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Comment by eeZah7Ux | Hacker News Reader

In a world with 7.7 billion people, why are declining birth rates almost always described as problem?

Because children in Africa are not going to finance retirement of japanese elderly.

They might finance retirement of chinese, though. Immigration is nice, but it's far from the only path to sustained economic development.

Or at least, not without very substantial immigration.

Of the former children from Africa, Syria, Afghanistan etc. which came to Germany (Europe) in the last three years a too high percentage does not seem to have the ability (or willingness) to replace a worker in Germany. Immigration alone doesn't help. It may even make matters worse if the 'wrong' people come. (I wrote 'seems' because it is difficult to get objective hard numbers for this emotional subject).

Regarding birthrates/immigration: Help without conditions is wrong, I now think. NGO's should not be allowed to 'help in Africa' (and Afghanistan, ...) without making sure that the birthrates drop significantly. Providing modern medicine without enforcing the 'recipients' to adapt the culture/custom will lead to a desaster in those countries (and if 'everybody' migrates - in Europe also (will happen after my lifetime probably)).

When immigration is discussed, it is important to separate refugees, illegal immigration, and legal immigration.

Being an island nation, Japan is in a good position to control their borders tightly compared with other countries like Germany.

It then becomes a question of having a well-designed immigration process that selects young, healthy, highly-educated folks who, most importantly, must speak the local language fluently. Canada has a pretty good system in place for this.

Why do you think it's okay to make African children pay for elderly Japanese and Europeans? Why do you assume they would even want that? They are not instruments born to serve your desires.

If you stand with one foot in a bucket of ice cold water and one foot in a bucket of scalding hot water, you're not comfortable on average.

The imbalance is a problem because of things like lone grandchildren inheriting the houses and wealth of four grandparents and others inheriting nothing. It's a problem because some areas have established fine education structures that cannot simply be shifted to another continent. It's a problem because the youths aren't where the jobs are, and haven't been educated by a system that's tuned to the jobs in that area. And so on.

Japan has a progressive inheritance tax so the wealth distribution problem is mitigated somewhat.

Because the population is decreasing in high-IQ countries, where the vast, vast majority of humanity's economic, scientific and cultural output is generated, and increasing in low-IQ countries, which are typically stricken by famine, warfare, poor human rights (particularly for women) and foreign aid reliance.

Then things will simply have to change out of necessity, it's really quite simple. You don't seriously think people in 'low-IQ countries' aren't going to develop at astounding rates once the 'high-IQ countries' are gone right? Don't forget that modern western civilization came from the dark ages and modern Islamic civilisation came from the Islamic golden age. These things are cyclical, they come and go, there's really no reason to be panicking.

> there's really no reason to be panicking.

The top comment here is a person who has had the unfortunate experience of realizing that their cultural and genetic family are at high risk of being trimmed away from the tree of life. That's a pretty serious existential dread to swallow. Have some sympathy for them.

I mean, if all of humanity were going extinct could we say something like "well, at least there's a good chance that squids will evolve sentience someday so we will live on through squidkind no reason to panic" and make you feel better about it? And if that worked, maybe we ought not to even worry about the entire solar system being wiped out since there are plenty of other solar systems (no need to be such a xenophobic solist). And if that made you feel better maybe we ought to not mind the whole galaxy being wiped out because ... and etc... etc... c:

When all of humanity goes extinct (which is inevitable), I will be more concerned about the method of extinction than the extinction itself. Even the collapse of this reality, while grand is minor in the face of what I believe comes after. I prefer not to make too big a big deal out of the inevitable, at least not until I get there.

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