chaostheory
Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as incentivizing people to have children because accounting for socioeconomic changes (like birth control and affordability), it’s highly likely that industrial pollutants like heavy metals and endocrine disruptors like BPA are likely the main culprits when even developing countries are seeing low fertility.
It is very hard to disentangle plastic from our food and drink
Going with your example, the State Council or CCP only exists in name only. Xi, the emperor, is the government now just like Putin is the government for Russia. We might be puppeteered by corporations, but at least it's still a group of people who need consensus vs one flawed, megalomaniacal dictator - at least for now
2. This is exacerbated by the lack of loyalty people have towards their organizations because their orgs don’t value or reward loyalty. That’s because leadership doesnt care about the long term view because of item #1. Hence, everyone is only doing short 1 - 4 year stints in order to get meaningful raises
3. The exceptions in the private sector are businesses that not publicly traded.
4. Even then, very few people care about quality that no one else can see
The US and China do not have an extradition treaty. ie even if they wanted to do something, they can’t. The same goes for Russia
While his predictions about technology were way more accurate for the 1960s (his intended target), his predictions about society and culture are prescient for the 2020's with the advent of generative AI
> "With Montaigne and maybe Rabelais it was What Do I Know? In the nineteenth century it was What Does It Matter to Me? And nowadays we say: How Much Does It Earn?"
For me, this also summarizes the introduction of the Internet to the masses, all the way to the present day.
Being able to criticize your government is a fundamental freedom that can help curb things like corruption or change policy direction. Humor is a very direct and blunt form or criticism
As for your examples of democratic countries that are still not so great places, I’m pretty sure they would be even worse without their democratic freedom to criticize their respective governments
This is flawed because you're not even bothering to count the 2nd generation or generations after. The effect of immigration doesn't go away after the 1st.
> with rising anti-immigrant sentiment emerging for the same reasons, at almost exactly the same percent.
Yes, you've repeated this from another one of your comments. You're still pretending that assimulation doesn't happen.
"Yes, in the 19th century there was a lot of racism and prejudice directed towards the Irish, German, and Italian immigrants. Not surprisingly, they did not destroy US society or culture. Instead, the US absorbed respective parts of their cultures and assimulated all of their populations over decades. now they are an integral part of America"
> fortunately I don't think environmental or other issues are playing a significant role yet, at least not in terms of direct infertility > It's not existential because it is the most absurdly self-correcting problem imaginable
Unfortunately, there is mounting evidence that the more industrialized a country becomes, the more its populuation becomes infertile. Related studies account for socioeconomic changes i.e. even without socioeconomic changes like the sexual revolution, fertility would still trend down. Air pollutants, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and heavy metals are linked to reduced sperm motility in men and accelerated ovarian aging in women globally, even in places that are more traditional culturally. The only region untouched now is Central Africa.
> But ultimately it's not even a choice. On top of the cultural issues, I think immigration is simply also unrealistic on a long-term scale.
America has relied on it since its inception. It has only reversed course recently. It's been proven to work for hundreds of years now. Canada has also relied on it since the 1970s since their birthrate was no longer sustainable. They also only reversed course recently.
Are you basing this on history and data because America is country of immigrants and its culture has survived for hundreds of years now by absorbing the cultures of immigrants and assimilating them within 1 generation. I haven’t looked at the numbers as closely but I feel that Canada and Australia have largely done the same. The countries with major issues are the ones with little to no experience with assimilation like France, Germany, or the UK
Also Japan and South Korea have tried nearly everything sans immigration like media (shows promoting Natalism), monetary incentives and other benefits, and so on, but nothing even made a dent except for immigration. Why do you think there are so many foreign workers in Japan now? For show?
Fertility imo is an even harder problem to solve than immigration issues because it’s not just a socioeconomic issue. Pollution with endocrine disrupters like BPA and PFAS are the likely culprits but they’re too embedded in our supply chain and there’s even less incentive to fix them
> It previously peaked at around 14.8% in the late 19th century. This started causing substantial anti-immigrant sentiment to emerge as it was felt to be having an overall negative affect on culture, society, labor, etc.
Yes, in the 19th century there was a lot of racism and prejudice directed towards the Irish, German, and Italian immigrants. Not surprisingly, they did not destroy US society or culture. Instead, the US absorbed respective parts of their cultures and assimulated all of their populations over decades. now they are an integral part of America
You've inadvertently described the US. A lot of our culture and traditions are a mismash of the immigrants who came before.
As for Japan being "pure" culturally, that's a fantasy conjured up by "nationalists" if you're generous or xenophobic racists when we're not.
The historical lineage of the Japanese includes continuous mixing with the Chinese and Koreans, alongside the Ainu and Ryukyuan. Elements considered central to traditional Japanese life were borrowed from neighboring civilizations like China, with Buddhism and rice cultivation being the most well known. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, and we haven't even gotten to the modern era.