Women are rejecting marriage in Asia. The social implications are serious.
economist.com
economist.com
It's going to be controversial and maybe even shocking, so brace yourself for a moment before reacting please.
I think peaceful societies self-destruct.
With a few notable exceptions that require a geography suitable to isolationism, long term peace has historically been achieved through your country or one of your ally's having military supremacy over the rest of your neighbors.
Obviously, diplomacy can keep the peace for long periods of time, even human lifetimes, but eventually incidents happen when there's a hothead in one government, and then that's when the military supremacy determines whether you get attacked or not.
Anyways, I've found the more a country renounces war and gets further away from it, the more birth rates go down. You get an explosion of commerce and art for ~30 to ~70 years, and then the society self-destructs.
No longer forced to confront mortality and with no externally unifying cause, people start living for luxury, pleasure, and consumption. They stop having children. Birth rates fall off.
Eventually, this destroys a country's economy, the military supremacy fades, and one of their neighbors comes in and cleans house, and the cycle begins anew.
This has happened many times through history. It's happening in Japan right now. If I became an advisor to anyone in the Japanese government, I'd advocate two things as chief priorities - (1) exceedingly good relations with China, and (2) re-militarize.
Then join the next war they can on America's or China's side. Combined with some standard messages of nationalism/strength/growth/unity, birth rates would almost certainly increase.
I'll give you another just as likely reason for past societal collapses (frankly, a lot likelier reason), and you can then fill in more if you are able. In times of peace, leaders have no dire motivation to mold their citizens into specific paths that are catalyst for military purposes. This leads to societes that are directionless. Historically, only military societies prevailed because they had direction and motivation to improve. However, what's so bad about being directionless? What exactly causes the downfall of "peaceful" (=actually just directionless) societies? We have to dig a little deeper. You jumped the gun and proclaimed it was peace itself that was doing the damage. That sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Peace itself has millions of little and big effects on society. Among these effects is the loss of need for children, therefore inevitably marriage laws get relaxed. Humans want to have sex a lot and with many other people, and marriage gets in the way of that. In peaceful times we have seen a gradual destruction of marital laws. This leads to marriages which can be formed and destroyed at the whim of any person, and in our society today, it's even worse because women are considerably favored in the break-up. This leads to people being very cautious to form deep bonds, and this ultimately leads to a weaker society, a society devoid of the ultimate motivation for every human being: Providing and protecting your family. It's like taking away one of the primary engines of a spaceship. There is still other engines that powers it: Need for food. Need for sex. However the strongest one, the motivation to protect your own children is gone. Because there are no children, because there are no marriages, because marriages are nowadays too fast and detrimental for male parties. What we need, is actual equality between the genders.
I'm not sure I follow this logic. By all indications in both the East and West, it's women, not men, who are driving the changes in marriage rates, ages, and trends.
1) Women are entering and succeeding in the workforce, and accordingly, they see less reason to give that all up for traditional marriages and gender roles.
2) Men outnumber women in many Asian countries (especially China, for obvious reasons). Ergo, the women in these countries can afford to be choosey. It's a buyer's market, and they are the buyers. With the power dynamic in the meat market shifted in their favor, they can be more selective and take their time. Unfortunately, they can't wait too long, because eventually, they'll lose out to younger women entering the same market -- and, when that happens, many will have forfeited their marriage prospects altogether.
[For what it's worth, I am a proponent of gender equality. Please don't misconstrue me there. I am not passing judgment on any of these trends, but rather, am simply observing them.]
Consider this scenario: a man seeking marriage is likely to continue seeking it through his old age (e.g. doesn't become an eternal bachelor or celibate).
In this case, a woman of that same old age is likely to marry someone young because they can provide for their young husband materially, and from the young mans' point of view marrying an older woman is a good chance for marriage in a market where older men are using their own value to attract younger women.
"Detriment to our entire species" is also far from proven. This far mankind has done pretty well even with all the wars. While it's certainly unfortunate for the ones actually involved in the war, it might be better for "the greater good". Or maybe it isn't. The point is that you shouldn't dismiss an argument just because it's politically incorrect nowadays.
Deleted comment
First of all, it would be common courtesy in any fruitful discussion that if you require me to provide evidence or some sort of logical construct supporting my theory, that you would do the same for yours first.
Secondly, you make the mistake of thinking life is easy. It's a really healthy attitude, and it is certainly born out of real life experiences, but the unfortunate truth is, that it's not easy. It's terribly complicated, and everything has so many reasons that it makes it pointless to try to enumerate them. I only ask that you don't restrict yourself to a single reason, like you did in your post. I only ask that you recognise that life is not easy, and that discussions are not easy and that you can't possibly ever understand a problem fully.
Your simple request for evidence to reject equality of gender as a requirement for peaceful societies is not simple to answer. This question is really a symptom of what I pointed out before. Your question would require extensive research into gender history, statistical analysis of marriage data, sexual encounters, the change of laws over history, how governments evolved under different societies, how governments treated genders, how that affected them, and many more personal assessments like how equality is historically always fought for and therefore it would be a pointless battle to reject it in the long run, ...the list is endless.
I hope you can now see that discussion is pointless. What we are all left with is the belief that we can achieve stable peace, that we can achieve gender equality and at the same time maintain a thriving society. This is what I want, and therefore I try to find theories to support that. Do not take that as naivety. Many will, but only people who have thought this through will agree that all their facts are in essence belief. You are doing the same thing, but labeling it differently. It's like the chicken or egg problem. What came first, your belief or the fact? In order to form any sort of belief, you need facts. In order to find facts, you need some beliefs first.
My comment originally said that I think there's two ways of exploring the world.
1. Start with a conclusion you want to be true and looking for evidence that supports your view, or
2. Start by gathering facts and trying to find conclusions in them.
You write:
> This is what I want, and therefore I try to find theories to support that.
Right. I think that view fundamentally leads to disastrously bad places. It leads to assuming you're correct and looking for confirmation instead of truth.
Truth is often unpleasant. Confirmation is easily found, even for the stupidest and craziest arguments - look at some of the clearly insane views that people hold with no backing.
Why do they think that way? Because they start with the idea that they're right and look to prove that. It's easy to prove you're right, especially if your views are the norm in your community.
It's much harder to say, "What if I'm wrong?" and to constantly seek out counter-arguments and test your views.
Everyone has views that are wrong, mistaken, poorly informed, and counter-productive. The challenge of becoming an informed person is challenging your views constantly - even your sacred ones - looking for smarter arguments.
It's difficult and stressful. I can't even recommend it if your goal in life is happiness, because if you succeed then everyone in your social circle starts to think you're nuts. But ideally, you become gradually less wrong over time and can do a lot of good for the world, even when your views look crazy to people who never stopped and asked, "What if the world isn't the way I thought it was...?"
3. Look for multiple often contradictory world views and evaluate them over time.
Most people try and create a world view where they have the 'facts' and there may be a few unimportant things they don't know and a few things they are wrong about but they got the big picture. Unfortunately, it's easy to answer 'What is the best car company?' with Ford and then always buying that. Even if sometimes Honda might be a better option.
It is easy to find theories to support anything you want, look at all religions and other pre-scientific belief systems. It is facing reality, whether or not it supports your beliefs, that is hard. And that is something only modern, Western-derived civilizations have ever even come close to achieving.
His theory still holds true. Unless you can conclusively argue that 'Peace' isn't the MAIN reason for the downfall of non-warring civilizations and countries - don't see where your argument leads.
In a way you're supporting him.
Finally, he's pointing out something that might be The Truth. If it's the truth then it says a lot of positive things about his capacity for logical thinking and his ability to be HONEST with himself and others.
As this article points out a lot of woman aren't marrying or having kids because "being both employed and married is tough in Asia.".
In other words, these countries have enough equality where women are allowed in the labor force but not enough where the society has set up strong institutions to deal with women in the labor force. Another economist article dealt with the impossibility of finding day care in Japan. Lacking these institutions causes a huge economic cost to exist for having kids.
Indeed, among developed nations, you'll find a positive correlation between gender equality and total fertility rate.
Raw data:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Gender_Gap_Report
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...
In Europe, the countries with the least gender gap have the highest fertility rates. (> 1.8 for all the top 5). The countries with the most are among the lowest (< 1.5 for lowest 5).
You see this as well with Asia. South Korea has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet and extremely high gender inequality. Same is true with Japan. The article notes that it hasn't hit China yet; I'd be surprised if the trend does materialize with (urban) China's vastly higher gender equality. (gotta give the Communist Party props there)
My policy recommendation to maintain replacement level TFR is to follow the example of Norway or Iceland: reduce the economic and social cost of having kids (parental leave policies, free day care, etc.) - a lot cheaper than going to war.
I mean, would you really want to marry if that meant giving up your career and becoming an unpaid cleaner / cook / babysitter, while your SO worked 70 hour weeks to make up for the fact that you weren't contributing? Weird choice.
How does forcing the childless (note: people of both genders can be childless) to subsidize parents promote gender equality?
(I'm not disagreeing with your suggesting that you can subsidize something to get more of it, I'm just trying to figure out how your last paragraph relates to the rest of your post.)
First note that the childless already massively subsidize parents through taxes that pay for education. Also note that I am considering replacement levels of fertility desirable.
The cost of being a mother, biologically, is vastly higher than being a father. This is further enhanced by cultural expectations for the mother to do most of the child raising.
In other words, female parents take a far greater hit than male ones. (Indeed, child raising explains almost all of the male-female wage gap). Subsidizing parents effectively subsidizes women far more; it's basically an affirmative action program to compensate a disadvantage dealt by biology and society. (How the subsidy flows is tricky. As most people end up having kids, this subsidy is effectively mostly a transfer of wealth from fathers to mothers, across generations).
Some policies that may be clearer are government promotion of fathers taking care of kids via both advertisement and paternity leave. This breaks down traditional gender roles (promotes equality), while reducing the burden on the mother.
This isn't as simple as that. The tax revenue used for education in Texas comes from property taxes. The majority of that is from homeowners. The overwhelming majority of homeowners have or had children in the home at some point. Aside from those facts, would you like to live in a society where the children were not educated? I think you would find that the reduction in crime and the boost to the cheap labor force would be worth the investment.
The most important point this should make is: all of these things are fabulously complicated and interrelated.
Of course, I'd be rather hard pressed to see what that has to do with fertility. I'd suggest maybe that there is a simpler explanation for the phenomenon you observed - the countries with gender equality also seem to have lots of subsidies for parenthood. Most likely the subsidies are the cause of fertility.
If the subsidies are the actual cause, we could probably get higher fertility by subsidizing parenthood together with higher societal expectations of maternal activities from women. The carrot of free money for the fertile life path, and the stick of lower social status for the less fertile path.
(Not that I advocate this course of action, but I'm not in favor of encouraging fertility in any case.)
Then there's all sorts of peaceful native societies that did fine for hundreds to thousands of years before the colonial nations came, with no implosion.
Your statement reads far more like you had a predetermined conclusion and decided to simply shoehorn your observations into it.
On the other hand, I'm wondering if you're just trolling - "studied a lot of history" and then saying "exceedingly good relations with China" combined with "japan remilitarises". I don't think you've read enough history there...
But if that's the case, isn't the argument then an oxymoron? Total war is a total realignment of society - the society is necessarily broken down and forged afresh. Engaging in total war 'to save a society' necessarily changes that society, often quite profoundly. The total war of WWII made massive social changes when comparing pre- and post-war societies (two big ones were end of colonialism and rising equality of women in developed nations). The society you get at the end of total war is different from the one you may have been trying to preserve.
I tried writing up all the credentials I have that make me have a clear understanding here, but I don't know how to do it without looking snarky. But anyways, today I'm in Beijing, yesterday I was in Hong Kong, last week I was in Japan, and tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut with the nephew of one of the top CPC officials who is my friend and occasionally someone I do business with. And yeah, I read a lot of history.
So anyways. I think you might be uninformed about modern Japanese/Chinese relations.
For instance, there's only four countries that get visa free entry into the PRC without any public business.
Guess who is on the list?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_People%27s_R...
Huh. Interesting point? Don't the Chinese hate the Japanese?
Answer: nope! The leadership doesn't, anyways. The common people do, it's a common enemy for them, just like illegal immigration from Mexico is a common enemy for much of the American Midwest. But the leadership of China are extremely practical, intelligent, and unsentimental people. If a good relationship with Japan is good for China, they'll do it. If Japan makes friendly overtures simultaneously with re-arming and stays on good terms with the USA, yes that's all very possible.
As for the rest of your comment, man you've seriously got to check your own claims more. For instance -
> Far from renouncing war, the US both pursues and idolises it.
Okay. So, you'd expect a greater number of people among the upper class to be joining the military, a greater number of representatives to be coming from former soldiers, and more presidents to be former servicemen too?
Right? You'd expect those numbers to be increasing if American militarism is increasing? Are they increasing? No...? Is there a hole in your theory...? Hmm...
If Japan remilitarised they would be a credible threat to China and it would be difficult to maintain 'exceedingly good relations'. If Japan remilitarises, the question of any military is "who are our credible threats?", and the answer is "China, predominantly, then Korea". So Japanese remilitarisation would necessarily focus on countering China. The fact it could also fight in Korea would add tension to China's pawn in North Korea.
and more presidents to be former servicemen too?
I don't have numbers for congress, but do for presidents. In the last two presidential elections, 50% of the candidates have been former active servicemen. In one case, the serviceman was defeated by a former National Guardsman, the incumbent who had initiated two wars while in office. This same former active servicemen suffered a significant PR loss due to a character assassination campaign where his wounds in action were deemed "not heavy enough to earn a medal, the guy's a fake".
I'm not sure how your highly selective example of 'decreasing militarism' is satisfied here.
Remember that before WWII, the US had a small military. Since WWII it's been kept large and expanded - the cold war, for example, was brought to an end by the US out-producing it's opponent - and the world is constantly reminded that the US has an army and actively uses it, anywhere, any time.
The US is a much more military-oriented society than it's colleagues. What you're doing is taking the wide outlier (the US) and then saying "it's not highly militarised - see it's not increasing", despite the point that it's already way out there.
Note aside, it is funny to see that when doing some quick blind generalizations on mankind, like "countries at peace die eventually", one can almost always use China as a coutner example. I can trow a fairly lenghty list of them.
At the very least, it's an extraordinary claim and makes no reference to the anything not more easily explained by the oft-noted equation between low GBP and high fertility - for example, seen here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TFR_vs_PPP_2009.svg
If you can furnish a concrete series of examples of countries at a similar economic stage, where the sole difference is warlike behavior, and connect this to fertility, more power to you.
But frankly, I think you're just making stuff up.
Man, it's very possible to be skeptical without the asshole tone. It's a common theme in your comments, but it's really unnecessary.
Anyways. It's a good point, regardless of tone. Where'd my analysis come from?
I've noted that:
-You see baby booms frequently after the conclusion of war, increasing fertility.
-As nations age and move towards pacifism, you seem to have a cycle of more luxury goods being produced and less trade/usable goods. EG, more Burberry and less fighter planes, which means more status/positional goods and less things that can be technologically built on.
This has been noted at various times in history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon
It's also something I've seen and felt in being in lots of countries. That's entirely subjective, but the urge to "live quickly" seems higher in places that where people face their mortality. Mongolia made a notable impression on me, and their fertility is very high (and they have a high general militant disposition, as well).
> If you can furnish a concrete series of examples of countries at a similar economic stage, where the sole difference is warlike behavior, and connect this to fertility, more power to you. But frankly, I think you're just making stuff up.
1. That's a PhD thesis amount of work, or at least a long many-page discussion on a history forum, not a quick comment on Hacker News. Asking the other person you're talking to provide PhD amounts of evidence is asinine. C'mon dude, seriously.
2. You can be skeptical and intelligently asking questions without the asshole tone. I don't mean just to me - go review your own comment history. You're obviously a smart guy, you can ask questions without the haughty manner and you'll probably be better off for it.
I'm still baffled as to your evidence; apparently the Mongolians are hard bastards and like fucking, or something. What's asinine is that you have no evidence for your wild, extraordinary claim. None. Never mind PhD level. Give a couple examples that you think support this idea that aren't equally well explained by the traditional 'stone broke and ignorant and breeding like mad to make sure at least one survives' model. Explain why Russia is at a fertility rate of 1.34 and Iceland is at 2.05, for example. New Zealanders are breeding like rabbits compared to Belorussians, etc. Not sure who has the Burberry and who has the fighter planes there, but I doubt it bears out your ideas...
I don't want a PhD thesis. I want you to come out with a single convincing case where your 'let's be warlike' stuff explains the way the world is better than the default "broke people breed more" model.
Appeal to authority are all very well (your idea has been 'noted' by 'notable' guys!), but Gibbon is a contentious source for any kind of assertion about the modern world, having not, well, seen it. Like many pretentious high school students, I've read him, but may not be the better for it. At least you could name-check Spengler or something; this would be just as embarrassing as anything else you've written on this thread but at least more topical.
+1, this really nailed it. Not just this thread either, but the all-too-common, arrogantly presented naive analyses that we see from time-to-time on the HN comment threads.
This is possibly the worst idea I've ever seen proposed on this site. An actual war between the three richest countries on the planet could possibly make the world unlivable for all of humanity. It's not a good solution for putting the Japanese economy on track.
This isn't the 20th century. Our mastery over the natural world has grown far too powerful for a war between strong countries. If you can make a convincing argument that war is inevitable even in these circumstances, then you've also explained the Fermi Paradox.
I say that as a clarification of the discussion, not because I agree that it's a good idea.
ok, let's hear it.
travel through 60+ countries...study of lots of history.
the anticipation builds....
I think peaceful societies self-destruct.
dude.
a) You obviously haven't read enough history, or you would know this is not a new idea.
b) So if peaceful societies do self-destruct, do warlike societies not self-destruct? Or only the ones that don't lose?
Perhaps you ought to turn your attention from demagoguery to speculative fiction. I'm sure there's a great novel in you about militant nations fighting ritualized wars to keep their edge, while deftly avoiding any real conflict. Add some authentic texture from those 60+ countries, and you'd have a bestseller for sure.
Without going deeper into your "analysis" I assure you that there is no single, unifying causality to the effects you describe.
I also assure you that my country (germany) has a really bad track-record of listening to guys with "easy answers" whose arguments started out strikingly similar to yours.
Right. That's the whole point - there will be beligerent nations, and pacifist nations will get rolled by them unless they've got a strong ally to bail them out.
It was the militant nations (USA, Britain, Russia) that bailed out the appeasement/pacifist nations from Nazi conquest and rule.
No easy answers, indeed!
Over here in europe we have that ally, it's called NATO.
And despite all its flaws it seems like a more reasonable approach, rather than encouraging individual nations to build nationalistic regimes (all the way down to the "standard messages") in order to protect against potentially "beligerent" neighbours.
The UK is known as the appeasement nation. 'I hold in my hand a piece of paper' are the immortal words. When someone says 'appeasement', Chamberlain is the guy who comes to mind.
Russia didn't get a choice to bail anyone out - they were invaded, and through dint of favourable geography and stubborn nationalism, they prevailed.
Russia and the UK were both hastily militarising at the end of the '30s in response to rising German militarisation. And in counter to your earlier idea that in order to be more 'military' a society, you have to have more upper-class people in the military: you claim that Russia was a militant nation at that time, despite the Great Purge removing a solid chunk of the officer corps, including most of the top brass.
Keep in mind that even Russia's allies at the start of WWII considered them a backwater military, unsuited for playing with the 'big boys'.
Honestly, your comments read more as if you're just finding ways to support your predetermined conclusions than incorporating things you should have learned from studying lots of history.
Out of curiousity, who do you frame as an 'appeasement/pacifist' nation in the WWII timeframe? Is it just a jab at the early French surrender, you know, the French who weren't pacifist, but were heavily investing in military defense, just the wrong way? Or is it a jab at (I'll give you these for free) Denmark and Norway, neither of which could stand up to the German military machine, even if they were highly militarised? Surely you're not thinking of Poland, which had a strong-but-outdated military? Certainly not Czechoslovakia - that country had been left to the wolves by the countries you claim 'bailed them out'? Sweden and Switzerland were both pacificst... but didn't need bailing out. Perhaps you mean Benelux... but again, you're talking about small countries being steamrollered by a powerful military using never-before-seen tactics (paratroopers and armored spearheads) which was subsequently able to bring a world power to its knees in only a couple of months?
And despite all this, the US was not highly militarised in the period before WWII, when isolationist politics had led to a reduction in the size of the military. All three nations you report had small or underdeveloped armies (two did have very large navies, but it wasn't the navy that defeated Nazi Germany) in the lead-up to WWII.
When you say you've 'studied lots of history', are you actually delving into the actual events and reading about them, or are you just pulling from 'an interest in the populist zeitgeist mythology'?
Yes, there are no easy answers, but that doesn't mean you should skip the reading requirements...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12179705
or simply look at birth rates in Israel, a very militarized country.
True purpose of war lies elsewhere. As Orwell said:
The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.
And obviously, lots of subjects will internalize values of ruling group and believe that war is good for economy or birth rates ;)
But where Colinvaux and myself would disagree with you, is the direction of the cause and effect.
My interpretation is that a society starts off warlike. At some point it either conquers, or is conquered by its neighbors. Once the empire is at its natural borders, war no longer provides a good economic rate of return. People avoid the army and instead go into trade or farming. The imperial peace provides a stable base for commerce and industry. People become rich. As they grow rich, and as the need for martial valor declines, people become more decadent. They spend more on luxuries, they have less need for children. Thus both a decline in fertility and a decline in aggressiveness are symptoms of the underlying cause (war no longer being necessary for survival, and war no longer providing a good rate of return). Eventually though, on the borders of the empire some new, highly fertile, highly aggressive population arises. Meanwhile the old growth civilization has long lost its martial prowess, and each individual resident faces a game theory optimum of continuing the decadence, rather than face the rigors of a martial life. Thus the bordering tribe eventually is strong enough to invade, the old civilization falls, and the cycles of history continue.
Oh, and just to have a counter example: Switzerland
The Swiss are a strange bunch of people. As recent (or as long ago) as 500 years Machiavelli was praising their military spirit compared to the mercantile and money-oriented one of his Florentine fellows. He was predicting that the city of Florence's reliance on mercenaries instead of building a military spirit from the bottom up would finally lead to its submission. He was of course proven right, because while the Swiss have managed to preserve their independence through the centuries Tuscany was soon to fall under external dominance, but it begs the question if we would have been better off with a more militarized Florence but presumably less inclined to works of art (so no Michelangelo or Galleria degli Uffizi), or if it's ok that things happened just the way they did. Also, see Sparta vs. Athens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_Switzerland
Heinlein: "An armed society is a polite society".
Unknown (at least by me): "A man of peace must be strong".
I don't necessarily agree with all the conclusions drawn by the OP but I don't see how Switzerland is some kind of "counter example". Please clarify as I am honestly baffled.
Thanks.
Go check out sub-Saharan Africa, and see if that aphorism holds.
If you can think of more than just guns, Switzerland is a counter-example because of its politics - instead of the OP's suggested "Japan should just join in the next war, it's necessary to save it's society", Switzerland has pursued a long policy of neutral politics. It doesn't "simply join in on wars on whatever side looks stronger". It specifically avoids doing so.
I would still be curious to hear exactly what yaix was trying to say. Your assertions don't necessarily cast any light on what they had in mind.
What I'm pointing out is that it's not the guns that make the society polite. Sub-saharan africa is a vast conglomeration of countries and tribal societies, bigger than the US and Europe combined, and there you are calling it an 'exception'.
And nice job dodging someone trying to help you be less 'baffled'.
No, no one sane would advocate for another WWII.
However, a nation that implodes is also incredibly unpleasant. The most well-known is going from Rome to the Dark Ages. This path should also be avoided.
Re: resource scarcity, it's counter-mainstream but I'm not sure that's correct... net actionable resources might even be increasing - see, ex, all the energy that can now be gotten out of thorium. If you're a believer in cold fusion being possible (hot fusion already is possible, but isn't economical) then fossil fuels are basically a non-issue. But that's a long conversation. Suffice to say, I think the Earth can prosperously contain many more people than today, and that if it did so, it would be more prosperous. Much moreso, actually, since all gain comes from talented people and groups doing interesting things. But that's a long conversation.
Anyways. My argument is "completely pacifist societies seem to self-destruct" - there are a few rare exceptions that are extremely mountainous or islands or mountainous islands. Even they have some defense forces. But yes, I think a small amount of militarization goes a long ways towards having a more healthy nation that isn't self-destructing, which is important.
Not really, his main argument was that the western society has lost control of its technology. We (the west) are like a horse carriage where the driver has been thrown of and the horses (technology) are driving the carriage (us) in a wild ride towards the cliff. [An updated version of this philosophical thinking is Bill Joy's Grey Goo article "Why the future doesn't need us." http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html]
Population can not grow forever on a planet with a limited amount of resorces. So people either stop having children, or begin killing each other.
(As a nice bonus, this is written by John McCarthy, the inventor of LISP).
Why should this statement be independent of the number of humans in the world?
With regard to the rest of the western world, I think the kind of large scale war you talk about is permanently over -- both because it would be far too expensive for everybody and because there is no winning a nuclear war.
The war in Yugoslavia was not so long ago, for one thing.
For another, Hungary got itself a nice extreme right regime that seems rather keen to transform the country into an authoritarian state. What if they decide, at some point, that the land occupied by some of the Magyars in neighboring countries should really belong to Hungary again?
Keeping the peace in Europe is far from a finished project.
Given the resurgence of nationalism and right movements holding anti-immigration feelings in Europe right now, that's far from an universal opinion. According to these guys, our gates are wide open and the barbarians are breeding in our backyards. Barbarians being, of course, undesirable immigrants from poor third-world countries, not cool white guys from across the pond.
We still have the same "barbarians" as we always had. For the last two decades we just happened to be in a little better relations with them.
There is currently a war in progress in Libya in which one side is supported by the European forces. In 2008 Russian army entered parts of Georgia, mere 15 years after the Red Army was pulled from Eastern Europe.
Nothing changed. It never does.
> I think the kind of large scale war you talk about is permanently over
I agree that large-scale warfare is currently not very likely but I don't think it was ever that common as the twentieth century had led us to believe.
As far as Japan goes - IMO their population is too old to solve the problem on their own. No matter how much propaganda you feed them, 50 year old women cannot have 4 kids.
Personally I think the Japanese population will rebound without any meddling. Every large population has sub-populations of people who have lots of kids. Think Mormons in the US. Eventually one or more of these sub-populations will have enough critical mass to affect the overall fertility rate.
In terms of militarization, well, the Japanese navy is still the most powerful navy in Asia. It would make pretty short work of the Chinese navy in any conflict out of range of Chinese land-based aircraft. Just calling a navy a "naval self defense force" doesn't mean it can't hold its own in a fight. This will still be true even when the Shi Lang is fully operational, though I agree the trends are in China's favor.
1. Democracy
According to the democratic peace theory[1], two stable , long term democracies, rarely or never go to war between them.
2. Nuclear weapons
The threat of nuclear weapons does change the rules of war substantially. I can't see a peaceful nation, that has nuclear weapons , totally conquered by an enemy.
Then we are doomed to conquer ourselves. Or at least, be totally conquered in the economic sector. I don't think we can use nuclear warheads to settle China's stake in the US, lest we receive a serious credit downgrade from S&P.
P.S. It's funny because it's true.
Heck, if we inflate our currency aggressively enough, other countries could wind up simply not accepting our money. It's hard to imagine today, but it's a real possibility- the value and purchasing power of your money is entirely rooted in everyone else's confidence in it's stability.
Yes, the exchange rates may well decline further, and this will force you to reduce your net imports - but that's only fair. You can only profit from other countries' work for so long without sending something tangible in return.
And as far as the "addiction to debt" is concerned, it gets a bit old to repeat the same things over and over again, but have you heard of the sectoral balances? Analyze the flows of money between the three macroeconomic sectors (the federal government, the domestic private sector, and the foreign sector), and it should become clear to you that the massive increase in debt over the last two years is simply a reflection of the fact that the US private sector has managed to amass insane amounts of wealth. [1]
The distribution of that wealth may be very lopsided, but then it's the distribution of that wealth that needs to be challenged, not the buildup of debt.
[1] Part of the debt build-up obviously also reflects foreign holdings, but the one thing that really stands out in the last few years in the US is how the private sector has gone from a deficit to a surplus as people attempt to fix their balance sheets.
Again? Over what time period?
I think an investment ban, even one widely hailed as a good thing would fall apart within 30 years of its inception.
Governments change, companies rise and fall, and people die. After a while, others would be looking at America and asking "hmmm why don't we invest in those guys, they're a whole different generation different from their parents".
You don't need soldiers to control a country a puppet dictator will do.
Or, more likely, it's part of the cause. Maybe women in Asia are delaying marriage in part because they have more leverage, similarly to the black men in the U.S. who aren't in prison.
In the case of Japan birthrates have been a subject of concern for at least the last two decades. There are many potential contributing factors, not the least of which is the enormous amount of stress on the average family and the exorbitant cost of living in a megalopolis such as Tokyo; the stress of working long hours and having high expenses is enough to prevent people from having kids and even having a relationship.
Although geopolitically Japan is generally a peaceful society de facto I would argue that that is not necessarily true culturally. And even in the context of geopolitics there is a fair amount of drama in Asia that involves Japan, e.g. between the South Koreans, China, Taiwan, and Japan.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Constitution_o...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Japan#Disarmament
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Self-Defense_Forces#Defen...
Have a look at the Hyuga class "helicopter carrying destroyer": http://www.jeffhead.com/worldwideaircraftcarriers/16ddh.htm. On thing you notice is that unlike almost every other amphibious assault ship in the world the Hyuga class has an offset island, meaning you can land fixed-wing aircraft. Officially it carries 18 helicopters, but it has everything you need to carry an air wing (range, fuel, ammo, maintenance, and communications). So all they really need to to is fly off the helicopters and fly on some sort of STOL aircraft (like the F-35C) and presto! An aircraft carrier about on par with the British Invincible class.
Recently the Maritime SDF (you know, Navy) got the go-ahead for a "helicopter carrying cruiser", which would be the same thing only bigger, although still officially not an aircraft carrier.
It's an interesting claim. I don't think I buy it--the U.S. is entering our period of decline right now, and our belligerence is, if anything, accelerating that--but maybe you'll make a longer argument with examples on your blog.
The last few wars were attempts to strengthen the US - quite frankly Oil really is more valuable for the US than winning the title of prom king.
Regardless of your or my personal opinion on what the war is doing there can be little doubt that Iraqi and Afghanistani Oil is going to play a huge part in the US keeping its position in the world.
The thing that actually unsettled things is that the Wall Street people got out of control and made too many inroads into the Government and started stealing from the Average American.
The standard quote about all the peace in Switzerland leading to nothing other than the Cuckoo Clock and all the strife in Italy leading to the Renaissance comes to mind.
*
As human beings we want to give 'meaning' to our lives and underplay the role genetics and survival of the fittest play.
We also want to pretend that we don't have a baser nature and that we can 100% 'civilize' ourselves.
So we often make the wrong assumption that the perfect natural state is perfect harmony where everyone taps into some global 'peace wave frequency'.
Is it possible? Who knows.
It's just interesting that it's never happened. Ever. There has never been a point of time when the entire world was at peace. There are always wars because human nature never changes - no amount of 'civilizing' can change that, nor can everyone pretending that we are flawless perfect peace-loving creatures.
The full quote is:
Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love — they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
The thing is that all countries eventually collapse just like all things eventually collapse. Remember, stars die too. I could easily make the claim that a lot of countries destroy themselves in a time of war. The loser of a war doesn't always rises from the ashes.
A nation probably has a timespan that it can be alive. Eventually it will just die and a new one will be formed.
Finally, correlation is not causation. Just because the two seem to show up together doesn't mean that one causes the other. It is an interesting idea though.
Yet, we did no wars, made no commercial/art explosion (even food we don't produce).
It's not about wars, allies or anything else. I summarize it to the following:
- Justice: Yes, justice is point number one. You must have justice.
- Values: That's why religion works, it keeps values deep inside and transmit them from a generation to another.
- Education: To avoid mess, and poverty.
Military? No, you don't really need it. You need values. Look at 2006 war between Isreal and a few folks in Huzb Allah. Isreal has the strongest military in the region, along with support from the USA and Liban (gov), yet they failed.
More people have died on armed conflicts in the name of religion than for any other reason. National Socialism, for example, is a drop in the bucket compared to it.
In the 'States, non-religious people are much less likely to be in jail.
Religion is great at transmitting values, no doubt, but it's usually the wrong ones.
Nietzsche represented this point of view better in his 'Will to Power' back in the 19th century. In the decades since, a lot of paper was devoted to criticism of his work.
Also, one nation that actually tried to live by his principles failed spectacularly.
I would expect that peaceful societies are conquered by warlike societies, at a lower rate than warlike societies are conquered by other warlike societies.
Logically this ought to be true since (a) the conditions for long standing peace should necessarily mean either a protection from warmongers due to natural geography or political reality and (b) warlike societies seek out conflict and each conflict carries with it the chance of societal death.
The theory you have can be noticed by other travellers and students of history; so I would have to ask: what have you observed and analyzed that led you to this conclusion?
Long enough ago, this was as simple as raising certain classes and races of people as slaves and telling them what to do and enforcing it with violence. However it seems that no matter how much you try to control it, societies eventually achieve enough self-awareness of the general inequality of things to revolt and re-order society to make things more fair. The next system of control is then instituted, and is seen as a vast improvement, and thus accepted by those who rebelled against the previous, even though it may be simply a more complex version of the previous system (slave-owners/slaves,land-owners/indentured servants,royalty/peasants,ruling class/working class, etc.).
In this way, I believe it's similar to the quote from HHGTTG: "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable." I think that what happens is every time a society reaches the level of self-awareness required to realize what's happening to them and has the will to change it, a simply more complicated and harder to understand and harder to destroy system ends up replacing it.
I think in this way, you can describe the cyclical nature of societies coming and going, and applying the reasons behind this fundamental change, understand why your theory of war being beneficial fits right in: war simply leaves no room for questioning society's demands of the individual. The reason this works is that members of a militarized or war-time society are indoctrinated, and those who end up members of the military trained from day one to obey orders and follow authority. After leaving the military, if you do you happen to survive and get out of the war, working a factory job and having a few kids is damn near paradise compared to the hell you went through. It is a very effective way to keep individuals from questioning their place in society or the fairness of it's structure and thus why I think it has the society-prolonging effect you've observed. War shifts individual's thinking from long-term (career, legacy, mark on the world, children's future) to short term (survival, employment, simply procreating).
If you buy into any of what I am saying, you might also hypothesize that the U.S came close to becoming self-aware of and motivated to change it's societal inequalities around 2008 with the reaction to the Government bail-outs and the housing market crash. I think the only reason that energy hasn't really gone anywhere yet is twofold: 1) With the economy in the shape it's in, it makes those who are employed more happy with their current employment situation than usual, and more unlikely to try to change things in general, since they are "lucky to even have a job in this economy", and aren't really feeling the inequality in their day to day lives. And it's not bad enough to where mass unemployment is giving people enough free time to organize and actually try to restructure the way our government works. 2) The act of electing public officials to office helps stave off the idea that "we need to restructure society" as it lets people restructure a symbol of society to them. Elections act as a relief valve for political pressure, since it allows people to 1) have input and make changes and 2) it buys time for the newly elected official to "get settled" in their office before people become dissatisfied again or economic/societal conditions improve, whichever comes first.
Sources: Just my theory on the matter, please point out where I am wrong (I'm sure I am in more than one way)
Sadly, most of his books weren't translated from russian. One that I could find is http://www.amazon.com/Ethnogenesis-biosphere-L-N-Gumilev/dp/....
EDIT: found a free on-line version of the book - http://cossackweb.narod.ru/gumilev/contents.htm
Also a theme that shows up in 1984.
Wait... Maybe that means the reason they are declining is because we neutered them...?
P.S. I suspect the reason your theory has not been explored much in public writings is because it has an implied support of continued military activity, funding and dominance, which is a very unpopular position in the US today. Ironically, probably because we reside exactly in the part of your described cycle corresponding with military decline!
I think things have sufficiently changed since the 1940's that re-militarizing could happen without too much hostility, given good diplomacy with USA and China.
I actually think America would like another friendly military power in the Pacific.
It might lead to diplomatic tension, but there's like a 0% chance it'd lead to a declaration of war. They've got their hands way, way too full elsewhere.
I don't disagree with your thesis that peaceful societies tend to amuse themselves to death, but I don't see how military spending is a magical way out of that trap, unless you go looking for trouble.
If you and your partner can swing it, more power to you, but social pressure on others to place themselves into legally binding situations revolving around this notion is something that need to die.
In the west (at least the states) these are legally binding arrangements that are heavily biased against males, but if women are rejecting that in Asia then all the better.
America is practically founded on capitalism. How can you understand specialization & its benefits, and not see how marriage (well, used to) makes use of it?
Yes, if marriage was just about pretending "True Love is real, and the world is full of roses and daisies!" it would be a ridiculous sham. But as I have come to see it, it is more about facing the world as a "team". In larger groups (that is to say, extended family, all composed of marriage links), perhaps even as a "tribe"... think about that.
(Not to mention, kids are a thing we kind of need as a species, and I think most everyone is familiar with the plight of single parents)
When it comes for child support, it's even worse. If in a family the husband begins to get a lower salary due to the state of the economy, then everybody should/will spend less. But if a divorced father gets a lower salary, "the child's standard of living must not change". Did you earn $200,000 per year pre-divorce, and now you barely can find work for $50,000? Too bad for you, you'll have to get an extra job to be able to pay the same amount of child support. If you fail to pay, you get to jail, but the support payments accumulate, so when you get out you'll be in even more debt, which will land you back in jail, and so on. And of course, this whole time, you will be considered a "deadbeat dad".
BTW, I was shocked to find out that, in some states, men* have to pay lifetime alimony. With all due respect, guys who get married on these terms are insane.
And of course after the divorce the situation only becomes more dire.
It is of course anecdotal, but as best I can tell, it is anecdotal evidence that is shared by every person in America- aka, 'public knowledge'.
It should be stated that:
* 'Common sense' is not necessarily common.
* 'Public knowledge' doesn't always match up to reality and can often be influenced by social biases (i.e. you may only remember the cases of a man getting the shaft in a divorce, but easily forget the ones where he makes out like a bandit).
^60% of divorce settlements favorable to women, 40% even, 10% favorable to men. UK, 2004.
http://www.attorneys.com/legal_center/articles/child_custody...
^10-15% of men have sole custody of children
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120700651883978623.html
^3.6% of alimony recipients are male, 2006
I am not a fountain of sources, so I hope this will do for now.
A fun story illustrating how weird things are getting: http://mensnewsdaily.com/2011/02/27/man-receives-oral-sex-or...
2. As a friend of an attorney who tells me that most of his male clients never seek custody and don't even petition for visitation rights until the CS payments start coming due this is completely inline with our society. I'm sorry, but once the divorce is finished most guys just want to move on with their life, the family they had becomes an encumberment. Most would prefer to be free to start over than continue being reminded of a failed relationship. That's just the way it is.
3. The primary purpose of the act of having sex is reproduction. The courts have already decided that every time you have sex you implicitly agree that a baby might result. It doesn't matter if it's oral, anal, or vaginal if someone gets pregnant out of it you can't back out you've already given consent. Even before reading the article I already knew the outcome, skimming to the bottom confirmed 30-40 years of court cases on the same matter.
This implies that I may not even need to have sex to be forced into child support payments. For example, what if someone sneaks into my bedroom at night (or maybe we're sharing a hotel room while travelling) and is able to make off with some semen while I sleep? By the legal argument that we must advocate for the child, I would be forced into child support. Sure, I could attempt to seek some sort of relief from the mother for what she did, but that would be completely separate from whether or not I am legally obligated to pay child support for the next 18 years.
Maybe all men should be forced to wear locks on their genitalia lest some crazy woman somewhere decide that they want to force the man to create a child?
The third verse of every other rap song is about this very topic.
1) Due to social values, we build momentum. If marriage ceases to happen and children cease to be born, 50 years from now we won't have 50 million fewer people- we'll have 1 billion fewer people, and it will take decades to reverse the trend. (made-up numbers, but I hope you take my point)
2) It's not just about protecting the species. We have a tiny bit of a Ponzi scheme going. The young support the old, and as a result graphs like this: http://japanfocus.org/data/fig3.jpg (Japan's population) As a taxpayer, make your blood run cold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
It only took a decade to go from 6 to 7 billion. We can build up a population in the blink of an eye.
2) Do parents have children to bring more tax payers into the world? :) Ponzi scheme or not, people taking the time to establish themselves first means fewer children, but also fewer neglected children.
You say it like it's a silly idea, but not long ago people in America had children expressly for the purpose of helping around the farm, and in Asian cultures there is still an explicit overtone that parents have children so that they have someone to depend upon in old age.
And by 'explicit overtone', I mean your parents say it to your face and you become a social pariah if you abandon your family- at least as best I understand it from my Asian friends.
I agree! Why do those links have to be marital? I'm not sure they have to be. Which is why the we need to be more open.
It's not about being able to talk about it on the Internet or with friends. Imagine the hacker who has a business and unusual lifestyle. Can she be open with it without fear of judgment from investors and the community? I like to think she can, but I'm not so sure. Even if so, does that hold on a more general level?
The union isn't just for same-sex couples, but also for non-standard families like say siblings w.o parents and such... it would be perfect as it eschews traditional mores and keeps the good part of marriages.
"Although originally intended for same-sex couples, currently in France the majority of couples taking advantage of its law are now heterosexual couples who for one reason or another choose civil union rather than marriage, and that more heterosexual couples are opting for civil union rather than marriage. In fact, this trend was already in place in 2000, with 75% of unions between heterosexual couples (42% the previous years) and 95% in 2009."
If these folks didn't have the stability of an enforceable social contract (and tax benefits), most probably wouldn't marry either.
Little Johnny doesn't know or care if the government sanctions his parental figures' relationship. In fact, the only case in which Little Johnny might become aware of the governments involvement is when the resulting legal/social/economic pressure causes a dramatic deterioration of this "loving and positive environment".
It is not fair to label a trend as "Asian" when you need to exclude China and India.
And again, Indian values are quite different from Japanese, Chinese or Thai values.
Besides, you can always argue that the trend simply hasn't penetrated the larger entities yet, but will in the future.
Edit: I expect the same is true for single women, too. I doubt single women live as long as their married counterparts on a statistical basis.
I haven't read the book so I wouldn't know whether the Gilder successfully separates cause from effect when examining unmarried men, but extrapolating his conclusions to Asia may be difficult anyway. On the one hand it may be rather more socially unacceptable to be unmarried over a certain age in Asia but on the other, unmarried men at the bottom of the social pile will perhaps be heartened by the relative prevalence and social acceptability of the sex industry. Then you have the vast differences between crime and suicide rates in general.
True, but the crude statistical basis fails to account for wealth (and to a lesser extent race). In the US, marriage is for rich people. Since the children of rich people fare well in general, the bias here is obvious.
I'd love to see stats comparing children born out of wedlock holding income and race fixed.
EDIT: Actually, I see now that those are two different books. Men and Marriage was a re-titling of Gilder's Sexual Suicide, and the sequel to Naked Nomads.
Do this experiment: go to a newspaper stand and look for magazines about weddings. Look for books about marriage. I have never ever seen one addressed to men (there are ones which seem to be, but on a quick glance I actually think they were written to feed the women's ego), which means IMHO that men wouldn't spend money on subjects like these. Meanwhile you sholdn't be surprised to find at least half a dozen for women. So I really really doubt that men are more willing to marry EITHER.
I would actually dare to say that men were (and still are) the ones who don't really care about marriage.
By analogy: many women enjoy and write slash stories about male homosexuality, which they obviously can't participate in. Same for wedding stories, dresses and shots.
"Marriage socialises men: it is associated with lower levels of testosterone and less criminal behaviour. Less marriage might mean more crime."
I know it's not about Asia, but: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/05/us-work-couples-pr...
"London School of Economics sociologist Catherine Hakim's research shows that when both paid work and unpaid duties such as housework, care and voluntary work are taken into account, men do pull their own weight."
On the other hand, I have heard Japanese and Chinese men say they expect their wives to do all the housework, so maybe there really is a difference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM1x4RljmnE
Longer (but more boring) version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY&feature=relat...
What does this have to do with anything? / What happens when you have fewer people in the expected working age? 2 things happen:
1. More people have to work
2. People have to work longer
My wife held a managerial position before our son was born, amongst her friends hardly any of them want to stay single, they simply don’t have a choice. If they want to sustain their current life standard, marriage would be impossible. One man working has a hard time providing for his wife, kids, paying for a decent home & the mandatory elderly taxes. The taxes are almost 2000 USD per person / year, no matter if employed, or not. And those are just to pay for the pensions; insurances, social etc. come on top of that.
Many women still life / moved back in with their parents, even in their late 40es. It is not because they want to, or cannot find a partner (many of them look quite stunning). The pensions simply don’t suffice and they feel obliged to support their parents. The same holds true for many men.
I very much disagree with the statement that women in Japan enjoy their single life so much, as they choose not to marry. I have yet to meet a Japanese woman, who will state this. Compared to Europe, where this kind of ideology is quite common.
Edit:
Japanese women are expected to do 90% of the housework, where as American women will “only” do 60% of the work. http://goo.gl/qj64W This fact and the very big distance Japanese develop for their spouses are certainly not helping. http://goo.gl/QlAfx Surprisingly no women I ever conversed with, complained about this lack of love between a married couple, on the contrary it is expected by the women. And it often leads to problems in marriages with foreigners.
Edit #2:
If my experience with the Japanese Culture is in any way representative employing more men in the military will be the worst thing imaginable. The country has a deficit of 180% /GDP and every person in the army is one person less doing productive work to keep country afloat.
Edit #3:
When the "Baby Boom" generation will retire in the United states, do you expect the country to sustain a positive GDP? This would mean that every person working will have to work harder and produce more just to reach 0 growth. Something the Japanese managed to do. The only solution to this is immigration, something Japan is battling against.
I was confused, because here (Germany) a marriages have financial advantages (less taxes). Having children is the expensive thing. So i wondered, why someone would reject a marriage for financial reasons. However, if marriage means children, then i understand the rejection.
Richard Koo has a different view on this, one that should also inform the thinking in the US and rest of the Western world these days. According to him, the Japanese "lost decade" was caused by an asset price bubble collapse in housing. The parallels to the global financial crisis are fascinating.
See, for example, his talk which is linked here: http://seekerblog.com/2009/04/11/richard-koo-more-on-the-bal...
In other words, BoJ has _explicitly_ targeted stable to falling prices in its monetary policy. That's not monetary stimulus; that's just contractionary policy. What interest rate target they use to implement that policy isn't really relevant.
I don’t feel comfortable to discuss private things in public, but I will state some facts. In my social circle there were 8 marriages between Japanese (all women) and foreigners. 4 ended in the past 3 years and were mainly attributed to different expectations of intimacy. The article http://goo.gl/QlAfx gives a very good description. I am unable to find a reputable source, but if you search for the frequency of intercourse, Japan will always be the lowest on the list. Japanese simply don’t want / need to have sex. Furthermore mentioning that you “love” someone is very uncommon. Frequent physical contact (e.g. hugging) with spouses / kids is not expected. It is a different culture.
On a side note, I did not believe it either. But the fact that a couple would want to have sex every week, or even more never ceased to blow the mind of Japanese people I talked to.
Edit: Never mind. I just saw your third edit.
I love it here and I'm not going anywhere, but this is not a problem with any clear solution. And if its impact on marriage is as large as I suspect, marriages aren't going to get any healthier soon, either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_law_around_the_world#Ph...
In Bangkok, 20% of the women you see in couple on streets are part of a woman-woman couple, holding hands - usually one with short hair and a shirt, and one with long hair and a dress - something I've never seen as prevalent anywhere else in the world, and something the locals don't look twice at.
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(1) In the past, e.g., in tribal or agricultural communities, women had children whether they really 'wanted' to or not.
(2) Now in more industrialized countries, a significant fraction of women have some options. Some women still have children but some women do not want to have children and do not.
(3) The change in number of children per woman is a 900 pound gorilla in the room: The article mentioned numbers under 2 children per women with a rate a low as 1 child per woman. There is some recent data that Finland is at 1.5 children per woman.
Of course, for any rate much under 2, each 20 years or so the population will be going down significantly. "Get your old houses, furniture, dishes, baby clothes, etc. cheap, cheap, cheap!".
So, net, heavily women who don't want to have children won't. These women will be 'weak, sick, dead limbs on the tree' and will be pruning their genes from the tree. What will be left are women who, given the choice, actually, effectively WANT to have children.
The big point: After a few such generations, we will be left with a much smaller population with many fewer women but nearly all of whom WANT to have children. Then the population will start growing again.
One more big, surprising point: We are now, in much of the world, in the most rapid change in the gene pool of the last 40,000 or so years.
Where did the 40,000 come from? Humans walked out of Africa back there somewhere. At one point, ballpark 40,000 years ago, they reached, say, India. One branch went west to Western Europe, and another branch went east to China and Japan. Mostly the two branches haven't much mixed since then.
Okay, at the common branch, ballpark 40,000 years ago, what were women like? Well, take women from Japan and women from Western Europe. Take some 'characteristic' in common, say, desire of a major fraction of the women, given an economic opportunity, not to have children. Now, start in either Japan or Western Europe and count genetic 'changes' on this 'characteristic' going backwards in the tree to the common branch, about 40,000 years ago, and, then, continuing to count changes, going forward in the other branch of the tree to the present.
So, if on this characteristic the women in Japan and Western Europe are close, that is, have few changes, then on this characteristic the common ancestor 40,000 years ago has still fewer, that is, is closer to the women in both Japan and Western Europe than they are to each other.
Net, since a significant fraction of women in both Japan and Western Europe will, given an economic opportunity, choose not to have children, that is, these women are close to each other, both are still closer to their common ancestor 40,000 years ago. So, for 40,000 years, many women had children not really because they 'wanted' to but because of economic necessity.
So, now that women who don't really want to have children are being pruned from the tree, we are, on this characteristic, in the most rapid change in the human gene pool of the past 40,000 years. And, the change is VERY rapid, should have a huge effect in just a few generations, say, just 100 years, which on the scale of 40,000 years, is FAST.
This is a fascinating and well-thought-out analysis, but it seems to make two potentially-dangerous assumptions:
1) It assumes that those women who really WANT to have children, have this desire mainly because of their genetic heritage.
Unfortunately, we don't know enough about human motivation to be able to say this with any confidence.
Even if the vast majority of a generation of women really wanted to have children, I don't know how we could confidently predict that their daughters would feel the same way.
2) The analysis assumes that such a genetic trait is inherited maternally. If instead the trait comes from a mix of the mother's and father's genes, or even from the father alone (let alone a combination of genetics and environment), we probably won't know how to predict what will happen N generations on.
There is another point on my side: It is commonly accepted that what children do is a mixture of both 'nature' (genes) and 'nurture' (that is, what they learned from their parents). There are common, strong suggestions that a daughter of a women who is really happy being a mommy is more likely to want to be a mommy. So, net, for a woman to WANT to have children can have come down from nature or nurture.
In my experience, some women REALLY want to have children, and some women REALLY do NOT want to have children. When I was in the ninth grade, I met and dated a girl in the seventh grade, natural blond, great figure, very sweet, who REALLY wanted to have children, knew it, admitted it. E.g., each time she saw the face of a baby with its common characteristics, she wanted to have a baby. Now, I'm not saying that she wanted to have a baby there in the seventh grade, but she wanted to be a MOMMY eventually. And she was, eventually.
And I've known women who had children or not and, in both cases, looked at motherhood as "giving up the best years of their lives and their careers doing low grade, menial scut work to take care of some MAN'S [bitter resentment and anger about the man] children". Sure, the position was partly just negotiations as "don't throw me into that briar patch" but also was meaningfully genuine.
Net, now, some women WANT to be mommies, and some don't. Does this situation inherit, via nature and/or nurture? My observations say that it does. My observations are not very good data, but if the observations are roughly correct then we conclude that the effect, even if weak, could be how Mother Nature will "find a way".
More generally I have confidence that Mother Nature will 'win' this one, will meet the challenge, will "find a way"!
While I believe that the 'way' I mentioned, that women WANT to have children, and that this will get passed from mother to daughter, is the one Mother Nature will select, there can be other ways. E.g., a society can get rid of anything like US Social Security and, thus, tell people in stark terms that they need to have children as a source of support in old age. A society can tell girls that it does not support single women or single mothers and, net, girls should look for good husbands or hope that they have good brothers or have good inheritance from their fathers.. There can be a role for some traditional religions that strongly emphasize 'traditional family values' and having children, whether the women want to or not. Some people might say that the result will not be a change in the gene pool but in the popularity of some religious, social, and/or political values.
Or one might just say that the 'Darwinian' effect will apply to whole societies, e.g., Finland: Finland beat Sweden, Russia, and Germany in wars but is losing out to the 'feminists'! Whatever the politics, at 1.5 children per woman, Finland is on the way out of it as surely as some genocide. So, maybe it's countries that will die off instead of people with the wrong genes. Still, I trust the influence of genes more than that of politics.
Your issue of "N generations on" is interesting: In part my analysis is saying that the women were much the same 40,000 years ago, which would be about N = 2000 generations! So, it would seem that we could extrapolate a few generations from the N = 2000 generations! But, in part my analysis is saying that, if you will, the current, big 'environmenal' changes, i.e., from women having jobs, will bring the biggest changes in the gene pool in 40,000 years and bring the changes very quickly, in, say, just a few generations, say, just 100 years. My reading of evolution is that, when the 'enviroment' changes, then genes can change very quickly. E.g., the genes in some of those weak, sick, or dead limbs on the tree are already gone forever.