patrick.net

Patrick says

Why are so many adults in rich countries refusing to have kids?

Peter Zeihan has covered this a lot. His main answer: mass urbanization.

The more and faster it is, the sharper the drop off in having kids starts to be noticeable about two generations later.

US and Europe had slower urbanization, so this happened slower. Europe then had WW2 and rapid urbanization. So they pretty much stopped having enough babies since the mid 1970s.

US also had the suburbs, which helped delay this with Boomers and their kids. Then the Millennials went to live in the cities...

Asian nations, much more rapid because their industrialization was. Vietnam is demographicaly now where China was 30 ys ago. So by the 2040s, Vietnam will be in demographic free fall like China is now.

Only Japan has handled this in any remote way well.

France has too by having an extensive, pro-family support mechanism that costs a lot. Eastern Europeans like the Poles and Hungaruans have tried to emulate the French but with less results.

The Kiwis and Swedes haven't done bad either. Oz, not so much.
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So ironically, America's shitty cities turning into even shittier hellholes is a good thing. People are fleeing them for exurbs and smaller towns. Our demographic problems will start to correct themselves after a generation or two.

As Professor Larry Sabato says "Demographics is destiny"

Sweden is learning that firsthand.

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PumpingRedheads says

Our demographic problems will start to correct themselves after a generation or two.

We do not have a demographic problem, other than a flood of illiterates crossing the southern border.

It seems intuitive that population cannot increase forever. If so, it is necessary that for some time population will either be stable or will decrease. When conditions change the rate of change in population will also change.

I am also of the opinion that the problem is uncontrolled immigration. Setting a quota for quantity might be arbitrary, however we must reject nationalities/cultures/religions that have been shown to integrate poorly in American society.

yawaraf says

I am also of the opinion that the problem is uncontrolled immigration. Setting a quota for quantity might be arbitrary, however we must reject nationalities/cultures/religions that have been shown to integrate poorly in American society.

Tucker Carlson is warning about this. He says the reason 3rd world immigrants come to America is that it is a free society with economic opportunity. When America becomes a 3rd world country, then Tucker states it will get a lot worse here as far as those immigrants.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/abrupt-change-coming-tucker-carlson-issues-dire-warning-america

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https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/weaponization-of-disease-agents

yawaraf says

It seems intuitive that population cannot increase forever. If so, it is necessary that for some time population will either be stable or will decrease. When conditions change the rate of change in population will also change.

This is already happening. The US has been below replacement rate since the 60s/70s.

India is now AT replacement rate (pale green). Most of Europe, East Asia, Central and South Africa is below replacement. Most of the Middle East is way down to just above replacement.

It's just Africa that remains a problem, and the answer to that is to isolate Africa (no aid, little trade) and STOP IMMIGRATION to the West as a safety valve.

AmericanKulak says

This is already happening. The US has been below replacement rate since the 60s/70s.

India is now AT replacement rate (pale green). Most of Europe, East Asia, Central and South Africa is below replacement. Most of the Middle East is way down to just above replacement.

In both cases, you are looking at the whole population.

Should look at the cities vs rural areas. In India, births are dropping like a rock in the affluent cities but still pumping future roadside defecators at 3-4 per woman.

In the US, the difference is not so stark between them but still is enough. SF has had far more pet dogs than children for 20 years now. But in Utah..outside of SLC...those Mormons are pumping them out at or above replacement levels.

So do immigrants.

Democrats -- comprised of the pro-unborn murdering, college 'educated' MAYBE one child couples -- are literally DYING OFF. Reps are losing population but at least will have a future population.

And that difference will have meaning in the near future, trust me.

Demographics: Might not be EVERYTHING but sure as fuck comes close as far as a nation's future is concerned.

AmericanKulak says

The US has been below replacement rate since the 60s/70s.

Then how in the heck did the population grow from 200 million to over 320 million?

HeadSet says

Then how in the heck did the population grow from 200 million to over 320 million?

Millions of legal and illegal migrants a year.

There are ~45M recorded official immigrants in the US. Unofficial is easily about 30-40 million. Finsally, the millions of Visa holders from Student to H1B to Tourist that never return. Add in the tens of millions of "dreamers" children of immigrants from Asia and Africa and South/Central America, legal or illegal, and there's your number.

The current percentage of US population born aboard is just shy of 15%, near the all-time high of 14.9% in the 1890s. Back when we the GDP was expanding by (near) double digits annually, unlike today. And the immigrant pop was overwhelmingly European in origin back then.

The US Birthrate went to replacement rate in the late 60s and began dipping below that in the 1980s.

AmericanKulak says

HeadSet says

Then how in the heck did the population grow from 200 million to over 320 million?

Millions of legal and illegal migrants a year.

There are ~40M recorded official immigrants in the US. Unofficial is easily 30 million. Then there are the unregistered children of illegals. Finsally, the millions of Visa holders from Student to H1B to Tourist that never return.

The US Birthrate went to replacement rate in the late 60s and began dipping below that in the 1980s.

Yes, when the great inflation turned families from one earner into two earner. Women working a full day dries up the pussy, so no evening lovin', morning wood, or mid-day "hummer" to prop up the birth rate.

This was stage one in the globohomo depopulation program.

stereotomy says

This was stage one in the globohomo depopulation program.

Stage One is an OOOLLLLDDDD story going back millennia.

This is just the current incarnation.

https://conspiracysarah.substack.com/p/lets-make-sure-we-never-have-another

Patrick says

https://conspiracysarah.substack.com/p/lets-make-sure-we-never-have-another

we probably shouldn’t artificially create more births or import migrants nonstop. billions of people worldwide, and somehow for globalists there’s never enough slaves.

Entitlement is the reason.

India just passed a law that makes it "Harassment" for a mother-in-law to nag a married woman.

https://sagehana.substack.com/p/if-population-growth-didnt-slow-down

"If population growth didn't slow down, food shortages could be created in a hurry." In 1969, ex-Planned Parenthood Medical Director Richard Day Prophesied How the Globalist Agendas Would Unfold

Tape #2 Transcript is Astonishing in its Prescience. The disruption of the American Automotive Industry, Implantable IDs, TV surveillance. The use of war to control population is also explicit. ...

The following is an extended audiotaped account recollecting a 1969 talk given by an ex-Planned Parenthood Medical Director, Richard Day.

Day was preparing his audience of physicians for what was to come. He asked them not to take notes or record his session.

Day’s prophecies are chilling in their accuracy. Much of this is straight up WEFFIE Great Reset.

The parts on medicine, health care, surveillance, science and technology are especially resonant.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/rogue-manholes-wednesday-january

Things aren’t going so well down at the central planning office. The Wall Street Journal ran a long-form, magazine-style story yesterday headlined, “China Is Pressing Women to Have More Babies. Many Are Saying No.” The sub-headline explained, “The population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to around half a billion by 2100—and women are being blamed.”

Women blamed? How about blaming the central planners?

The Journal included a handy chart showing that modern communists have been even more successful at decimating China’s population than was Chairman Mao in his wildest, most murderous, rice-wine-induced excesses of the Great Famine:




I’m old enough to remember both when China first imposed its draconian ‘one-child’ policy in 1980 and also when it lifted the policy thirty-five years later in 2015. Now, almost nine years later, apparently the country’s population is for all purposes stuck in irreversible decline. Chinese communists did too good a job of portraying childbearing as patriarchal oppression of empowered womanhood, and now many Chinese women are just over it:

When Beijing said it would abolish the one-child policy in 2015, officials expected a baby boom. Instead, they got a baby bust. (Chinese) women are increasingly reluctant to marry and have children, accelerating the population decline.
“Having had one child, I think I’ve done my duty,” Feng said. A second child, she said, would be too expensive. She said she tells relatives, “I can have another kid as long as you give me 300,000 yuan,” or around $41,000.
Molly Chen, 28 years old, said the demands of caring for aging relatives and her job as an exhibition designer in Shenzhen leave no room for kids or a husband. All she wants to do in her free moments is read or scroll through pet videos.

The Chinese communists used coercion to enforce childlessness, and they may have overshot the mark a little. Now they are faced with the unpleasant prospect of coercing women to bear children, which is much harder than stopping them in the first place. (In America, we don’t use coercion, we deploy bizarre CIA mind-games like confusing kids about their genders and offering them free, irreversible sterilization surgeries to help their identities conform to biological reality, or the other way around. Whichever.)

One surprising outcome of the baby bust was that China cracked down on abortions and even contraception...

In spite of all this, nobody has cared invoke the awful specter of The Handmaid’s Tale yet against President Xi. But as this story suggests, a dystopian Handmaid’s Tale society is much more likely to arise in a communist hellhole like China than in a free democracy. The ‘one-child’ policy was originally promoted by Chinese communists as ending patriarchal and discriminatory treatment of women under historic Confucianism. Now, the communist party and President Xi are stressing Confucian values like familial duties.

Don’t have babies! Wait, do have babies. I’ve said it before: if it weren’t for double standards, communists would have no standards at all.

If there’s a better illustration of the perils of central planning than China’s horrible population implosion problem, I don’t know what it could be. Ironically, women vote for marxist policies in the greatest numbers, but women always suffer the worst whenever marxists hold power. According to the articles, China’s Politburo includes no women in its top ranks.

China’s population demographic problems run deep. Optimistically, these problems may temper the country’s more aggressive military ambitions. In any event, the failure of one-child is another black eye for the Left.

Overall, 2024 is starting out very well for sane conservatism.

I love how ppl think demographic decline can be just fixed by having more babies starting now.

It's like they think babies are instant additions to the workforce right out of the womb or something.

UkraineIsFucked says

It's like they think babies are instant additions to the workforce right out of the womb or something.

That may be true in China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd6Shxz9UUs

Obviously a lower population growth means lesser demand for housing in the future relative to the housing supply.

I have read about new ways to care for the aging which uses technology and new innovative ways for the elderly to live in assisted living. This is required since there will be less supply of workers for assisted living and nursing homes.

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ad says

I have read about new ways to care for the aging which uses technology and new innovative ways for the elderly to live in assisted living. This is required since there will be less supply of workers for assisted living and nursing

I have a family member who works in assisted living. No such tech is implemented, believe me.

UkraineIsFucked says

I have a family member who works in assisted living. No such tech is implemented, believe me.

One local assisted living uses smart watches and GPS tracking devices. I think they have ability to detect falls also with the available technologies.

They have Wyze cameras in every living space and common space.

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ad says

UkraineIsFucked says

I have a family member who works in assisted living. No such tech is implemented, believe me.

One local assisted living uses smart watches and GPS tracking devices. I think they have ability to detect falls also with the available technologies.

They have Wyze cameras in every living space and common space.

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Heavy usage of sedatives is a common high-tech solution.

https://supersally.substack.com/p/after-dropping-850000-in-2022-chinas

https://slaynews.com/news/japan-population-meltdown-two-people-dying-every-one-born/

Japan in Population Meltdown as Two People Now Dying for Every One Born

New data from the Japanese government shows that Japan’s population is continuing to spiral into an unsustainable meltdown.

Japan’s birth data for 2023 has just been published by the government and it shows the shocking crisis of the nation’s falling population appears to be accelerating.

The imposition of the death jab sure didn't help Japan's demographic crisis.

Patrick says

https://supersally.substack.com/p/after-dropping-850000-in-2022-chinas

There's no one to fuck... In a 2nd world country men die first. Women will migrate to fuck. China is screwed. Apple is screwed. Anyone with a business there or association is screwed.

Trump put the wheels in motion. Biden somehow still did good things with the fallout. If we get Trump 2.0 I think China is toast. I think everything is coming back. Covid was a massive fuck up even if we were involved. We're decoupling. Mexico is where it's at. We basically have legalized drugs. So the cartel has lost a ton of money so they sell avocados... Either way, China is a shit show. Takes weeks to get anything out of there. Your cheap Chinese shit is going to stop coming and it might be sooner than you think.

WookieMan says

Trump put the wheels in motion.

No. The ChiComs did with their one child policy.

WookieMan says

Your cheap Chinese shit is going to stop coming and it might be sooner than you think.

Yeah, because there will no longer be workers in Chinese factories.

No more polysilicon. No more rare earth refining. No more lithium batts and other EV/RE shit. No more low end computer chips (Internet of Things RIP).

Oh, and no more Apple products. Dunno why, but the dumfucks on Apple's board never figured out what the rest of the world has about China.

UkraineIsFucked says

No more low end computer chips (Internet of Things RIP).

I don't see how low end computer chips will ever go away. They are used in everything. Your TV has one, any device that connects to your TV has one, your phone, your car, anything that is electronic.

We'll have SOCs soon enough that cost $5 that will be perfectly usable as a main computer. We're surprisingly close to that now. Maybe $10, the dollar is eroding.

Chips are almost entirely manufactured in an automated process as well. That's why quality control is so high, and why they are so cheap. You run the factory 24 hours a day. There's just maintenance.

richwicks says

I don't see how low end computer chips will ever go away.

It is simple: most of them is manufactured by China, Inc. And China Inc. Is going away.

UkraineIsFucked says

richwicks says

I don't see how low end computer chips will ever go away.

It is simple: most of them is manufactured by China, Inc. And China Inc. Is going away.

They are manufactured everywhere. TSMC is Taiwan, but Global Founderies, they are in NY and Malta. It's a question only of maintenance of the machines. You can build a plant anywhere.

IF China were to forcibly take over Taiwan (and they won't - the whole reason that the US is screaming about this being a possibility is that the US is SO FUCKING CORRUPT and embedded with the "Democratic Progressive Party" of Taiwan, that the Chinese Nationalist Party (reunification party) is going to win in time, and they want to reunify), that would be a small blip, but it would recover.

There are the two major semiconductor plants in the world, GF and TSMC. It doesn't matter where you make it, doesn't even change the cost of the product. I mean NO OFFENSE with this, but people who work at semiconductor plants, anybody can do it, they are like a janitor and are 100% replaceable. The plants are very automated. The PLANTS are tremendously expensive. We shouldn't have offshore plants at all at this point. There is no economic advantage.

You can use a mid-tier computer chip from 2000 as your main computer chip today, honestly. It would be hot, it would waste energy, but it would be fine for you to use, but it would be more expensive to run and not suitable as a device to run on a battery. Just a standard computer. All we REALLY have today is smaller gates (that correlates to lower power consumption, and higher speed), more memory (this allows shittier coding, which reduced non-recoverable engineering cost), and bigger cache (this is higher speed).

There is nothing I can do today I couldn't do 20 years ago, it's just faster. I used to watch films on my computer in 2000. I didn't have some amazing system them, I had a standard system, but DVD's were dead to me then.

I used to use Skype back then, I think in the early 2000's, when "long distance" still existed.

All this bullshit and components and crap, those are gone. Your phone can replace them all, even if you bought your phone at 7/11.

richwicks says

They are manufactured everywhere.

Wolfspeed recently opened a semiconductor plant in New York. There is a lot of chip and electronics manufacturing just south of Phoenix.

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Women don't leave when they have the power and the situation is semi-decent; in China men outnumber women. The CCP is doing the opposite of woke, promoting manliness and valor and masculinity on TV by decree to encourage men.

China restricts airtime channels and internet media is allowed for "Sissy Men" like Korean Boy Bands.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8164763/china-ban-sissy-men-effeminate/

While promoting it in Hollywood by making sure movies they invest in have lots of weak men.

Ukrainian women aren't coming back, they're not leaving their well off Finnish and German new boyfriends with money to go back to Roman who will be broke and driving a grain truck for chump change after the war - and his far far far lower standard of living. Their kids, if any, (Ukraine's birth rate was toilet before the war) are already with them.

AD says

richwicks says

They are manufactured everywhere.

Wolfspeed recently opened a semiconductor plant in New York. There is a lot of chip and electronics manufacturing just south of Phoenix.

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We are hitting the point of "oh, a faster smaller chip? Who cares, mine is fast enough". We don't need the latest and greatest fab now, a copy of one from 5 years ago is completely fine.

There were huge leaps from 1980 to 1990 and a smaller one between 1990 and 2000, and a significant one (more memory cache) from 2000 to 2010, but since then... Sure, the computers today are better, maybe a LITTLE faster, but it's nothing like it was between 1980 and 1990. It's going to continue to be like this. I wouldn't say there's been a significant change in what is possible since 2005. You might disagree because you are buying a computer that cripples itself purposely with "upgrades" to force you to buy a new computer - that's all it is now.

You can buy a 1 TB SD Card now. You have any idea how big that is? If you have a personal movie theater, that can store a week or two of films for you to watch that is 100% suitable to show in a full theater. Oh, and by a week or two, I mean playing 24 hours a day for 1 or 2 weeks, not just when you want to watch a film - if it were that, it would be months. What's available to a specialized location to show films, you can easily afford. This setup would be maybe $2000 - $3000 dollars. If you want a true theater, more because of the projector size and even that you can do away with, using multiple consumer grade projectors. Maybe 20 to 100 grand, depending.

Film theaters in the future will be for the experience with being part of an audience, it won't be to see the latest flick.

I'm giving you this example to demonstrate the gravity of where we are. What was out of reach for the common man, no longer is. Today, any person can have as many books available to them that make the Library of Alexandria look trivial. YOU can run a television station or HBO or whatever. Getting the content legally is all you need to contend with.

You know how big the largest collection of PlayStation 1 games is?

534,633,808 bytes, about 510 gibabytes. That fits on a single device, that's 2001 games, and a portion of them are varying revisions and in reality the same game. You can carry the entire library of the entire system from 1994 in a device you can lose between your couch cushions. Every single game ever sold, fits on a device smaller and lighter than your thumbnail.

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-microSDXC-Card-Licensed-Nintendo-Switch-SDSQXAO-1T00-GN6ZN/dp/B0C2B8CCR1?ref=ast_sto_dp

People have no understanding of where the average person is, or even the below average person is.

richwicks says

People have no understanding of where the average person is, or even the below average person is.

I remind my wife of this periodically. If you're 1-sigma smart then 84% of all people are dumber than you. These are the people who work all around you - just think about it: 8 out of ten people you meet are dumber than you. They can't understand many of the rational arguments you make, because they are incapable of rational thought. People like this have the residual knowledge of their bodies - for men, it's skilled hands, for women, it's childrearing.

Now imagine if you're 2- or 3-sigman smart. The rest of the human race must resemble an odd zoo of human-appearance animals.

stereotomy says

richwicks says

People have no understanding of where the average person is, or even the below average person is.

I remind my wife of this periodically. If you're 1-sigma smart then 84% of all people are dumber than you. These are the people who work all around you - just think about it: 8 out of ten people you meet are dumber than you. They can't understand many of the rational arguments you make, because they are incapable of rational thought. People like this have the residual knowledge of their bodies - for men, it's skilled hands, for women, it's childrearing.

Now imagine if you're 2- or 3-sigman smart. The rest of the human race must resemble an odd zoo of human-appearance animals.

It is very difficult to measure intelligence, and even if you are measured as very intelligent you can still make very bad choices, i.e. support policies and politics that eventually destroy you and your culture. Wisdom and street smarts are different qualities than intelligence or intellect.

mell says

It is very difficult to measure intelligence, and even if you are measured as very intelligent you can still make very bad choices, i.e. support policies and politics that eventually destroy you and your culture. Wisdom and street smarts are different qualities than intelligence or intellect.

I agree, although it's heavily dependent on the situation. Intelligence is like any other asset - if you can't effectively use it to improve your life, then it's no good to you. It served me well when the scandemic unfolded. Thanks to my (and @Rin's info - he deserves special honor) diligence, my family is spike-protein free.

In other areas, perhaps so much - it's really a question of motivation. Really smart people need to be driven; if not, they can coast along with the rest of the mediocrities.

richwicks says

Film theaters in the future will be for the experience with being part of an audience, it won't be to see the latest flick.

Yep, as I was thinking you sit in a "theater" seat and its like a virtual reality experience like a virtual Disney experience or ride. Or it could be a combination of this and an Escape Room activity.

I agree as far as technology getting cheaper and as far as Moore's Law.

What the next "shiny new object" ? Back in the mid 1990s was desktop computers and internet.

Is it going to be "AI" where you have a robot as a personal assistant in your home ?

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