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More interesting that power and influence, which is an open question, is demographics. There is little to be done about shifting world demographics. Even if the
by nscalf 4y ago
More interesting that power and influence, which is an open question, is demographics. There is little to be done about shifting world demographics. Even if the us stays the premier world superpower, can that offset massive declines in the amount of people producing and consuming everywhere? While the us may actually be okay with shifting demographics (Zeihan has some interesting stuff on this), most major economies are facing rapidly declining populations over the next couple of decades.
- warinukraine 4y ago> There is little to be done about shifting world demographics Hmmmm immigration. That's how fast growing powers have always done it.
- badpun 4y agoYou can't add 20+ million imigrants to Germany (and that's what's they'd need over the course of the next decade or two in order to avoid demographic collapse) without massive social problems and/or Germany no longer being Germany.
- ceejayoz 4y agoDemographic collapse won't cause "massive social problems and/or Germany no longer being Germany"?
- badpun 4y agoYes, of course. My point is that they're screwed either way. The time to fix this was 30 years ago.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> without massive social problems and/or Germany no longer being Germany This is where America wins. There is no American ethnicity. There may be, historically. But mythologically: no.
- warinukraine 4y agoSaying 20m is meaningless unless you mention a time scale.
- HDThoreaun 4y agoYou can if you force every immigrant to be educated. Germany's problem is that their immigrants are not. There are more than enough educated people that want to immigrate to America, start with allowing every international college graduate to stay and your most of the way to solving the demographic problem. Even still, the US is much less homogenous than germany. A variety of cultures is not a problem.
- badpun 4y agoImagine if 80 million people immigrated to the US over the next decade or two, most of them from non-Christian cultures. I imagine this would lead to, at least, a major political crisis in US history - i.e. major rise of xenophobic far right, talks of secession or even civil war etc. AND, that is in a country that's very open to immigration, compared to Germany.
- WeylandYutani 4y agoIf population growth is the only way for our capitalist system to survive we're screwed. Sad that nobody has been able to come up with something better that doesn't involve "infinite growth".
- nscalf 4y agoThat’s why I specified world demographic decline. It’s hard for everyone to get large amounts of immigration when there are just less people immigrating each year.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoUnderrated comment. You can’t print human capital, and if fertility rates are declining everywhere, every nation is competing for a shrinking young, productive talent pool.
- mattnewton 4y agoThe US is well suited to solve this problem with more immigration, we already have more incredibly talented people banging on the doors then our nightmarish naturalization system can take.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoConvince the electorate. People are challenging.
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoThere isn’t unified opposition to skilled labor. Look at the purported nurse shortage: we’re going to import our way to wage stability.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoYou’re right on the first part, but you don’t need unification to stop something. We’re in the 11th or 12th speaker of the house vote because of ~20 folks. https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/104vin7/discussion_thread_day_4_speaker_of_the_united https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/104vin7/discussio... To assume logic will prevail in a system with a substantial emotional component is a dangerous assumption.
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoYou’re correct. But that preserves the status quo. Immigration doesn’t require reauthorisation.
- 4y ago
- vl 4y agoI’m actually not concerned about demographics. With coming automations and workforce becoming irrelevant societal changes are going to be so tremendous, that age of the population is not going to matter.