to the severe demographic stress that they must now be experiencing.

The recent update of the CIA numbers gives a TFR for Syria only in the mid-2's. It would be difficult to imagine

that the conflict there could continue for any length of time or severity with such a constraint.

https://www.cia.gov/...ields/2127.html

With respect to high IQ and low fertility, this might not in fact be preordained.

2017 has been a breakthrough year in unlocking the genetics of intelligence.

Within the last few days another GWAS was announced and even more variants

were uncovered. Some of the variants discovered to date have found an overlap

between autism and IQ.

http://www.cell.com/...1247(17)31648-0

Once a more complete inventory of IQ SNPs are uncovered

it might be found possible to engineer those SNPs that increase IQ but select against

those that cause autistic type behavior. It is the autistic behavior which might be leading

to lower fertility in those of higher intelligence. In such a scenario one might have high fertility

and higher intelligence coexisting.

I continue to be very interested in the prospect for a near term leap in IQ due to genetic selection.

The gradual dysgenic trend that has been ongoing for a century or two, might soon be reversed

with very large increases in intelligence. This should be the headline result that we focus on.

The possibility that humans with 1500 IQ could be genetically engineered has profound implications

for the future course of human civilization.

The genetic selection of the embryo among ten with the highest genetic IQ potential would result

in a standard deviation increase in IQ. Such a shift will have extreme implications for humanity.

It appears that this technology is rapidly approaching. Perhaps within the next year or two. 

Idiocracy will be replaced by Geniocracy.

At no time in human history has such a massive shift in human potential occurred.

Our entire social structure will likely be upended by such a transformation.

It is a worthwhile topic to discuss.

I do find it interesting and hopeful about embryo selection. I have listened and read some of what Steve Hsu has had to say on the topic. I just hope we allow people use the technology so at least parents can push the natural process along a bit faster towards healthier and smarter off-spring. But as far as I see it at this moment decreased fertility mostly has to do with contraceptives being cheap and available, and people making choices that prioritize money and physical comfort (in some sense) above having children (expensive).

 Meanwhile less intelligent people either don't see that dichotomy to the same extent or they don't plan to the same extent. I don't think decreased fertility is any sign of "enlightenment" or other such bogus concepts.

So let's say we could make intelligent people more fertile by getting the right gene combinations. Well, that presumes people could afford the technology, and it presumes people could afford working with the technology. If there are too few intelligent people all of those might be forced to work in other fields of work, that might be deemed more important and urgent. If demographics get bad enough there might not be the resources, including social stability, to spend on "frivolous" pursuits. If the demographic changes produce a very strong economic downturn that might create war and instability, even if there isn't the human numbers to sustain very long wars this might nevertheless further worsen the prospects for "frivolous" work on improving our biology. So I would be concerned about the short-intermediate term dangers. 

Here's some other thoughts (not mine) on demographic change and the reasons:

(text version) http://thewaywardaxo...nd-destiny.html

Edited by Keizo, 02 December 2017 - 09:39 AM.

Technological solutions appear more long-term oriented (even if usable tomorrow), for the short term I just hope public policy is formulated in such a way as not to jeopardize social cohesion. Democratically elected politicians are the biggest danger in this demographic change, their best solution was a  pyramid scheme where constant importation of 3rd world people was required to replace moderate-high skilled labor. Turns out it was more of a charity event and public spectacle, the importation of 3rd world people into Europe hasn't been useful and will probably result in continued drawn-out violent conflict -- until they are physically removed (according to the wishes of the Dalai Lama). Now in some countries like Germany I understand it worked out a little better than in Sweden, but everyone gets old and those migrants don't reproduce very much but they do contribute to social instability, crime, and lower population intelligence. 

So I think 1st world nation have to balance their demographics eventually, on their own. And hopefully things don't completely collapse meanwhile. One thing that might be done eventually is to give people a more positive attitude about having children, it seems to me there is currently a lot of negativity in Western media around women having children, various superstitions about how a woman's life will become dull and oppressive once she stops working 60 hours a week and instead becomes more emotionally present with her husband, children and other people she can then freely choose to engage with.

My message would be that soon enough we will all be dead, and our civilization and knowledge might be dead as well in a few thousands years, but our genes may live on for quite some time beyond that. Hence the most important contribution for a (smart) person is the genes they pass on.

Edited by Keizo, 02 December 2017 - 11:26 AM.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Dickens was correct about living on the credit side of the accounting ledger for there to be happiness. I think an analogous statement can be made about living on the right side of the demographic ledger.

Total fertility rate 1.9, result happiness. Total fertility rate 2.2, result misery.

It's that simple.

When the total fertility is above the replacement rate, the marginal child does not bring us joy, prosperity or peace.

No, instead we are ruined!

We have sinned against the gods and we will be punished for eternity.

The misery is almost unbearable.

Our life will be cursed with calamities of all description.

Yet, when the total fertility is below replacement, the marginal child is a blessing.

We are so fortunate; there is an overflowing abundance!

Prosperity is ours without effort. 

Our children will be valued and will have a place in the world.

The birth of our children is a cause for celebration.

Unfortunately this style of thinking has only recently taken hold of most of the world.

The belief that children were, without any preconditions blessing, nearly destroyed

humanity. One does not need to look back far into the 20th Century to see how

the devastating results of an aggressive pro-natalist policy.

Yet, now here we are in a super low fertility context and the benefits are already

flowing to us. I keep looking back on the world fertility map above showing the

projection to 2035. It is amazing! We can coast forward in time and so many great

things will happen: all on auto-pilot. 

The potential for warfare now has greatly diminished even from only 20 or 30 years ago.

Outside of Sub-Saharan Africa, there are only a small number of geographically isolated

nations with fertility issues. All of these nations are already trending towards below replacement

level fertility over the medium term. Strategically all we would need to do to counter any security

threat by any of them would be to outwait their demographic transition to modernity. Once such 

a transition were completed, they would have achieved a stable and long term adjustment

that would align them with all other modernized nations of the world.  

Edited by mag1, 02 December 2017 - 07:40 PM.

So much of this is very counter-intuitive.

Our biology is telling us to reproduce. Almost all the signals move us towards high fertility. 

It is only when one thinks carefully does one realize that biology is sending us the wrong message.

The 20th Century was the most catastrophic time in recorded human history.

There were so many examples of misery.

Yet, by collectively controlling our fertility we can create an entirely different future.

The horrible pattern of thinking that lead to abusing people in the name

of maximizing some objective (e.g. profits etc.) no longer applies in the same way in the modern world.

In the world of today mistreatment of others will simply lead to even lower levels of fertility. We have already

arrived at a critically low fertility rate; any further reduction would magnify the demographic forces

now in motion. The economic consequences of our current state should be clearly obvious to all.

Increasing population lead to scarcity and increased prices, decreasing population will lead to

decreased scarcity ... . I am so happy that the socio-political bargaining position of all members

of our society is now increasing. 

Evolution is trying to give us a solution: reduced intelligence. Research from Iceland has 

recently proven that dysgenic fertility is occurring. Polygenic scores for intelligence have

been in decline over at least the last century. Those with less intelligence are demonstrating

higher fitness than those with higher intelligence. This could be our way out of fertility collapse.

The problem might become that people could believe that they could create a better solution than

evolution. For instance, they might choose the smartest embryo who might have super low

fertility. Embryo selection technology might simply mean that parents of all IQ levels will have

children who avoid reproduction.

Of course, if technology is now on the horizon that could lead to 1500 IQ newborns, then this 

could help spark a major reversal of fertility declines. Humans with 1500 IQs would have enormous

value, at least initially in solving humanity's various problems. However, this solution to our present

demographic emergency has also been blocked off as enhancing human intelligence has been 

thought to be morally wrong, and thus a global ban has been instituted.

There are several life buoys that are being thrown our way. However, for whatever reason (possibly

because humans are not smart enough), we seem to have waved off all efforts to date to save us

from the approaching iceberg. 

Edited by mag1, 02 December 2017 - 08:12 PM.