1) Replace religious with “low iq third worlders” and replacing population B with population A sounds a lot worse.
2) moderate population decline (say 1.5-1.8) TFR would probably be fine for certain overcrowded countries (like Japan). Provided there is no immigration. Obviously east Asia is way past moderate.
3) “working longer” has consequences. Do we want most of our institutions being run by 70 year olds? What would be the affects of that? Gerontocracy isn’t just about entitlements, it’s about the center of gravity of a civilization.
Moreover, working grandparents can’t watch grandkids.
4) the dependency ratio isn’t the primary problem. The primary problem is that medical expenses are theoretically infinite. Absent dependency issues Medicare could still bankrupt us.
5) people without kids or with few kids seem to act very different then people with kids, and it mostly seems to be a bad thing
6) my personal opinion is that the childless free ride on the child bearing. If this free ridding were eliminated (say via massive child tax breaks that acknowledge the costs of child rearing) then I think people would get closer to their desired fertility
You misunderstood the Mouse Utopia experiment. It didn't show population declined because of lack of resources, it showed population decline in the presence of *abundant resources*:
"What would happen if animals in the wild could count on human sources for their diet and never have to hunt or scrounge? What if, in other words, we humans imposed a generous welfare state on our furry friends?"
I can't recall the reference at the moment, but IIRC Calhoun's mouse utopia experiment was not quite so unequivocal as it is usually portrayed. Calhoun repeated the experiment many times and only got the 'population sink' outcome in a handful of attempts, which were what got published. Like many if not most famous social science experiments of that era, it seems to have been an attempt to illustrate a predetermined conclusion. The lead investigator of Robbers' Cave had to run the experiment three times until he learned how to manipulate boys into doing what he wanted them to; the lead investigator of the Stanford Prison Experiment actively encouraged his 'guards' to torture 'prisoners'. Some other experiments were reported and entered the popular mythology as showing things they did not show. For instance (this is from memory again) Ash's conformity experiment is often thought to demonstrate that an overwhelming majority of people give in to social pressure and deny the evidence of their own eyes, but in fact the experiment showed the reverse: while a few subjects did deny the evidence of their own eyes in the face of social pressure and more reported discomfort, the majority stuck to their guns.
Can't say I'm surprised to hear this, but If you can find that it would be great. Try using a non-censored search engine, e.g. Brave search, Metager, Ecosia, etc.
Really interested in what the other outcomes were like, this could shed a lot of light on the subject.
I don’t want to get to into the mouse experiment, but crowding itself caused anti social collapse. There was a social phenomenon that I can’t get into in a comment.
Now, whether what happened in the Mouse Utopia experiment applies to people is debatable, but it does appear to me that it might apply to humans living in cities.
I'll have to dig up the reference, but I recently listened to a documentary which seemed to show pretty conclusively that people stop having kids is because they perceive they live in an unstable, uncertain environment. If they think the future is going to be more difficult than the present, they don't have kids.
This tendency to be more responsible is higher in Western nations, apparently. r/K selection theory explains this, but I keep reading it's "debunked" despite it explaining things perfectly.
‘Fifty years ago, experts thought that the demographic crisis for humanity was overpopulation.’ Yes just as 30 years ago ‘experts’ said the Planet was going to boil, but now it’s cooling... although they still insist it’s about to burn. And 3 years ago ‘experte’ said CoV 2 was going to kill millions. I just wonder when people are going to stop listening to ‘experts’ - how many times do they have to get it completely wrong before we wise up? When will we realise this ‘let’s draw a straight line through the present data and continue the slope upward for ever’ to tell us the future, is just astrology and less accurate. Haven’t there been enough examples of that straight line into the futur being proved wrong? We cannot assume current infertility will continue because - gee whizz we have this thing called social, economic and environmental conditions which is a bit of a wild card that produces quite unexpected results.
The financial problems caused by a declining population are broader than just entitlement programs. Think about how we finance public works such as a highway. We borrow money (sell bonds) and then collect taxes or user fees for twenty or thirty years to repay the debt. As long as the population, and the economy, are growing repaying the debt gets progressively easier as time passes. Now imagine what will happen in a world with a declining population.
"How do you eliminate the intergenerational transfer? You cannot just all of a sudden say to the Baby Boomers, “Sorry, young workers today are going to support their own retirement, not yours. Screw you. We’re not paying for your Social Security and Medicare.”
We shouldn't, and they won't (no "we" here, there's nothing resembling a representative government, hasn't been since the early 1800's) say this to Boomers.
Instead, they'll devalue the currency. They've done it before, many times, in every country. They'll do it again. What will be interesting to see is how they game the CPI to avoid adjusting things for inflation.
What needs to happen is the Federal Government (and corporate handouts are very much a big part of this) needs to shrink by 70% at least, and the wanton militarism and corruption (but I repeat myself) needs to end.
That's not going to happen voluntarily, so instead we'll get an "event", so they can blame it on God, or nature, or "force majeure", or Russia, or China, or we the people, or space aliens, or something... Anything but themselves.
Assuming things don't get too bad, or another competing group of elites doesn't take advantage of this to rally the people, they'll probably get away with it, again.
From a perspective of economics, you make some odd assumptions. The kind of reproductive heterogeneity you admit is odd, largely heritable and geographically even. Much more likely are factors like assortative mating and dynamic decisions based on social status, signalling, values, and temporary economics. Biologically, delayed childbirth and artificial processes also lead to increased rates of health challenges and developmental issues. I'm not sure how this all plays out, frankly, but you could profitably address situations like childbearing and rearing being low status, and accepting small government handouts making it even lower status... Which seems to hamstring natalist government policies.
It used to be that requiring an heir was a major incentive for high status families to have at least two boys. Naturally there were going to be some girls too. See Japan for an example of substitution by adoption at the top.
Anyway, you may be right to not worry about an existential threat, but the kinetic challenge seems large and potentially very disruptive as it is localized.
Also, our overall ability to recognize grand challenges like overpopulation or global cooling is becoming infamous. If India had followed China to the one child policy, like many wanted, the kinetics could be far worse, immediately.
Everyone has a religion. A world view that links beginning, end, and meaning. Some are atheist and materialist, some individualist and humanist, some respect elders, etc. This is just about those who follow certain traditional religions also having stable family formation with healthier children and more grandchildren.
You're just redefining religion to the point where saying everyone is religious is basically tautological. 'Beginning, end, and meaning' have nothing to do with the definition of religion. Religion is defined by belief in (a) supernatural deity(s) that takes an active interest in human affairs.
Look, you can argue that religion is useful irrespective of whether it's true, but this 'everyone is religious' is nonsense. A materialist and a Catholic are almost certainly not engaged in the same kind of epistemology.
What makes you think a practicing Catholic, just to reach for an example, is taking things on faith and isn't displaying a desire to independently understand things?
Because that's what the Catholic Church says about Catholicism. On matters of faith and morals, the Church is infallible. If your faculties lead to believe that contraception is moral, then to be a Catholic in good standing, you must accept that your faculties have erred, and the defer to the Church despite them. Obedience to the Church in matters of faith and morals is Catholic dogma. Where the Church (not the pope, as a person, necessarily) has an opinion, you really aren't allowed to disagree with the Church in any meaningful sense. It's not a sin to experience cognitive disagreement with the Church, but you must, in essence, accept that your lying eyes have deceived you and the Church is actually right.
And how many Catholics actually do this? My observation is that the number is very small, and that the Church itself, as an entity, more or less accepts things as they are- there aren't ex-communications of very public displays of non-adherence to Church dogma- the Democrat Party is full of such people.
Those are not mutually exclusive approaches, nor is appealing to authority exclusive to religious beliefs. Saying you have to consult a biologist to define what a woman is sure sounds like an appeal to authority to me.
Yes -- the people who think you have to consult a biologist to define a woman are actually engaging in a religious, and not a scientific, way of understanding the world.
Ironically, the founders of the United States were mostly not religious, in their beliefs at least, which is remarkable given how rare irreligion was at the time in the general population. The formation of modern society, going back to the 18th century, has been very much disproportionately the work of the secular.
I would agree with you if you had said “were mostly not orthodox in their Christian beliefs...” But at least by the standards of today all but one or two (eg Thomas Paine) would be considered religious.
True in part, but what we are talking about is now making future humans *additionally* genetically religious, above and beyond prior selection pressures.
Do you mean that the reason one person is religious while another is not is “largely” genetic? Wouldn’t the steep decline in religiosity in the US over the last 2-3 generations suggest otherwise? Or maybe I’m misinterpreting what you mean.
Arguably, many out of the increasing number of unaffiliated Americans actually retain a religious way of understanding the world, just consulting horoscopes and people with doctorates rather than the Bible and bishops. And I think there's a genetic component in that mindset.
What about automation? Aren't schemes like UBI based on the premise that in the near future there will be too many workers for the available jobs because of automation?
So:
Projection A: there will be not enough workers (to support social security etc.)
Projection B: there will too much workers (for the available jobs)
"Some allowance for people who work in physically demanding jobs would be appropriate."
People who sit in offices all day rarely have a good understanding of what it is like to work in a physically demanding job. Modern factories are better than old-fashioned ones: the machine shop where I worked during summers long ago is now air-conditioned, which was it not back then. Even so, being on your feet most of the day really tires you out by middle age. I may continue to work in my office job to age 70, which I could never do as a factory worker.
Off topic: I know you often like to wait a few days before you post, to avoid commenting superficially on ephemeral news stories, but the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank seems tailor-made for your commentary.
Unmentioned so far in the 40 comments is the estrogen in the environment, especially from the Pill but also similar other manufactured hormones & chemicals.
Sperm count of fish have gone down; men have lower avg sperm counts.
Even if it was true that the Pill is a significant pollutant causing this degradation, it seems highly unlikely the EPA would be willing to try to ban it. Sexual promiscuity is far too politically popular, even if it, too, has been decreasing over the last couple of decades.
Increased childlessness is a smaller problem, with less human suffering, than overcrowding & hunger & too few resources. We should be preparing for fewer kids and more elderly more than we have been doing. As long as there are billionaires in the US, there are potential sources of tax increases to pay for more SS - and most elderly still vote in high numbers.
Insofar as high IQ people, especially women, are having far fewer kids while lower IQ folk have relatively more, it seems likely that the Flynn effect of increasing IQs will cease and we might already have reached a turning point with decreasing avg IQs. This has long been the eugenics fear, and remains a racist idea because of the hated reality that Blacks have lower IQs. Yet the fertility among Blacks has not led them to increase their % of the population - thanks to Asian & Hispanic immigration the Black % is a bit less.
One reason that the pro-life political position has gotten stronger is exactly that the pro-abortion folk had fewer kids, and the pro-life folk had more. It's very likely that pro-life mothers have raised pro-life kids into pro-life voters, especially those not going to college.
If the pro-life Amish & Mormons & Orthodox increase their percentages in the population, there will come a time when the population increases, again, even with less immigration.
In the meantime, the culture needs to give more status to married parents with kids - and lots more tax credit benefits would help. I support annually increasing the tax credits for married parents with kids until the fertility rate reaches 2 (with 2.1 being the replacement rate).
In the modern world, only the leaders want more people to rule over and satisfy their egos.
From the citizens viewpoint the GDP per capita is far more relevant that the GDP total.
Humans are not rats. It appears that homo sapiens developed our huge energy burning brain to obtain the advantages of "specialization and trade" but you don't need population sizes in the tens of billions pushing energy source limits on a finite planet to have enough "specialization and trade" for a good life.
Here in Australia, before I arrived in the Lucky Country, the government of the day introduced "superannuation". I think it was around 1992. There was an old age pension in existence (what the US calls social security) and it's still in existence.
But "super", as we all know it here, was compulsory, originally around 4%, now it's 10.5%. The rate is increased a little bit year after year. Most people think "the employer pays it" which is a helpful myth. Of course, us economically minded people know that really the employee is paying.
Super is a great idea. We're funding our own retirement. Contributions to super are taxed at a lower rate, 15%, creating an incentive for individuals to contribute more.
If your super runs out, there's still the old age pension, which I'm guessing isn't living the dream, but you won't starve.
"Something will have to give" is a euphemism for "younger people are going to get hosed." It's just a question of whether the impact is via inflation, future benefit cuts, or future taxes.
Not going to happen, but I feel like a one-time wealth tax to shore up the system would actually be most fair (or least unfair perhaps). Those who most benefited from a clearly unsustainable system should pay for its repair.
To a certain degree the current situation in the US wrt Social Security and other old age entitlements is one that will resolve itself. The somewhat inverted population pyramid caused by the Baby Boom will inevitably go away. Gen X is a considerably smaller generation than either the preceding Boomer or the following Millennial generations so we'll get back to a more reasonable population distribution, though the disparity between retirement age and life expectancy will remain. While I understand Mr. Kling's concern, as somebody who is rapidly approaching 65 I'm not so sure it's as drastic an issue as he feels. For one thing, there is a wide variance among people in their ability to continue employment and eventual lifespan, and nobody is really barred from being employed beyond retirement age (though there are some temporary disincentives to it), Social Security replaces only a portion of an UMC person's pre-retirement income, and most retired people find socially useful things to do that aren't necessarily paid.
1) Replace religious with “low iq third worlders” and replacing population B with population A sounds a lot worse.
2) moderate population decline (say 1.5-1.8) TFR would probably be fine for certain overcrowded countries (like Japan). Provided there is no immigration. Obviously east Asia is way past moderate.
3) “working longer” has consequences. Do we want most of our institutions being run by 70 year olds? What would be the affects of that? Gerontocracy isn’t just about entitlements, it’s about the center of gravity of a civilization.
Moreover, working grandparents can’t watch grandkids.
4) the dependency ratio isn’t the primary problem. The primary problem is that medical expenses are theoretically infinite. Absent dependency issues Medicare could still bankrupt us.
5) people without kids or with few kids seem to act very different then people with kids, and it mostly seems to be a bad thing
6) my personal opinion is that the childless free ride on the child bearing. If this free ridding were eliminated (say via massive child tax breaks that acknowledge the costs of child rearing) then I think people would get closer to their desired fertility
In response to point (1) specifically, I think you should listen to what Lant Pritchett has to say on this podcast about migration.
https://www.ideasuntrapped.com/p/lant-pritchett-on-everything-part#details
You misunderstood the Mouse Utopia experiment. It didn't show population declined because of lack of resources, it showed population decline in the presence of *abundant resources*:
"What would happen if animals in the wild could count on human sources for their diet and never have to hunt or scrounge? What if, in other words, we humans imposed a generous welfare state on our furry friends?"
https://fee.org/articles/john-b-calhoun-s-mouse-utopia-experiment-and-reflections-on-the-welfare-state/
I can't recall the reference at the moment, but IIRC Calhoun's mouse utopia experiment was not quite so unequivocal as it is usually portrayed. Calhoun repeated the experiment many times and only got the 'population sink' outcome in a handful of attempts, which were what got published. Like many if not most famous social science experiments of that era, it seems to have been an attempt to illustrate a predetermined conclusion. The lead investigator of Robbers' Cave had to run the experiment three times until he learned how to manipulate boys into doing what he wanted them to; the lead investigator of the Stanford Prison Experiment actively encouraged his 'guards' to torture 'prisoners'. Some other experiments were reported and entered the popular mythology as showing things they did not show. For instance (this is from memory again) Ash's conformity experiment is often thought to demonstrate that an overwhelming majority of people give in to social pressure and deny the evidence of their own eyes, but in fact the experiment showed the reverse: while a few subjects did deny the evidence of their own eyes in the face of social pressure and more reported discomfort, the majority stuck to their guns.
Can't say I'm surprised to hear this, but If you can find that it would be great. Try using a non-censored search engine, e.g. Brave search, Metager, Ecosia, etc.
Really interested in what the other outcomes were like, this could shed a lot of light on the subject.
I don’t want to get to into the mouse experiment, but crowding itself caused anti social collapse. There was a social phenomenon that I can’t get into in a comment.
Make a Substack poast!
Now, whether what happened in the Mouse Utopia experiment applies to people is debatable, but it does appear to me that it might apply to humans living in cities.
I'll have to dig up the reference, but I recently listened to a documentary which seemed to show pretty conclusively that people stop having kids is because they perceive they live in an unstable, uncertain environment. If they think the future is going to be more difficult than the present, they don't have kids.
This tendency to be more responsible is higher in Western nations, apparently. r/K selection theory explains this, but I keep reading it's "debunked" despite it explaining things perfectly.
‘Fifty years ago, experts thought that the demographic crisis for humanity was overpopulation.’ Yes just as 30 years ago ‘experts’ said the Planet was going to boil, but now it’s cooling... although they still insist it’s about to burn. And 3 years ago ‘experte’ said CoV 2 was going to kill millions. I just wonder when people are going to stop listening to ‘experts’ - how many times do they have to get it completely wrong before we wise up? When will we realise this ‘let’s draw a straight line through the present data and continue the slope upward for ever’ to tell us the future, is just astrology and less accurate. Haven’t there been enough examples of that straight line into the futur being proved wrong? We cannot assume current infertility will continue because - gee whizz we have this thing called social, economic and environmental conditions which is a bit of a wild card that produces quite unexpected results.
"And 3 yers ago, experts said CoV 2 was going to kill millions."
Last I checked, they say CoV 2 killed 10 million worldwide so far.
It doesn’t help that in the past couple of years live births are down 10% or more from the years before. Also, miscarriages are up.
Yeah those miscarriages... What a mystery? I wonder what other thing happened right before that started..?
(crickets)
The financial problems caused by a declining population are broader than just entitlement programs. Think about how we finance public works such as a highway. We borrow money (sell bonds) and then collect taxes or user fees for twenty or thirty years to repay the debt. As long as the population, and the economy, are growing repaying the debt gets progressively easier as time passes. Now imagine what will happen in a world with a declining population.
We need fewer highways and Public Works programs?
He didn't write that, don't strawman.
"How do you eliminate the intergenerational transfer? You cannot just all of a sudden say to the Baby Boomers, “Sorry, young workers today are going to support their own retirement, not yours. Screw you. We’re not paying for your Social Security and Medicare.”
We shouldn't, and they won't (no "we" here, there's nothing resembling a representative government, hasn't been since the early 1800's) say this to Boomers.
Instead, they'll devalue the currency. They've done it before, many times, in every country. They'll do it again. What will be interesting to see is how they game the CPI to avoid adjusting things for inflation.
What needs to happen is the Federal Government (and corporate handouts are very much a big part of this) needs to shrink by 70% at least, and the wanton militarism and corruption (but I repeat myself) needs to end.
That's not going to happen voluntarily, so instead we'll get an "event", so they can blame it on God, or nature, or "force majeure", or Russia, or China, or we the people, or space aliens, or something... Anything but themselves.
Assuming things don't get too bad, or another competing group of elites doesn't take advantage of this to rally the people, they'll probably get away with it, again.
From a perspective of economics, you make some odd assumptions. The kind of reproductive heterogeneity you admit is odd, largely heritable and geographically even. Much more likely are factors like assortative mating and dynamic decisions based on social status, signalling, values, and temporary economics. Biologically, delayed childbirth and artificial processes also lead to increased rates of health challenges and developmental issues. I'm not sure how this all plays out, frankly, but you could profitably address situations like childbearing and rearing being low status, and accepting small government handouts making it even lower status... Which seems to hamstring natalist government policies.
It used to be that requiring an heir was a major incentive for high status families to have at least two boys. Naturally there were going to be some girls too. See Japan for an example of substitution by adoption at the top.
Anyway, you may be right to not worry about an existential threat, but the kinetic challenge seems large and potentially very disruptive as it is localized.
Also, our overall ability to recognize grand challenges like overpopulation or global cooling is becoming infamous. If India had followed China to the one child policy, like many wanted, the kinetics could be far worse, immediately.
Should we be concerned if only people with a religious mindset inherit the Earth?
I see many positives to religion, but also would worry about the kind of society that would create in the long run.
Everyone has a religion. A world view that links beginning, end, and meaning. Some are atheist and materialist, some individualist and humanist, some respect elders, etc. This is just about those who follow certain traditional religions also having stable family formation with healthier children and more grandchildren.
You're just redefining religion to the point where saying everyone is religious is basically tautological. 'Beginning, end, and meaning' have nothing to do with the definition of religion. Religion is defined by belief in (a) supernatural deity(s) that takes an active interest in human affairs.
Look, you can argue that religion is useful irrespective of whether it's true, but this 'everyone is religious' is nonsense. A materialist and a Catholic are almost certainly not engaged in the same kind of epistemology.
Disagree — there is a fundamental difference between the approach of taking things “on faith” and the desire to independently understand things.
What makes you think a practicing Catholic, just to reach for an example, is taking things on faith and isn't displaying a desire to independently understand things?
Because that's what the Catholic Church says about Catholicism. On matters of faith and morals, the Church is infallible. If your faculties lead to believe that contraception is moral, then to be a Catholic in good standing, you must accept that your faculties have erred, and the defer to the Church despite them. Obedience to the Church in matters of faith and morals is Catholic dogma. Where the Church (not the pope, as a person, necessarily) has an opinion, you really aren't allowed to disagree with the Church in any meaningful sense. It's not a sin to experience cognitive disagreement with the Church, but you must, in essence, accept that your lying eyes have deceived you and the Church is actually right.
And how many Catholics actually do this? My observation is that the number is very small, and that the Church itself, as an entity, more or less accepts things as they are- there aren't ex-communications of very public displays of non-adherence to Church dogma- the Democrat Party is full of such people.
I think they are trying to understand things, but that there are two approaches to that:
-- consult tradition and authority (Catholic approach)
-- experiment with the universe (scientific/secular approach)
Those are not mutually exclusive approaches, nor is appealing to authority exclusive to religious beliefs. Saying you have to consult a biologist to define what a woman is sure sounds like an appeal to authority to me.
Yes -- the people who think you have to consult a biologist to define a woman are actually engaging in a religious, and not a scientific, way of understanding the world.
Our society IS a society that religious people created in the long run.
Ironically, the founders of the United States were mostly not religious, in their beliefs at least, which is remarkable given how rare irreligion was at the time in the general population. The formation of modern society, going back to the 18th century, has been very much disproportionately the work of the secular.
I would agree with you if you had said “were mostly not orthodox in their Christian beliefs...” But at least by the standards of today all but one or two (eg Thomas Paine) would be considered religious.
True in part, but what we are talking about is now making future humans *additionally* genetically religious, above and beyond prior selection pressures.
Are you assuming that religiosity today is mostly genetic?
I don't know about "mostly," but I'm confident it's "largely" genetic.
Do you mean that the reason one person is religious while another is not is “largely” genetic? Wouldn’t the steep decline in religiosity in the US over the last 2-3 generations suggest otherwise? Or maybe I’m misinterpreting what you mean.
Arguably, many out of the increasing number of unaffiliated Americans actually retain a religious way of understanding the world, just consulting horoscopes and people with doctorates rather than the Bible and bishops. And I think there's a genetic component in that mindset.
Doesn’t your mouse example disprove the A B theory?
What about automation? Aren't schemes like UBI based on the premise that in the near future there will be too many workers for the available jobs because of automation?
So:
Projection A: there will be not enough workers (to support social security etc.)
Projection B: there will too much workers (for the available jobs)
They can't be both true it seems to me.
Who can enlighten me?
"Some allowance for people who work in physically demanding jobs would be appropriate."
People who sit in offices all day rarely have a good understanding of what it is like to work in a physically demanding job. Modern factories are better than old-fashioned ones: the machine shop where I worked during summers long ago is now air-conditioned, which was it not back then. Even so, being on your feet most of the day really tires you out by middle age. I may continue to work in my office job to age 70, which I could never do as a factory worker.
Off topic: I know you often like to wait a few days before you post, to avoid commenting superficially on ephemeral news stories, but the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank seems tailor-made for your commentary.
Unmentioned so far in the 40 comments is the estrogen in the environment, especially from the Pill but also similar other manufactured hormones & chemicals.
Sperm count of fish have gone down; men have lower avg sperm counts.
Even if it was true that the Pill is a significant pollutant causing this degradation, it seems highly unlikely the EPA would be willing to try to ban it. Sexual promiscuity is far too politically popular, even if it, too, has been decreasing over the last couple of decades.
Increased childlessness is a smaller problem, with less human suffering, than overcrowding & hunger & too few resources. We should be preparing for fewer kids and more elderly more than we have been doing. As long as there are billionaires in the US, there are potential sources of tax increases to pay for more SS - and most elderly still vote in high numbers.
Insofar as high IQ people, especially women, are having far fewer kids while lower IQ folk have relatively more, it seems likely that the Flynn effect of increasing IQs will cease and we might already have reached a turning point with decreasing avg IQs. This has long been the eugenics fear, and remains a racist idea because of the hated reality that Blacks have lower IQs. Yet the fertility among Blacks has not led them to increase their % of the population - thanks to Asian & Hispanic immigration the Black % is a bit less.
One reason that the pro-life political position has gotten stronger is exactly that the pro-abortion folk had fewer kids, and the pro-life folk had more. It's very likely that pro-life mothers have raised pro-life kids into pro-life voters, especially those not going to college.
If the pro-life Amish & Mormons & Orthodox increase their percentages in the population, there will come a time when the population increases, again, even with less immigration.
In the meantime, the culture needs to give more status to married parents with kids - and lots more tax credit benefits would help. I support annually increasing the tax credits for married parents with kids until the fertility rate reaches 2 (with 2.1 being the replacement rate).
In the modern world, only the leaders want more people to rule over and satisfy their egos.
From the citizens viewpoint the GDP per capita is far more relevant that the GDP total.
Humans are not rats. It appears that homo sapiens developed our huge energy burning brain to obtain the advantages of "specialization and trade" but you don't need population sizes in the tens of billions pushing energy source limits on a finite planet to have enough "specialization and trade" for a good life.
Your savings are a claim on future production. Any retirement is paid out of the production of the young workers.
Here in Australia, before I arrived in the Lucky Country, the government of the day introduced "superannuation". I think it was around 1992. There was an old age pension in existence (what the US calls social security) and it's still in existence.
But "super", as we all know it here, was compulsory, originally around 4%, now it's 10.5%. The rate is increased a little bit year after year. Most people think "the employer pays it" which is a helpful myth. Of course, us economically minded people know that really the employee is paying.
Super is a great idea. We're funding our own retirement. Contributions to super are taxed at a lower rate, 15%, creating an incentive for individuals to contribute more.
If your super runs out, there's still the old age pension, which I'm guessing isn't living the dream, but you won't starve.
"Something will have to give" is a euphemism for "younger people are going to get hosed." It's just a question of whether the impact is via inflation, future benefit cuts, or future taxes.
Not going to happen, but I feel like a one-time wealth tax to shore up the system would actually be most fair (or least unfair perhaps). Those who most benefited from a clearly unsustainable system should pay for its repair.
To a certain degree the current situation in the US wrt Social Security and other old age entitlements is one that will resolve itself. The somewhat inverted population pyramid caused by the Baby Boom will inevitably go away. Gen X is a considerably smaller generation than either the preceding Boomer or the following Millennial generations so we'll get back to a more reasonable population distribution, though the disparity between retirement age and life expectancy will remain. While I understand Mr. Kling's concern, as somebody who is rapidly approaching 65 I'm not so sure it's as drastic an issue as he feels. For one thing, there is a wide variance among people in their ability to continue employment and eventual lifespan, and nobody is really barred from being employed beyond retirement age (though there are some temporary disincentives to it), Social Security replaces only a portion of an UMC person's pre-retirement income, and most retired people find socially useful things to do that aren't necessarily paid.