The China Thread

[Valmy]

That figure was still more than twice as high ten years ago, which is an incredible decline. It compares to about 6.1 in Japan, 7.9 in the EU and 10.5 in the US, all of which also decline, but more gently.

Jesus. When Japan is considered the less bad example of demographic decline you have a crisis.

Somebody, somewhere, is finally going to find a solution to this problem. I just fear it will be something almost worse than the disease.

[Sheilbh]

Somebody, somewhere, is finally going to find a solution to this problem. I just fear it will be something almost worse than the disease.

David Runciman had a really interesting piece on it in the LRB, which was characteristically upbeat
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n21/david-runciman/are-we-doomed

The countries I always find really interesting on this are ones like Thailand or some Latin American countries where the fall is really profound - Thailand's fertility rate is lower than most European countries' - but they've not really got much richer in the meantime in comparison with, say, China or Taiwan or South Korea.

[Valmy]

Yeah. They are collapsing everywhere.

I think Elon musk suggested that the main way to save the world is make everybody impoverished and ignorant and superstitious so we will go back to making 7 babies per lady. But somehow the countries full of the (comparatively anyway) impoverished, ignorant, and superstitious are collapsing their birth rates at an incredible speed.

It is kind of the main reason I stopped actually thinking much about immigration as a problem or a solution to problems here in the US. All those cheap immigrants will not exist in a generation or two. Mexico will barely be able to replace Mexicans.

[DGuller]

Yeah. They are collapsing everywhere.

I think Elon musk suggested that the main way to save the world is make everybody impoverished and ignorant and superstitious so we will go back to making 7 babies per lady. But somehow the countries full of the (comparatively anyway) impoverished, ignorant, and superstitious are collapsing their birth rates at an incredible speed.

It is kind of the main reason I stopped actually thinking much about immigration as a problem or a solution to problems here in the US. All those cheap immigrants will not exist in a generation or two. Mexico will barely be able to replace Mexicans.

I think reproduction and individual rationality are just not compatible.  I'm sure that if you give most species, if not all, the option of family planning, their population would be collapsing as well.  Sure, you may get some good feelings from raising your children, but those good feelings won't fully cancel out the cost and risks to yourself that come from reproducing.  You're taking one for your species when you reproduce, which is the kind of behavior that can only be achieved by instincts that overpower your rationality.

If individual rationality is indeed incompatible with reproduction at a great enough rate, then my fear is that any solution will involve suppression of individual choice in some way.  It doesn't have to be overtly authoritarian, but in my book if you live in a society that puts strong expectations on you and punishes you with ostracism for not complying with them, then the effect is much the same.

[Valmy]

If individual rationality is indeed incompatible with reproduction at a great enough rate, then my fear is that any solution will involve suppression of individual choice in some way.  It doesn't have to be overtly authoritarian, but in my book if you live in a society that puts strong expectations on you and punishes you with ostracism for not complying with them, then the effect is much the same.

Exactly. There might be some kind of child quota every year and a draft where people will be required to have children. Or heavily pressured to with massive reproduction drives. Something horrible like that.

Or we just start growing people in test tubes.

I am just saying eventually those in power will find a solution and I think it will be really bad.

[DGuller]

If individual rationality is indeed incompatible with reproduction at a great enough rate, then my fear is that any solution will involve suppression of individual choice in some way.  It doesn't have to be overtly authoritarian, but in my book if you live in a society that puts strong expectations on you and punishes you with ostracism for not complying with them, then the effect is much the same.

Exactly. There might be some kind of child quota every year and a draft where people will be required to have children. Or heavily pressured to with massive reproduction drives. Something horrible like that.

Or we just start growing people in test tubes.

I am just saying eventually those in power will find a solution and I think it will be really bad.

I don't think it has to be that dystopian.  I think it's going to be more like what is the case in Haredim Jewish communities, where most families have lots of kids because it's an expectation, and because these communities are so strong that social expectations are not treated as a suggestion.  Unfortunately, as a strongly individualistic person, these kinds of communities are not exactly my cup of tea although over the years I've realized that in addition to reproduction, another thing they provide that Western societies increasingly fail to is a sense of belonging.

[Valmy]

If individual rationality is indeed incompatible with reproduction at a great enough rate, then my fear is that any solution will involve suppression of individual choice in some way.  It doesn't have to be overtly authoritarian, but in my book if you live in a society that puts strong expectations on you and punishes you with ostracism for not complying with them, then the effect is much the same.

Exactly. There might be some kind of child quota every year and a draft where people will be required to have children. Or heavily pressured to with massive reproduction drives. Something horrible like that.

Or we just start growing people in test tubes.

I am just saying eventually those in power will find a solution and I think it will be really bad.

I don't think it has to be that dystopian.  I think it's going to be more like what is the case in Haredim Jewish communities, where most families have lots of kids because it's an expectation, and because these communities are so strong that social expectations are not treated as a suggestion.  Unfortunately, as a strongly individualistic person, these kinds of communities are not exactly my cup of tea although over the years I've realized that in addition to reproduction, another thing they provide that Western societies increasingly fail to is a sense of belonging.

Well sure. We all just might end up in high control group cults because those are the only societies that can sustain themselves.

If anything that seems worse and more dystopian. We have spent the last few hundred years trying to liberate ourselves from those kinds of societies.

[Zanza]

Those dystopian religious cults cannot sustain our modern societies though. By themselves, they would eventually degenerate into a much more primitive society.