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That's a bad thing. You will then have a large generation of elderly people who ought to be supported by a much smaller generation of working people. And the ec
by guard-of-terra 12y ago
That's a bad thing. You will then have a large generation of elderly people who ought to be supported by a much smaller generation of working people. And the economy caves in; old people die of lack of care, everybody loses.
Stable population might be a good thing, but rapid declining is very problematic. And that's where some countries are headed.
- microtherion 12y agoWhat is your definition of "rapid decline" ? 1% a year? More? Europe could trivially make up any population decline by changing immigration policies. Right now, thousands of people are drowning every year trying to cross the Mediterranean. Most laments about European population decline seem to really be concerned about a decline in white Europeans when you get down to it.
- guard-of-terra 12y agoBringing uneducated and unfit people to society will only make matters worse. It's same as adding workers to late project. You can only assimilate so many people per decade. And of course I would want Europe to stay Europe, not caliphat. I assume Europeans do too.
- dominotw 12y agoSo we have to keep spawning babies to take care of old people? What a bizarre logic.
- kzrdude 12y agoThat's how it has been for thousands of years, your children are your retirement fund.
- dominotw 12y agoor you know you can save money spent on kids for your actual retirement fund.
- guard-of-terra 12y agoIf the society in question crumbles, money won't save you and your fund gets bust. Your only chance would be getting out of country, and this may not be easy in senior age.
- vidarh 12y agoIt's not only about the money. It's about the fact that your money will not buy you much if there are too few people around of working age to keep society functioning
- manicdee 12y agoAnd here we are on Hacker News, the site run by Y-Combinator, not having a clue how to solve the problem of "not enough manual labour to maintain civilisation's infrastructure". It's like nobody ever watched Wall-E.
- guard-of-terra 12y agoAs a matter of fact, we don't. I've yet to see a working post-employment society; and the society we have today is unable to function when unemployed to employed are five to one. Your nurse will have to pay like 90% tax, but this way you can never afford to hire her in the first place. The whole thing breaks down. Our economy taxes individual profits, because corporations evade taxes; but then if nobody has to work, we can't have revenue from taxes and can't pay anyone anything.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoOur system changes to adapt. We'll see what adjustments the post-employment age pushed us to adopt. I think it'll have to be something palatable to the hard-working older folks (who vote and can't stomach socialism)
- guard-of-terra 12y ago
- CamperBob2 12y agoWelcome to the Matrix, where you're downvoted for questioning what amounts to emotional enslavement.
- guard-of-terra 12y ago"So we have to keep spawning babies" That's the gist of it. In other news: we still have to heat our homes, grow our food and build things from stuff we dig out of ground.