How do you equate the decision of women to limit their reproduction to physical health? I mean, there may be an argument about the social health of the system but lifespan seems a better measure than population growth.
To the contrary, I could argue that the world might be a better place if human population was declining. Realistically the Earth doesn't have the natural resources for 6 billion people to live like Americans do. But it does have them for about 2 billion people or so.
Therefore, you should be thankful that not all of the world is growing its population.
By the way, without immigration, the US population is just about stable (2.1 births per woman) but also border-line declining. Check your facts.
And, thanks for the congrats.
How do you equate the decision of women to limit their reproduction to physical health?
==> It seems that you believe that "mental health" is not related to "physical health". I disagree. A woman who fears to bring her own children into the world has problems that will not be solved by repressing those fears.
I mean, there may be an argument about the social health of the system...
==> There is. Depopulation is VERY big problem for all of Europe. Over-regulation and over-taxation have always brought social ruin. ALWAYS. Europeans need to wake up to that danger and demand more economic freedom from their governments. The principle of "entropy" applies to civilization as well as to physical matter. On the other hand, Paris might be more pleasant if there weren't any "Parisians"...
...but lifespan seems a better measure than population growth.
==> I wonder if the "lifespan" statistics you rely upon include the all the pre- and post-birth abortions in Germany? Or the "honor-killings" of your Germany-born "non-Germans"? In any event, fewer children born MUST mean fewer childhood deaths to report, thus skewing the statistical average towards an "older" life expectancy. Big whoop...
To the contrary, I could argue that the world might be a better place if human population was declining.
==> Uh, please don't. That is soooo... "Club of Rome". Why is it that, whenever you defrock a "Green", you always find a "misanthrope"?
Realistically the Earth doesn't have the natural resources for 6 billion people to live like Americans do.
==> Of COURSE it does. Those little atoms of carbon, iron, oxygen, etc. don't leave the Earth simply because we "use" them. To my comment about the long-passe "Club of Rome", please add a Bronx Cheer for the discredited doom-mongers Malthus and Paul Erdman. I really don't understand why Europeans are unable to see the difference between propaganda and facts. O.K. O.K. I guess one explanation might be that those Europeans with the highest IQs have been escaping to America from rigid "Old Europe" for many years now. This depletion of Europe's gene-pool would also explain the dumbed-down musings of Europe's present-day "intelligentsia".
But it does have them for about 2 billion people or so.
==> A completely unsubstantiated conclusion, coated with this glib veneer of "plausibility": "To do less is easier than to do more".
Therefore, you should be thankful that not all of the world is growing its population.
==> It is indeed wonderful that the number of infant deaths has decreased.
By the way, without immigration, the US population is just about stable (2.1 births per woman) but also border-line declining.
==> Stand-by for a big increase in US fertility rates as the children of our baby-boomers enter their child-bearing years.
==> Surely, you are not suggesting that there is some "equivalence" between a U.S. birth rate of 2.1/1000 and a German birth rate of 1.4/1000.
Check your facts.
==> ...said the pot to the kettle...
==> Did you ever independently confirm that NASA report about the melting ice-caps of Mars? Didn't think so...