I read an article earlier this week about the unintended consequences of Poland's draconian anti-abortion law. No exceptions for rape, incest, or birth defect, and a tightly controlled exception for the life of the mother.

So what was the unintended consequence? The birthrate fell off a cliff after the law was passed. I believe the rate was an average of 1.3 children per woman. The replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman - at that 2.1 rate 100 couples would have 210 children, of which about ten would not make it to adulthood, so 200 parents would create 200 new (potential) parents in the next generation. That's the replacement rate.

What really caught my attention though were the birthrate figures in other countries. The US is below 2.1, but not by a huge amount. The lowest is South Korea, with a birthrate of 0.7.

The article went on to point out that that means that 100 couples of the present generation in S Korea would produce 70 children in the next generation. And if that birthrate continued, those 70 children would produce 25 children in the following generation.

That is a breathtaking drop in population over 60 years. (A generation is generally considered to be 30 years). Of course those 200 people would not disappear after having their 70 children. It would take about 60 years for most of them to die off. The fact remains, however, that there would only be 70 children moving through the population pipeline, to replace those 200 people. And 25 kids the generation after that, and 9 after that.


Nations, particularly in Asia, are aware of the problem that is barreling toward them, and trying valiantly to raise the birthrate, with little (no?) success.

The math is pretty straightforward. I had just never sat down and done the math on what a 0.7 birthrate would actually mean. Boy howdy, is that a big population drop.

Now do the math on human-caused global warming caused by high birth rates.

Good topic for another thread. But a potential 95% population drop over 3 generations is a problem in and of itself.

Yes, but as we know from the predictions in the 80s that Mormonism would take over the world, rates don't stay the same. I suspect that there is a generally underdamped and sloppy control system involved in population dynamics, with a few poorly understood perturbation forces at work.

You are correct, birthrates don't start the same, but we have been watching them drop for fifty years now, and this doesn't look like a short term blip. Even Utah is below replacement, though just barely, and expected to continue declining.

Like I said, nations are struggling to increase the birthrate, with little or no success.

Yes, there are other problems in the world. That doesn't mean that this isn't one. Especially for South Korea.

I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't a problem, only that the birth rate can't be extrapolated very far. In an extreme case, imagine what happens if the DMZ is somehow deleted.

I find it interesting that from 1920 to 1970 the population roughly doubled from 2B to 4B. Then again in the next 50 years, from the roughly 4B to 8B. But as you point out, things are slowing down and drastically. I've seen analyses predicting max populations between 9B and 12B, and the ones predicting 12B usually have some kind of subsequent correction, and a settling point of something like 10B. This, by about 2100 or so.

I guess that after a couple of hundred thousand years, we're finally approaching max capacity. One way to solve the problem in the short term is to run your country in such a way that people want to move there.

If some states (NJ comes to mind as #1) are loosing people, other states are gaining, some of those are in the IMW.

I don't have any data, but isn't Utah experiencing a high number of move-ins?

Then there's the challenge of people from Mexico and central countries immigrating to the U.S.

In general, aren't birth rates & the economy tied together in lots of (developed) countries? the U.S. economy is robust!

Interesting.

The overall population of the planet is still increasing, but at a slower rate then. I hope humans will figure out a way to sustain reasonable levels of animals and people. I don't think every subsequent generation will stay at 2.1. Resources, climate, etc., are hard to predict. Some places are considerably higher.

We've had near extinctions in our history. I used to think the Earth's human population would mostly resemble a bumpy bell curve, but now I wouldn't guess. The human Ponzi scheme of destroying resources as fast as possible is not a long term plan. Maybe the Earth will be glad for its human scabies problem to thin out.

If a population is skewed toward a lot of young people, the population will continue to grow, even if the birthrate is below replacement, simply because there are so many women of child-bearing age. That growth always goes away with the passage of time - 30 or 40 years.

And of course there are still countries with high birthrates. They are falling too, and presumably will fall below replacement. African countries are a prime example.

Yeah, thinning out would be a good thing. I expect it will happen about a century from now, but what is happening in S Korea is too much of a good thing.

LW has written in the past about the economic difficulties of a falling population. Hoping she will weigh in here.

Wow. This thread filled up as I was writing what follows below, but yes I have added some thoughts.

> The overall population of the
> planet is still increasing


"You're welcome!"

      --My Loins

In the U.S. immigration will more than make up for it. My school system, and neighboring school systems, are experiencing quite the surge in students this year. My school has had a more than 60% increase in new ESOL students, and that's not unusual for this area or elsewhere. And it's not just families that are coming across the southern border, although that accounts for a huge number. They're coming from everywhere. The families coming across the southern border have been largely from Central America in recent years. Now we are seeing increasing numbers coming up from South America, chiefly Venezuela and Ecuador.

Problems: Many students are now coming to us with little to no prior education, even in the upper elementary grades. There is only so much we can do to remediate for this. And many of their parents are increasingly illiterate.

They are good people, from what I've observed, and hard-working. They do a great job rearing their kids. But in a lot of ways, I wonder if this resembles the Age of Immigration, when we had so many people coming through Ellis Island more than 100 years ago. The trouble is, we have advanced as a society so much that illiteracy is now much more of a problem than it was long ago.

As for Poland, I have little sympathy. If you oppress women, you get what you get. And my guess is they will likely not like their options for immigrants.

A few points, BoJ.

First, I'm not convinced that the anti-abortion law is what drove down the birth rate in Poland. The collapse of the Eastern Bloc initiated a period of social instability that depressed confidence and hence birth rates across the region. If you look at Russia's population pyramid and ratio of births/1000-in-population, you'll see almost exactly the same patterns and numbers.

Second, the rich countries of East Asia demonstrate the rule that it is nearly impossible as an empirical matter for government policy to affect the birthrate in a anything but a very long period of time. The exception to that rule is a policy implemented with inhuman brutality like China's one-child policy, but Beijing's inability to reverse the consequent collapse in fertility shows that you can't force people to reproduce.

Third, rising standards of living and better education for women are the primary drivers of demographic decline in rich countries. That explains Korea, Japan, and increasingly China. The only wealthy societies that have managed to keep their birthrates relatively high are those like the United States that benefit from large-scale immigration. Poorer and less educated immigrants have larger families, thereby bolstering fertility--and that makes a huge economic difference given that GDP growth equals labor plus capital.

Finally, you know this but the "if present trends continue" argument is almost always wrong. The ROK's birth rate will not fall 95%; it probably won't fall 50%. The cost-benefit calculation for having more children improves markedly as population levels decline, so there will be a point at which Korea's population begins to rise again.

Lottie, the immigrant couples that I'm seeing are tending to have larger families than the native-born. A family size of four to five kids is not unusual. With the growing illiteracy, there is a real culture clash. The families are having a hard time grasping the need for a good education in this country. And the school systems are looking on with a growing dismay because we are under a tremendous pressure to produce results. IMO it takes 4-5 months minimum (and often double or triple that) until kids have "survival English," and maybe 2-3 years before they are fully functional in an English-language classroom.

I don't doubt any of that. My point is simply that the rich world's demographics are terrible and that those OECD countries with high levels of immigration have much stronger economies.

I am not saying immigration does not cause social and educational stresses. It assuredly does. But you can imagine what would happen if the US kicked out the agricultural, restaurant, and construction workers that have come to the States legally or illegally over the last few decades.

Oh, absolutely. In my neck of the woods, immigrants (as always) take on the jobs that no one else wants -- child care, cleaning, construction, landscaping, etc. Our economy would collapse without them. Although with the huge numbers, I'm starting to see a bit of a crunch with even those jobs.

Elder care is one of those too.

My friends in Ukraine are thinking of trying to come over. Just the wife and kids of course. She is quite fluent in English and has been teaching the kids for a while. They know it would give them a lot of opportunities when they got older. Now that it is even a real thought they are doubling down. The good thing is that there are a lot more opportunities for them to learn English than for me to learn Ukrainian. I have them watching Schoolhouse Rock even if they don't understand all of it.

Elder care is a huge opportunity for Japan. The Philippines produces a copious supply of very well trained nurses, and Japan needs them badly to care for the elderly. That's an area where immigration could, and should, rise sharply.

The Philippines produces quality teachers as well. My close colleague, with whom I share a classroom, is a native Filipino. He has been a great asset to our team.

And Susan, my immediate supervisor is an immigrant from Ukraine. She told me that one side of her family is out of the country completely, but the other side still has some relatives living there. Lovely woman.

Tell her Привіт - Pryvit for me and ask for recipes!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2023 05:27AM by Susan I/S.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Elder care is a huge opportunity for Japan. The
> Philippines produces a copious supply of very well
> trained nurses, and Japan needs them badly to care
> for the elderly. That's an area where immigration
> could, and should, rise sharply.

Do you think Japan is overpopulated or not? What would be the solution if it is?

These "very well trained nurses" will need to train themselves to become fluent in Japanese. That includes learning their entire writing system, which takes years for Japanese children to pick up. Also the complexities of Japanese etiquette and register.

Miss Hap Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do you think Japan is overpopulated or not? What
> would be the solution if it is?

Not the topic.

Japan's economy has been stuck in the doldrums for nearly three decades because of its demographics: what matters in economic terms is not whether a population has reached saturation but the rate of change for, as I said above, the simple reason that GDP growth is a function of increments of expansion in the labor supply. When a labor force is shrinking, the nation's growth rate declines and the government is forced to expand its deficit to keep the economy from falling into depression. The upshot is a massive increase in government debt.


---------
> These "very well trained nurses" will need to
> train themselves to become fluent in Japanese.
> That includes learning their entire writing
> system, which takes years for Japanese children to
> pick up. Also the complexities of Japanese
> etiquette and register.

Not quite up to speed, are we. Japanese is taught in a very large number of Filipino schools and medical schools and demand for tuition still outpaces the supply. The percentage of the population that is competent in Japanese is much higher than in any Western nation.

There are already many thousands of Filipina nurses working in Japan and Tokyo has created a new visa/citizenship system to encourage more inflow. Filipinas in healthcare will soon be as important as Iranians in the construction industry,

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh, absolutely. In my neck of the woods,
> immigrants (as always) take on the jobs that no
> one else wants -- child care, cleaning,
> construction, landscaping, etc. Our economy would
> collapse without them. Although with the huge
> numbers, I'm starting to see a bit of a crunch
> with even those jobs.

Why don't people want them? Because those jobs are underpaid and unsafe. Migrant labor isn't unionized either, so another bonus for the employer. No one wants to say this part out loud.

It takes a special kind of mindset to think foreigners should do work which is seen as unwanted by the locals for the reasons I've just mention. We do the same with issues like child labor and manufacture – shift the ethical questions elsewhere.

Migration is also a mere bandaid for demographic collapse. Not a long term solution.

Demographic collapse? The world population is nearing 10 billion and destroying the environment and you're worried about a "collapse?"

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Demographic collapse? The world population is
> nearing 10 billion and destroying the environment
> and you're worried about a "collapse?"

I was talking about the Developed World. Most of it is in severe decline. North America bucks the trend by mass migration. Europe tries to do the same but is in even worse demographic shape. North East Asia is also in big trouble, especially Japan but even China. That's most of the northern hemisphere. That's also a shrinking tax base for governments, and they know it.

Latin America is slowing down, as are a few other parts of Asia. The main exceptions are Africa, India and the Middle East. But even in Africa, some areas have slowing population growth.

If you want to decrease population, then RAISE the living standards of poor countries. Richer people have smaller families. Don't just use them as a cheap labor pool. Don't back corrupt leaders in them and don't allow onerous bank loans. Don't bomb them to pieces either. The developed world does all these things. You can't have it both ways.

> I was talking about the Developed World. Most of
> it is in severe decline. North America bucks the
> trend by mass migration. Europe tries to do the
> same but is in even worse demographic shape.

Depends which part of Europe you have in mind. Many parts of it have expanding populations.


------------
> That's also a shrinking tax base for
> governments, and they know it.

Just shift the focus of the tax system from income to wealth and there is no problem.


-------------
>
> Latin America is slowing down, as are a few other
> parts of Asia. The main exceptions are Africa,
> India and the Middle East.

India is not an exception. It's already in the early stages of deceleration.


------------
> If you want to decrease population, then RAISE the
> living standards of poor countries. Richer people
> have smaller families.

I've already said that many times, including in this thread.


------------------
> Don't just use them as a
> cheap labor pool.

Myopic. In terms of labor and remuneration, there's no difference between importing labor and importing goods and services. The industrial revolution stemmed from English and Dutch demand for goods from Germany and the United States. That raised wages in those countries, which became part of the advanced world. Those countries then demanded labor from Japan and South Korea and the rest of Europe and raised the living standards there.

If you paid foreign labor what American or Canadian workers earn, there would be no jobs for foreigners and development would not occur. You can argue the opposite but you can't demonstrate a single country that got rich the way you implicitly suggest.

Actually, the immigrants that I've seen are very entrepreneurial. Once they gain needed language and skills, they often start their own businesses.

And as to your comment that immigration is often a band-aid for demographic collapse, where did your ancestors come from, exactly?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2023 07:02PM by summer.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And as to your comment that immigration is often a
> band-aid for demographic collapse, where did your
> ancestors come from, exactly?

These are two completely separate issues, and you know it.

I was talking about how developed countries (I have to specify this apparently) don't have enough babies and use migration to counteract this problem. There is a slight problem with this "solution". The birthrate shrinks among second and third gen migrants. Oops. And one has to keep going to poorer countries to pick up up more and more.

I'm indigenous to where I live. My parents, grandparents, greatgrandparents, greatgreatgrandparents, greatgreatgreatgrandparents and so on all came from this country. You would have to go back to the Middle Ages or earlier to find any international migrants in my ancestry. At least on paper. This may make me a freak of nature in your eyes, or suggest I am inbred, but neither is the case. Most of the world was in the same position until colonialism came in.

No, I don't know it. And my ancestry is at least twelve generations in the U.S. on my dad's side, although that does not make me indigenous.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No, I don't know it. And my ancestry is at least
> twelve generations in the U.S. on my dad's side,
> although that does not make me indigenous.

Those were two entirely different propositions. Your aim was to lead me into a trap and tell me "we're all migrants" or some similar sentiment. Some of my cousins are international migrants, but I'm not and none of my recent ancestry is. By recent I mean within four or five hundred years when all the decent records are. I'm also related genetically to people who were here thousands of years ago.

I've traveled and studied other cultures and languages. They interest me to varying degrees, but I do not buy into this modern trope. It is a form of neocolonialism to rely on other countries as a cheap exploitative resource of people or whatever. As I say elsewhere, international population transfer is going to be functionless by the time automation completely destroys paid work. A process which started before we were born.

Here we go again with the attacks on summer.

> Your aim was to lead me into a trap and tell me
> "we're all migrants" or some similar sentiment.

A trap. That nasty elementary school teacher in Maryland is setting a trap for you.


------------
> I've traveled and studied other cultures and
> languages. They interest me to varying degrees,
> but I do not buy into this modern trope. It is a
> form of neocolonialism to rely on other countries
> as a cheap exploitative resource of people or
> whatever.

What you call "this modern trope" is in fact the story of all capitalist development. The only countries that have tried to develop without relying on foreign supply and demand are the attempted autarkies in the USSR; the Eastern Bloc; North Korea; and, until it switched to capitalism in December 1978, the People's Republic of China.

What you propose, in short, is Stalinism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2023 03:40PM by Lot's Wife.

Well, most of us *are* descended from migrants, even if they came up from Africa at the dawn of human history. The fact is that people move in search of safety and/or better resources and opportunities. I know of people who have moved out of the U.S. to other countries, so it works in both directions.

One thing that I am very conscious of is that at least some of my students are descended from the Mayans or the Aztecs -- two of the greatest civilizations that ever existed. And yet their current situation is such that their families felt the need to migrate northward. I am mindful of the fact that migration might very well move in the other direction at some point in the future. Our own descendants might very well migrate for any number of reasons -- climate change, economic opportunity, land, safety, or simply out of a sense of adventure.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am not saying immigration does not cause social
> and educational stresses. It assuredly does. But
> you can imagine what would happen if the US kicked
> out the agricultural, restaurant, and construction
> workers that have come to the States legally or
> illegally over the last few decades.

The US has pioneered this model of long term mass migration. It worked when it was a frontier country with developing infrastructure, less so later on. It also meant local education and labor practices degenerated as the US became more reliant on other countries.

Now the US has exported this mindset to countries in Europe, and is now trying to export it to north east Asia with severe consequences.

Mass migration is a new form of colonial exploitation as it allows rich countries to take the human resources of countries which are deliberately kept poor. Once it was the likes of Ireland and Italy. Now it is Brazil and Botswana etc. Poor countries become reliant on human export as an economic control instead of developing their infrastructure and economy.

Even within Europe, this mentality has been a disaster for countries like Portugal or Lithuania where entire villages are almost abandoned. Presumably they are supposed to bring in more fresh meat from somewhere even poorer to plug that hole.

You think you are a free market libertarian but your natural impulses are quite the opposite.

It was Vladimir Lenin who first wrote what you are now advocating in his Imperialism, the Highest State of Capitalism. That book explicitly condemned capitalism for exploiting cheaper labor from the poor world. That was the argument that gave Bolshevism legitimacy in the leftist world.

But the even closer parallel is with Kwame Nkrumah, whose Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism presents exactly the arguments you propose now. The rich West was keeping poor countries poor and exploiting depressed wages.

What you apparently don't understand is that your present agenda will work no better now than it did historically. Capitalism is superior to communism, and arbitraging wages is precisely how capitalism has enriched so much of the world. Embracing the destructive mistakes of leftist leaders would be an enormous mistake.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You think you are a free market libertarian but
> your natural impulses are quite the opposite.

I'm familiar with this particular mindgame. No, I am not a "libertarian". But I do think that the government should keep its nose out of certain things. You go on about overpopulation. Poor people have more children. High taxation keeps ordinary people's living standards down and it is not good value for money. It does not provide quality services and is more interested in engineering society than listening to the people who pay for it.

The problem we have right now is that big government and big business are right in bed with each other, no matter who we vote for. This means those big businesses pay almost no tax but keep getting tax payer funded contracts.

The governments of the developed world need that tax base to keep their bloated bureaucracies going. Low birthrates don't cut it.

When I talked about other countries being kept poor, guess who is largely responsible? Western governments! Our tax money pays for wars in these countries. It pays for loans which are given to corrupt leaders who exploit the people of these countries. It pays indirectly for international bodies such as UNHCR which are funded by governments around the world.

> I'm familiar with this particular mindgame. No, I
> am not a "libertarian".

That doesn't surprise me. You are a corporatist who thinks government should enforce his moral and social preferences, which is of course an interventionist outlook.


----------------
> But I do think that the
> government should keep its nose out of certain
> things. You go on about overpopulation. Poor
> people have more children. High taxation keeps
> ordinary people's living standards down and it is
> not good value for money. It does not provide
> quality services and is more interested in
> engineering society than listening to the people
> who pay for it.

Yet while declaiming against "social engineering," you reprise the interventionism espoused by those paragons of the Left, Nkrumah and Fanon. That's a fundamental contradiction.


--------------
> The problem we have right now is that big
> government and big business are right in bed with
> each other, no matter who we vote for. This means
> those big businesses pay almost no tax but keep
> getting tax payer funded contracts.

True. That is "a," if not "the," big problem.


-------------
> The governments of the developed world need that
> tax base to keep their bloated bureaucracies
> going.

There it is again: starve the state. You're advocating the "withering away" of the state precisely as Karl Marx did.


--------------
> When I talked about other countries being kept
> poor, guess who is largely responsible? Western
> governments!

That is unadulterated Nkrumah and Fanon.


--------------
> Our tax money pays for wars in these
> countries. It pays for loans which are given to
> corrupt leaders who exploit the people of these
> countries. It pays indirectly for international
> bodies such as UNHCR which are funded by
> governments around the world.

There are times when you expose a lot more about yourself than you intend. Your argument that the Western capitalist elite drains wealth from the poor world is straight-up Karl Marx. So too your contentions about the UN and global elite conspiracies. Your sense of capitalists intentionally keeping the developing world poor--which is factually wrong--is vintage Kwame Nkrumah and Francis Fanon.

You're not really a conservative at all.

"OECD countries with high levels of immigration have much stronger economies."

LC, we've talked about this before in other threads but immigration in the US has kept the "population pyramid" in place. Whether its birth rates or immigration, you need more people in your economy for growth.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.

Mass migration is the usual "solution" politicians and big business try to use to solve the issue, but with only minor success. The main issue is that child rearing is a) expensive and b) unfashionable, and businesses are not helpful when it comes to employment issues.

Of course the elephant in the room is automation. What happens when all the work is gone? Then the dung hits the proverbial.

The automation elephant is never going away and has been moving along for decades, probably faster now with better technology.

In the last election, there was a candidate, Andrew Yang, that proposed UBI. His book is an interesting read.

Your comment that child rearing is unfashionable, I don't think so.

What's the birth rate in TSCC?

I'm guessing it's low due to the high geriatric population.

They can keep the stats up once ghawd reveals how to do proxy "name and a blessing" ceremonies...

It appears to not be very high

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2469893,2469893#msg-2469893

new children of record in 2022: 89,059

New children of record in 2021: 89,069

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/2021-statistical-report-april-2022-conference

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What's the birth rate in TSCC?
>
> I'm guessing it's low due to the high geriatric
> population.

I know of a few families who've made up for it round here, but many of them have gone inactive.

It's worth remembering that the LDS' main growth area is the Third World. It has a lot of Latin American members. In New Zealand, Polynesians (both migrants and indigenous Māori) have a strong tendency to be LDS, and also have higher birthrates than most groups.

I'm guessing that COB/GAs are M/L glad when people from Mexico & others move to Utah & other IMW states; they probably think that living in 'ZION' makes move-ins susceptible to conversions;

btw, is the Catholic church experiencing growth in Utah?

is the Catholic church #2 in Utah?

GNPE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm guessing that COB/GAs are M/L glad when people
> from Mexico & others move to Utah & other IMW
> states; they probably think that living in 'ZION'
> makes move-ins susceptible to conversions;
>
> btw, is the Catholic church experiencing growth in
> Utah?
>
> is the Catholic church #2 in Utah?

Very, very likely without looking at the actual stats. The RCs have experienced steady growth for a long while in Utah. Both the LDS and RCs have benefited from immigration but in different ways. A Latin American going to the USA is most likely to be a Catholic, but a Mormon Latino is likely to head to Utah.

Weirdly, I don't get the sense that most of the Latino immigrants where I live are religious. Some are, but most not. My students have been genuinely confused when I've sometimes mentioned the word, "church." Perhaps they are Catholic in name only. OTOH, there have been a few active JWs.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Weirdly, I don't get the sense that most of the
> Latino immigrants where I live are religious. Some
> are, but most not. My students have been genuinely
> confused when I've sometimes mentioned the word,
> "church." Perhaps they are Catholic in name only.
> OTOH, there have been a few active JWs.

It depends what you mean by religious I find Roman Catholics have a looser affiliation than Mormons do and tend to fall into the inactive or semi-active area. That means they don't attend every Sunday, but many do the hatch, match and dispatch thing (Christenings, weddings and last rites etc). They will also "do" First Communion (especially for girls). A substantial number turn up for Christmas and Easter services.

There is also a subset of Mexican folk Catholics who probably barely ever attend church but keep devotions to religious icons and pray to saints.

I was raised Catholic, and yes, there is a range of activity. It's possible that the immigrants are just "twice-a-year's" (Christmas and Easter.) Or, they could just be too busy with trying to support their families. Nevertheless, it's not what I expected.

>is the Catholic church #2 in Utah?

No. According to this study it is third (fourth if you count unaffiliated)

https://uscanadainfo.com/religion-in-utah/

Religion/Affiliations Percentage
Christianity 73%
– Mormonism – 55%
– Protestantism – 13%
– Catholicism – 5%
– Eastern Orthodoxy – <1%
– Jehovah’s Witnesses – <1%
– Other Christian – 1%
Other Religion 4%
Judaism – <1%
Islam – 1%
Buddhism – 1%
Hinduism – <1%
Other faiths – <1%
No religion /Unaffiliated 22%
Don’t know 1%

Protestanism broken down somewhat

Protestantism 13%
– Evangelical Protestant -7%
– Mainline Protestant -6%
– Black church -1%

Re the birthrate of TSCC: Utah is the youngest state in the nation, and has been so for some time. The birthrate is dropping, but it is still higher than in the rest of the US. I think thew Utah birthrate is still a decent proxy for the TSCC birthrate.

ETA: if you include American territories, American Samoa has a lower median age that Utah. Of course American Samoa also has a lot of Mormons. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_median_age



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2023 12:55AM by Brother Of Jerry.

Have you not heard of the Georgia Guidestones, BoJ!?

dasi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Have you not heard of the Georgia Guidestones,
> BoJ!?

Personally I think they're fake, but the sentiments on them are not a million miles off what world leaders want. Like I say, automation is the elephant in the room. Billions of unemployed by 2050. Not a good ratio for them.

I'm not a fan of Elon Musk but he plays it the other way. He has said:
"If we had a trillion humans, we would have at any given time a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins."

I'm not convinced by that argument. Mozarts and Einsteins have to arise under the right conditions, not just vast numbers.

He has also said, "Population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming...mark these words.”

Musk is a very good at starting and running a technology-based business, but IMO this does not make him some sort of oracle about other things. Being smart in certain areas does not make you smart in all areas. He can have his opinions about diverse things like any other blowhard, but that doesn't mean that people should pay him any special attention.

Summer, I'm not even sure Musk is a great technologist. Consider the following:

1) He did not build PayPal. His financial services company, X.com, blew up, leaving only $12 million in the bank. Sequoia Capital merged that bank account with Confinity, which was already up and running under Peter Thiel. Confinity became PayPal not because of Musk but because of his money.

2) Boring Company. Stillborn. Despite the fanfare, Boring has achieved virtually nothing.

3) Tesla. A huge success built on a company that was already doing electric vehicles and on Musk's self-promotion. So far so good, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it lose the third of its value that stems from Musk's self-promotion.

4) SpaceX. A major success built on government subsidies.

5) Twitter. Need I say more?

In short, I don't think he's a great businessman: I think he's largely been lucky and that luck has a way of reverting to the norm. But even if he were the commercial genius he claims, you are correct that that expertise does not transfer to social policy. Moreover Musk has been all over the map on those issues: he is a gadfly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2023 05:43PM by Lot's Wife.

"Billions of unemployed by 2050. Not a good ratio for them."

TSCC to the rescue - give them busy work!

So some nutters have money left over after buying tinfoil for their hats. As for being fake, not sure what that means. Sounds like they were commissioned, bought and paid for by some nutter in Georgia. No Anunnaki were harmed in the production of those stones.

We talk about low birth rates in the financial industry a lot. It’s huge problem because what drives an economy and takes care of the elderly is the upcoming generations. Some say it’s not a problem in places like the US because we can make up the difference with immigration. I don’t think it’s that simple.