Demographic Winter: Decline of the Human Family

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I like the phrase ‘Demographic Winter’, but wish there were some shorter youtube type videos on the subject. I’m just not inclined to commit to a 22 or 52 minute film just now.

I do accept the thesis and believe it’s going to be a real problem. I suppose these films could give me ammunition for discussion with those who disagree, but otherwise, it’s just ‘preaching to the choir’, as they say.

I know of some conservatives opinion makers [as well as most liberals] who argue that a world with fewer people will be a more pleasant and prosperous world.
 
In the modern world people have the strangest ideas of the life cycle. They assume because we live to be 84 instead of 48 we ought to grow up at 28 rather than 16, have a child at 35 instead of 20, and when biology doesn’t always cooperate with that, they go for expensive fertility treatments. Meanwhile, parents in their reproductive prime, the early and middle 20’s, kill their babies and disrupt their hormones.
I think the effect of materialism is that parents are evaluated by how rich they can rear their children, with no standard, so that no one quite feels financially capable of parenthood. People look right through me when I say they can afford to raise a child if they give up a few small luxuries for a few years, many of which luxuries I grew up mostly lacking. It’s a social concept that you can’t be a mother or father unless you’re in one of the upper income brackets, but you can abort. As if babies were better off dead than spending a few years in moderate poverty. It’s inevitable it would come to this when the dominant cultural influences define human worth in money.
 
thomfra said:
Sounds like rubbish to me. World population is growing overall is it not?
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From the film’s press kit:
Worldwide, birthrates have been halved in the past 50 years. There are now 59 nations, with 44% of the world’s population, with below-replacement fertility. Sometime in this century, the world’s population will begin to decline. At a certain point, the decline will become rapid. We may even reach population free-fall in our lifetimes.
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See this related article: Sub-replacement fertility.
 
thomfra said:
Sounds like rubbish to me. World population is growing overall is it not?
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Yes: current world population is a bit under 7 billion, UN predicts 9.4 billion by 2050.

The problem is more localized: the US is the only ‘first world’ country with a birthrate at or near replacement levels. Some ethnicities [mostly European] will become very rare by the end of this century if trends continue.

So it is kind of a localized issue, no one is saying the race will go extinct.

But most European cultures might, as primarily Muslim immigrants are brought in to care for an aging popluation. The EU birthrate is 1.5 and falling [you need 2.1 to replace existing population, the ‘.1’ represents people who won’t reproduce].

Japan’s ancient culture is perhaps in most danger: it has a birthrate [1.2] well below replacement level, the oldest median age, and is inimical to immigration.

There are economic implications as well: retirement is only possible if there are enough people still working to keep the pension checks flowing.

And the trend towards much smaller families is spreading as the technolegdy of birth control spreads. Some of the countries that are below replacement level may surprise you: Brazil, Kazikstan, Algeria, Vietnam. But if there are [for whatever reason] few older people, it’s possible to be below replacement level and still have a growing population.
 
The trend is more worrisome than merely slowing of growth. Virtually EVERY developed nation in the world has birth rates below replacement. This suggests that there is something about industrialized society today that structurally discourages childbearing. (Good catholics ought to have a prime suspect right away)

As time goes on and more nations of the world become industrialized, we can expect them to go sub-replacement too. What then?
 
Besides the fertility rate, you also have to look at the gender ratio. Most of southeast Asia, China, and India have huge gender imbalances.

China already has 20 million men who will never marry because the women were aborted or killed as infants in a society that heavily favors boys; the one-child policy of the communist government has exacerbated a millenias old problem. That number will grow rapidly, as more children of the one-child era reach marriage age.

Even Indian immigrants living in England have a noticable gender imbalance among their children. Even the UN finally admitted that there are tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of “missing” girls from sex-selection abortions across the region.

Just another example of how abortion hurts women, not helps. And another reason we shouldn’t be paying to export it.
 
It is truly sad that a 22 minute or worse yet a 52 minute documentary is too long for us to watch. We might even listen to both sides and decide for ourselves, what a novel idea!.

I wonder why we are declining so rapidly when we could solve all our worries with a 30 second soundbite.

We just elected an unknown guy who can only give us 2 words, “Hope” and “Change”, without any credible accomplishments to date.

If I were a community activist and State legislator and Senator from a city with the worst murder rate in the nation (3 times higher than NYC), I would be ashamed to show my face, much less ask for a promotion after 14 months on the job.

His support for unlimited abortions, even of those born alive, is just another indicator of how wrong someone can be, even if most people buy into the lies.

Our silence is approval of this evil.

Sancta Maris, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus.

Mark
 
Mark77 said:
It is truly sad that a 22 minute or worse yet a 52 minute documentary is too long for us to watch. We might even listen to both sides and decide for ourselves, what a novel idea!.

I wonder why we are declining so rapidly when we could solve all our worries with a 30 second soundbite.

We just elected an unknown guy who can only give us 2 words, “Hope” and “Change”, without any credible accomplishments to date.

If I were a community activist and State legislator and Senator from a city with the worst murder rate in the nation (3 times higher than NYC), I would be ashamed to show my face, much less ask for a promotion after 14 months on the job.

His support for unlimited abortions, even of those born alive, is just another indicator of how wrong someone can be, even if most people buy into the lies.

Our silence is approval of this evil.

Sancta Maris, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus.

Mark
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I have a pretty good grasp of the statistics, Mark-- I’ve been following the story for years, and am not inclined to spend 22 or 52 minutes reviewing what I already know. Sorry that this offends you.

I wished there was a shorter version that could attract attention to the problem, rather than preaching to the choir.
 
Sam_Maloney said:
I have a pretty good grasp of the statistics, Mark-- I’ve been following the story for years, and am not inclined to spend 22 or 52 minutes reviewing what I already know.
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I’m not up to speed on world demographics, but agree with the sentiment about not wanting to watch a long video. Text is a much quicker way to absorb information.

Although developed nations have a fertility problem, and future developed nations may have a fertility problem, that leaves a large and growing population in the rest of the world who would be happy to emigrate to the developed nations.
 
Sam_Maloney said:
I have a pretty good grasp of the statistics, Mark-- I’ve been following the story for years, and am not inclined to spend 22 or 52 minutes reviewing what I already know. Sorry that this offends you.

I wished there was a shorter version that could attract attention to the problem, rather than preaching to the choir.
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I know what you mean. I took a psych adulthood and aging class recently and learned pretty much what I heard in this 52 minute video. There are too many out there that simply don’t know what is happening. This video in it’s entirety is of great value. The one part about how the most able and equipped couples are not reproducing compared to the couples who are least equipped to reproduce reminds me of the silly free download I watched called Idiocracy. You can do a google search and find the free download. The first five or ten minutes are funnyfied but true.
The part in the Demographic Winter video about how Darwinism isn’t applying to the human population was interesting. Humans are proving to be different than animals in this respect - interesting stuff.
 
Dale_M said:
I’m not up to speed on world demographics, but agree with the sentiment about not wanting to watch a long video. Text is a much quicker way to absorb information.
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Yes, the video is aimed at those not previously exposed to the concept of underpopulation.
 
thomfra said:
Sounds like rubbish to me. World population is growing overall is it not?
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From Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae:
  1. Another present-day phenomenon, frequently used to justify threats and attacks against life, is the demographic question. This question arises in different ways in different parts of the world. In the rich and developed countries there is a disturbing decline or collapse of the birthrate. The poorer countries, on the other hand, generally have a high rate of population growth, difficult to sustain in the context of low economic and social development, and especially where there is extreme underdevelopment. In the face of over-population in the poorer countries, instead of forms of global intervention at the international level-serious family and social policies, programmes of cultural development and of fair production and distribution of resources—anti-birth policies continue to be enacted.
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Contraception, sterilization, and abortion are certainly part of the reason why in some cases there is a sharp decline in the birthrate. It is not difficult to be tempted to use the same methods and attacks against life also where there is a situation of “demographic explosion”.
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The Pharaoh of old, haunted by the presence and increase of the children of Israel, submitted them to every kind of oppression and ordered that every male child born of the Hebrew women was to be killed (cf. Ex 1:7-22). Today not a few of the powerful of the earth act in the same way. They too are haunted by the current demographic growth, and fear that the most prolific and poorest peoples represent a threat for the well-being and peace of their own countries. Consequently, rather than wishing to face and solve these serious problems with respect for the dignity of individuals and families and for every person’s inviolable right to life, they prefer to promote and impose by whatever means a massive programme of birth control. Even the economic help which they would be ready to give is unjustly made conditional on the acceptance of an anti-birth policy.
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Geremia said:
From Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae:
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But this doesn’t address Thomfra’s point - that world population is still growing. You can criticize, as the Pope did, contraception, abortion and sterilization, but their effects on the world are still outweighed by the world’s population growth.
 
hello all,
This is a rather scary topic, I had no idea what the statistics were like. China has so many men, and Europe’s decline of population-----it seems we are really messing with Mother Nature again or still.

I do pray for a balance of many things on this Earth: people, wealth, abundance of all things positive for the world; its humans and animals!
 
Loss in future GDP for each child aborted (at zero rate of growth):
$2,250,109.
Loss in future GDP for each child aborted (at 3.6% rate of growth):
$8,627,288.
U.S. National Debt – $9.06 trillion.
Loss of downstream tax revenues from future taxpayers
aborted since 1970: $18 trillion.
(not including Social Security and Medicare)
Ratio to U.S. national debt: 2 to 1

movementforabetteramerica.org/abortionindex.html
 
I think the video is very compelling. It shows the problems with no-fault diovrce, the me generation and the breakdown of the family.

It is very consistent with our Catholic teachings and wirtings of the Popes.
 
Dale_M said:
But this doesn’t address Thomfra’s point - that world population is still growing. You can criticize, as the Pope did, contraception, abortion and sterilization, but their effects on the world are still outweighed by the world’s population growth.
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But we are nevertheless entering a period unprecidented in human history, when the very old will out number the young, and the burden of their care will be overwhelming. ‘Involuntary assisted suicide’ has already made it’s appearance in the Netherlands, and is very likely coming to a nursing home near you.

Add the demise of western culture and the situation gets even more grim. Awful as the scourge of abortion is, the west still offers more protection to the poor and powerless than any other culture, as well as more freedom and opportunity.

I think we could support a larger world population more easily and more humanely than we’ll be able to deal with the consequences of a demographic bell curve dumped upside down…
 
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