Asymmetrical Information

An excellent post, but where is Jennifer?

Your explanation is probably the most plausible one. So I wonder: When does Europe become Eurabia - 10 years, 20?

The fall-off in birth rates is not exclusively a European phenomenon, but is happening all over the world. Twenty years ago no one would have imagined, to give a few examples, that the average woman in Kenya would have gone from having eight children to three, that Iran's birth rate would have fallen below replacement levels, or that even China would be facing demographic problems in the not-too-distant future. Europe just seems to be in the vanguard of this trend.
In any event, I suspect that given enough time population decline will be self-correcting. Economic factors aside, having children will be seen as more attractive to people who've grown up in aging populations and have seen the loneliness that often results.

All true; I'd add one more non-economic reason, which is secularism; non-religious societies like Europe's tend to place a low value on creating a family and hold a lax attitude toward abortion.

I'd be curious to hear how Michael, the post's author, and a self-proclaimed member of the "Reality-Based Community", responds to the idea that it's adherence to the very principles that he espouses that's killing off Western Europe.

When does Europe become Eurabia - 10 years, 20?

It always amazes me how people somehow assume that birthrates are static, forever holding the rate at that is occurring right at this very instant.

It seems pretty much a given that as soon as families have both the social, technological and financial means to control their reproduction, birth rates inevitably trickle down. It's obviously lots of fun to compare those effete European to the virile American birth rate, is there any *rational* reason to think that American birth rates aren't going to continue following the trend found everywhere else in the developed world?

As for disappearing people... Please! Maybe we'll have to worry about "abandoning the peninsula" in a several hundred years, but there's nothing sacred about the current population. Italy would still be Italy with 1/4 its current population.

Of course, society *does* have to adapt to a different ratio between young and old, and it may be painful, but these "extinction of a society" posts are a bit old.

All of those reasons are valid, but there is another that hasn't been talked about much: throughout history, rising affluence has always led to people seeking additional private household space, exemplified by the large country estates of the wealthy. The availability of this space is very constrained in Europe for a whole host of reasons (regulations, transit over freeways, etc.), forcing people to shrink family sizes if they want more space per person. America, via sprawl, has allowed its citizens to purchase large, new homes to increase space per person and keep fertility rates from falling as far as Europe (although it is true they fall in all affluent societies).

More details and quite a debate in the comments at:

High-density smart growth = population implosion?
http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/2006/01/high-density-smart-growth-population.html

Economic reasons for not having children are only part of the problem, and then only a minor part.

Having children goes beyond economics to social and emotional values.

I think one of the key reasons is the fear of the "population bomb" that has been ingrained into progressive society. Remember the common saying of, "how can you possibly want to bring a child into a world like this?" This is probably more of the cause of the lack of children. The mantra of, "the human race is destroying the environment, they needs to be less population."

Think about it, parents will sacrifice and suffer economic hardships for their children. Children are beyond economics.

I agree with Yaron. I think secularism explains quite a bit of the phenomenon, since having children is more than just a rational economic decision. Cultures that praise family life do so not only because it's convenient for parents in old age, but also because it is spiritually enriching. In Hinduism, the role of being a family man or mother is given special prominence just as in Catholicism. Mormons seem to have no trouble having kids (in spite of their relative prosperity) and certain Christian fringe groups are rabidly pro-natalist. I'm one of seven children and my parents (both having advanced degrees) threw the economic arguments out of the window, foresaking a cushy lifestyle with only a couple of kids in order to enjoy a more fulfilling with a big bunch. I think secularism brings about a culture of self-absorbed people, who substitute pets for children, as they seek emotional comfort over giving oneself to the well-being of a child.

When women have (and exercise) control over their fertility some women will have more children some will have less and the overall birthrate will drop. Period.

There are also economic reasons for European women having fewer children (it's harder to get and keep a job with small children for example and life on one income isn't generally desired or sometimes feasible).

There's also another (rarely mentioned) cost of prosperity in certain kinds of cultures (Japan shares this problem). When women can raise and indulge their sons just as much as they want to, they often produce men that educated women don't want to marry. Italian men of marriageable age are famously tied to mama's apron strings. In the past, when women had fewer options they'd marry them anyway, but now that isn't the case.

I don't know what the immigration rate from Muslim countries is, but I doubt if it's being encouraged at present. If Italy wants to encourage immigration, I think they should look to Latin America where the people share a religious tradition and will find it easy to cope with the language. I can easily imagine Latin Americans outcompeting Muslim immigrants in every sphere which would either encourage the remaining Muslims to increased assimilation or drive them to increased ghettoization (and should dry up Muslim immigration at any rate).

While the increase of women in the workforce has a lot to do with it, don't forget that the US actually has a higher proportion of women in full time jobs than most European countries. Women who work in European countries are much more likely to work part time, or work in public sector jobs with generous maternity leave. In Germany, the union jobs even have the "family wage" style payscale, where a man gets a raise when he marries and for each additional child.

A couple of thoughts:
1. There may be a connection between religious devoutness and large families, but it's not without exceptions. To cite an earlier example of mine, consider Iran. It's one of the most religious countries on Earth yet also has seen a massive drop in fertility.
2. One way to deal with declining birth rates is by redefining what it means to be old. As birth rates fall and lifespans increase, the typical retirement age might rise to 70 from 65, for example.
3. Spain may be a cautionary example for Italy when it comes to attracting Latin American immigrants. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of them have entered Spain in the last several years, and this flow has not been without problems. There's been quite a bit of poverty and crime associated with them, and in particular the Latin Kings gang is growing rapidly among them.

I am always tempted to view such debates through the lens of 1906. What issues were considered crucial 100 years ago? Only a few we would recognize today.

Many people agree at least to some extent with ideas put forth by Raymond Kurzweil to the effect that we will see accelerating change in the early 21st century which will outstrip the rate of change in the 20th century by orders of magnitude (just as the 20th century outstripped the 19th). Nanotechnology, genetic engineering, strong AI and robotics have the capacity to alter life in ways which are almost inconceivable to the average observer today. Certainly the average intelligent person in 1906 would be absolutely incredulous if told about the atom bomb, moon shots, cheap airline service, the Internet and cell phones, to name a few.

The bottom line is that we really have no freaking idea what the impact of today's declining fertility and fecundity will have on civilization by, say, 2050. There are very solid reasons to believe that the amount of revolutionary technological change we will encounter between now and then will be vastly greater than all such change in the 20th century. Lower populations, older populations -- these are likely to become wholly meaningless within our children's lifetimes. Like the 1906 intellectuals who fretted endlessly over the crisis around horse shit removal in NYC, these modern neuroses will soon prove quaint, naive, and remarkably short-sighted.

So don't sweat it. Europe isn't about to die out, much less the US. There are far more realistic challenges and opportunities ahead than worrying about the number of baby carriages in Milan.

I agree that redefining 'old' and 'retirement age' is probably going to be necessary.

IINM the latin immigration to Spain was largely unplanned and illegal/semi-legal. There are ways to minimize the problems you mention. And, if you were Italian, would you prefer immigrants from Colombia or from Algeria?

Any immigration scenario will have some negative effects, the trick is work things so that those don't outweigh the positives.

There may be a connection between religious devoutness and large families, but it's not without exceptions. To cite an earlier example of mine, consider Iran. It's one of the most religious countries on Earth yet also has seen a massive drop in fertility.

Ditto for the Caribbean, perhaps the most Christian region on Earth, yet a place where fertility rates have also dropped substantially in the last couple of decades.

IINM the latin immigration to Spain was largely unplanned and illegal/semi-legal. There are ways to minimize the problems you mention. And, if you were Italian, would you prefer immigrants from Colombia or from Algeria?

It really all comes down to proper management of immigration. I'm not entirely sure that one can say that in all circumstances Immigrants from Country A: Good and Immigrants from Country B: Bad. For example, it's reasonable to say that Arab/Muslim immigrants in the United States have by and large fared better than Latin American immigrants. Most likely that's attributable to the fact that Arab/Muslim immigrants tend to have higher educational and job-skill levels than the Latins and their numbers are more manageable.

It's not impossible to imagine that Algerian immigrants in Italy could fare better than the Colombians.

No it isn't, but that's not the way I'd bet (in overall terms of coming to grips with local ways and blending into the local population).

I think in the right conditions, Arabs (and Muslims in general) can make fine immigrants, but sadly, in a lot of WEurope (including Italy AFAIK) those conditions haven't been met (there's blame on both sides).

I have a notion that we're going through a demographic bottleneck--the only people who are having significant numbers of children are the people who really want them. Whatever genetic or memetic factors are in play, there's severe selection for wanting children--I wouldn't be surprised if the birthrate goes up sharply in a generation or two.

I think Nancy is right on. Having children is now a choice in a way it never was until the Pill. We are not adapted to it. We are therefore likely to see a severe culling of whatever alleles it is that predispose people to non-breeding lives. Over time the alleles for "wanting kids" will express themselves.

Do I think it is genes rather than memes? Yes, I do. Genes seem to affect all sorts of attitudes that you wouldn't think they would. This (wanting children) is something that I would they would affect.

Fundamentally, in a world/society where you can choose to have sex without having children, then you have to wrestle with this basic fact: your own material standard of living without children is higher than your material standard of living with children.

So you have to rely on some other value system in society in order to convince people that their selfishness isn't their own best reward.

Without some morality that judges that a) axiomatically, life is worth living, and b) that the future promises more than the past or present, you will never get people past their valuing their material standard of living.

in a theocracy, even if people are supposedly religious, it's not clear that they view the future as better than the past (or that they view living as better than dying/going to heaven.)

something has to add value to life on this plane before having children is seen as valuable. it helps to have a value system that doesn't believe human control over existence is the end all and be all.

1. It's Argentina where the population is half Italian. Colombia is mestizo.
2. I hear about Arabs as if they were all monocultural. What is the assimilation rate of Christian Arabs vs Moslem and Jewish Arabs in France and other European countries?
Jewish Arabs had some trouble assimilating in Israel in the fifties and sixties, but are doing quite well now. American Arabs used to be pretty much all Christian. Now we are starting to get Moslem Arabs in larger numbers and in larger percentages. This may be having an effect.

The bottom line is that we really have no freaking idea what the impact of today's declining fertility and fecundity will have on civilization by, say, 2050. There are very solid reasons to believe that the amount of revolutionary technological change we will encounter between now and then will be vastly greater than all such change in the 20th century. Lower populations, older populations -- these are likely to become wholly meaningless within our children's lifetimes. Like the 1906 intellectuals who fretted endlessly over the crisis around horse shit removal in NYC, these modern neuroses will soon prove quaint, naive, and remarkably short-sighted.

Sorry, but I'm not convinced that economics and biology will be obsolete by 2050, and amazing stories that are somewhat less rigorous than Drake's equation aren't going to do it.

In any event, I suspect that given enough time population decline will be self-correcting. Economic factors aside, having children will be seen as more attractive to people who've grown up in aging populations and have seen the loneliness that often results.

Certainly, but that correction will necessarily take several decades, and I have a bad feeling that I'm going to be picking up the cost in the meantime when American population shrinkage begins.

Think it is bad now, wait until the Male Birth Control Pill comes out. Muwhaaaaaaahahaha.

On a more serious, but somewhat tangential note, said "demographic problems" will probably be a reason cited when said pill is denied to the populace at large.

Those who talked about this being worldwide might be missing the point. Dropping from 8 children to 3 or 2.3 does not end geometric population growth, it just slows the rate. Dropping to 1.8 or less as many European countries do means that the majority groups in those countries are (for the moment, at least) headed towards self-extinction.

"It's obviously lots of fun to compare those effete European to the virile American birth rate, is there any *rational* reason to think that American birth rates aren't going to continue following the trend found everywhere else in the developed world?"

If it's just economics [1] and the availability of birth control, then the USA should be matching or ahead of Europe. We mechanized our agriculture and otherwise got richer faster than the western Europeans, contraception is just as available, and abortion is equally or less regulated.

However, in all probability the aggregate American birth rate is close to meaningless. Does anyone know how the birth rate among native middle class Americans and Europeans compares? If they are headed for extinction, unassimilated immigrants and welfare families might replace them numerically but are unlikely to replace them economically.

Secondly, Leonard is right. Even if every country in the world has an average breeding rate at less than replacement, short of mandatory and harshly enforced limits on children, as long as we keep preventing the least fit from dieing, the population drop or leveling off will be temporary. There are native white middle-class American families that still have six kids. Whether it's genes or memes, they'll probably pass the desire for a large family on to several of the kids. Us "more sensible" sorts will be outbred.

[1] The economic change assumed here is that, in subsistence agriculture more children provided an economic advantage, if one managed to keep them alive. Nowadays, children are an economic cost to everyone from bus drivers to Fortune 500 CEOs. OTOH, they may be an economic gain to welfare families. What's the child/woman ratio there?

A factor I didn't see much discussed was housing prices/incomes. I seem to recall hearing that this was a serious issue in a lot of the European countries that were experiencing low birthrates; if true, it certainly could help explain things. Hard to start a family if you're still living at home; aside from some coastal cities, housing is still pretty cheap in the US.

Of course, it might be that the causation would run the other way: high housing prices might *cause* people to shack up or get married sooner, because it's cheaper to live with a significant other than on one's own.

Someone can look this up, but I believe that non-Hispanic white birthrates ARE higher in the US than in Europe. And they are especially higher in Republican-leaning states. This points quite clearly to the important role of cultural norms and religiosity plus the value of suburbia and cheap housing.

No Fault Divorce is a factor I have not seen mentioned. Why should rational people embark on a 18yr commitment when one party can unilateraly revoke a marital contract at any time, without cause?

"Of course, we still need to come up with an explanation of why America, which is still getting richer and putting women into the workforce, isn't below replacement rate. But much of our fertility comes from poor women and immigrants, who have a much lower opportunity cost for childrearing than overeducated professionals like me."

Bingo. As always, you have to look beyond the numbers on the surface themselves, and peer a bit deeper. For White Americans, especially those in the Blue States (and even more so for professionals and urbanites), the total fertility rate is also way below replacement level. It's something like 1.7 for American Whites overall based on the latest estimates in the Statistical Abstracts ("halfway point between censuses"), and for urban, Blue State professionals it's alarmingly low, maybe 1.2-1.3. That more or less gibes with my own personal experience. I went to my 10-year college reunion recently, and out of 40 professional couples or so (I was in engineering), there were maybe 10-11 kids among them, with quite a few intending to have none at all. A few will have kids in their late 30's, but at most you're looking in the ballpark of 21-22 kids, tops, and this doesn't even consider the many who stay unmarried and, usually, without kids as well. See for example http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_n5_v36/ai_14723275 which was actually written in 1993, well before even the more severe drops in White fertility since then.

When I schmoozed with my old colleagues at the reunion, quite a number of them said they were still struggling mightily to pay off loans from college and grad-professional school-- how could they possibly think about starting a family under those circumstances, with all the added expenses (not to mention the kids' own projected costs for education)? This suggests that in the US at least, the *lack* of financial support for education, combined with ballooning tuition costs, is seriously discouraging childbearing among young professionals and people with advanced degrees.

So in the US, we've got the same sort of thing going on, but for us the effect is masked because African-American and especially Latino families still tend to have larger families (in or out of wedlock), with blacks just a bit above replacement level and Latinos maybe at 2.7-2.8. Couple this with heavy immigration levels, and the US ain't gonna be a White country anymore within a couple decades, and states like California, New Mexico and Texas are already effectively Latino states.

I'll add that there's some subtlety to the situation in Europe, which I found out myself when I worked there a few years back (splitting up my time in Belgium, France and Austria mostly but traveling all over the place). It's that Western Europe is being literally flooded with young, hard-working immigrants from *Eastern Europe*. The rioting North African Muslims capture most of the press attention, but in point of fact, the quiet reality is that the Eastern European immigrants vastly outnumber the immigrants from North Africa, Western Asia and South Asia.

You see this in particular in countries such as Austria, where Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians, Serbs, Croats, and others from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire are filling up the place. Plenty of Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Lithuanians and Latvians are in there too. I wasn't much in Germany but they say it's even more pronounced there. Something like 1.8 million Poles, 3 million Russians, half a million Ukrainians, and millions of other Eastern Europeans (Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Estonians and others) are pouring into Germany in even-increasing numbers-- in some cities, half the doctors and mechanics are from Eastern Europe. Germany and Austria are also getting surprisingly high numbers of immigrants from China, Korea, Vietnam, India and the Philippines, which I can definitely confirm from my own experience there. Germany and Austria even seem to be getting tens of thousands of immigrants from the US and Canada every year-- i.e., civilians who permanently settle down, not military-- for reasons unclear to me, though the presence of something like 80-90 million German-Americans here may have something to do with it. Hundreds of thousands more stream in from South American countries that were themselves formed from European immigrants-- i.e., the immigrants from those places are largely not mestizos as in Central America, but direct descendants of European settlers from the past two centuries.

France gets tons of immigrants from Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, plus hundreds of thousands from South India (French had colonies there) and millions from China, Southeast Asia, the Philippines and South America. Millions among the Middle Eastern immigrants from places like Lebanon are Christian, not Muslim Arab, and they dwarf the numbers of Muslim North Africans. Italy for whatever reason gets a lot of immigrants from the Philippines and SE Asia, as well as quite a few from Greece and Romania. Spain gets hundreds of thousands from Romania, Britain (young Britons were #2 or #3 source of immigrants to Spain last year, no idea why) and South America. The UK is the one exception, with a large majority of immigrants there coming in from Muslim countries like Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

So what does all this say in a nutshell? Well, Western Europe still definitely does have a serious demographic problem that its leaders need to face in a hurry. Nevertheless, the picture overall is more complicated than the numbers suggest on the surface. Western Europe is now the world's biggest immigration magnet with the low birth rates there probably being an important factor, and young immigrants with families from Eastern Europe, South America and E and SE Asia (with even a healthy number from North America) make up the vast, vast bulk of the immigrants, far more than from Muslim countries (majority or large minority) in the Middle East or South Asia.

This has the effect of offsetting some of the demographic and pension problems for a while at least, so long as Eastern Europe keeps sending people over. The problem with this scheme is that Eastern Europe itself is aging very, very rapidly and won't be able to send young immigrants over like this beyond another 2-3 decades, tops. So Western Europe still has to fix the root problem.

I in fact agree with one of your basic premises-- the social welfare system in Western Europe is *too generous*, providing people with benefits and subsidies that children would normally provide. Other factors are at work (which is maybe why quite a few places in Germany and Austria are enjoying revivals of old-fashioned Christianity-- seems to correlate with fertility rates to an extent, although many papers have shown that other factors in combination with Christian worship may be even more decisive, such as education levels and an urban setting in a particular locale), but I suspect that the social subsidies benefit system was a little too idealistic and impractical. Too get couples to invest in children, you can't have a welfare system that's too generous.

"No Fault Divorce is a factor I have not seen mentioned. Why should rational people embark on a 18yr commitment when one party can unilateraly revoke a marital contract at any time, without cause?"

Yeah, there may be something to that, too. Along the same lines, our divorce system is also brutally punitive toward the productive member of the couple (husband or wife). The problem with the "automatic 50:50 split" idea, is that it doesn't take into account the intensive economic and educational investment that young professionals (business executives, doctors, attorneys, engineers, accountants) have had to sink into their careers-- well over a decade of specialized and often technical education at high cost (lots of loans), long hours, plus the lost income of *not earning wages* straight out of college. There is a strong disincentive for such well-educated professionals to get married (let alone have kids), since the costs of a respectably-probable divorce are enormously damaging to the more productive member of the couple while beneficial to the less-productive member. Note that divorce law before the 50:50 principle was much more cautious in the formulas and tried to take into account real economic factors-- costs of education and training, salaries, economic productivity and so forth. Modern divorce law presents a nasty problem, and may explain why so many of my old colleagues were unmarried.

"Someone can look this up, but I believe that non-Hispanic white birthrates ARE higher in the US than in Europe. And they are especially higher in Republican-leaning states. This points quite clearly to the important role of cultural norms and religiosity plus the value of suburbia and cheap housing."

Nn, see my post above. You're right in that Red State non-Hispanic white birthrate is indeed higher, but not *that* much higher than Blue State Whites or in Europe. It's still below replacement, and in fact, one of the highest drops in TFR recently (though still above replacement) has been among Mormons in Utah. What we find is that lower educational levels and *rural* settings (not necessarily suburban) in many Red States correlate with higher birth rates among non-Hispanic Whites. They also correlate with higher teen pregnancy levels and higher rates of divorce-- in fact, Red State divorce rates in religious regions are a good deal higher than Blue State ones, so I'm not sure the traditional values claim holds any water at all.

Lower educational levels in the US in general correspond to higher fertility rates, especially less education among women in the population (more stay-at-home mothers w/o a college degree in the Red States), while higher education for women leads to much lower fertility rates. Even more important than educational levels, though, is a rural setting (which usually though not always corresponds to educational levels i.e., college degrees and the like). This may suggest an economic explanation, i.e. the expense per square foot in less in rural regions and people there may just be able to finance things like education and basic necessities for their kids better, which urbanite couples cannot do as easily.

"In Hinduism, the role of being a family man or mother is given special prominence just as in Catholicism. Mormons seem to have no trouble having kids (in spite of their relative prosperity) and certain Christian fringe groups are rabidly pro-natalist."

Corbusier, the European countries with the most severe drop in birth rates have been Catholic Spain and Italy. Also, within India, the mostly Hindu southern states have had the most rapid drops in fertility rate-- corresponding with drives to increase the education of young women there. (Indeed, South India has a much more equitable male:female ratio of advanced degrees than most of the country's other regions.) Also as I pointed above, the Mormons in the US, while still with a TFR above replacement, have been witnessing the steepest drops in fertility recently.

Your two parents with advanced degrees and 7 kids are a rare, rare exception-- though I did see them in Europe, as well. (One very accomplished electrical engineer and his wife, a professor, had 9 kids together.) The point is, on a *population* basis, higher education for members of a couple (and especially for the woman) correspond very tightly with lower fertility rates. The "secular vs. religious" divide is brought up a lot and may account for some of it, but it seems this may be more of a *correlation* than a *cause*. Very religious families in the Midwest also tend to have lower educational levels (again, *tend* to have, lots of exceptions on an individual basis), and more children. Also, they *tend* to be more rural, and this also links very strongly with larger family sizes.

Economic and educational factors, not cultural ones seem to be really predominant. I'm very skeptical about some traditions, at the core of their doctrine, being more pro-natalist than others-- all surviving religious and cultural traditions have had to be pro-natalist to some extent, or they wouldn't be around anymore. Economic and educational factors seem to be more important-- e.g., educational levels for women. Note e.g. in China that the published birth rate and population levels are vast underestimates since officials routinely reduce reported numbers and do not visit many households especially in rural regions (where migrants and families with many kids just send them to neighbors to avoid the census takers). This applies especially to young girls, who therefore often aren't recorded in the census which contributes heavily to the "missing girls" in the census. Unfortunately, many of these girls also aren't properly educated. Paradoxically, with the next generation, China's birth rate may actually experience a *jump* because girls in rural regions were not educated, one of the strongest factors leading to reductions in birth rates.

Also, cost per square inch of property (which is why rural families may have so many children on average), and *costs of living in general* (e.g., costs of college tuition) seem to be especially fundamental. Some religious denominations may encourage things that correlate with this, i.e. placing less of an emphasis on education (and more on following accepted religious doctrine) and also emphasize rural modes of living, but it's not the religion itself, rather the association with these educational and economic factors that is most likely responsible for observed differences.

The obvious culprit is Social Security (or the European equivalents). Soc.Sec. is a profoundly anti-family concept.

If people believed that their own children were going to be the only thing standing between them and old-age starvation, then they would not only be motivated to produce an optimum number of children, but they would also be strongly motivated to raise their children to become responsible, productive, hard-working adults instead of "Peter Pan" goof-offs.

(And of course, it is anti-family from the opposite perspective also: Is Grandma chronically ill? Well, Hey Dude, that's not my problem, now is it! It's the Government's problem.....)

But, on the other hand, it is really not at all obvious what the optimum world population level is going to be in, say, 50 years. The "over-population" concept has gotten a bad rap because of the wild exaggerations that people like Ehrlich made a few decades ago, but my gut-feeling is that Malthus will probably get the last laugh eventually.

I'm no expert, but I find it hard to believe that this planet can support 8 or 10 billion human beings indefinitely. 1 billion might be a much more realistic number. We have been totally spoiled by the fact that the past 100 years or so has seen exponential advances in Technology. But there is absolutely no guarantee that the rate of scientific advancement will continue to increase the same way in the future.

It may well be more rational to not have 'em in the first place than to watch them succumb to the Four Horsemen 20 or 30 years from now.

AT wrote:

Sorry, but I'm not convinced that economics and biology will be obsolete by 2050,

Didn't say that, or anything remotely like it. What I said was that there are compelling reasons to believe that technological change in the 21st century (i.e., the rate of change) will substantially outstrip that of the 20th century. Such profound new endeavors as genetic engineering (which promises to drastically reduce the effects of aging, and prolong lifepans into the hundreds of years) and nanotechnology (ultra-cheap goods of almost any description availble worldwide, along with many, many other implications).

And also:

and amazing stories that are somewhat less rigorous than Drake's equation aren't going to do it.

It has been noted that scientists and other intellectuals often tend to drastically underestimate the effects of technological change over time. This leads to the projection of current issues and attitudes well into the future despite overwhelming evidence that the future will involve radical change. (AT - Q.E.D.)

Also this has nothing whatsoever to do with the Drake equation. It is based on extrapolation of existing trends which have been going on for centuries. In order for many of these things not to happen the historical trendlines would suddenly have to change direction.

Social security and other retirement benefits may help support elderly people financially, but they won't provide compansionship - which is a basic human need, after all. The idea of being alone in one's old age is not necessarily a pleasant one, even if there are no financial worries.

Proposition: We make an offer to illegal aliens coming into our country, "You go and colonize Europe and after 5 years of hard work you will be eligible for American citizenship."

To Europe we make this offer, "We have good, steady, hardworking people ready to come and labor for you. And, after 5 years they'll be returning to the U.S. Think of them as guest workers sponsored by America.

"In addition, they are willing to colonize those parts of your countries left vacant by population loss. With the proviso that those territories colonized by our people becomes American territory.

"What?! You're not using it."

Apart from the fact that social security and its equivalents in other countries is a ponzi scheme that relies on a growing population to sustain itself, what is the problem of a decline in population? Even a 50% drop in population would only take us back to population levels at the beginning of last century. Plus presumably at some point the scarcity of children will increase their value and this will level out.

Social security and other retirement benefits may help support elderly people financially, but they won't provide compansionship - which is a basic human need, after all. The idea of being alone in one's old age is not necessarily a pleasant one, even if there are no financial worries.

When one grows old do you automatically lose the ability to have friends? The concept that the elderly are inherently lonely if they do not have scores of children/grand-children is ludicrous.

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