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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Interesting. I'd like to see that post!

I think society has basically disintegrated - sub 2.0 fertility means our civilization is unsustainable. You can bring in immigrants but that won't fix the root cause, either they'll assimilate and start aging or you'll have a separate society in your country. Our civilization is deeply broken if it can't meet the most vital metric of sustainability, it is only enormous tailwinds in technology and wealth that are propping it up. Of course there will be massive and growing social problems, epidemics of suicide, mass shootings, drug addiction and especially terrorism.

Imagine a patient in a hospital who eats ravenously. Six meals a day plus dessert - no exercise. And yet they're losing weight, you can see their ribs more and more! They'd have to be seriously sick, you'd imagine dozens of doctors crowding around this metabolic mystery. That's us. Somehow our culture, incentives and economies are so perversely broken that despite all this wealth we're going extinct. Japan and South Korea first, then Southern Europe...

I know it's not a new insight, but even if we assume tfr=1.5, in 200 years there will still be over 20 million humans living in the current territory of the United States. Not quite extinct, and that's ignoring pro-natalists like the Amish, who are likely to become very relevant at some point.

IMO declining populations are mostly a problem in that they're inherently deflationary, and we don't know how to do broad prosperity without growth.