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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   31665 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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How about looming population collapse?

Looming? What do you mean concretely?

There's reportedly been 9.5 million babies born in China last year. Something like 3.6 million in the US; of those, 1.8 million white babies. Accordingly, in 18 years there will be 5 times as many Chinese 18 year olds as there will be their White American counterparts. Yes, they have lower TFR, but at current trends they'll have a vastly larger workforce for many decades.

Most of the non-white babies born in America are hispanic, who make good citizens as a rule- hard workers, their talented tenth can easily keep up with the whites, can learn the million and one practical skills you need to run an industrial society.

The question is about what the workforce will be doing.

An inverted population pyramid is the grand strategic equivalent of "shooting to wound" to incapacitate three hostiles instead of one.

I don't have very strong opinions as to what will happen In Real Life but historically from what I understand civilizations that lost their TFR edge crumbled regardless of their total population numbers.

There's reportedly been 9.5 million babies born in China last year.

How many of those were ethnic minorities in places like Tibet that will be passively or even actively hostile to the Chinese project? It looks like the regions with the five regions with the highest per capita childbirths were:

  • Tibet (problematic minority)
  • Guizhou (notable minority population)
  • Ningxia (majority Han, but a minority autonomous region for the Islamic Hui people)
  • Qinghai (about 50% recognized ethnic minority groups)
  • Hainan (majority Han, although there is a noticeable minority of the native islanders)

Google's AI suggests that around 800,000 of those births in China were minority due to relatively straightforward calculus of "national birthrate x 9% of the Chinese population that is minority.) But my priors are that minority groups in China (particularly the Tibetans and Islamic people groups) are going to have disproportionately higher birth rates (Tibet's birth rate appears to be twice the national average!)

Now, if you actually go and look at China's population pyramid, I think it's fairly clear the demographics for them are more of a long-term issue than anything, in the short term they can plausibly kick the can down the road and hope AI or robots or something will save them. It's very unlikely that demographics alone will e.g. decide Taiwan's fate.

Tibet is extremely sparsely populated, so their birth rates are irrelevant. There's like 3.4 million ethnic Tibetans, they can have 5x Han TFR and that won't matter.

All of this is just more cope. I think that for a few decades, there was a foreboding feeling in the west that eventually China will become the dominant superpower, and accordingly much mental energy was dedicated to crafting memes that dispel this impression. Like the idea that ethnic minorities in China will help in breaking it apart (this won't work any better than in Russia), or that low TFR or One-child-policy or pollution or real estate market collapse or COVID lockdowns or the crack in the Three Gorges Dam or the debt or x y z will signify the end of the Mandate of Heaven, or… I hope that soon people will realize how pathetic all this cope is. China is not a paper tiger, it's not all fake and propaganda, in fact they barely care what you think about them, it's a well-organized state, their bureaucrats are smarter than yours, they have repeatedly shown more capacity to remove threats to national stability than you have, and they are systematically patching all remaining vulnerabilities. In a sense, you project your own state's inability to manage itself onto China to see how it might conveniently take itself out of the picture.

Now, if you actually go and look at China's population pyramid, I think it's fairly clear the demographics for them are more of a long-term issue than anything, in the short term they can plausibly kick the can down the road and hope AI or robots or something will save them.

This is exactly what they are doing now, but that's also what the US is purporting to do. The problem is that they're very dynamic, in all possible way, and they'll clearly be able to produce millions of robots. Hell, even their Android ROM companies become behemoths that ship high-end race cars and develop humanoid robots (at market cap $127B). Apple (cap $2.6T) has given up on a car after a decade or so of work and is barely able to maintain its phone software. This isn't how things should look when you have a strong position and they're on the verge of collapsing.

(this won't work any better than in Russia)

Didn't Russia fight a violent internal war against minority separatist groups? I seem to recall that happening.

Broadly I think you are attributing a lot of views to me without any evidence that I hold them. Which is fine, I guess. I think that probably the truth on China is between "OMNICOMPETENT HYPERSTATE OF THE FUTURE" and "weak, lame, dying, about to crack."

This isn't how things should look when you have a strong position and they're on the verge of collapsing.

As I said, I don't think China is "on the verge" of collapsing over any sort of near-term timescale.

Didn't Russia fight a violent internal war against minority separatist groups? I seem to recall that happening.

Yes, we won. I refer to the “decolonizing” partition plans during this war, like this one. In reality, the colonized Buryats and all others eagerly enlist and fight in Ukraine (and get killed disproportionately). My point is that even a moderately effective state can easily suppress ethnic minority separatism within its borders, so hoping that China will somehow collapse due to ethnic tensions is not serious.

Uh, the chief military recruiting populations in the US mostly come from regions that would be more likely to take their chances at jumping in a major state crisis.

In reality, the colonized Buryats and all others eagerly enlist and fight in Ukraine (and get killed disproportionately).

Yes, I've seen the footage of the Chechens, they seem quite happy to be back in the field.

I don't particularly think China will collapse due to ethnic tensions.

Yeah I guess if you don’t count a little thing called “immigration” (leaving aside those birth numbers out of China are likely cooked)

It seems you've collected every possible cope and trope, congrats.

“immigration”

Yes, Venezuelans will surely bail you out in the arms race with China, if you don't deport them to El Salvadoran prisons first.

Sure, it’s only Venezuelans migrating. Except all the best and brightest that America brain drains from every other country. Where did Xis daughter go to school again?

Meanwhile, all of chinas rich flee to America, displaying their utmost confidence in how China is going to lose and lose hard in the near future.

Except all the best and brightest that America brain drains from every other country. Where did Xis daughter go to school again?

I have nothing against Xi's daughter but I don't think she's very smart. Neither is Xi, for that matter. Rich and powerful Chinese sending their kids to the US is a common pattern when they are incapable of scoring enough on Gaokao to get into a serious Chinese school like Tsinghua.

Brain drain is drastically slowing down. I see accomplished Chinese American scientists actually returning home. The US isn't that attractive any more, and it doesn't want to be attractive. Nature is healing.

Chinese scientists are returning because China is basically bribing them to do so. But it presents a problem for China - how will they keep stealing tech from America if their scientists return home?

Nah. Immigration is 20th century solution.

21st century solution is annexation. First Greenland, then Canada, then Mexico, then all the way from North to South Pole.

What did you think MAGA meant? vibes? papers? essays?

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