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The fifth horseman of the apocalypse (Demographics is THE defining issue of the 21st century)
Asia Times ^ | 12/14/2011 | Spengler

Posted on 12/24/2011 7:07:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Population decline is the elephant in the world's living room. As a matter of arithmetic, we know that the social life of most developed countries will break down within two generations. Two out of three Italians and three of four Japanese will be elderly dependents by 2050. If present fertility rates hold, the number of Germans will fall by 98% over the next two centuries. No pension and health care system can support such an inverted population pyramid. Nor is the problem limited to the industrial nations. Fertility is falling at even faster rates - indeed, at rates never before registered anywhere - in the Muslim world. The

world's population will fall by as much as a fifth between the middle and the end of the 21st century, by far the worst decline in human history.

The world faces a danger more terrible than the worst Green imaginings. The European environmentalist who wants to shrink the world's population to reduce carbon emissions will spend her declining years in misery, for there will not be enough Europeans alive a generation from now to pay for her pension and medical care. For the first time in world history, the birth rate of the whole developed world is well below replacement, and a significant part of it has passed the demographic point of no return.

But Islamic society is even more fragile. As Muslim fertility shrinks at a rate demographers have never seen before, it is converging on Europe's catastrophically low fertility as if in time-lapse photography. The average 30-year-old Iranian woman comes from a family of six children, but she will bear only one or two children during her lifetime. Turkey and Algeria are just behind Iran on the way down, and most of the other Muslim countries are catching up quickly.

(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; History; Society
KEYWORDS: demographics; europeanunion; germany; italy; japan
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To: SeekAndFind

The movie, “Children Of Men” posited a disease that destroys globally the fertility of the world. How about a movie where people globally decide to just not have children?


21 posted on 12/24/2011 8:26:23 AM PST by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: impimp
Great article - except he is wrong about the Muslims. Their low productivity will not really hurt them when the population pyramid gets a little more inverted. This is because they don’t have the welfare state that the West has.

Not only does the Muslim world not carry the increasing weight of the welfare state, but its population is not shrinking. The "replacement rate" at which a population remains numerically stable is 2.1 live births per woman. So while the rate of growth in the Muslim world appears to be slowing, the Muslim world is still growing while the "Christian" West continues to shrink past the point of demographic return. Even if the Muslim world eventually follows the West into actual demographic decline, by that time its surging and colonizing populations will have already conquered the hollowed shell of post-Christian Europe.

Mark Steyn's America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It was written in 2006, and is already coming to life before our eyes. Thanks to our massive Hispanic immigration, the United States sustains itself right at the 2.1 replacement rate, but this immigration is necessary only because of America's suicidally-high abortion rates. America is sick but Europe is dying, and the Muslim world will pick its bones.

Great decline and suffering is coming to the world, as it has throughout history as the result of poor choices made by its fallen inhabitants. These are important matters of life and death, but fortunately our hope and ultimate salvation lies beyond this difficult but God-granted existence. Merry Christmas, because He is Risen!

22 posted on 12/24/2011 8:27:47 AM PST by Always A Marine
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To: Travis McGee

You know what they say, TM: When it comes to procreation, love comes in spurts.


23 posted on 12/24/2011 8:36:51 AM PST by Lazamataz (Romney is the Pale Obama. That's all.)
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To: SeekAndFind
the goathumpers are moving back to the stoneage as fast as possible and have no way to feed/support ONE child let alone the 2.1 replacement scale required for growth...

insha allah

24 posted on 12/24/2011 8:42:59 AM PST by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: Tijeras_Slim
Spengler is brilliant, but he scares the daylights out of me.

The Bible alludes to man becoming a much rarer commodity before the end game arrives. I see it all as part of God's Plan and all we can do is observe and choose whether or not to believe.

25 posted on 12/24/2011 8:43:08 AM PST by trebb ("If a man will not work, he should not eat" From 2 Thes 3)
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To: Little Ray
They suffering from the “straight line” fallacy. Just because the birth rate has dropped below replacement rate doesn't mean we're doomed. The folks who LIKE children will eventually inherit the world and population will stabilize or even been increasing again.

That's what I thought until I actually read Mark Steyn's book which explained the math of demographics in everyday language. Civilizations aren't doomed just because their birth rates dip below replacement rate, but they are most certainly doomed when their birth rates stay below replacement rate for two or three generations. By that time, there is no way for and elderly, childless population to even sustain itself, let alone breed its way out of decline. And since the human nature will not permit a power vacuum, younger populations will inevitably sweep in to plunder the wealth that can no longer be defended -- and to do with the remaining inhabitants as they will.

Today, those civilizations who LIKE children are not the good guys.

26 posted on 12/24/2011 8:45:24 AM PST by Always A Marine
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To: Always A Marine

You said:
“Great decline and suffering is coming to the world, as it has throughout history as the result of poor choices made by its fallen inhabitants. These are important matters of life and death, but fortunately our hope and ultimate salvation lies beyond this difficult but God-granted existence. Merry Christmas, because He is Risen!”

I have hope in Christ and eternal life as well. But I think Christ wants the Church Militant to resist non-Godly things such as Islamism and the athiest secular state. This resistance, or fight, is best done by obeying his commands - especially the commands not to “immolate” our children and the command to not use contraception (Onan in Bible). Our weapon is the love of husband and wife properly united and open to procreation.

If there are no Christians bothering to reproduce for the next generation are we really doing God’s will?


27 posted on 12/24/2011 8:47:32 AM PST by impimp
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To: impimp

Related: Demographic Reversal Will Finish The Welfare State http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2824517/posts


28 posted on 12/24/2011 8:49:35 AM PST by RightGeek (FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
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To: SeekAndFind
world's population will fall by as much as a fifth between the middle and the end of the 21st century, by far the worst decline in human history.

And the earth will still be overpopulated.

The decline in birthrate is a self-correcting way of bringing human population back to its natural balance in nature.

Because of overpopulation, we've had to develop technology to make more of less, but throughout we ignore man's evolved nature, which is not in accord with modern living.

This conflict of man's nature with his modern artificial environment, works to depress his urge to reproduce, hence the declining population in fully industrialized societies.

29 posted on 12/24/2011 8:55:31 AM PST by Age of Reason
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To: CodeToad

RE: Actually, they do. Muslims in the US are on welfare as much as any other group.

I think Spengler is referring to MUSLIM COUNTRIES. Those countries DON’T have the generous welfare system that the west provides.

It goes without saying that a large number of Muslims are on welfare in Western countries.


30 posted on 12/24/2011 9:07:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: Age of Reason

Your opinion is wrong. Your post sounds like something that would come out of a gaia-worshipping, Malthusian pagan.


31 posted on 12/24/2011 9:12:03 AM PST by impimp
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To: Jack Hydrazine
The movie, “Children Of Men” posited a disease that destroys globally the fertility of the world. How about a movie where people globally decide to just not have children?

I'll have to check that one out. In my more whimsical moments while watching cinematic ETs wiping out humanity, I'm thinking that they are doing it the hard way. They should just infect the earth like that and sit back and wait.

32 posted on 12/24/2011 9:12:42 AM PST by Oatka (This is the USA, assimilate or evaporate.)
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To: Age of Reason

A little thought experiment - two nations side by side. One in which the people think like you and one in which the people reject Malthusian arguments. Since you like to be a man of “Reason”, which nation will dominate the other within 100 years?


33 posted on 12/24/2011 9:15:21 AM PST by impimp
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To: SeekAndFind

“As an immigrant nation we regenerate ourselves. We bear no baggage from a tragic past.”

He has no understanding whatsoever of America. We’re not an immigrant nation, we’re a nation of citizens.

And really? No baggage from a tragic past? How about the Civil War? Battles over flags rage to this day. And what about World Wars I and II?


34 posted on 12/24/2011 9:19:40 AM PST by Blue Ink
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To: impimp
Your opinion is wrong.

Let's try it this way:

The plants are telling me to put water on them instead of Brawndo.

35 posted on 12/24/2011 9:25:05 AM PST by Age of Reason
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To: SeekAndFind

I hate it when panic mongers use straight line statistics to predict the future. Especially with demographics.

The scoundrel and hysteric “Dr.” Paul R. Ehrlich, butterfly expert, went hog wild with this, with his book The Population Bomb, in the 1970s. And it was the precursor to the Man Made Global Warming scam. Importantly, it should be remembered that Ehrlich’s “solutions” are almost identical to the MMGW-crowds “solutions”. i.e., all power to socialists and money and resources taken away from wealthy nations.

And Ehrlich was not only wrong, but he was wrong about *everything*. Every single one of his hysterical predictions failed. And he has *not* had to pay any price for his efforts to cause worldwide deprivation and economic ruin. In fact, the MMGW-crowd welcome him with open arms as a kindred spirit.

The study of demographics is not easy, but animals and humans have demographic rules they abide by, that happen automatically and without assistance or conscious help.

Which almost guarantees the failure of straight line predictions.


36 posted on 12/24/2011 9:25:16 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: SeekAndFind

Do we care if these tribal languages in New Guinea are going extinct?


37 posted on 12/24/2011 9:31:43 AM PST by Ditter
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To: Age of Reason

You need to read Julian Simon’s works. He points out that when faced with natural resource shortages people do one of three things:
1. conserve (free market pricing is the mechanism here),
2. get better at extracting the resource (think how we have had 20 years of oil left for the past 100 years)
3. substitute.

The Democrat mind fails to understand #3. Boats used to be built exclusively out of wood in England and people said there would be no firewood. But then human ingenuity came up with metal boats.


38 posted on 12/24/2011 9:41:49 AM PST by impimp
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To: impimp
A fairer experiment:

One planet whereon humans live in a hunter gathering economy and which does not outgrow it's natural population balance.

And another planet whereon human population growth runs amok, supported by an ever more complex technology.

Which will still be around a thousand years from now?

(And the bacteria--because simpler is stronger--will outlive both.)

The reason the universe is so silent, the reason we detect no evidence of extra terrestrial high technology, is likely because any life that develops high technology soon perishes.

So the chance of our brief high technological moment, coinciding with signals from another such society living in its brief technological window, is just about nonexistent.

39 posted on 12/24/2011 9:41:57 AM PST by Age of Reason
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To: Age of Reason
This conflict of man's nature with his modern artificial environment, works to depress his urge to reproduce, hence the declining population in fully industrialized societies.

Makes sense. There's nothing sexy about growing up in a rat cage, then going to work in a cubicle and then retire in an isolated fortress.

40 posted on 12/24/2011 9:51:41 AM PST by MinorityRepublican
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