A Grok news summary at X (that comes with the warning "Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs").
Elon Musk, not content to be mentioned by his robot Grok, adds a tweet of his own (responding to a video from a woman propounding the "Great Replacement Theory"). Musk writes:
The problem with “Great Replacement Theory” is that it fails to address the foundational issue of low birth rates. Record low birth rates are leading to population collapse in Europe and even faster population collapse in most of Asia. Immigration is low in Asia, so there is no “replacement” going on, the countries are simply shrinking away. If this doesn’t turn around, then any countries on Earth with low birth rates will become empty of people and fall into ruin, like the remains we see of the many long dead civilizations.
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46 comments:
The parallels between Biden and Jimmy Carter just keep stacking up
Musk is correct. The Chi-Coms are facing a demographic nightmare as a result of their one child policy. It is my belief they are flexing their military muscles now while they still have enough able-bodied males to execute it. That won't always be the case.
In the US, the swamp has elected to import millions for two reasons: to insure they stay in power with their vote and to shore up social security when they magically become SS contributors.
This decline, attributed to factors such as financial concerns, unstable work hours, and lack of paid leave,
It's funny... In countries where there is so much "financial concern" that people literally don't know where their next meal is coming from or if it's coming at all, work hours are so "unstable" that people have to stand on street corners hoping for either a handout or a day labor job, and there's no such thing as "paid leave"... birth rates are still above replacement. Sometimes well above.
The determining factor is wealth, not economic insecurity. The richer a country is - and I just heard a stat on this claiming that the threshold is only like $5000 USD per person per year GDP - the more the birthrate declines.
What a stupid statement. I mean, I guess it's true - the decline is "attributed" to these factors even though that attribution is evidence-free.
"This decline, attributed to factors such as financial concerns, unstable work hours, and lack of paid leave, has resulted in approximately 3.6 million births, marking a 2 percent decrease from the previous year."
That list of factors omits the most glaring reason: We are only in the 3rd generation in all of civilizational history where women have simple means, a pill for instance, to choose when and if they want to get pregnant and have children.
It will take several more generations to smooth out the kinks of this profound revolution, and this makes it sound like that might be too late.
"This decline, attributed to factors such as financial concerns, unstable work hours, and lack of paid leave, has resulted in approximately 3.6 million births, marking a 2 percent decrease from the previous year."
That list of factors omits the most glaring reason: We are only in the 3rd generation in all of civilizational history where women have simple means, a pill for instance, to choose when and if they want to get pregnant and have children.
It will take several more generations to smooth out the kinks of this profound revolution, and this makes it sound like that might be too late.
Saw a poll yesterday that said for the first time American men in their 20s are more religious than women the same age. Has to be part of it....
Us population July 1968 was 201mm
July 2023 335mm
In 68 we we assured by the very best minds that by 1985 we would all be dead from famine, war, disease and other consequences of overpopulation.
Obviously that didn't happen in the US nor did it happen in the world the US is better off today than ever and the world in general is better off today than ever.
We have plenty of room for additional population.
Now the experts assure us that declining population will bring us many of the same Horrors but should we trust them?
the real problem is not the numbers but the sudden surge and the incompatibility of the recent immigrants
I would have no problem at all with immigration of an additional million 2 million maybe even 3 million people a year but we need to have a choice of who we take. They also need to commit to blending in and becoming Americans.
We are a great melting pot, but immigrants have to agree to melt.
John Henry
Not to worry.
This BS will be used to get the moron nation to agree to all the illegal entrants.
And here we have a specific cause and effect for past civilizations that have disappeared - low birth rates. Why would our past track record as a species be any different from a future run of bad luck/stupidity. Barring natural calamities such as a comet, super volcano, etc.
Does anyone ever question this crap?
I see families with young kids all over the place. People people everywhere.
Razib Khan explores the connection between urbanization and declining birth rates, which has a lot more explanatory power for both current and historical civilizational collapse.
We'll be able to grow people in labs soon, right? So problem solved.
I did snicker at the supposed reasons for a lower birth rate being financial, lack of paid leave, etc. I suppsoe that's to encourage the belief that we only have to incentivize birth-doing with money and women will gladly embrace the baby making. I don't think so myself, but then I think some of this has to do with a lack of suitable partners for women (or for men, looking at it that way).
Others have commented on the statement: "This decline, attributed to factors such as financial concerns, unstable work hours, and lack of paid leave, has resulted in approximately 3.6 million births, marking a 2 percent decrease from the previous year."
My two cents is that this shows that certain pervasive mentality in the media where all the problems of the world stem from the lack of, and thus can and should be addressed by, more federal regulation.
Humanity found a way to muddle through the Black Plague, the flu epidemic, two mega wars, and collective farms. Surely we can find a way to adjust to a declining birth rate. A declining birth rate might be a problem, but I can think of lots and lots of worse problems.
A few of my friends cite the existential threat of climate change for their adult children’s reluctance to have children themselves. The wannabe grandparents should be the first to call out that hoax.
I have four grandchildren, but am still trying to figure out how get the 0.2. Neither daughter-in-law much wants to have 0.2 of a child, much less 0.1 apiece.
From a practical standpoint, if we encourage women to forgo or shorten theír child bearing years by competing with men in the workforce, a declining birthrate is the inevitable result. Perhaps career seeking women should be taxed at a higher rate to compensate the women not in the workforce but who are providing a much more valuable service to society by allowing it to perpetuate.
I'm sure there's some truth to these assertions that can be backed up, but my lying eyes are being annoyingly, anecdotally, perverse. We went to our kid's church service last week in the Metroplex and the church is probably 70% young families, and by 'young' I mean less than 35, and by 'families' I mean wife/hubby and not just a kid, but 3-4-5 kids. The pastor wore sneakers and skinny jeans. My S.I.L. was commenting that the area is blowing up with young families.
Of course although this is a purple city, Texas is growing leaps & bounds everywhere - I'm constantly seeing out-of-state plates, every day, in our small city. And the economy here is doing pretty well, maybe better than the national average. So I guess maybe this bounty is being offset by the Great Blue Wasteland? Who knows.
https://www.populationpyramid.net/
Interesting browsing.
By the way, this is the kind of problem that is turned around almost instantaneously by government that understand how incentives work. This principle is being demonstrated in real time in some Eastern European countries - conservative ones. Their young families are supported and are growing.
Conserve......incentives.....principles. Things our government doesn't have, but ought to.
Why was the birth rate low in 1979, what has been the highest rate in the interim, and what's the standard deviation over the last 50 years?
1) Musk's comments about Asia are stupid. japan/China/Korea are incredilby overpopulated. Japan has 110 million people on an Island the size fo Calf. And much of China is desert/Mountain with 1.5 billion jammed into the Eastern half. These countries would be better off with 2/3 of their present population.
2) Europe and the USA do NOT need immigrants. The birthrate is low because of the massive pressure on rents and housing caused by the sainted "Migrants".
3) If you want people to have more kids, you need to free women from economic pressure and stop filling heads with feminist nonsense about being married to their jobs and being business women, engineers, etc. Women respond to fashion and social pressure. If you tell its high status to be a kick-ass Corporate exec or Policechief or Politician and its low status to stay home and have kids - they will stop having kids and be careerists.
4) Most women I work with have to juggle their jobs, families, day care, and housework. No wonder many of them stop after 1 kid. It'd make more sense to just pay them to stay home and take care of their kids and then when come to the workforce later.
Anyway, what is the point of acting like anyone cares about the future of the country? If our elite cared, we wouldn't be running trillion dollar deficiets (sic), wasting billions on useless foreign wars, or letting millions of low IQ, uneducated, and often criminal legal and illegal aliens into the country!
Sidenote: I see large of numbers of legal immigrants bringing over their Parents, and these people go directly onto medicare. What is the point of that? What is the point of letting sick and disabled people into the USA? These people go directly into the medical system as a burden.
Our elite doesn't care. They don't want to pay taxes. They don't care about the future. And they don't care about the American people. Nor do they dumbshit liberal/leftist voters. Why pretend anymore?
The main mistake people are making is that they think this is unintended.
Once you realize we are ruled by human extinctionists things will make more sense.
Replacement Theory?
https://qz.com/677380/1700-years-ago-the-mismanagement-of-a-migrant-crisis-cost-rome-its-empire
"Why was the birth rate low in 1979, what has been the highest rate in the interim, and what's the standard deviation over the last 50 years?"
There was an enormous increase in the numbers of women of child-bearing age in the early to late 1970s- the females of the Baby Boom passing the age of 16- but because of birth control advances, those young women pushed their child-bearing to their late 20s to late 30s- the denominator got significantly larger and the numerator got somewhat smaller in the fertility rate.
John Henry said...
"We are a great melting pot, but immigrants have to agree to melt."
I'll stop the world and melt with you
You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time
There's nothing you and I won't do
I'll stop the world and melt with you
Dream of better lives the kind which never hate
(You should see why)
Trapped in the state of imaginary grace
(You should know better)
I made a pilgrimage to save this humans race
(You should see why)
Never comprehending the race had long gone by
No news here: Invasion is unnecessary. Prospective invaders are instead invited in by our political elite and we are forced to pay for the occupation. And, of course, our women don't want to have children any more. Maybe that's because it's too expensive. Maybe they just don't want to.
We have become largely a stupid, complacent people.
1957 and 2007 are the only two years in the US that had more than 4,000,000 births.
Of course there were fewer women in US in 1957.
A US of 250 million would still be a strong country.
But we’ll have to change Social Security and Medicare. Only those who had children will be eligible.
1957 and 2007 are the only two years in the US that had more than 4,000,000 births.
Of course there were fewer women in US in 1957.
A US of 250 million would still be a strong country.
But we’ll have to change Social Security and Medicare. Only those who had children will be eligible.
how is squatter problem different from bun-in-oven problem?
can we use low birthrate factors to solve squatter problem?
I did my part with my two boys.
But where do I find a hot mamma to get the .1 part done?
My theory is that women are getting more shrill and uglier (fat, pink hair, nose rings, etc.).
Who wants to deal with that?
Find yourself a nice Mormon gal and settle down.
They embrace traditional life, and in my experience, are super cute...bonus!
We're so sophisticated we're sophisticating ourselves out of existence.
But I repeat myself.
The problem isn't money.
Its leisure.
Because of advancements in technology, leisure time has become far more valuable. So people maximize their leisure time. Kids destroy leisure time of their parents in huge amounts, so people stop having kids.
Having more leisure time is a choice, like working more hours to make more money.
We tax income, and will literally tax someone who works 80 hour weeks at higher rates than someone who works 40 hour weeks or not at all. (progressive taxation) So basically the government says "you like to work? well, we tax you harder for that"
Now, I'm talking about work and taxes because that's the solution to the birth rate.
We need to tax excess leisure time of the childless to make becoming a parent a good trade off. Ideally, we'd make the childless do all the chores for families.
So instead of a nice weekend of childfree leisure, the childless will be assigned a family, and some work to do. Laundry, lawncare, cooking, cleaning etc.
Suddenly having your own kids would be a much better deal.
Also, I'd allow a way to get out of this corvee labor. Childless people could pay a tax to get out of the work. Say, $100/hour. This would allow the truly productive a way to not be doing laundry etc., and also raise some income.
Also, military would be exempt.
Just imagine dink hipsters in Brooklyn knowing they can't party Friday night because at 6:00 they will be doing laundry and chores all Saturday for the Mormon family down the street.
Breeding bovines... or what was that expression to label mothers?
Friends with "benefits".
Reproductive rites.
Women "=" men.
Womb banks.
Keep women affordable, available, reusable, and taxable.
'Us population July 1968 was 201mm
July 2023 335mm'
Keep in mind that, although the lying media keeps putting out the 10-20M illegals number, I think it's closer to 40M at this point.
Think about how America would be without all these criminals? No traffic. Lower housing and rent costs. Your kids would learn to read and do math. Uncrowded hospitals.
Sure, your grapes and lettuce will cost a bit more, but I'm willing to pay that price.
The professors have been extremely successful over the last 70 years.
College for everyone: Abandon all hope ye who enter here. You'll likely not become educated and your experience will be one of fear. The professors will demoralize you "to save the planet" while your minds are open in your thirst for exposure to the best thinking.
Jordan Peterson says it better.
https://youtu.be/DcA5TotAkhs?t=3545
Jamie above gives a pithy summary of why the "attributed to" are wrong. Alex Nowrasteh has a better explanation, Misunderstanding the Fertility Crisis, it’s a cultural response to the rising opportunity cost of having children in free and prosperous societies
There are simply so many things that, living in the present, young people would rather do--both hedonic (restaurants, vacations, Netflix) and investment (schooling, getting established in an employment path). And then it's too late for more than one.
@Big Mike: I have four grandchildren, but am still trying to figure out how get the 0.2. Neither daughter-in-law much wants to have 0.2 of a child, much less 0.1 apiece.
If just one of them has another kid, your sub-population's reproductive rate will be at 2.5 and comfortably above replacement, with no Solomonic baby-slicing necessary.
My S.I.L. was commenting that the area is blowing up with young families... Of course although this is a purple city, Texas is growing leaps & bounds everywhere
Those young families are fleeing the Democrat-dominated states. Texas is their most popular refuge. I suspect no such phenomenon is being seen in San Francisco.
Find yourself a nice Mormon gal and settle down. They embrace traditional life, and in my experience, are super cute...bonus!
Mom's family was Mormon to the bone for more than a century, including a 5th or 6th great-aunt who was one of Brigham Young's many wives. They mostly became apostates in the past couple of generations, and I have never set foot in a Mormon church or temple. Still have lots of relatives in the faith, though, and I bear little or none of the ill will towards the Church that is sometimes found among "Jack-Mormons" who have parted fellowship with the Saints.
Your advice is good as far as it goes, but you won't be settling down with a traditional Mormon girl unless you convert, and the cutest ones are usually married off to returned missionaries well before they graduate college.
If you are one of the 80 or 90 percent of people who is comfortable finding your place in a hierarchy, and don't have an undue fondness for alcohol or tea or coffee, and don't feel the need to pull too vigorously on the theological loose threads of the faith that gives your life purpose and meaning, you might well find immense fulfillment as a Mormon. For men in particular, there is a lot of appeal to the notion of a beautiful blonde wife who loves to cook, and keep house, and fuck the daylights out of you, and drive around in a Suburban full of happy blond children. But 10-20% of us are probably not amenable to life among the Saints, and I would guess that number is higher among women than men in this day and age.
“the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman”
Is it all on the woman? Note that even Donald Trump with 5 children doesn't beat replacement if you count by woman, as 5 children by 3 wives is only 1.67 births per woman. You have to go back to Barbara Bush to find a First Lady who topped the replacement rate.
Jill Biden - 1
Melania Trump - 1
Michelle Obama - 2
Laura Bush - 2
Hillary Clinton- 1
Barbara Bush - 6
Nancy Reagan - 2
Rosalyn Carter - 4
Pat Nixon - 2
Lady Bird Johnson - 2
Jacqueline Kennedy - 4 (2 survived infancy)
Mamie Eisenhower - 2
Bess Truman - 1
While it seems fairly dismal that only 3 of the last 13 First Ladies beat replacement, 2 if one only counts children who survived infancy, that does work out to 2.15 children per First Lady, slightly above replacement. Those numbers suggest that the best strategy, for those who want to encourage more children, is not to try to convince all women to have another child, but to convince some women to have 4 or more children.
Harun,
Because of advancements in technology, leisure time has become far more valuable.
Counterintuitive, to say the least. "Advancements in technology" have vastly expanded leisure time, by cutting down the amount of time taken up by formerly very labor-intensive chores. Laundry. Dishwashing. Cooking. Cleaning. Lawn care. Car washing. Of course, the downside is that most women now work -- I mean, "work outside the home" -- so that it's probably a net zero. All these things, though, still do need to be done, if not necessarily by people inside the home.
And "child care," fwiw, is another of those outsourceable things. Why do something yourself, when you can just pay someone poorer to do it for you? Even if it is, traditionally, something done out of love for free, as opposed to something done out of avarice for, well, money?
Full disclosure: I am a childless, postmenopausal woman.
Left Bank of the Charles said...
"... Those numbers suggest that the best strategy, for those who want to encourage more children, is not to try to convince all women to have another child, but to convince some women to have 4 or more children."
I remember some comments by a demographer that most living Americans (ignoring immigrants and illegals) later this century will be people who grew up with 3 or 4 siblings.
The future belongs to those who show up. The number of people in the US will be determined by how many people now have those ~4 children. (And the aforementioned immigrants and illegals).
My mom was one of 9 children. I am the last of 45 grandchildren. There are approxomately 135 great-grandchildren. We're doing enough to populate the world, right?
Not so fast. The 9 children only averaged 5 children per. The grandchildren only averaged 3. The great-grandchildren only have a few kids (a lot are pretty young), and will probably stop long before they get to the replacement number of ~270 or so.
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