h a l f b a k e r yExperiencing technical difficulties since 1999
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and a small stipend per annum, to stay that way.
Then, charge to reverse the procedure.
The problem of course would be the emergence of cheap backroom surgeries, with attendant malpractice.
So, I found out in my province it costs $17-18k per year per student, for education. New York City it's
$23k(US).
Aging of Japan
https://en.wikipedi...wiki/Aging_of_Japan
In a century, the population will halve, and the vast majority will be elderly. [8th of 7, Mar 26 2020]
Ageing of Europe
https://en.wikipedi...ki/Ageing_of_Europe
A substantial decline is inevitable. [8th of 7, Mar 26 2020]
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Annotation:
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When they tried that in Africa it was called all sorts of nasty names. Names I agree with. [-] |
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So much for the replacement fertility level. Give the planet
back to the cockroaches, eh? |
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In most Western countries, plus Japan, the birth rate is already way below replacement, and populations are maintained only by immigration. |
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There are many social factors at work, but it comes down to educated people realizing that children are troublesome and expensive, plus starting families much later in life. And of course they are correct. |
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University is a very effective contraceptive. |
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In undeveloped nations, a high birth rate will be balanced by high infant mortality through disease and starvation. Best leave that situation to play itself out as it's neatly self-limiting, although low-level warfare also helps to trim the numbers so selling weapons is helpful; get natural resources cheaply, sell them something that they can use to remove fertile males from the population. Beautifully symmetric. |
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Of course, there are catastrophic economic implications. Many fewer workers, many more dependants. Lower growth; some concentration of wealth, although people living longer will burn more of their lifetime accumulation on financing care. |
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But the crucial thing is that the population pyramid inverts. Historically there were many (and increasing) young people supporting few elderly ones. Once population slide commences, there are progressively fewer young people and many old ones.
There will not be physically enough able individuals to directly care for all the less capable elderly ones (how many old people can one young person care for simultaneously?), and that disregards the needs of the wider economy for workers .... |
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We forsee a massive upsurge in demand for automation, robotics, and androids .... <snigger/> |
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Asimov wrote a story where in the far future, Earth is depopulated (through population collapse and emigration to other worlds) and has become a sort of history theme park, a living museum, inhabited by androids, and hosting millions of transient visitors annually; but the reality is that the planet is nearly uninhabited... |
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With any luck (or none whatsoever) ours can be yet another
failed civilization on the planet, something for future
archaeologists to gleefully dig up. |
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"The world ends not with a bang, but with an adult diaper ..." |
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The Collective is looking better and better. Have you
free health care? A pension plan? A shooting range? |
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All of the above, plus a Cookie Of The Week Club, valet parking, and access to all the Premium Sports channels. |
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<Proffers contract and pen, smiles and nods encouragingly/> |
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You can borrow the big stuff from our weapons collection too, but you have to take it outside to try it, clean after firing, and bring the empty casings back. |
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In Hollywood, they would just pay you to be gay. |
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Can you take the money and just pretend to be gay, or do you actually have to ... you know ... "do" stuff ... with persons of the same chromosomal pairings ...? Is this on camera, or in private (in the sense of "not in public ") |
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Tell your friend that many customers prefer their actors and actresses not to have implants. |
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Just jealous ... you would if you could ... |
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The thing is, you'd probably need a sex tape released to get any notice. So, polish up those fabulous implants. |
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We have some stuff Seven of Nine did when she was young and needed the money... you think that might do ? It's been converted from 525line NTSC Betamax so it's not top quality image wise... though the soundtrack's pretty... emphatic. |
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Did she really do porn? Asking for a friend. |
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// purely as an academic matter // |
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Which educational institution, exactly ? Are they enrolling ? |
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<Moves [CH]'s name a few lines down The List/> |
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<Moves it back up, but not quite as far as it was/> |
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"If you build it, they will come ..." |
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// nothing will put a long term brake on human population growth // |
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So how do you account for the inverting population pyramids in the developed nations ? |
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Not being snarky; is there an explanation other than behavioural and/or decreased organic fertility due to environmental factors ? |
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Looking at a small, unrepresentative group of seven who graduated in 1984, four are or have been married or in long term relationships, and a total of four children have been produced. That's a long way below stability, and these are highly intelligent people who it is desireable should reproduce and pass on their genes for intellect. |
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In many nations, birth rate is sub-replacement. These nations will maintain their economies by immigration but this will ipso facto syphon off the "brightest and best" of the donor nations, reducing their own capacity to develop. |
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Consider: you are an intelligent, capable young person in an economically disadvantaged nation. You are offered education and employment in a wealthy nation. This employment may be looking after elderly people, but your lifestyle and prospects (including life expectancy) are substantially better than if you remain. |
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What are you going to do ? Are you going to sacrifice your own life prospects for your compatriots, and stay, while watching others around you snapping up the offer ? |
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Some will; most won't. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer - not in financial terms, but human resources. |
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Excuse us a moment <Gargle, rinse, spit/>. It's those last two words. We're sure you understand. |
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Not so sure about that. It doesn't take much to bring
on a famine in Africa or anywhere where growing
conditions aren't ideal and large-scale fertilizers are
hard to come by. |
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It took most "Western" nations about 300 years to transform from mostly rural, agrarian subsistence economies to mostly urban industrial economies, and they had to invent technology and systems as they went. Even in the mid 19th century, a bad harvest meant mass starvation in Europe and the Americas. |
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Now, the rural-to-industrial route is a beaten path and you can order the kit of parts from Amazon. The reasons rich nations haven't just switched undevloped nations into developed ones are all to do with politics and nothing to do with practicality. Now the Chinese have worked out that urbanized affluent Africans buy many more flatscreen TVs than starving goat-herders. If your business is making TVs, the answer is obvious. |
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Despite huge apparent challenges, is it likely that in 100 years all the current "undeveloped" nations will still be in the position they are today (apart from the ones that have been submerged by rising sea levels, that is) ? All they have to do is give up all their culture and traditions, learn English, and bow doiwn before the throne of globalisation. Is that so much to ask ? |
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//rich nations// Dunno how things are on the Cube, but hereabouts all citizens are in the hole about $30k each, thanks to deficit/debt spending over the last 40-50 years : and our peerless feeder just announced $120B to "fight the coronavirus", so there's another 3 kilobucks per. |
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Having a credit card doesn't make somebody (or a nation) "rich", IMnsHO. |
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//...is it likely that in 100 years all the current "undeveloped" nations will still be in the position they are today ?// |
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In 100 years, enough of the African nations will have merged to be *the* world power, China and then India having probably rose and set by then. |
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(unless global warming turns most of the continent into an arid desert, and they all move to current "rich" countries) |
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//100 years// Isn't new technology going to swerve any predictions? Hopefully in the direction of space, to earn questing presents and puzzling fails. Plus, the vast room to grow. |
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Not if you persist in hauling your kit out of your planet's gravity well with chemical-fuel reaction engines. |
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You don't need more or better rockets. You need more and better theoreticians. |
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Apart from experimental archaeologists, who travels the Atlantic in a sailing galleon ? No-one, because even for surface travel there are ships that can do it in six days instead of six weeks; aircraft (unimaginable to almost all mediaeval thinkers) do it in six hours. |
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Cabot, Columbus, and the rest did the best with what they had, and did well. It makes sense to explore, but fast, reliable mass trans-oceanic transport had to wait for the steam engine. |
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You're still at the sailing-ship stage. Forget more ships, or bigger ships with more sails - you need a "steam engine" for your project. |
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I'm sure you have just the thing, for a price. But give us just one equation for free, as an appetizer. |
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Ah, the unaware chimpanzee with a machine gun. But the safety woud be on because you can't hurt yourself with an equation. |
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We disagree. If you fail to comprehend the implications of an equation, you can hurt yourself very, very badly ... |
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It can be worse than not knowing the equation at all. A simple misplaced decimal point can have terrifying, even lethal, consequences. |
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Only when and how the formulae leave the memory page. |
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