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The global population pyramid

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Re: The global population pyramid

#51

Post by dondon1 »

threeseed wrote: post #38
koonsolo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

Words fail me reading comments like this. To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude that belongs in the dark ages. It's sexist. It's degrading. It treats women like mindless children who can't make their own choices about what work they want to do. Nobody is forcing women to go into STEM. We are encouraging them because unfortunately they have to deal with toxic attitudes all the ti…

People like you are the toxic ones and will be remembered in history as the gullible "useful idiots". You follow the party propaganda of Big Corporations to crank out more workers in oder to dump STEM wages. Just as Corporations love Illegal immigration to slave away at their factories. Just as Corporations love H1B visas to put pressure on local professional wages. Just as Corporations in SV love to make agreements among each other to keep wages low.

The Career Women is by simple logic just a short term trend that will vanish. Why? Because these particular type of women have birthrate of 0.5 (you need 2.1 for sustainment) So they have way to few kids to pass on their values. Meanwhile traditional women have 2-3 Birthrates, so they pass on their values to their kids. It should be obvious who will come out on top.

It's deeply dehumanising to suggest to a women who wants to be a mother that she should learn some random profession to increase sales by 0.1%. People like you act like every women is trying to solve cancer, reality is that most workers Women and Men, do insignificant work just to satisfy our GDP growth Cult that is propagated by our overlords the Big Corps.

Re: The global population pyramid

#52

Post by fifnir »

koonsolo wrote: post #27
bhouston wrote: post #25

My concern is that population will shrink after 2100 globally but it will already be shrinking in the rich countries long before that. And all indicators right now is that shrinkage will speed up. There is something wrong with rich modern secular society here or anywhere (it happens to all societies right now whether they are European, Japanese, Chinese, etc) in that it currently leads to sub replacement reproduction…

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

> Any constructive discussion is welcome.

I want to attack the premise that a shrinking population is inherently a problem. The only clearly stated problem that I've seen is how social security will likely crumble since the fewer younger people won't be able to support the large aging population.

But this ignores how productivity has been and will continue to rise thanks to machines. I think we can easily take care of an aging population if we make proper use of new technology.

In fact I think that reducing our numbers is necessary for our survival.

We live in a capitalist world, where constant growth is assumed and expected, but the earth is a relatively closed system and you know what happens with bacteria in closed systems? They reproduce until they exhaust the system's resources and then they all die.

Re: The global population pyramid

#53

Post by iguy »

logicchains wrote: post #43
Mirioron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem we have is social programs. They redistribute wealth from young people right now to old people right now, but they are sold to young people as though they are investing into their future. As the ratio of young people to old people shrinks our social programs end up in more and more trouble. The fiscal gap is a problem in most developed countries.

This program is solvable, with something like Australia's mandatory superannuation or Singapore's Central Provident Fund, where people are forced to save a certain percentage of their income for retirement (and the money is actually saved, they're not just given IOUs for money that will be taken from future young people).

But the discipline to stick to such a solution is difficult. Bending the rules just a little more to spend more money this election cycle is always going to be extremely tempting.

In addition, the situation is a bit better in this regard for small countries, who can just invest elsewhere. If the whole world tried to do this, it's not clear what they could invest in, as what they want to withdraw in 30 years time is actually the services of cooks and nursing staff etc. who must be of working age at that time.

Re: The global population pyramid

#54

Post by microtherion »

koonsolo wrote: post #27
bhouston wrote: post #25

My concern is that population will shrink after 2100 globally but it will already be shrinking in the rich countries long before that. And all indicators right now is that shrinkage will speed up. There is something wrong with rich modern secular society here or anywhere (it happens to all societies right now whether they are European, Japanese, Chinese, etc) in that it currently leads to sub replacement reproduction…

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

> A family is made up of a man and a women, who support each other in their strengths and interests, and raise children together. So why not focus on the "together" part instead of trying to force partners into segregated roles?

As you note yourself, stay at home mothers are in a precarious position (and, curiously, enthusiasm among males for traditional motherhood is NOT correlated with enthusiasm for lifelong alimony payments, or for generous government benefits for stay at home single mothers).

And as far as the children are concerned, I don't think even the most conservative advocate of traditional gender roles would argue that they are better off being raised almost exclusively by one parent, and having the other confine themselves to cutting checks.

So the solution, it seems to me, is to build a society that helps BOTH parents to spend time raising their children.

Re: The global population pyramid

#55

Post by 14 »

xixixao wrote: post #35
ferrous69 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your ideas about more sustainable alternatives to our "democratic, equal" society? It seems to me a social movement that we cannot put the lid back on. It appeals ideologically (at its base level of "everyone is equal") and pragmatically to most people. Your points about sustainability are valid and we need to think about them, but what else can we do aside from progress towards a more egalitarian society wi…

I only just thought about this, so it might be a crazy idea but: States could pay parents caring after children. In fact this already happens in modern western societies with some resemblence of a social state. But I think the problem is that a "family" gets the benefit. And the "family" shares the benefit. And then the mentality is: I spend all day at work, and if I lose my job, we will lose my income. But no one is…

As a Canadian I already receive money for my kids. Single dad and kids see mom on weekend I get the child benefits as it is called around here as I have the kids more then 60% if the time. If the children are shared equally then we would split the child tax. The amount changes as kids age but for 3 kids I get something like 1370$ a months to help me support those kids. This has improved the quality of my life hugely. It is the difference between I wonder if I can afford rent or food to now that we have rent and food maybe we can afford to go to the local pool. But here is the kicker, in Canada, we have come a long way but, they are sexist towards men and the woman still have the slight advantage. As in the child benefits are automatically given to the mother of the child. It is up to them to use that money for the kids. When my wife and I split up they were paying her but I had the kids. They wanted me to prove I had the kids so I could get the benefits. Luckily my wife and I were cooperative during the divorce so she confirmed with them I have primary custody so the money was switched into my name. But had she not I would of had to go to court and it is a pain. Anyways I get paid for my kids each month. Plus a huge tax break at the end of the year and get most of my income tax back. Last 2 years that has been a 5k tax return. I don’t know what other countries are doing but feel supported here in Canada.

Re: The global population pyramid

#56

Post by chr1 »

Mirioron wrote: post #31
bhouston wrote: post #25

My concern is that population will shrink after 2100 globally but it will already be shrinking in the rich countries long before that. And all indicators right now is that shrinkage will speed up. There is something wrong with rich modern secular society here or anywhere (it happens to all societies right now whether they are European, Japanese, Chinese, etc) in that it currently leads to sub replacement reproduction…

My worry is that at some point rich countries will start increasing in population again. In the past we thought that overpopulation is going to be a big global problem. It turned out that rich countries naturally ended up having fewer and fewer children. This stabilized their populations. And now we expect that this trend will continue. But why? What's to say that some shift in society won't trigger another populatio…

Why is that a worry? Half of the land on earth is a desert, and 70% of earth is covered by ocean, most of which is also a desert. If we had enough people in rich countries who would want to spend their money on moving to new places, we would already have floating cities and many more desalination plants, and those places simply by growing food for themselves, changing their local climate to a nicer one, and by contributing to science, would solve the climate problems we are going to face.

Re: The global population pyramid

#57

Post by Mirioron »

phkahler wrote: post #47
Mirioron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem we have is social programs. They redistribute wealth from young people right now to old people right now, but they are sold to young people as though they are investing into their future. As the ratio of young people to old people shrinks our social programs end up in more and more trouble. The fiscal gap is a problem in most developed countries.

>> They redistribute wealth from young people right now to old people right now, but they are sold to young people as though they are investing into their future. I want to say that's fiction in the US but it's worse than fiction. The social security system pays out about what a person puts in over their lifetime. It is not the young paying the old as you say. But that's not the whole story. The "fund" has been robbe…

Of course there are exceptions, but I'm talking about social programs in aggregate in developed countries. Most of them don't work like social security does in the US. For example, I'm not aware of healthcare working like that in any country.

Re: The global population pyramid

#58

Post by paulryanrogers »

trabant00 wrote: post #46
threeseed wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words fail me reading comments like this. To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude that belongs in the dark ages. It's sexist. It's degrading. It treats women like mindless children who can't make their own choices about what work they want to do. Nobody is forcing women to go into STEM. We are encouraging them because unfortunately they have to deal with toxic attitudes all the ti…

We should support any woman that wants to work in STEM. We should NOT encourage anybody to work in STEM. Women are more likely to want to work with people, not sit in a chair looking at a screen, droning for the corporation 8 hours per day. The "toxic environment" is just what the field is. Dehumanizing by definition. It's got nothing to do with patriarchy or whatever else trending buzzword corporations push promotin…

Which part is meant to be sarcasm? If all of it then can you rephrase it without?

Re: The global population pyramid

#59

Post by dsfyu404ed »

trabant00 wrote: post #37
koonsolo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this. Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer. When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home".…

As I see it, in the complexity of modern life a family would greatly benefit from a dedicated administrator. There is simply no time after work to keep a grip on all the developing situations regarding issues that greatly impact us like: health, finances, laws rules and regulations, family ties, housing, etc, etc. In practice we seem to sacrifice everything for work. I made up my mind a long time ago about "more wome…

You mean like your stereotypical 1950s head of household who receives information from all the other family members and decides on a course of action which is mostly non-negotiable?

Re: The global population pyramid

#60

Post by Mirioron »

logicchains wrote: post #43
Mirioron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem we have is social programs. They redistribute wealth from young people right now to old people right now, but they are sold to young people as though they are investing into their future. As the ratio of young people to old people shrinks our social programs end up in more and more trouble. The fiscal gap is a problem in most developed countries.

This program is solvable, with something like Australia's mandatory superannuation or Singapore's Central Provident Fund, where people are forced to save a certain percentage of their income for retirement (and the money is actually saved, they're not just given IOUs for money that will be taken from future young people).

Why force it though? Shouldn't it be up to the people whether they want to save it or not? In Eastern Europe this is a concern because many people have lived through their savings evaporating. What's to say that something similar doesn't happen in the future?

Furthermore, how would you even implement it? Do young people right now have to pay for the upkeep of the old generation right now and will then have to additionally pay for their own retirement fund? It seems to me that somebody's going to get screwed here.

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