Wharfie, when you say nobody, that presumably includes me. Though continuing your debating technique of insults and rudeness, I suppose I am a nobody [to you], so you are right.
<Short of Malthus events, nobody sees a population crash. More wishful social engineering on your part. >
I think we should include some Malthus events, which are already under way. For example, AIDS in Africa is killing a LOT of people. Avian flu [H5N1 variety] is scoring some, albeit not many - give it time. There has already been one nuclear war [won by the USA]. I can imagine without difficulty another, with India, Pakistan, Islamic Genocidal Jihad, Russia and Israel likely protagonists, with some other all primed up and ready to go at a moment's notice. They didn't spend a lot of time and money getting them ready to not use them, contrary to MAD theology. Germany hasn't roused themselves into uniform for quite a while now, so they are well behind schedule. We could easily get a bolide in the Pacific Ocean.
But even apart from Malthusian events, if you inspect the decisions of women in disparate countries such as Japan, Italy, Russia, Germany, China, and you can put India in there too, you will see there has been a major paradigm shift happen. As you know, shift happens, and while India has yet to get down to sub-replacement levels, the others are already there.
As baby boomers around the world die in droves, they are not being replaced and certainly, and even more importantly, the baby boomers are not getting grandchildren.
I know we are supposed to take the USA Census Bureau as being some kind of authority on what women want, but I suspect the blokes in there are as clueless as most other government departments who can't even figure out things like the Greenhouse Effect, let alone what women want.
I'll go, as usual, with my own judgment, which nearly always stands me in good stead.
6 billion now, barely at replacement level at current birth rates. Go to 2077, which will mean most people alive now will be dead. So, who is being born right now to replace them? In Japan, there are few. Same in Germany, Russia, China etc. That's right now. Give it another 20 years and with the cultural shift away from hatching babies, it will start to seem almost an odd thing for women to do.
Those bearing babies now were children when there was still quite a lot of baby hatching going on, so it's still a strong part of female culture. But with each generation, fewer women have had much experience at all of babies around them.
Women have to choose to have children now. It is quite a decision for them to make. It is not just the old; grow up, get married, have children, have a few more, have grandchildren, die. Now it's grow up, get a career, have various partners, probably without marriage, and if married, maybe without children, or at most 1, or 2 if the first wasn't too difficult, no grandchildren, die.
Yes, Islamic Jihad is breeding flat out, but mostly in their own crowded countries. They won't be driving SUVs. They are a bit like Africa - impoverished places which don't really affect the rest of the world. One can largely ignore Nigeria and Egypt [Atta notwithstanding]. Egyptians will never be burning hydrocarbons as enthusiastically as Americans, Europeans and Chinese. Nigeria's bosses will export their oil for cash. Nigerians won't be swanking around huge freeways in SUVs.
The oil, gas and coal burning world is undergoing a tectonic paradigm shift in population production.
There will be a population crash later this century. It's already well underway in some places.
A corollary will be a qualitative shift due to genetic engineering. Women won't leave the quality of their babies totally up to luck of the genetic draw. Women will continue to do their usual eugenics on males [ditching the losers who lack the right stuff], but also do some serous DNA selection and engineering as well.
Prospective mother:
"Hold the cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anaemia, give me a shot of melanin, hook in some of that smart brain function, swap that sticky-out ear for my mother's ear and yes, you can get rid of all those oncogenes."
Gene Weavers Limited:
"Do you want freedom fries with that?"
Prospective mother:
"How much is it?"
Gene Weavers Limited:
"Free if you let us
copy that handy-dandy gene you have there for our gene pool".
Mqurice |
