I'd recommend Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

All that tells me is that someone likes normal distribution charts. It describes the concept but I still have no idea what OP is talking about. What started in France in the 1800s and continues in America today?

I think he means declining birth rates? They were low during the French Third Republic and didn’t recover until WW2 iirc

I feel the Wikipedia article is pretty clear. It refers to a repeated pattern of changes in births, deaths, technological change, and industrialization. The pattern can be seen in many countries, with various timing-offsets and rates.

It has nothing to do with any particular ethnicity. Insofar as "immigration" comes into play, it refers to economic demand for labor as the population-bump people exit the labor pool.

I'm trying to figure out what changes the OP claimed are being driven by this. Birth-rate-over-time changes happen everywhere and have throughout history, but apparently this is now driving major change?

I initially read the top-of-thread HN comment as:

1. Stross is trying to tie many events to a change from fossil fuels to solar power, but stronger drivers lie elsewhere.

2. It's better-explained by population dynamics, involving medical technology, mortality and longevity, contraceptives, the shifting balance of workers to retirees, etc.

3. [Charitable-reading effort increases here] These trends involved are old and multi-generational, arguably going back to the industrial revolution. As a casual way to show a very-long-ago datapoint, there are arguments/research about a secularizing France's odd population slump back in the 1700s, which predates the widespread use of fossil fuels.

> Birth-rate-over-time changes happen everywhere and have throughout history

If you look at a world population chart (logarithmic scale, naturally) [0] it becomes clear something in the last few hundred years caused a deviation from the old trend.

Stross might argue the trigger was fossil-fuels, others would argue the trigger was a change in human-capital from medicine/nutrition, perhaps a third group would argue both are inextricably intertwined.

[0] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_gro...

There’s a reason for that. It should tell you a lot about the person you’re replying to.

(The first) demographic transition is a normal term in political science. It just means the transition from mostly agricultural societies to mostly urban ones.

It's associated with the drop in fertility, rise in life expectancy, etc.

There are now people arguing that we're undergoing the second demographic transition.

That's one of the ways [EDIT: s/white supremacists lure people in/they get ya], it's by far the predominant usage, but it's a bastardization of a term of art in the social sciences, essentially, a transition to a low death rate & low birth rate society from norm of high/high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

That's how who gets who? I am having a real hard time trying to understand what you're attempting to communicate here.

“Demographic transition” has become a white supremacist dogwhistle. They’re not upset about declining birth rates in general, they’re upset about declining birth rates among specific populations.

Even if they are abusing the phrase among themselves, legitimate usage is still heavy enough that I don't think I would assume it's a dogwhistle by default.

I would suggest that you need to look at context in order to determine whether a phrase is being used as a dogwhistle.

For example, if someone is also repeating other far-right propaganda (“fracking has solved the oil problem”), what are the chances that their use of this term is in good faith rather than as a dogwhistle?

Hence "by default."

Incidentally, are you claiming one of the above posters here has already included "other far-right propaganda" that tips the scales?

From my perspective, there's been some kind of false-alarm. The danger exists out there, but--unless there's some author reputation I'm unaware of--this isn't it.

Yes, the idea that the problem of “oil” (fossil fuels) has been “solved” by fracking. That’s another right-wing tell, because it ignores the broad environmental destruction caused by the use of fossil fuels and presumes that the only problem with them is scarcity.

In the middle of 19th century France's elites birth rates plummeted. And it spread to the rest of the world in 20th.

What is the connecting link? The claim being made here is that this is driving "the change in the world" but I can't figure out how 18th century France and 21st century America are comparable changesets.

Less whites, more of everybody else

> Attempting to google this just results in a bunch of white supremacists

For "demographic transition"? That's not what I get, perhaps those results are customized by Google, and it has an inaccurate idea of what you're interested in? (Even if that "interest" comes from vigorously opposing something.)

I'd try opening a private/incognito window and comparing the result-pages.

When I search in a private-tab for "demographic transition" (in quotes) the first item is the Wikipedia article (the definition I expect) followed by more of basically the same thesis from other academic sites.

I searched in the 'news' section, trying to figure out how any of this applies to current events.

I feel "news" is not a fertile hunting-ground for information on something "that's been apparently going on for three hundred years." :p

Oh no! Wouldn't want to commit a badthink and read something written by an ungood thoughtcrimer!