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The global population pyramid

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Re: The global population pyramid

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think we need to devalue women (again) to support “traditional” families (again). I got two weeks parental leave when my child was born. Civilized nations provide 6 months or more for both mother and father. My wife could take a couple years off of work, but then her career would be set back to square one. I elected to seriously downshift my own career just so I could see my kids on a daily basis. By that I m…

> I don’t think we need to devalue women (again) to support “traditional” families (again). I don't understand how supporting families means devaluing women. What exactly do you mean by "devalue"? If motherhood is the stated goal of a woman, and she achieves it, how/why is she "devalued"? If it brings her meaning and fulfillment, isn't that something to be celebrated and respected? I'm also bothered by your swipe aga…

I agree with the thrust of your comment, I think I just didn’t frame it properly. The comment I was responding to seemed (to me) to suggest that we go back to the 1950s when a woman didn’t have a right as a matter of law or de facto to have a career and aspirations of her own. I read the comment as suggesting that women’s empowerment was a proximate cause to the degradation of the family. I think electing to be a parent is not “devaluing” (as I myself, as a father, have done so) but that removing the option and making the decision for all women is devaluing. Not sure I track the comment re: swipe against traditional families? If I suggested that then I was inarticulate or misinterpreted.

Edit: also to the gp comment, which suggests that women are ‘naturally’ better at parenting. Fuck all that, I’m a kickass dad, I’ll go toe to toe any day with any mother.

Re: The global population pyramid

#82

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…

If we are lucky a good solution to this problem could be significant increase in life expectancy and development of artificial womb that will allow people to have children later in life when they finally want to have children.

But if the technological solution doesn't come soon enough the world will have to go through a much harder transition, trying to develop new culture that would combine aspects of secular societies that allow development of science and commerce, with a reasonable desire of growth.

Re: The global population pyramid

#83
post #20

Its an interesting visualization. Another site that shows this for individual countries is https://www.populationpyramid.net/ It is interesting to contrast countries at different points on their development. E.g., in Japan, where the population has already started contracting, vs say, Kenya, where the population is still growing rapidly. However, these curves should come with error bars that grow as you go farther ou…

> If someone in 1900 had made similar curves, I wonder how they would look to us. On that count, I wonder if there are similar projections from, say, 1950 that we could look at and see how they turned out. Thomas Malthus attempted to describe the future of the world population in 1798 in his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population. He predicted a doubling of the global population every 25 years until a lack of…

Mathus didn't quite predict that, he was smarter than that.

The fact that exponential growth of population was a rare and short-lived phenomenon in world history (he had numbers from new england or quebec, and knew they were highly unusual) led him to conclude that there must be other forces. The equilibrium population is set by the balance of such forces.

And not just in humans, obviously. Any animal could reproduce exponentially, but the world is not 100-km-deep in rabbits just yet. And this observation was an important ingredient for Darwin.

Re: The global population pyramid

#84

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…

> >> 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.

Does that payout account for inflation? Why are we forced to give up a percentage of our wealth to let the government manage for us if it's a 1:1 distribution?

Re: The global population pyramid

#85
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to attack the premise that a shrinking population is inherently a problem. It's not really a problem, it survival. Not having kids is not really a problem, but the fact is that you genes will die along with you. Same for culture. Your own culture dying might not be a problem, but it means that your values will die along with it. Having equality between individuals is something to strive for (in my western op…

> you genes will die along with you I get it, this is why I haven't already had a vasectomy, but your genes are nothing special, just a sample of the alleles in the population. I'm much more concerned about producing ideas that will outlive me and spreading those. Newton died a virgin yet he profoundly influenced the world. Similar with cultures, ancient greeks are long gone but their culture shaped the world.

Yes, I definitely agree. Genes are only 1 aspect of what can be passed on.

But the question here is: Will the value of "men and women should fulfill the same roles in society" survive or die out?

Re: The global population pyramid

#86

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".…

> On one hand it's great that women have all these new rights. . .

Do you mind if I ask how old you are? The rights of women to freely choose careers, and to make their own reproductive decisions, are at least several decades old.

> Western society is trying to make boys out of girls, and girls out of boys. . .

Can you provide examples of this? Not to preempt your arguments, but this is an oft-repeated conservative platitude that is mostly code for, "I wish women would stay out of the workforce and bear children."

Re: The global population pyramid

#87

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…

"if you encourage immigration"

Bringing low IQ population into high societies will only end in tears.

Re: The global population pyramid

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think we need to devalue women (again) to support “traditional” families (again). I don't understand how supporting families means devaluing women. What exactly do you mean by "devalue"? If motherhood is the stated goal of a woman, and she achieves it, how/why is she "devalued"? If it brings her meaning and fulfillment, isn't that something to be celebrated and respected? I'm also bothered by your swipe aga…

"I don't understand how supporting families means devaluing women. What exactly do you mean by "devalue"? If motherhood is the stated goal of a woman, and she achieves it, how/why is she "devalued"? If it brings her meaning and fulfillment, isn't that something to be celebrated and respected?" I believe the query here is to devalue women in order to support the idea of a nuclear family. Traditional nuclear families (…

I also agree with much of this. To the extent that there is a “devaluation” of full-time parenting it’s in the context of a capitalistic society. Again though, to the original response, I don’t find parenting to be low value myself, just the idea that as a society we should mandate that all people of one gender must be stay at home parents. I think that idea from a few generations ago reflects a sexist bias.

Re: The global population pyramid

#89
I just had an idea how to visualize the population pyramid by an animation. Start with 1950 then show the pyramid for each year till 2100. But also have black dots representing a group of people of same age moving upwards as to show their age with time.

Re: The global population pyramid

#90
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think we need to devalue women (again) to support “traditional” families (again). I got two weeks parental leave when my child was born. Civilized nations provide 6 months or more for both mother and father. My wife could take a couple years off of work, but then her career would be set back to square one. I elected to seriously downshift my own career just so I could see my kids on a daily basis. By that I m…

I'd be curious to hear more precisely what you'd propose here. My impression that, unfortunately, many such attempts to (essentially) make life better for working mothers appear to have pushed us away from families-with-kids, and towards ever more singletons (including single mothers). They tend, I think, to move us from a system in which the family is the economic unit, to one in which its personal compromises are n…

Not sure where you’re going with this, but for starters I’d give new parents (both parents) like 5 years paid parental leave. Yeah, I suggested 5 years. With some sort of workforce reentry rights or support to facilitate getting back in the workforce. I’d start the discussions there.
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