All the Single, Old, and Childless Ladies

Where Does the Time Go?
Writer Kate Bolick has published a long piece in celebration of women choosing to grow old and single, without a man, and with or without a child. Titled "All the Single Ladies," it is actually about one specific lady -- Kate herself. It is about choices that Kate made or didn't make, back when she was still young enough to make those choices.

The article reveals more about Kate's regret and sense of loss than she is likely to comprehend. But it is actually a tale of an entire society's loss, percolating slowly across its length and breadth, in all the single, old, and childless ladies passing through time like sleepwalkers.

Today I am 39, with too many ex-boyfriends to count and, I am told, two grim-seeming options to face down: either stay single or settle for a “good enough” mate. At this point, certainly, falling in love and getting married may be less a matter of choice than a stroke of wild great luck. A decade ago, luck didn’t even cross my mind. I’d been in love before, and I’d be in love again. This wasn’t hubris so much as naïveté; I’d had serious, long-term boyfriends since my freshman year of high school, and simply couldn’t envision my life any differently.

Well, there was a lot [we] didn’t know 10 years ago....We took for granted that we’d spend our 20s finding ourselves, whatever that meant, and save marriage for after we’d finished graduate school and launched our careers, which of course would happen at the magical age of 30.

That we would marry, and that there would always be men we wanted to marry, we took on faith. How could we not? _All the Single Ladies

But after going through the sad tales of turning down exceptionally fine men so as to give herself more time to "find herself," and discussing how hard it is to find men who are worthy of her at this stage in her life, Kate decides that she sure as hell doesn't need a man anyway. If she wants to have a kid without a man, who's gonna try to stop her?

But who is she kidding? If she couldn't "settle" for a man when she was younger because she needed to sow more wild oats, or because he wasn't perfect enough, is she really going to take a chance with parenting a child? Because the child is sure enough not going to be perfect, and if she finds herself needing a little more time to find herself as a parent, the child is not going to go away for a few months or years to give her that opportunity.

When too many people in a society grow old and childless, the potential -- the future -- of that society withers on the vine. The generations of the unborn begin to haunt the false over-cheeriness of the singles gathering in bars and pubs.

There is a sense of oddness I often feel in the presence of large numbers of gay or lesbian folks. Good folks, cheery folks, happy and friendly folks. But usually childless, and too often needing to make up for that, subconsciously. I am starting to see the same thing whenever in the company of people who are like author Kate. Childless, aging, spinsters in denial, who must at all costs compensate for their lack of a child.

And so all the spinsters -- male or female, gay or straight -- must be the children they never had -- or never acknowledged. Cosmetic surgeons certainly never had it so good. The youth fetish becomes a lifelong pursuit, until it grows into an obsessive and expensive obscenity.

There is a flip side to the coin, which we have discussed here previously. The "Parents of a Certain Age" who make the decision in their late 40s, their 50s, or later that "dammit, I'm gonna have a baby," and follow through with it. There are many more of these than there used to be, but not nearly enough to make up for the childless Kates that our culture is spinning out into the void. Reproductive technology is making it easier to make such late life decisions, and freezing your youthful sperm and eggs -- along with surrogate mothers -- makes it even easier.

Of course, there is the child (or children) that must be raised properly. We can always hope that the midlife crisis survivors have acquired at least some wisdom along the way, compared with how they were when they were younger and more vital. Their time on Earth is growing shorter with every day, and most of what they have not learned by now, they will never learn. Ah...except for the lessons that come from parenting itself. Those are perhaps the most important and poignant lessons of all, and they are learning them so late!

Lionel Tiger described this developing phenomenon best in his 2000 book, The Decline of Males. Neither Kate Bolick nor any other writer since Tiger, has revealed the basis for the phenomenon so accurately, nor revealed the future of it so clearly.

The core advanced populations, the ones that have made so many advances in science and technology, are fading away. They are becoming old, and childless, like the ladies one sees...

The Economist Presents Misleading Graphical Message

Economist: End of History, Last Woman
The above chart from the Economist is meant as light-hearted reassurance that populations with low birthrates still have hundreds of years yet before they disappear from the planet altogether. Here is the "message of hope" from the Economist:

In 83 countries and territories around the world, according to the United Nations, women will not have enough daughters to replace themselves, unless fertility rates rise. In Hong Kong, for example, a cohort of 1,000 women would be expected to give birth to just 547 daughters, at today’s fertility rates. (That gives Hong Kong a “net reproduction rate” of just 0.547, in the language of demographers.) If nothing changed, those 547 daughters would be succeeded by just 299 daughters of their own, and so on. At that rate, according to some back-of-the-envelope calculations by The Economist, it would take about 25 generations for Hong Kong’s female population to shrink from 3.75m to just one. Given that Hong Kong’s average age of childbearing is 31.4 years, it could expect to give birth to its last woman in the year 2798. (That is some time after its neighbour, Macau, which has a higher reproduction rate, but a much smaller population.) By the same unflinching logic, Japan, Germany, Russia, Italy and Spain will not see out the next millennium. _Economist

Unfortunately, nations with populations that cannot reproduce themselves will become older and vulnerable to being overrun by younger, more prolific populations, long before they are down to their "last woman." As the under-procreating advanced nations age, they will either need to voluntarily import young workers, young soldiers, and young sailors -- or they will be forcibly overrun. Wholesale replacement of one population by another has happened numerous times throughout history -- and no doubt many more times in prehistory.

Populations which are simultaneously aging and shrinking are in no position to hold their own against hungrier and earthier burgeoning populations from elsewhere. The population replacement process does not wait for the last woman to be born and die. It does not even wait for a theoretical "point of no return," when the population of fertile women has shrunk to such a low level that a population rebound becomes extremely unlikely, or impossible for all practical purposes. This is particularly true in the context of the inevitable economic recessions and depressions which will accompany shrinking and aging populations in welfare state societies -- which must be financed by taxing young healthy workers in a pyramid-like scheme.

If such aging, shrinking, populations-in-decline happen to occupy rich, fertile lands, they are certain to be displaced by growing populations in search of lebensraum and productive farmland.

Unfortunately, the incoming replacement populations are not likely to be of the same overall qualitative potential as the populations they will be replacing.

Compare the low IQ countries (red and tan) in the map above, with the high birthrate countries (yellow) in the global birthrate map just above the global IQ map. The two maps explain why average global IQ is expected to decrease over the next 40 years. This global cognitive decline will make it more difficult to maintain high tech infrastructures worldwide in all countries without significant smart fraction sub-populations.

H/T to Jason Collins, who appears to have faith that women in developed nations will eventually somehow decide to increase birthrates above replacement rates.

Al Fin demographers are firmly agreed that only artificial wombs will keep most developed nations from eventually reaching the "demographic point of no return". But as mentioned above, such countries are likely to become weakened and overrun by more prolific populations well before they reach that mythical point.

China's Demographic Time Bomb

England transforms into "gangland"

Europe aging into financial depression

IQ by Nation, IQ by Race US, IQ Inherited?

Comparisons of IQ scores between races in the US suggest a 4-way clustering of scores as pictured above. Each racial subgroup appears to present a different distribution -- with significant overlap. The Black - White gap in IQ scores (PDF) has been persistent over time, and across geographical space. Richard Nisbett and James Flynn have tried to make the claim that the heritable aspect of IQ is insignificant, and that Black - White gaps in IQ scores can be eliminated using educational interventions. Neither researcher has been able to make that argument without using a bit of sleight of hand with the data. In the end, the proof is in the scores. If you claim to be able to erase the gap, you should certainly prove your claim. It would be of vast benefit to mankind if that persistent gap could be erased by something as simple as better education. The evidence over time suggests otherwise. Something more will be needed.The global IQ map above suggests that the multiple overlapping IQ distributions in the US population may simply reflect the broader global differences in IQ scores between regions. Certainly if the average Subsaharan African scored 120 on an IQ test, there would be much greater skepticism as to the direction of the Black - White gap as measured in US and Canadian populations.

Why do social scientists such as Flynn and Nisbett go to such lengths to explain away the genetic basis of intelligence, when it should be clear to any well educated person that the best hopes for raising the intelligence of everyone is to get at the basis of human intelligence? There are no reputable intelligence researchers who claim that environment is not critically important in achieving optimal intelligence for all individuals. So why do so many researchers with leftist political sympathies keep trying to claim that the genes are not important in the laying down of every person's brain capacity?

Humanity is currently stuck in a quagmire of stupidity. The crisis is made much worse by political hucksters within academia, media, and government who appear determined to prevent science from understanding the core truths of human intellectual variability. If we allow political correctness to prevent us from learning how to improve everyone's intellectual capacity, we will have probably dealt a death blow to humanity's future.

Current demographic trends suggest that the average IQ of Earth's human population is descending steadily -- from near 90 currently to barely above 80 by 2050. The difference between an average IQ of 90 and an average of 80 is huge, societally speaking. Just as the difference between an average IQ of 100 and an average IQ of 90 is brutally significant in terms of societal outcome.

The zero population growth zealots have been incredibly successful -- within high IQ populations. High IQ populations of the Earth are no longer breeding to replacement rates, although low IQ populations (see map) are more than making up for the anti-natalist outlook of their brighter fellow Terrans. Which means the planetary population is growing, but the average human IQ is dropping. Not a great prospect, all in all.

The Earth can support a far larger human population than currently exists. But not if the average human IQ continues to drop. Unless -- unless the shrinking bright fraction of humans invents super - intelligent machines, before disappearing from the scene. If super - intelligent machines are around to watch out for the dysgenic population of Earth, it really doesn't matter how dumb people become. The machines can construct robots -- call them humanoids -- to watch over the humans, so that they do not hurt themselves or each other. Perhaps the humanoids could also watch over the great apes, to prevent them from all being eaten by humans, and their habitat turned into palm oil plantations.

Seriously, the current anti-scientific atmosphere of political correctness will make it very difficult to solve some of the more pressing problems of the planet. More and more of the planet's resources are being squandered on faux crises that just happen to fit the politically correct frame. The Nisbetts of the world are always hanging about, ready to reassure the PC dogmatists that they were right all along. By doing so, they postpone the hope of finding solutions to the really big problems.

Who Is Killing Iran? Demographic Collapse

Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran's birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever. Demographers have sought in vain to explain Iran's population implosion through family planning policies, or through social factors such as the rise of female literacy. _Spengler

We remember that the mad mullahs took over Iran back in 1979, with the blessing of US President Carter. Since that time Iran has been involved in revolutions, wars, and proxy wars across the middle east. Iran lost millions of its very young in the 1980s war against Saddam's Iraq, when the mad mullahs used millions of Iran's helpless youth as cannon fodder against Saddam's more seasoned troops. What karmic shadow did that huge loss throw over the future of the fanatical theocracy?

Iran is currently involved in arming and financing ethnic/sectarian killings in Lebanon, Gaza, and Iraq, and in building the foundations of Shia rebellion inside Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations. All this emphasis on killing, religious fanaticism and oppression, and -- the apocalyptic visions of the coming of the twelfth imam -- cannot help but warp a small nation already ripped by ethnic tensions between Persians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Azaris, Armenians, Assyrians, Georgians, and others. But, as Spengler says, a nation is never truly beaten until it begins selling its women.

...prostitution has become a career of choice among educated Iranian women. On February 3, the Austrian daily Der Standard published the results of two investigations conducted by the Tehran police, suppressed by the Iranian media. [1]

"More than 90% of Tehran's prostitutes have passed the university entrance exam, according to the results of one study, and more than 30% of them are registered at a university or studying," reports Der Standard. "The study was assigned to the Tehran Police Department and the Ministry of Health, and when the results were tabulated in early January no local newspaper dared to so much as mention them."

The Austrian newspaper added, "Eighty percent of the Tehran sex workers maintained that they pursue this career voluntarily and temporarily. The educated ones are waiting for better jobs. Those with university qualifications intend to study later, and the ones who already are registered at university mention the high tuition [fees] as their motive for prostitution ... they are content with their occupation and do not consider it a sin according to Islamic law."

There is an extensive trade in poor Iranian women who are trafficked to the Gulf states in huge numbers, as well as to Europe and Japan. _Spengler

Iranians can watch the world on satellite television. They understand that life under the mullahs is not the best life available on Earth. Many of them want something better.

For the majority of young Iranians, there is no way up, only a way out; 36% of Iran's youth aged 15 to 29 years want to emigrate, according to yet another unpublicized Iranian study, this time by the country's Education Ministry, Der Standard adds. Only 32% find the existing social norms acceptable, while 63% complain about unemployment, the social order or lack of money.

...The declining morale of the Iranian population helps make sense of its galloping demographic decline. Academic demographers have tried to explain collapsing fertility as a function of rising female literacy. The problem is that the Iranian regime lies about literacy data, and has admitted as much recently.

...The cause of Iran's collapsing fertility is not literacy as such, but extreme pessimism about the future and an endemic materialism that leads educated Iranian women to turn their own sexuality into a salable commodity. _Spengler

In Iran, they still stone women for adultery, and execute homosexuals for homosexuality. In a land of fossil fuels, people freeze in their apartments for lack of natural gas. Political connections are everything, and the politically connected can literally get away with murder, as in most oppressive authoritarian states.

Expect low energy prices to put enormous pressure on the current regime. Iran is a dead-end state, and it is becoming more difficult to conceal this fact from its citizens. Historically, such states tend to involve themselves in wars as a last ditch attempt at self preservation. Given recent revelations concerning Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons, such a war might go nuclear, and involve as much as half the world.

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.

Source

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.

Source

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.

Source

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.

Should Men Get Married? Should Women?

I finally broke down and read Dr. Helen's massively popular posting "Should Men Get Married?" Dr. Helen's article was interesting, but her readers' comments were priceless.

Now Dr. Helen follows up with the posting "Should Women Get Married? Again, Dr. Helen's column is worth reading, but the readers' comments are required reading.

A topic so basic as the decision of whether to marry, raise children, how to live your life . . . obviously draws a great deal of interest in the blogosphere. The most fascinating thing about all the wildly varied points of view is how they reflect upon the pressing demographic issue of our time--the population implosion of western societies.

Western societies--and eastern nations that have adopted western traditions and attitudes--are leading the march into a better future for all humans. If these nations and societies deplete their own populations--for the fascinating reasons given in the comments at the above Dr. Helen columns--the earth will be left to those who can procreate well, but do very little else.

National birthrates and mean population IQs are inversely related, as the map suggests. Even communist China's birthrates are falling as China's population becomes more urban.A world with a population average IQ of 90--like our world--can progress scientifically, technologically, economically, as long as the populations at the upper end of the bell curve are large enough, and operate with enough freedoms.

When the population average IQ drops closer to 80, the number of "smart fraction" persons drops dangerously low. Only the nations that still have significant numbers of smart fraction individuals can hope to maintain any rate of scientific or technological progress.

If immigration and differential birthrates between subpopulations within a heterogeneous society combine to lower the average population IQ, the relative ranking of that nation within the industrialised first world, will drop.

Women Putting MenHumans In Their Place

1. Delayed marriage
2. Expanded higher education and labor-force participation
3. Urbanization

When you combine the three demographic trends above, what do you get? You get large numbers of young women who marry late or not at all, are unlikely to ever reproduce to replacement, and build lives centered around limited concerns having mostly to do with themselves.

You may say, "So what? Men have been doing that for decades--it's called "The Peter Pan Syndrome". Maybe it's time women start doing the same? If men have retreated from family responsibility and parenting, why can't women?"

Well, they can, of course, and they are doing so.

Today, the average woman in the world bears half as many children as did her counterpart in 1972. No industrialized country still produces enough children to sustain its population over time, or to prevent rapid population aging. Germany could easily lose the equivalent of the current population of what was once East Germany over the next half-century. Russia's population is already contracting by three-quarters of a million a year. Japan's population, meanwhile, is expected to peak as early as 2005, and then to fall by as much as one-third over the next 50 years -- a decline equivalent, the demographer Hideo Ibe has noted, to that experienced in medieval Europe during the plague.

Foreign Affairs

In large numbers, across North America, Western Europe, East Asia, and now Eastern Europe, women are dictating the terms of the human future.

Seek out the trendy shoe stores in Shanghai, Berlin, Singapore, Seoul, and Dublin, and you’ll see crowds of single young females (SYFs) in their twenties and thirties, who spend their hours working their abs and their careers, sipping cocktails, dancing at clubs, and (yawn) talking about relationships. Sex and the City has gone global; the SYF world is now flat.

Is this just the latest example of American cultural imperialism? Or is it the triumph of planetary feminism? Neither. The globalization of the SYF reflects a series of stunning demographic and economic shifts that are pointing much of the world—with important exceptions, including Africa and most of the Middle East—toward a New Girl Order. It’s a man’s world, James Brown always reminded us. But if these trends continue, not so much...

Combine these trends—delayed marriage, expanded higher education and labor-force participation, urbanization—add a global media and some disposable income, and voilà: an international lifestyle is born. One of its defining characteristics is long hours of office work, often in quasi-creative fields like media, fashion, communications, and design—areas in which the number of careers has exploded in the global economy over the past few decades. The lifestyle also means whole new realms of leisure and consumption, often enjoyed with a group of close girlfriends: trendy cafés and bars serving sweetish coffee concoctions and cocktails; fancy boutiques, malls, and emporiums hawking cosmetics, handbags, shoes, and $100-plus buttock-hugging jeans; gyms for toning and male-watching; ski resorts and beach hotels; and, everywhere, the frustrating hunt for a boyfriend and, though it’s an ever more vexing subject, a husband.

The SYF lifestyle first appeared in primitive form in the U.S. during the seventies, after young women started moving into higher education, looking for meaningful work, and delaying marriage. Think of ur-SYF Mary Richards, the pre-Jordache career girl played by Mary Tyler Moore, whose dates dropped her off—that same evening, of course—at her apartment door. By the mid-nineties, such propriety was completely passé. Mary had become the vocationally and sexually assertive Carrie Bradshaw, and cities like New York had magically transformed into the young person’s pleasure palace evoked by the hugely popular TV show Sex and the City. At around the same time, women in Asia and in post-Communist Europe began to join the SYF demographic, too. Not surprisingly, they also loved watching themselves, or at least Hollywood versions of themselves, on television. Friends, Ally McBeal, and Sex and the City became global favorites. In repressive places like Singapore and China, which banned SATC, women passed around pirated DVDs.

By the late 1990s, the SYF lifestyle was fully globalized. Indeed, you might think of SYFs as a sociological Starbucks: no matter how exotic the location, there they are, looking and behaving just like the American prototype. They shop for shoes in Kyoto, purses in Shanghai, jeans in Prague, and lip gloss in Singapore; they sip lattes in Dublin, drink cocktails in Chicago, and read lifestyle magazines in Kraków; they go to wine tastings in Boston, speed-dating events in Amsterdam, yoga classes in Paris, and ski resorts outside Tokyo. “At the fashionable Da Capo Café on bustling Kolonaki Square in downtown Athens, Greek professionals in their 30s and early 40s luxuriate over their iced cappuccinos,” a Newsweek International article began last year. “Their favorite topic of conversation is, of course, relationships: men’s reluctance to commit, women’s independence, and when to have children.”

City Journal

Of course, you have the old "chicken and the egg" question about which came first: The Peter Pan Syndrome, or the SYF "Sex and the City" lifestyle. But does it really matter? The end result is the same:

But as with any momentous social change, the New Girl Order comes with costs—in this case, profound ones. The globalized SYF upends centuries of cultural traditions. However limiting, those traditions shaped how families formed and the next generation grew up. So it makes sense that the SYF is partly to blame for a worldwide drop in fertility rates. To keep a population stable, or at its “replacement level,” women must have an average of at least 2.1 children. Under the New Girl Order, though, women delay marriage and childbearing, which itself tends to reduce the number of kids, and sometimes—because the opportunity costs of children are much higher for educated women—they forgo them altogether. Save Albania, no European country stood at or above replacement levels in 2000. Three-quarters of Europeans now live in countries with fertility rates below 1.5, and even that number is inflated by a disproportionately high fertility rate among Muslim immigrants. Oddly, the most Catholic European countries—Italy, Spain, and Poland—have the lowest fertility rates, under 1.3. Much of Asia looks similar. In Japan, fertility rates are about 1.3. Hong Kong, according to the CIA’s World Factbook, at 0.98 has broken the barrier of one child per woman.

For many, fertility decline seems to be one more reason to celebrate the New Girl Order. Fewer people means fewer carbon footprints, after all, and thus potential environmental relief. But while we’re waiting for the temperature to drop a bit, economies will plunge in ways that will be extremely difficult to manage—and that, ironically, will likely spell the SYF lifestyle’s demise. As Philip Longman explains in his important book The Empty Cradle, dramatic declines in fertility rates equal aging and eventually shriveling populations. Japan now has one of the oldest populations in the world—one-third of its population, demographers predict, will be over 60 within a decade. True, fertility decline often spurs a temporary economic boost, as more women enter the workforce and increase income and spending, as was the case in 1980s Japan. In time, though, those women—and their male peers—will get old and need pensions and more health care.

And who will pay for that?

City Journal

Of course we see large numbers of third world immigrants making their way into Europe and North America, willing to reproduce well beyond replacement rates, and looking for economic opportunity of one sort or another. Will these newcomers be willing to work their way up the economic scheme of things, or will they want to become dependents on the state--just like the decadent westerners? Why should the third-worlders work their glutes off so the flabby old westerners can live it up on state pensions?

As it happens,men and women look at the world a bit differently. Tradition and social/biological expediency have driven men and women together in the past, for companionship and reproduction. Those forces are much weaker, and other influences and incentives are taking over. Where will these take humanity?

If one takes a look at demographic trends, one sees that the high-achieving "North" is being out-reproduced by the low-achieving "South". IQ testing of populations correlates with GDP of nations. Low IQ/Low GDP nations have excess populations that are moving into the population vacuum created by SYFs and their Peter Pan male cohorts.

What will be the end result of this transition? After all, can we not expect the new immigrants to first world countries to be able to pick up the burden of responsibility, and carry on with what needs to be done? If you actually believe that there is no qualitative difference between a population with low IQ and a population with high IQ, I encourage you to read about "The Smart Fraction."

While it helps to understand basic statistics when studying populations (and most other modern issues), the concepts involved are fairly simple and easy to understand even if you are like most western university graduates--innumerate. The problem is accepting obvious facts that contradict your university indoctrination. Some people can, and some can't. If you can't, don't beat yourself up over it. You are in the same boat with most academically lobotomised, psychological neotenates.

The narcissism observed in Peter Pans and SYFs is simply what happens when life centers around oneself for lack of better alternatives and circumstances.

Interestingly enough, there are some western populations that are reproducing above replacement. Religious orthodoxies, evangelicals, and various sectarian religions are contrarians in the reproduction arena. While this trend may resist some of the dysgenic forces at work, it will not be enough.

Am I saying that you should prepare for the Idiocracy?
No, this is not a message of nihilism and futility. It is merely a prod, a grain of sand within the oyster shell. We live in a comfortable age, where hard work can lead to lifestyles of relative luxury and complacency. I am suggesting that while we are enjoying the results of our hard work, that we consider larger trends that need to be addressed.

More on this theme later.

Fighting the Population Implosion the Natural Way--Sans Artificial Wombs, Sans Parthenogenesis

The celebrated population implosion in the developed world is being resisted by a few brave and stalwart men and women. Lacking the re-population tools of artificial wombs and parthenogenesis, they attack the population decline the natural way.

The Duggars are a family living in a 7,000 square foot home in Arkansas, that recently welcomed their 17th child into the world.

Jennifer joins the fast-growing Duggar brood, who live in a 7,000-square-foot home in Tontitown. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are taught at home.

The oldest is 19 and the youngest, before Jennifer, is almost 2 years old.

Source

The mother claims it took her only 30 minutes to deliver, once her labour progressed.

Such news will displease many of the proponents of Peak Oil and Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming--who coincidentally are also advocating a large human die-off of five billion people or more.

Update: Here is an interesting Q & A between a feminist and a mother of 11 children, on the pros and cons of large families.

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.

On Mothers Day: To Mother, or not to Mother--That is the Question

Like most of the western world, Canada is facing a serious decline of motherhood. There are many reasons for this problem

How did it come to this? In Canada, one answer is infertility. This affects one in every 15 Canadian couples (in Britain one in six are affected), who spend some $30 million a year on in-vitro fertilization alone. Defined as failure to conceive after one year of trying, infertility can result from many factors affecting both males and females, but according to the government of Canada's Biobasics website, the two biggest factors are delayed childbearing and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Today, mothers giving birth average 29.5 years of age. Since women are born with a given number of eggs that decline in quality and quantity from the age of 30, it is no surprise that for the growing proportion of 30-plus women attempting pregnancy, it is much more difficult to conceive and carry a child.

Compounding the problem, earlier and increased sexual activity means a greater likelihood for contracting gonorrhea or chlamydia. In women, pelvic inflammatory disease and, in turn, blocked fallopian tubes or ectopic pregnancy may result. In men, sterility is possible. According to healthyontario.com, rates of STD infection are up 60 per cent since 1997, with girls between the ages of 15 and 19 incurring the highest rates. In 2003, 20,000 new cases of chlamydia were reported in Canada.

Source

The decline of motherhood suggests a future decline in working taxpayers to support Canada's massive system of social programs. Because Canada has a reasonably healthy economy, compared to most of the world, immigrants will arrive to try to take advantage of the opportunities Canada offers. Canada will receive both economic opportunity immigrants and welfare-seeking immigrants.

Unfortunately, of the nations with the highest birthrates providing the most potential immigrants, the average population IQ is significantly below the Canadian average.


If the IQ of the immigrants is low, they may start as economic opportunity immigrants, and regrettably transform into welfare-seeking immigrants. Dysgenic immigration is the last thing a welfare state like Canada needs--just as it is the last thing the European welfare states need.

France is in a similar downward spiral. Although France has elected a hard-working and intelligent new President, it is still in doubt whether France has the will to do what must be done to reverse its decline.

Delayed childbirth combined with early sexuality, leads to infertility. The only long-term solution--given the dominant culture of western countries--is the artificial womb.

The Idiocracy Creeps Up On An Unsuspecting Aging Population

The future is clear for those who can read the numbers. The population of western countries is becoming less literate--and less intelligent. There are only a few specific things that can be done to change this trend, and a nation hamstrung by political correctness cannot do those things.

US workers may be significantly less literate in 2030 than they are today.

The reason: Most baby boomers will be retiring and a large wave of less-educated immigrants will be moving into the workforce. This downward shift in reading and math skills suggests a huge challenge for educators and policymakers in the future, according to a new report from the Educational Testing Service (ETS).

If they can't reverse the trend, then it could spell trouble for a large swath of the labor force, widen an already large skill gap, and shrink the middle class.

....The decline in literacy is one of the more startling projections in a report that examines what it calls a "perfect storm" of converging factors and how those trends are likely to play out if left unchecked.

The three factors identified are: a shifting labor market increasingly rewarding education and skills, a changing demographic that include a rapid-growing Hispanic population, and a yawning achievement gap, particularly along racial and socioeconomic lines, when it comes to reading and math.

....One factor that's been gaining increasing attention lately is the changing economic rewards in an economy in which demand for manufacturing and lower skilled labor is declining. It's become tougher for workers without higher education – or higher cognitive skills – to get the sort of job that can support a family.

But exacerbating the changes such an economic shift is causing are demographic factors, researchers say. Baby boomers are retiring and being replaced by less-skilled workers. A combination of immigration and population growth means that the share of the population that is Hispanic is expected to grow from 14 percent in 2005 to more than 20 percent by 2030. More than half of the immigrant Hispanics lack a high school diploma.
....

Source.

What the Monitor will never tell you is that immigration policy allows--even encourages--less intelligent and capable immigrants to stay, at the expense of more intelligent and capable immigrants. I am a very politically incorrect person to even suggest such a thing. Nevertheless, it turns.

In addition, social policy and tax policy in combination discourage more intelligent person's from having children and encourage less intelligent persons to give birth. There--I've done it again! Bad boy, bad boy!

Finally, educational methods and policies encourage a groupthink mentality oriented toward less intelligent and capable students, and discourage independent thinking more suitable to students at the upper ends of the intelligence and competence curves. As a result, the leadership potential of students is being steadily destroyed by the government endorsed system of education. Only a radical--in the true sense of the word--rethinking of education can make the best of the education situation.

Idiocracy--not just a film, but a coming way of life.


Hat tip: Steve Sailer

What is Happening to the IQ of the UK?

A big hat tip to Kevin at Intelligence Testing. He points to a recent article in Gene Expression Blog that discusses a possible decline in intelligence among schoolchildren in the UK.

Kevin also kindly provides a link to the original article in timesonline.

Many of you are aware of the "Flynn Effect" which claims that there is an ongoing increase in intelligence "g" with each new generation. The findings in the UK may stand in contradiction to the Flynn Effect. Since no one understands the Flynn effect, you can be sure no one understands this more recent finding either.

Nevertheless it is very important for what it may say about trends in the developed world. Having a mean population IQ of 100, as the UK does, provides the UK with a predictable supply of men and women with IQs of 110, 120, 130, and 140. These higher IQs are where much of the work of advanced civilisation are done. Without a reliable supply of higher IQ humans, an advanced civilisation would grind to a standstill.

If the mean IQ of the UK were to fall to, say, 90 or below, what would that do to the supply of the higher IQ people who run the complex functions of society? The supply would slowly dry up, from the top of the tail down. At that point, if the UK wants to continue doing advanced research, it will have to import its scientific and engineering talent from abroad.

The mean population IQ of the UK is still around 100, and will stay there, not least because it is set by definition. But you understand the concept, assuming there were a Platonic ideal IQ of "100", defined as the mean population IQ of the UK as measured in the year 2000, the mean IQ of the UK could certainly drop in comparison.

Naturally, I am using the UK as an example, because the study linked to above was done in the UK. But I am actually taking the UK as a metaphor for the western nations. Previous postings here demonstrated the relationship between IQ and national wealth. So. If western cultures have the stomach for it, they need to find out if this "contra-Flynn" effect is real, and what caused it.