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This might be difficult to come by. It was only recently the zeitgeist shifted from Overpopulation to Underpopulation. As another commenter mentioned, Japan is

This might be difficult to come by. It was only recently the zeitgeist shifted from Overpopulation to Underpopulation. As another commenter mentioned, Japan is an example of a possible future for many advanced economies. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/japanese-journal-of-political-science/article/japan-the-harbinger-state/2A9123B64A04C480B1BC5669FC2C8AF3 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/japanese-journal-of-... previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34486824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34486824

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Which is strange, because population momentum is still pushing us towards a much higher global total population number by end of century. What are potential reasons for the change in narrative from the media, as well as economic and political interests?
- Balero 2y ago
  The global population may be growing, but for developed countries where we get most of our news (I assume, at least I do), they're just starting to tip over into the shrinkage and dealing with the bulge of elderly people. The narrative is right for the political and economic interests that we hear from. I imagine if we were consuming news from India, Egypt or Nigeria it would be a very different story.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  The good faith answer is that they believed their own projections. This article mentions that the UN projections just somehow assumed everybody's fertility rates would decline and then kick into a mediocre but closer to sustainable level for a slow bleed. This topic has been a pet obsession of mine for years now because these data made no sense. Why would everybody's fertility rates suddenly trend to 1.69, as per the article's numbers? The more logical path has always seemed an ongoing extrapolation of current trends, and that leads to quite terrifying outcomes on very short timeframes. And as more people seem to realize that's where we're indeed headed, it's long since past time for a sharp 180 on this topic. On top of incorrect projections, I also think most don't understand the math of how fertility rates affect populations. It's an exponential system, so extreme outcomes are entirely possible with rates that seem 'bad' but not that bad, like e.g. a fertility rate of 1. Such a fertility rate, if shared among an entire population, would result in an exponential 50% decline in your population per 20 years. And alongside that you get social chaos, screwed up age ratios, economic chaos, and more. All on an extremely rapid timeframe. I think this is a self correcting problem, but it's likely far wiser to fix it before it starts fixing itself.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    > I think this is a self correcting problem, My fear is the correction will involve rolling back women’s rights.
    - jiggawatts 2y ago
      Typically the method used is to encourage immigration from countries that have high birth rates. This works for countries like Australia that are already multi-cultural, but is nearly impossible for China and Japan. In the case of China is because they’re too huge, and the language barrier is too steep a hurdle. For both China and Japan, they’re also extremely racist compared to other countries. They won’t accept foreigners, and even if that attitude changes over time, it’ll be too little too late.
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        Immigration won't work because of the scale of the problem. It's another concept that was probably based on the flawed UN projections this article talks about. Take a fertility rate of 1 for an easy math example. Most countries aren't this low yet, but it's fair to say that this is the trendline. Once we reach the 'equilibrium point', where your entire population has this fertility rate or, in other words, when the last high fertility rate generation dies off, this would result in your population declining by 50% every ~20 years. And this is an exponential system - you lose 50%, and then 50% of what remains indefinitely every 20 years. And this continues until you go extinct, or start having children again. So consider what this would look do to a nation's population over just a single human lifetime - 80 years. China would go from 1.4 billion -> 0.7 -> 0.35 -> 0.175 -> 0.0875 billion. That's China going from 1.4 billion to 87.5 million, the size of Germany, in a single human lifetime. The US would go from 330 million -> 165 -> 82.5 -> 41.25 -> 20.625, the size of Chile, over the same time frame. And this process doesn't stop, it just keeps going. You would need to essentially replace your entire population with immigrants. And of course you don't just need massive amounts of warm bodies. You need skilled, educated, sex ratio balanced (which means more women than men due to differing mortality rates - men get themselves killed far more frequently), people who are capable of speaking at least reasonable English. There simply aren't enough people in the world to fulfill this in practical terms. And this is just speaking from a technical point of view in terms of scale of the problem. I'm intentionally avoiding the more controversial social, cultural, and other aspects involved in such a process. It's all just a nonsolution. Immigration can briefly help patch a small-scale problem, but at scale it's like trying to keep a sinking boat afloat with a bucket.
lainga 2y ago
doesn't this suggest that the "zeitgeist" is an overtuned PID?
- tuatoru 2y ago
  The sensor feedback delays are very long - that's the main problem.
fred_is_fred 2y ago
Aren't almost all advanced economies save South Korea and Japan solving this with immigration. The US, Canada, Australia, and Europe are all doing so. Immigration is difficult to impossible in Japan.
- alooPotato 2y ago
  why?
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Desire to preserve culture and societal norms over economic growth.
    - fred_is_fred 2y ago
      Also utter failure to build any new housing.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- cl42 2y ago
  I'm curious how this actually plays out in the long run. Canada is a good example, where the anti-immigration narrative has become much louder very quickly. People get nervous/upset when they see their culture or population visibly changing.
  - jimbob45 2y ago
    Immigration is fine but Canada and the US are actively taking steps to dissuade the majority of their population from producing offspring in favor of taking in more immigrants. That's what people are upset over - not that immigration is part of the equation.
    - 2y ago
Terr_ 2y ago
> It was only recently the zeitgeist shifted from Overpopulation to Underpopulation. I assume this "zeitgeist" is among academics? 'Cuz I fear a common political zeitgeist in some countries is a combination: "Overpopulating-Others, Underpopulating-Us."
somenameforme 2y ago
Japan isn't an example of a possible future, because Japan is still in its glory days as far as population goes. Here [1] is their population pyramid. You might notice it still looks kind of vaguely pyramidish. In about 30 years Japan will hit the full-on inverted pyramid, which is when their collapse will "really" begin. And this makes perfect sense. They only started having very poor fertility rates in the 80s. [2] And you only really start feeling demographic collapse once the first generation with poor fertility starts dying. So about 80 years after the 80s - ~2060, or ~30 years from now. I can explain the math, but the result is pretty simple. If we imagine an equilibrium point where everybody has the same fertility rate (the typical case being when the final healthy fertility rate generation dies off - just leaving offspring upon offspring of comparably low fertility rate generations), then at the point your population will start changing by a factor of ~fertility_rate/2 every 20 years. So for Japan, with a current fertility rate of ~1.4, they'll be losing 30% of their population every 20 years, for an annual decline of around 1.5%. Right now they're only losing about 0.5% per year. So they're still in their glory days relative to what's to come starting around 2060. And that future which they're headed towards is the one most Western economies are also headed towards if we don't fix this problem. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_Population_Pyramid.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_Population_Pyramid.... [2] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=JP https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Which is strange, because population momentum is still pushing us towards a much higher global total population number by end of century. What are potential reasons for the change in narrative from the media, as well as economic and political interests?

Balero 2y ago
The global population may be growing, but for developed countries where we get most of our news (I assume, at least I do), they're just starting to tip over into the shrinkage and dealing with the bulge of elderly people. The narrative is right for the political and economic interests that we hear from. I imagine if we were consuming news from India, Egypt or Nigeria it would be a very different story.
somenameforme 2y ago
The good faith answer is that they believed their own projections. This article mentions that the UN projections just somehow assumed everybody's fertility rates would decline and then kick into a mediocre but closer to sustainable level for a slow bleed. This topic has been a pet obsession of mine for years now because these data made no sense. Why would everybody's fertility rates suddenly trend to 1.69, as per the article's numbers? The more logical path has always seemed an ongoing extrapolation of current trends, and that leads to quite terrifying outcomes on very short timeframes. And as more people seem to realize that's where we're indeed headed, it's long since past time for a sharp 180 on this topic. On top of incorrect projections, I also think most don't understand the math of how fertility rates affect populations. It's an exponential system, so extreme outcomes are entirely possible with rates that seem 'bad' but not that bad, like e.g. a fertility rate of 1. Such a fertility rate, if shared among an entire population, would result in an exponential 50% decline in your population per 20 years. And alongside that you get social chaos, screwed up age ratios, economic chaos, and more. All on an extremely rapid timeframe. I think this is a self correcting problem, but it's likely far wiser to fix it before it starts fixing itself.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  > I think this is a self correcting problem, My fear is the correction will involve rolling back women’s rights.
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    Typically the method used is to encourage immigration from countries that have high birth rates. This works for countries like Australia that are already multi-cultural, but is nearly impossible for China and Japan. In the case of China is because they’re too huge, and the language barrier is too steep a hurdle. For both China and Japan, they’re also extremely racist compared to other countries. They won’t accept foreigners, and even if that attitude changes over time, it’ll be too little too late.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      Immigration won't work because of the scale of the problem. It's another concept that was probably based on the flawed UN projections this article talks about. Take a fertility rate of 1 for an easy math example. Most countries aren't this low yet, but it's fair to say that this is the trendline. Once we reach the 'equilibrium point', where your entire population has this fertility rate or, in other words, when the last high fertility rate generation dies off, this would result in your population declining by 50% every ~20 years. And this is an exponential system - you lose 50%, and then 50% of what remains indefinitely every 20 years. And this continues until you go extinct, or start having children again. So consider what this would look do to a nation's population over just a single human lifetime - 80 years. China would go from 1.4 billion -> 0.7 -> 0.35 -> 0.175 -> 0.0875 billion. That's China going from 1.4 billion to 87.5 million, the size of Germany, in a single human lifetime. The US would go from 330 million -> 165 -> 82.5 -> 41.25 -> 20.625, the size of Chile, over the same time frame. And this process doesn't stop, it just keeps going. You would need to essentially replace your entire population with immigrants. And of course you don't just need massive amounts of warm bodies. You need skilled, educated, sex ratio balanced (which means more women than men due to differing mortality rates - men get themselves killed far more frequently), people who are capable of speaking at least reasonable English. There simply aren't enough people in the world to fulfill this in practical terms. And this is just speaking from a technical point of view in terms of scale of the problem. I'm intentionally avoiding the more controversial social, cultural, and other aspects involved in such a process. It's all just a nonsolution. Immigration can briefly help patch a small-scale problem, but at scale it's like trying to keep a sinking boat afloat with a bucket.

lainga 2y ago

doesn't this suggest that the "zeitgeist" is an overtuned PID?

tuatoru 2y ago
The sensor feedback delays are very long - that's the main problem.

fred_is_fred 2y ago

Aren't almost all advanced economies save South Korea and Japan solving this with immigration. The US, Canada, Australia, and Europe are all doing so. Immigration is difficult to impossible in Japan.

alooPotato 2y ago
why?
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Desire to preserve culture and societal norms over economic growth.
  - fred_is_fred 2y ago
    Also utter failure to build any new housing.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
cl42 2y ago
I'm curious how this actually plays out in the long run. Canada is a good example, where the anti-immigration narrative has become much louder very quickly. People get nervous/upset when they see their culture or population visibly changing.
- jimbob45 2y ago
  Immigration is fine but Canada and the US are actively taking steps to dissuade the majority of their population from producing offspring in favor of taking in more immigrants. That's what people are upset over - not that immigration is part of the equation.
  - 2y ago

Terr_ 2y ago

> It was only recently the zeitgeist shifted from Overpopulation to Underpopulation. I assume this "zeitgeist" is among academics? 'Cuz I fear a common political zeitgeist in some countries is a combination: "Overpopulating-Others, Underpopulating-Us."

somenameforme 2y ago

Japan isn't an example of a possible future, because Japan is still in its glory days as far as population goes. Here [1] is their population pyramid. You might notice it still looks kind of vaguely pyramidish. In about 30 years Japan will hit the full-on inverted pyramid, which is when their collapse will "really" begin. And this makes perfect sense. They only started having very poor fertility rates in the 80s. [2] And you only really start feeling demographic collapse once the first generation with poor fertility starts dying. So about 80 years after the 80s - ~2060, or ~30 years from now. I can explain the math, but the result is pretty simple. If we imagine an equilibrium point where everybody has the same fertility rate (the typical case being when the final healthy fertility rate generation dies off - just leaving offspring upon offspring of comparably low fertility rate generations), then at the point your population will start changing by a factor of ~fertility_rate/2 every 20 years. So for Japan, with a current fertility rate of ~1.4, they'll be losing 30% of their population every 20 years, for an annual decline of around 1.5%. Right now they're only losing about 0.5% per year. So they're still in their glory days relative to what's to come starting around 2060. And that future which they're headed towards is the one most Western economies are also headed towards if we don't fix this problem. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_Population_Pyramid.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_Population_Pyramid.... [2] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=JP https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...