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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31304 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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This is amusing given Israel’s demographic future is economically catastrophic (shrinking populations are bad, but producing vastly more welfare recipients is perhaps even worse),

Perhaps, but what happens when you can't afford to provide for those welfare recipients? They cease to be welfare recipients. And in that case they are again a national resource, whereas a future where they instead don't exist that resource is not there to be tapped.

Israel has the disadvantage of being surrounded by hostile neighbors though. I can't imagine downscaling the economy is a good idea in that situation.

Israel might well do a better job of managing that transition than Argentina or South Africa, it’s true. On the other hand, they might not.

Or the productive people increasingly leave as the country enters a death spiral.

I'm not sure that's worse than demographic decline.

Demographic decline in what sense? Korea is in a bad place but Japan will probably be fine. Obviously AI timelines will shake things up anyway, and Japanese debt is largely held domestically.

And high savings rates seem to be mitigating the problem in Japan.

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