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18 years and 9 months. Zeihan is very funny. I don't think he is particularly 'smart' (wait for me a second here). I think he instead makes obvious conclusions

18 years and 9 months. Zeihan is very funny. I don't think he is particularly 'smart' (wait for me a second here). I think he instead makes obvious conclusions from undeniable evidence like demographics and geography. The 'smarter' more institutional types from Brookings and Hoover tend to argue from policy and politics backwards and then the facts become inconvenient.

slowhand09 4y ago
I recall an applicable quote (paraphrased) "it's not hard to make truthful predictions. Its hard to get the timing right."
sbierwagen 4y ago
>tend to argue from policy and politics backwards and then the facts become inconvenient There's the famous UN population projections where they show Europe and Asia declining for a while, then leveling out around 2050. Why? Well, they published their reasoning: https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Highlights.pdf#page=15 https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Hig... >Evidence from surveys of childbearing preferences indicate that even in populations with low or very low fertility for decades, women continue to express a desire for around two children on average. The myriad reasons for the gap between desired and completed fertility include such factors as an incompatibility between childrearing and the demands of higher education and career building, a lack of affordable highquality child care, the decline of reproductive capacity at advanced maternal ages, and imbalanced gender roles for housework and child care. >The fact that fertility preferences remain close to two children per woman, even as realized fertility has fallen well below that level, suggests that the fertility rate in low-fertility countries may increase as populations learn to manage and mitigate some or all impeding factors. There doesn't seem to be much evidence of that actually happening, though. Japan has been below-replacement since 1973. Ukraine and Russia had TFRs of 1.23 and 1.5 respectively in 2019, and they're busy pointlessly killing a generation of young men, which won't help much with family formation. Where is the "mitigation"? The UN's argument seems to be that it would be stupid for a country just to commit suicide for no reason, so they won't do that. Unfortunately, this report was written in 2019, before the events of the last few years. It is no longer quite so certain that countries won't pursue pointless self-destructive policies for no good reason.
- no_wizard 4y ago
  I agree this hasn't yet seem to bear itself out, though I think statistically we have until 2029 or so before you can "call it" as absolutely 100% incorrect (that, using very armchair back of the math sort of logic here, admittedly, would allot for a first wave of sorts meeting the timeline, anything later and perhaps it should really cause some panic) With that said, and this is really the point, I think we failed at this goal: >populations learn to manage and mitigate some or all impeding factors We haven't done this yet. I mean, Europe maybe more so, but have we really moved the needle on removing impeding factors to encourage people to have families?
  - mlindner 4y ago
    Richer people have less children. People are not not having children for financial reasons. And even if what you said was true, Europe who has a lot more social protections for such things, has an even lower birth rate than the US. So that's clearly not relevant.
  - nly 4y ago
    The cost of family friendly housing in economically prosperous places in the UK is the limiting factor in my view. Ironically, if you go on to any tabloid rag website like the Daily Mail, and find an article about house prices, you won't have to scroll far until you find Joe Public blaming the lack of supply on overpopulation from immigration
- mlindner 4y ago
  THANK YOU! I've been looking for the rationalization of that rediculous curve for months now and haven't been able to find it. It makes zero sense that the curve would suddenly start leveling out. We're headed right for a population collapse in a century or two.

slowhand09 4y ago

I recall an applicable quote (paraphrased) "it's not hard to make truthful predictions. Its hard to get the timing right."

sbierwagen 4y ago

>tend to argue from policy and politics backwards and then the facts become inconvenient There's the famous UN population projections where they show Europe and Asia declining for a while, then leveling out around 2050. Why? Well, they published their reasoning: https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Highlights.pdf#page=15 https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Hig... >Evidence from surveys of childbearing preferences indicate that even in populations with low or very low fertility for decades, women continue to express a desire for around two children on average. The myriad reasons for the gap between desired and completed fertility include such factors as an incompatibility between childrearing and the demands of higher education and career building, a lack of affordable highquality child care, the decline of reproductive capacity at advanced maternal ages, and imbalanced gender roles for housework and child care. >The fact that fertility preferences remain close to two children per woman, even as realized fertility has fallen well below that level, suggests that the fertility rate in low-fertility countries may increase as populations learn to manage and mitigate some or all impeding factors. There doesn't seem to be much evidence of that actually happening, though. Japan has been below-replacement since 1973. Ukraine and Russia had TFRs of 1.23 and 1.5 respectively in 2019, and they're busy pointlessly killing a generation of young men, which won't help much with family formation. Where is the "mitigation"? The UN's argument seems to be that it would be stupid for a country just to commit suicide for no reason, so they won't do that. Unfortunately, this report was written in 2019, before the events of the last few years. It is no longer quite so certain that countries won't pursue pointless self-destructive policies for no good reason.

no_wizard 4y ago
I agree this hasn't yet seem to bear itself out, though I think statistically we have until 2029 or so before you can "call it" as absolutely 100% incorrect (that, using very armchair back of the math sort of logic here, admittedly, would allot for a first wave of sorts meeting the timeline, anything later and perhaps it should really cause some panic) With that said, and this is really the point, I think we failed at this goal: >populations learn to manage and mitigate some or all impeding factors We haven't done this yet. I mean, Europe maybe more so, but have we really moved the needle on removing impeding factors to encourage people to have families?
- mlindner 4y ago
  Richer people have less children. People are not not having children for financial reasons. And even if what you said was true, Europe who has a lot more social protections for such things, has an even lower birth rate than the US. So that's clearly not relevant.
- nly 4y ago
  The cost of family friendly housing in economically prosperous places in the UK is the limiting factor in my view. Ironically, if you go on to any tabloid rag website like the Daily Mail, and find an article about house prices, you won't have to scroll far until you find Joe Public blaming the lack of supply on overpopulation from immigration
mlindner 4y ago
THANK YOU! I've been looking for the rationalization of that rediculous curve for months now and haven't been able to find it. It makes zero sense that the curve would suddenly start leveling out. We're headed right for a population collapse in a century or two.