A Grim Destiny Hidden Beneath the Glitter

The destiny of Japan -- and all modern nations including those of the west -- is obscured by the gee-whiz! glitter of modern technology and media. Everything at surface level is meant to distract the attention of moderns from what is happening under the surface. For example, look under the glitzy surface of Tokyo and what will you find?

Ageing Population of Japan

One cause of depopulation, which is likely to lead to the downfall of Japan if it is not reversed, is a collapse in the total fertility rate (TFR) for Japanese females in their child-bearing years (from 15-49). This TFR fell precipitously from 5.10 in 1925 to an exceptionally low 1.39 by 2010 (compared to a UN world average of 2.52 for 2010). [5] The replacement rate for a population is two children per woman. With its TFR not just below 2 but now under 1.5, it is not surprising that Japan’s population is shrinking and getting older. The CIA World Factbook ranks Japan 202 out of 222 countries in its country comparison table for TFRs. [6] Japan’s net reproduction rate fell by over half from 108.2 in 1925 to 44.0 by 2010.

Ominously, such a depletion of population will be accompanied by an equally significant fall in economically active citizens (those in the working age bracket of 15-64).

This shrinking population with its declining workforce will also be ageing. Sadly, the only aspect of Japan’s population which will continue to grow relative to other age groups will be its senior citizenry (those aged 65 and over).

The mean age of the Japanese is expected to rise from 45 years old in 2010 to 54.6 years old by 2060. [7] We are looking at the world’s oldest society. [8] _Demographic Sunset of Japan

Fewer productive workers and builders -- combined with more sick and elderly dependent upon government social benefits -- will lead to a more impoverished nation. Robots can compensate for a portion of this worker deficit, but anyone who believes that robots can keep Japan wealthy in the face of such a monumental demographic change, has an impoverished and dysfunctional mental model of how societies evolve.

Japanese Population Meltdown

The pyramids in the chart shows Japanese demographic spreads in 1950, 2008 and the projected in 2050, with Age on the vertical axis and Millions of People on the horizontal. You can see the huge increase in the Over 65’s over the three charts and the huge decline in the under 14’s. Japan’s population is shrinking and ageing rapidly.

What are the implications of this?

As the population ages, the greater the reliance will be on government welfare and aged services. This means that there will be even greater strains on government debt as less and less people are contributing to wealth through income tax and more and more people rely on government hand-outs.

In a nutshell, the Japanese economy has been in systematic decline since its peak in 1990, and the government has tried everything in the Keynesian book of economics with little or no effect except the racking up of massive debt for 20 years now. _Japanese Meltdown

What is happening in Japan is also happening in Europe, South Korea, North America, and Oceania. The decline is masked somewhat by immigration. A very small proportion of immigrants to Europe and the Anglosphere are cracker-jack entrepreneurs and professionals who add to national productivity and GDP. Unfortunately -- due to dysfunctional government immigration policies -- a large number of perpetual social welfare dependents are also immigrating, leading to a significant net depletion in productivity and prosperity over the long run.

The demographic decline that we see clearly in Japan due to a lack of immigration, is happening at ramming speed in the modern west, within their core populations. The core populations of a prospering society, are the central ethnic and cultural populations which have fostered the underlying prosperity. When doing demographic projections, if you look mainly at the core populations, you will see exactly the same phenomenon across the western world, as you see in Japan.

OECD sees global growth slowing as a result of ageing populations

Many readers have suggested that we at Al Fin spend too much time on demographic issues. Perhaps some would rather be distracted by the glitter-news of new iPads, Androids, or any number of "technological wonders" with which modern media obscures disastrous underlying trends in society.

You should know by now that the writing staff here at the Al Fin Blogging Syndicates will write about whatever they think is interesting and important, regardless of expressed reader preferences. There are more than enough media sluts out in the skankstream media.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. And remember that it is never too late to have a dangerous childhood.

Europe is Facing a Moment of Truth Largely Unawares

Europe is growing older, but not wiser. Debt is piling on top of debt, unemployment is rising, and workforces are ageing rapidly.

Pension and other welfare benefits, promised long ago when the workforce was expanding quickly, are at the heart of Europe’s current fiscal convulsions, which are perhaps a harbinger of worse to come. In David Canning’s view, the 2008 crash and its aftermath have merely moved up a long-inevitable implosion by 10 to 15 years. European nations “had unrealistic systems that were eventually going to cause a crisis,” he told me. _Megan McArdle

Low birthrates and a rapidly ageing workforce are not compatible with the European welfare state. There are not enough bailouts in the world to compensate for such a self-made decline.

In the European Union, how many nations will fall into irretrievable debt before Mario Draghi or Angela Merkel suggest that Europe’s 20th-century entitlement systems are incompatible with 21st-century demographics? And how many more G-8 and G-20 summits will pass without mention that two people turn age 60 every second of every minute – with an obvious impact on core questions of fiscal sustainability unless profound social and economic changes put in place that align with our new century’s demographic realities? _Fiscal Times

European unemployment is rising for a number of reasons, among them high taxes, burdensome EU regulations, and a policy of energy starvation from the top down.

Unemployment in the 17-country eurozone hit a record high of 11.6 percent in September, official figures showed Wednesday, a sign the economy is deteriorating as governments struggle to get a grip on their three-year debt crisis. _MiamiHerald

The European middle class is under assault, according to some sources. Certainly the old regime of guaranteed employment and early retirement is under assault by the harsh realities of the global economy, as exacerbated by European demographic decline.

Moving into this turbulent dynamic, to fill the demographic gap which reluctant European women are creating, are large numbers of immigrants from Africa and Asia. Many of these immigrants are untrained, uneducated, do not speak European languages, and are culturally unable and unwilling to assimilate.

One possible demographic scenario for the future of Europe, would be the significant replacement of native European populations with less advanced populations from the outside. These abundant newcomers may be antagonistic to an ageing Europe's cultural norms.

The video above presents a broad outline of one possible scenario of demographic change. As you will see if you view it completely, the video approaches the problem from the viewpoint of one religion being displaced by another. But the concept also applies to cultural and civilisational replacement, via demographic change.

Europe faces a moment of truth, largely unawares. Her people are being told everything else except what they need to know to preserve themselves, their families, and their cultures.

The end result may not be pretty.

Dying US Counties: A "Baby-Bust" Phenomenon

Across the developed world, the "baby bust" is leaving its mark in ghost towns, ghost counties, de-populating cities and states, and an emerging displacement of older populations by newer populations of outside origin.

Dying counties in the U.S. were rare until the 1960s, when the baby boom ended. By 1973, as farming communities declined, roughly 515 counties — mostly in the Great Plains — reported natural decrease. The phenomenon then began to show up in industrial regions, such as upstate New York and California. Natural decrease peaked in 2002 at a record 985, or 1 in 3 counties, before increasing births and an influx of Hispanic immigration helped add to county populations during the housing boom.

Following the recent recession, birth rates have dropped to the lowest in a century. Preliminary census numbers for 2007-09 now show that the number of dying counties is back on the upswing. Recent additions include Pittsburgh and its surrounding counties.

James Follain, senior fellow and economist at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the University of Albany, said a new kind of declining city may be emerging in the wake of the housing bust — metropolitan areas that rapidly overbuilt earlier in the decade and then suffered massive foreclosures.

He cited as examples Las Vegas, Miami, parts of Arizona, and Stockton, Modesto, Fresno and Riverside in California. Like traditional ghost towns, Follain says, portions of these areas could spiral down from persistent loss of jobs and population and lose their reason for being.

Follain also pointed to a tighter fiscal environment in Washington that will limit help to troubled areas. The Obama administration announced this month it would shrink the government's role in the mortgage system to reduce taxpayer exposure to risk. House Republicans also are pushing federal spending cuts of more than $61 billion, even if it means reducing jobs.

"It's going to be a very slow recovery," Follain said. _AP-Yahoo

You may think that the population bust is mainly affecting Japan and Russia, but this deflationary trend affects virtually all European and Northeast Asian populations. While third world populations continue to expand, more developed nations -- with populations possessing higher average IQs -- are shrinking. The end result of these differential birthrates is a steady decline in the average global population IQ -- despite the so-called "Flynn effect."

It is clear that the higher-IQ populations of the world -- the people who drove the technological revolutions in medicine, agriculture, science, technology etc -- are fading, while the lower-IQ populations are on the ascendancy, numbers-wise. This is an ominous trend for the planet overall, since poverty, corruption, and eco-devastation are greater overall in low-IQ, third world regions.

It is time to face the facts about global population trends and what they mean for the intermediate term of the human world. The coming reality -- or should I say the "coming anarchy" -- will not be pretty. Those who are prepared will be better suited to reach the other side.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

Mission Accomplished?

The current online version of Economist.com presents a triumphalist version of world population control, here and here.

SOMETIME in the next few years (if it hasn’t happened already) the world will reach a milestone: half of humanity will be having only enough children to replace itself. That is, the fertility rate of half the world will be 2.1 or below. This is the “replacement level of fertility”, the magic number that causes a country’s population to slow down and eventually to stabilise. According to the United Nations population division, 2.9 billion people out of a total of 6.5 billion were living in countries at or below this point in 2000-05. The number will rise to 3.4 billion out of 7 billion in the early 2010s and to over 50% in the middle of the next decade. The countries include not only Russia and Japan but Brazil, Indonesia, China and even south India. _Economist

At a time when Malthusian worries are resurgent and people fear the consequences for an overcrowded planet, the decline in fertility is surprising and somewhat reassuring. It means that worries about a population explosion are themselves being exploded—and it carries a lesson about how to solve the problems of climate change. _Economist

This victorious story line rests upon a fictitious statistic, known as the total fertility rate (TFR). What is the TFR and why is it fictitious?

...this rate [TFR] is the number of children a woman would have if she was subject to prevailing fertility rates at all ages from a single given year, and survives throughout all her childbearing years. _Wikipedia

In other words, TFR is a hypothetical rate, based upon a number of dubious assumptions. It is an artificial projection of the present into the future. The probability of the TFR corresponding to actual future fertility is close to 0.

It is assumed that as a wave of prosperity and modernisation sweeps over the hyper-procreating third world, that fertility rates in the nations that lie above the replacement line in the image above, will fall dramatically to replacement levels.

It is true that in most societies, as more women are educated and enter the skilled marketplace, fertility rates tend to fall. And it also seems obvious that as satellite and cable television extend their influence, that more women are exposed to the affluence and mindset of low-fertility societies. But is it realistic to expect that trend to penetrate the remaining countries that have proven to be so resistant to modernisation and prosperity?

In other words, what if there exists a hidden factor unexamined by population experts, which renders a culture, nation, society, or tribe immune to most of the forces of population reduction that have impacted half the population of the world? If so, what might that hidden factor be?

Some societies are resistant to the idea of educating girls and women. Further, in some societies women lack the protection of efficacious laws and law enforcement to assert their rights. Even further, in some societies women essentially have no rights.

Worse than all that, some societies are remarkably resistant to efforts to reduce corruption, to provide law and order, to build a prosperous middle class, and to build a sound educational and civic infrastructure. They seem to be immune from a broad based prosperity. It is extremely unlikely that low IQ is the full story behind entire regions stuck in high corruption, low prosperity, high fertility circumstances. But it appears to be a crucially important factor.

If the continuing population growth of the planet is based upon a natural increase within such prosperity-resistant societies, it should be obvious that projecting past population trends upon the future may not be valid.

Perhaps it should also be said that if the USA, Australia, and Europe continue along their current path of wealth destruction via energy starvation, current levels of prosperity in those regions -- and everywhere except perhaps China, Brazil, and India -- may well not continue. In other words, if government policies are sufficiently suicidal, no amount of population control can save the nation.

The problem should be looked at differently for the developed world vs the third world. In the developed world the problem is one of underpopulation and the inability to sustain basic services -- including self defense. Even more ominous, within advanced countries, it is the most intelligent and best educated who are most likely to choose childlessness. The least intelligent and less educated more often choose above-replacement procreation. Such a trend is inherently dysgenic.

So we see this dysgenic trend acting at all levels -- regional, national, and international. Interestingly, this trend is not mentioned in either of the triumphal Economist articles. And yet the ongoing reduction of average world population IQ from 90 points to the mid 80s by the middle of the century is one of the most serious problems the world faces.

Ignoring the vitally important in order to highlight the hypothetical and outright fictitious. That is the intellectual life in a politically correct age.

Japan: The Environmentalist's Paradise

In places like Japan and Italy we are seeing the environmentalist's paradise. The result: children are rapidly disappearing from much of society, schools closing, playgrounds are empty, and emergency services crews are overburdened by calls to serve an aging population without much of an extended family to help them in their declining years. In these places, the term "extended family" will soon come to mean three or for people, at most. This is uncharted territory for modern humanity. The implications are not clear but will certainly be profound. _RCM

With a fertility rate of 1.2 (replacement rate is 2.1), Japan is leading the way to population implosion. Italy, Spain, Russia, and much of the rest of Europe is walking the same downward path.

With each day that goes by the problem gets tougher to solve in places like Japan because the number of child-bearing adults is already significantly below what it was decades ago. That means that even a return of birthrates to replacement levels or higher will only build the population slowly. Some demographers describe the problem as a pyramid standing on its head, with each successive generation working from a smaller base, and it's happening virtually everywhere. _RCM

So many people dismiss this trend as irrelevant, or easily reversible. It is not. It is the depopulation of the developed world. Once it reaches the point of no return, it is irreversible.

This is the goal of the modern faux environmental movement: depopulation, the great dieoff.orgie. Under the false flags of carbon climate catastrophe and peak oil catastrophe -- among others -- the faux environmental movement marches toward a future without the very humans who could have saved the environment for real. Without these humans, the third world explodes and devours every resource within reach.

Due to China's enormous population, and its growing tentacles of influence and control within the third world, China may be able to outlast the developed nations while maintaining much of its huge industrial and military infrastructure. If so, then China will oversee the devouring of resources at the hands of an exploding third world population. Until China itself is devoured.

The purpose of this blog is to encourage enough people to see past the smoke screen of the faux environmentalists and the new leftists. Just a few tweaks to existing human knowledge would be enough to extend human life, increase human intelligence and creativity, open the gates to space exploration and development, and achieve abundant energy and material wealth.

It is the revolution of the next level. But aspirants to the next level have to see the folly and deceit that are inherent in the mainstream reality facade being painted for them.

New Robot Species On the Way: Update

Japanese roboticists are determined to create a new species of sentient beings on Earth, to replace humans -- at least the humans in Japan. The species prototype, the CB-2 (Child Robot w/ Biomimetic Body) has made astounding progress over the past two years. Osaka University researchers wanted a robot that could learn the same way a child learns to imitate people.

The team is trying to teach the pint-sized android to think like a baby who evaluates its mother's countless facial expressions and "clusters" them into basic categories, such as happiness and sadness.

Asada's project brings together robotics engineers, brain specialists, psychologists and other experts, and is supported by the state-funded Japan Science and Technology Agency.

...In the two years since then, he said, CB2 has taught itself how to walk with the aid of a human and can now move its body through a room quite smoothly, using 51 "muscles" driven by air pressure.

In coming decades, Asada expects science will come up with a "robo species" that has learning abilities somewhere between those of a human and other primate species such as the chimpanzee. _PO

The Japanese are losing their population to a sub-conscious anti-natalism. They will need a large number of robots to assist their rapidly aging population in performing everyday activities. If Japan is unwilling to have children, then robo-children will have to do.

More on Japan's anthropomorphic robots here, here, and here.

And don't think that robots will only be suited for menial and helper tasks. But a word of caution to this brave new robot species: don't get caught up in computer models and theoretical hypotheses and make the same mistake that human scientists are making.

...to obtain a more realistic picture of natural selection, biologists [and all scientists - AF] should pair experimental data with their statistical data whenever possible. Scientists usually do not use experimental data because such experiments can be difficult to conduct and because they are very time-consuming. _http://www.physorg.com/news157648673.html

If robot scientists and economists become as incompetent as human climate modelers and economic modelers, there is no hope for the robot politicians of the future. If robot presidents cannot maintain a firm connection with the real world, we may as well start calling those future robot pols "Robamas!"

The best way to save the planet for the next generation is not to have a next generation _Mark Steyn

Forty per cent of children in London primary schools now speak a language other than English at home. The Muslim population of the United Kingdom is growing 10 times faster than the rest of the population. No matter how frantically the ecochondriacs tie their tubes, their country grows ever more crowded. This is a story not of “overpopulation,” but of population transformation. MarkSteyn_via_FabiusMaximus

Eco zealots / zombies want women in the west to stop having babies -- to serve as an example to all the tribal people of the world. Save the planet, eradicate yourselves! It is the theme of the Dieoff.org generation. Modern radical feminism meshes perfectly with modern radical environmentalism and modern radical anti-European racism. They are not just anti-European, they are anti-male. But they are not just anti-male and anti-European -- they are also anti-human. You can simply tag the modern left as "anti". Or if you want to be more positive, call them pro-anti.

The basic assumption behind the multi-trillion-dollar deficits in the U.S. is that there will be a permanently growing population to cover it, eventually. Pace Mr. Kotler, Americans still have kids and grandkids to stick it to. Europeans don’t. Yet Big Government presupposes population growth—that there will be a new generation of workers to keep France’s fiftysomething retirees in the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed....Banking is really a kind of demographic shorthand—a means by which old people with capital can lend to young people with energy and ideas. It’s no coincidence that in Japan— the oldest society on earth—the banking sector nosedived just as the demographics headed irreversibly south. Who do you lend to in Germany? Or Scotland? Traditional risk assessment is simply not possible in such circumstances.

...The U.S. and other governments are now trying to re-inflate the global “credit bubble.” I don’t think it can be done. The crisis we face is not “sustainable growth” but sustainable lack of growth. And no society in history has ever pulled that off. _Steyn

Steyn is correct, that Obama is trying to re-inflate the global credit bubble. But he is making the attempt without the wholehearted assistance of China and Europe -- which is going to be very difficult. What he will accomplish is massive hyper-inflation on an unprecedented scale.

All the old folk on guaranteed government pensions, guaranteed government health care, guaranteed price-controlled government housing, and so on -- all guaranteed by the government. But as Russian pensioners have discovered, what good is a pension when inflation eats its value down to less than it takes to keep you alive -- even under all of the "government guarantees".

Do you really trust government guarantees? China is beginning not to trust US Treasuries. More money insiders are beginning not to trust the US Dollar. In fact, only a zombie would trust guarantees made by the current US government. You are getting older. If you are getting older without children or close family, then it is just you and the government -- a government you really should not be trusting.

What do you do?

Why Is Europe Disappearing?

Image Source

In 50 years, half the population of many European countries will simply disappear--puff! gone. Why have Europeans stopped having babies, and why does everyone in Europe seem to be avoiding the issue?

For the first time on record, birthrates in southern and Eastern Europe had dropped below 1.3. For the demographers, this number had a special mathematical portent. At that rate, a country’s population would be cut in half in 45 years, creating a falling-off-a-cliff effect from which it would be nearly impossible to recover.

...In Germany, where the births-to-deaths ratio now results in an annual population loss of roughly 100,000, Ursula von der Leyen, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s family minister (and a mother of seven), declared two years ago that if her country didn’t reverse its plummeting birthrate, “We will have to turn out the light.”

...“But you can’t go on forever with a total fertility rate of 1.2. If you compare the size of the 0-to-4 and 29-to-34 age groups in Spain and Italy right now, you see the younger is almost half the size of the older. You can’t keep going with a completely upside-down age distribution, with the pyramid standing on its point. You can’t have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home.” Read the rest at the __NYT

A Europe without children? Europe dispensed with its military infrastructure decades ago, in favour of allowing the US to carry the weight. Other once-vital parts of its infrastructure are going by the wayside one by one.

Welfare states need workers to pay into the system, to provide for all the trusting retirees who assume the system will always be there for them. The challenge for Europe--in the face of both low fertility rates and rising emigration of its brightest and most talented--is to keep the top-heavy bureaucracies running, the infrastructure maintained, and the productive sector producing. Unfortunately, it is the productive sector that seems to be shrinking the most quickly.

Recommended reading:

The Global Baby Bust
Europe's Baby Bust
America Alone (Google Books excerpt)
America Alone (Amazon page)
A Return to Pastoral Europe?
Birth of an Empire
Fiscal Policy and Fertility in the US

Gloucester Girls Seem to Find Out Early . . .

Teenage girls in Gloucester have apparently decided to do their part to reverse the widespread population implosion occurring across the developed world.

Seventeen girls stayed pregnant, but the interesting thing is that they agreed to become mothers together.

Many girls started going to hospitals to take pregnancy tests, and most of them were disappointed when they found out they were not pregnant.

When the doctors suspected something was wrong, they found out that they had agreed to stay pregnant... _Source

Throughout most of human history, teen pregnancy has been the norm. In earlier, more primitive times, pregnancy and childbirth was a rite of passage for young women, just as the first hunt or the first battle was a rite of passage for young men. In more modern, humane times, children are protected from all meaningful responsibility and real contact with hard realities throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Fewer are marrying, and fewer are having children.

The "Global Baby Bust" is a very real phenomenon, and a genuine threat to the developed world--even to western civilisation. Japan, Russia, Italy, Spain, and other developed nations are literally shrinking before our eyes. Social welfare states that are based upon a pyramid-scheme of cradle to grave benefits from wealth redistribution, are finding it more and more difficult to fund their massive social bureaucracies. Even the US is seeing its national debt in an irrevocable upward spiral due to massive entitlements--primarily to senior citizens--without a corresponding rapid growth in young taxpayers to support the system.

The young female body is custom-made by nature to have babies. Its eggs are pristine and viable, and the strength and flexibility of the young body is better able to rebound from the serious physical demands of pregnancy and childbirth.

Ever since Madonna recorded her hit "Papa Don't Preach, I'm Keeping My Baby", the idea that it is okay for teen girls to go ahead and have their babies has been percolating in teen culture--not just among celebrities like Britney Spears' younger sister. It gives the appearance of a primal mini-rebellion of sorts against the anti-natalist pop culture that has descended from our feminist overlords to smother the natural instinct to procreate.

The problem in Worcester is not teen childbirth. The problem is not having a good plan of how to care for the infants once they are born. In the early days of Israel, the kibbutz was a common means of child-raising, and there was no stigma attached to being a kibbutznik. In the face of a popular culture that cannot be bothered with taking care of babies and children, one wonders if the revival of the kibbutz may become necessary.

Many singularitarians assure me that the singularity will occur well before western civilisation is overrun by faster breeding and more barbarian civilisations. Forgive me if I am not reassured. History teaches us that more procreative cultures tend to conquer and either obliterate or absorb less prolific cultures. There are no guarantees of survival to cultures that place more value on human rights and diversity. When it comes to survival, you had best look out for your own.

Teenage girls have not had the time and do not generally have the depth to consider the historical or demographic aspects to their decisions or impulses. They possess minds that can achieve incredible things, if put to the task. They also have bodies that were made to bear children.

Perhaps teenage girls should bear the children, and older, wiser people should raise them--their grandparents perhaps? If girls have children young, then go on to achieve success in academics and professions, by the time they start thinking about raising children, either their own children or grandchildren should be having kids for them to raise. And they will still be quite young, compared to grandparents and great-grandparents, historically.

Things change.

Solving Global Warming with the Nuclear Option

Image Source

Quite a few different geoengineering schemes have been proposed for dealing with catastrophic anthropogenic global warming(CAGW). It is unlikely that CO2 emissions will be reduced in a meaningful way, so those most concerned about CAGW are beginning to evaluate massive engineering projects to cool the Earth.

Nuclear winter is perhaps the most drastic geoengineering scheme yet to be proposed for solving CAGW. It would accomplish two key goals of global warming and environmental activists:

1. Reduce the temperature of Earth
2. Reduce the human population of Earth

There would be a 22 degree C drop in mid-latitudes and 10 degree drop in more humid areas. Further, the authors surmised a 75% drop in rainfall, and as much as a 90% drop in visibility in high smoke areas....a study gone over at the annual American Geophysical Meeting in December of2006 cited that even a small scale regional nuclear war could mess with the global climate for a decade or more. ___Source

The most likely parts of the globe to suffer regional nuclear war at this time, are the middle east and South Asia. Nuclear war between China and Russia over possession of Siberia's mineral wealth is a remote possibility. It is clear that large numbers of Earth's human population live in those regions of Earth, and would be vulnerable to death from direct and indirect consequences of regional nuclear war.

”If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” Prince Philip, WWF

“Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.” Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First! ___Source

Once the temperature of Earth has dropped, and the planetary population has been pared down to suit even the most extreme environmentalists, humans can begin to think about how they will deal with the aftermath of such a massive geoengineering project.

Ted Turner may have some suggestions about what a world under a "nuclear winter" climate regime might want to eat. But then, Turner himself no doubt has a comfortable resort, well outfitted for an extended stay in isolation from the cannibalistic masses.

These are all ideas that Al Gore must wonder about from time to time, in his darker moments. After all, in a world struggling to survive a nuclear winter, who is going to want to buy carbon credits? Tipper must wonder what Al truly means when he mumbles in his sleep--"the horror, the horror." Is he dreaming of the world after executing "the nuclear option" to solve global warming? Is he dreaming of a colder world from a natural solar downturn--a solar minimum? Or is he merely reliving the late autumn and early winter of 2000, 2001?

Go See Europe: While It Lasts

The fertility rate for Spain is 1.15 children per woman. Replacement level is 2.1 children per woman. European levels across the board are below 1.5. Europe is shrinking, Europe is dying. Looking at Spain (from a Dennis Mangan comment):1.15 Children per female birthrate in Spain...

200 people have 115 children.
115 children have 66 grandchildren.
66 grandchildren have 38 great grandchildren.......

It is clear that as indigenous Spaniards, Russians, Germans, and French decline rapidly, third world immigrants to Europe will be procreating at rates well above 3.0 children per woman. With polygamy fueled by young female immigration and supported by state welfare payments, the fertility rate for third worlders in Europe could easily reach 5.0, per 1st generation woman. But if you think about it, even with a fertility rate barely above replacement, third worlders would replace Europeans within a few generations! You must include European decline juxtaposed to third world incline, when looking at demographic projections.

Russian Population

The poorer the nation, the higher the fertility rate. Understand that the poorer the nation, the greater the motivation to emigrate away from the third world toward the first world. The overcrowding from high fertility accelerates the poverty, and acts as a physical force to push uneducated third worlders over to Europe.As illiterate third worlders replace the voting populations of modern Europe, the outlook of European governments will necessarily change. Infrastructure will necessarily break down for lack of upkeep. Cities of Europe will resemble Beirut at its worst. Recent elections in Kenya will become the model for European elections. Europe is growing old, while poorer and less literate nations are remaining young, and reproducing rapidly. The surplus young will continue pouring across porous borders, looking for opportunity wherever it presents itself. While the opportunity held out by the USA is the opportunity to work hard and prosper, the opportunity that Europe presents to the third world is the opportunity to receive generous state welfare payments. Europe may as well erect billboards across the third world: "Come to Europe and have many children--on our dime!"

If you take into account that a large slice of Europe's best educated and most energetic people are emigrating from Europe to the far-flung Anglosphere, the situation appears particularly bleak for Europe. And Europe's brightest and most ambitious who choose to stay at home? Their fertility rate is even lower than that of their nation's as a whole. Much lower. So visit while you can. While Europe still exists as Europe.

Transition of Europe and Japan to labour shortage economies
Fascinating Philip Longman PDF presentation on depopulation
Russian plans to reverse population decline
No Easy Answers

Russia (and the West) Goes Anti Natalist: Better Never to Have Been?

Anti natalism is the view that it is better not to be born. The argument is made by David Benatar in Better Never to Have Been:"The central idea of this book is that coming into existence is always a serious harm". The breeding pairs of several western countries are putting Benatar's ideas into practise.

The most recent predictions indicate a decline in the Russian population of twenty million people in the next decade due to an excessively low birthrate of 1.2 children per family (well below replacement level) and a rise in the death rate because of widespread alcoholism and the spread of disease.

According to one Professor Antonov, “Two thirds of Russian territory is settled now as sparsely as it was in the Neolithic Age: less than one person per square kilometer. In other words, east of the Urals, a demographic wasteland is superimposed on the geographic wasteland.”

What this startling point reveals is a dramatic decline in the desire for reproduction among the younger generation. The prevalence of one-child families, the decline in the number of recorded marriages, the increase in cohabitation, and the rise in divorce are all symptoms of this condition.

Source

But not just in Russia. Imagine a world with no brothers, no sisters, no uncles, no aunts, no cousins, no nieces, no nephews . . . western societies grow progressively "anti-natalist." Birthrates decline, more women choose sterilisation before ever giving birth. This is Russia, Italy, Spain. This is the western world, the world instigating its own "die off."

As more and more people find themselves living under urban conditions in which children no longer provide economic benefit to their parents, but rather are costly impediments to material success, people who are well adapted to this new environment will tend not to reproduce themselves. And many others who are not so successful will imitate them....Japanese fertility rates have been below replacement levels since the mid-1950s, and the last time Europeans produced enough children to reproduce themselves was the mid-1970s. Yet modern institutions have yet to adapt to this new reality....Not only is the spread of urbanization and industrialization itself a major cause of falling fertility, it is also a major cause of so-called diseases of affluence, such as overeating, lack of exercise, and substance abuse, which leave a higher and higher percentage of the population stricken by chronic medical conditions. Those who reject modernity would thus seem to have an evolutionary advantage, whether they are clean-living Mormons or Muslims, or members of emerging sects and national movements that emphasize high birthrates and anti-materialism.

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Anti-Natalism is particularly strong among the young--those who ordinarily would produce the next generation of scientists, engineers, builders, caretakers. University educated youngsters are the most likely to have absorbed the ubiquitous defeatist message of the anti-natalists on campus.

Some lives are so bad that it would be wrong to start them. There is an obligation not to start these lives. But no lives are so good that it right to start them. There is no obligation to start these lives....So all our lives are such that it would have been better had they never been started.

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College students are listening to that message--they have no choice if they are to pass their professors' exams and achieve good grades in the professors' classes. But what is to become of the modern west--the welfare state--if students continue to put these ideas into practise?

The social institutions most likely to experience strain from the twin trends of ageing and depopulation are the pension and health systems that comprise the crown jewels of the postwar welfare state. These are by far the largest source of public expenditure in the industrial countries. And they are the programs most likely to be affected by the coming explosion in old-age dependency.

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The problem will not continue indefinitely. For Russia, rich with oil and gas, the end will come from the south and east. Resource hungry but population rich China will happily take the resources of a de-populated Siberia off Russia's hands. Putin and the other post-KGB oligarchs lack the ability to prevent it.

For Europe, the end will also come from the south and east. Pro natalist muslim immigrants to Europe will gladly utilise the mechanism of democracy to overturn secular liberalism. The current multiculturalist leftism that leads Europe lacks the ability to resist the dismantling of enlightenment safeguards against the type of tyranny that the new immigrants bring with them.

Japan will find that robots cannot truly replace people. They will also find that if the Japanese people are replaced by non-Japanese, their country will no longer be Japan. Claro que, si.

The future belongs to the people of the future. If the people of the present choose to adopt an anti-natalist stance, their time is as good as gone. But they should not assume that everyone will share their enthusiasm for non-existence. A die-off in western countries simply makes room for an uptick in birthrates for those who inherit the wealth of the absentee builders.

A Collapsing Europe? Things You are not Supposed to be Told

On June 10-11, Pepperdine University in Malibu will host a two day conference on "The Collapse of Europe?" Boasting participants such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Claire Berlinsky, Phyllis Chesler, Wafa Sultan, and many more, the conference looks into the dark corners of European decline, and what may be coming next for the rest of the world.

Many people lack an understanding of exponential demographic growth among sub-populations in a multicultural society, and what that can portend for the indigenous, hosting society--even if the hosting society is more advanced than the rapidly growing subculture.

Postmodern analysis is incapable of taking an honest look at the most salient population trends in the developed world, out of incompetent methodology and a general disinclination to look at concepts that contradict the underlying principles of postmodernist multiculturalism. Given the postmodern ideological training of most journalists, it is not surprising that they cannot bring themselves to address the demographic decline of their own culture.

Which is why such conferences as this are necessary.

Europe to World: "I'm Shrinking, I'm Shrinking!"

Everyone who keeps up with world demographics understands that European populations are shrinking due to low birth rates. While immigration into Europe from dysfunctional third world countries helps slow the drop of population in absolute numbers, low quality immigration will likely do little to support the future productivity and prosperity of Europe.

Pastorius uses a "Funny Condom Ad" on YouTubeas a springboard to discuss the European dilemma. Will Europeans choose to fade into obscurity through population implosion? Would the rest of the world even notice?

There is no major Western European country that is producing enough children to replace the current population. Instead, they are replacing their population with Muslim immigrants.

Here are the birthrates per couple in various European countries:

Remember the birthrate for a population that is neither increasing nor declining is 2.1 babies per woman of childbearing age.

Ireland - 1.87
Germany - 1.3
Austria - 1.3
Italy - 1.2
Russia - 1.2
Spain - 1.1.

At a replacement rate of 1.1, Spain is at half the stable population replacement rate. This means Spain's population is halving every generation. The magnitude of the numbers is difficult to comprehend. In 2000, the total population of Europe was 728 million. By 2050 at the present rate of births, it will be less than 600 million, a loss of a staggering 125 million Europeans.

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Nobody likes changing diapers or disciplining young children. But the alternative for a society is to simply fade away. How stupid is that?