261–270 of 444 posts
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Pay people to be stay at home parents so they don't face an enormous opportunity cost / survival threat to having a kid.
They do that in France, and birth rates are actually higher than most Western nations
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There's only so much juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce, though. And as retirees continue to make up a larger portion of the popular vote - they'll continue to demand more from a shrinking workforce. At some point (I imagine in my lifetime) - the straw will break the camel's back.
>> juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce On the assumption that the economy is based on a workforce. An economy can be based on paper assets. An "innovation nation" that makes GDP out of intellectual property assets, banking and offshore investments could sustain itself without the need for an ever-growing labor force. SK isn't Luxembourg, but nor is it India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Lux…
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> What if the votes of each age group were weighted Because the principle of "one person, one vote" is widely (and correctly IMO) accepted.
In many places and for certain purposes (the US and the EU for instance), geographical regions have one vote, regardless of their population size. It’s unclear that an age-based distribution instead of geographic distribution would be worse. But it would probably be unrealistic to achieve without basically completely upending existing political structures.
The US is one country and disparate voting power between states(mainly in the Senate, to a lesser extent with the electoral college) is a real problem. I see little reason to make it worse. Although it's useful to rhetoric out how little sense the current system makes
> South Korea was able to make these achievements without a citywide nor a nationwide lockdown.
A large part of the country is literally in Level 4 lockdowns now (no gatherings >5, beaches closed, pubs closed, daycares closed, etc). [1]
South Korea has mandatory military service for all men. They're required be in the military for nearly two years. [2]
Korean society is high patriarchal. Domestic violence is persistent. Families are not complete until they have a son. Multiple daughters are considered a burden. Gender roles are consistently enforced.
Sex crimes are a major issue [3]. Nearly every woman has been assaulted in a serious and unusual way (men outside windows, breaking into their apartment, flashing, etc). By law cellphone manufacturers have to program their phones to produce a shutter sound when a photo is taken. This was an attempt to curb upskirt and other voyeur photos. Female-only train cars are common due to rampant groping on public transit.
People absolutely do not trust their government. In 2016 the president was impeached in one of the most bizarre political scandals of the last decade. [4] There was a dizzying array of conspiracy theories involving the ferry boat that killed 294 people (mostly highschool students) [5].
The country's economy is dominated by a small group of super-corporations (chaebols) like Samsung. A massive percentage of the population is employed with just a few firms and nearly all products are produced by them. The amount of influence these groups have is something out of dystopian sci-fi. [6]
South Koreans frequently believe in superstitions, fortune tellers, urban legends, etc., and generally struggle with critical thinking or questioning established ideas.
[1] https://www.garda.com/crisis24/news-alerts/505386/south-kore...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_South_Korea
[3] https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/06/16/my-life-not-your-porn/...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Korean_political_sc...
[5] https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2014/0723/Why-S...
[6] https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/03/24/chaebol-reforms-are...
SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…
> How does the developed world pull out of this type of tailspin? 1. Find a young woman 2. Make her happy, and confident in you 3. ? 4. Pull your family for the next 30-40 years With all respects, I always seen a family as a man's responsibility, and a failure at creating/maintaining one to coming from man's deficiencies first. In virtually every human culture in the world, even matriarchal societies, it is by defaul…
Best of luck in your search for a wife. As a married man with kids, starting a family is the most wonderful thing. I feel terrible for young men and women during COVID, it's just a terrible human tragedy created by the government. IMO, dating should have been considered an essential activity. It would have been good for restaurants and the economy and young people. Tell the married people with kids to stay home while the young people can all go dance it up and get hitched. It's foundational to society.
German unification was unthinkable until the soviet union collapsed. Maybe in 25 years, the 2 Koreas will be reunited, making Korea an even bigger power on the global stage.
German 'Reunification' happened before Soviet Union collapsed. Also UK, France etc were against German Reunification as well before it happened. Also Austria is still not unified with modern Germany.
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Not really. Immigration has become an issue lately because a human (or a bare-human) is worth much less. 1.000 years ago a bare illiterate human had some considerable value. He could work in the field or he could fight. More humans, more food and production. More humans, more manpower to fight your enemies. Now a bare semi-educated human is a liability. Which is why most countries are refusing their entrance. Times h…
This is inaccurate. More people, even low skilled ones are still a huge benefit to your society. They buy goods and services in the local economy increasing demand and work tax paying jobs. Immigrants children grow up to greatly out earn their parents pay way more in taxes than they their parents. The only immigrant group that could be considered a liability are older low skilled workers who have passed the age to ha…
Maybe read what Marx wrote about Irish immigrants to UK. And those already spoke local language and shared similar culture.
SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. This is going to cause significant economic problems quite soon, or they will have to open up massive immigration which will completely change the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_birth_rate_in_South_Korea How does the developed world pull out of this ty…
> SK is committing demographic suicide though, so whatever you think of its success, it has a pretty fatal disease. It has the lowest birthrate in the world. Its kind of amazing how often people make judgements based on extrapolating demographic trends over much longer terms than there is any reason to think that they will hold, and then as soon as they fail turn around and do the same thing based on the new demograp…
Yes it is. The only first-world nation with replacement birth rates is Israel.
Caucescu famously tried to increase the birthrate and that backfired spectacularly. Sweden tried to do a lot of stuff, still doesn't work. Japan also tried.
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That was almost entirely due to America rebuilding Europe and every other major industrial power knocked off their perch for a couple of decades. It had nothing to do with immigration. Additionally Americans were still having lots of kids at that point so the population was growing without immigratiom.
Those European countries also developed fast without much immigration (including Switzerland and the Nordics, which were not affected much by the war). It may have nothing to do with immigration, but you certainly haven't proved that. Edit: Currently the poorest parts of the US population are stagnating at best, at a time when rates of both legal and illegal immigration are quite high. It is hard to make the argument…
That doesn’t seem correct, at least not universally. Germany invited a large number of immigrant workers to deal with its labor shortage after WW2.
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There's trying and then there's trying. Japan is doing the first kind, where you put some effort in, but it's kind of limp. The other kind of trying is when you put vigorous effort into making it easier to have children. Dramatically ramp up childcare support. Strongly enforce anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the case of discrimination against mothers. Forbid employers from requiring more than 40h of work pe…
> Dramatically ramp up childcare support. Strongly enforce anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the case of discrimination against mothers. Forbid employers from requiring more than 40h of work per week under certain (very high) compensation thresholds. Provide direct payments to parents that substantially offset the costs of additional children. Align housing policy with the need for larger dwellings for larger…
Give poor women education and access to those, and even poorer countries will see similar declines in birth rate.
I think humanity’s growth was dependent on women not having a say in the matter. All the situations I see where women have gained the ability to easily choose whether or not to have kids lead to lower birth rates.