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A key trend that supports his claim is the drastically lower birth rates in more developed countries - it appears that as consumerism and perhaps, indulgence, r
by AngryParsley 16y ago
A key trend that supports his claim is the drastically lower birth rates in more developed countries - it appears that as consumerism and perhaps, indulgence, rise, children become more and more scarce.
Per-capita GDP and birth rate don't linearly correlate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TFR_vs_PPP_2009.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TFR_vs_PPP_2009.svg Above a certain standard of living, people just seem to stop having as many kids. I don't think it's fair to call practically every nation with per-capita GDP over $15k "consumerist," so I think your argument is pretty weak.
As Islam, India, and China rise, the western consumer will mix in among them and become their descendants. They will move toward our consumerism, we will move toward their work ethic, their pragmatism.
Islam pragmatic? Is this a joke? Many Islamic countries discourage women from working. Think about how crazy that is from an economic standpoint. It's cutting your nation's workforce in half. And work ethic? Not only do people in developed countries work more ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yearly_working_time_2004.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yearly_working_time_2004.j... ), they are more productive thanks to automation, better infrastructure, and better education.
In an interaction between 500 million and >3 Billion people, Newton's laws of motion apply as though we were free floating masses.
I think you're saying that if you have 500 million people with one culture and 3 billion with another, you'll end up with a culture much closer to the 3 billion. I don't think this is true. People copy ideas, but they don't copy them randomly. They usually only copy ideas they deem "good." So the more useful ideas like money, human rights, and social support systems get copied more often. If anything, developing countries (lots of people) have copied the 1st world (smaller number of people).