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Population shrinkage.
May. 20th, 2005 07:13 pmI just finished reading this article and it has once again piqued my attention on the whole subject of population. You know, I find it interesting how, growing up, I have always heard one thing from the media--children are bad. Perhaps not bad outright, but the message is there. Children are a hassle, an impediment to growing, and most importantly, the world is becoming vastly overcrowded and we must make sure to be careful not to contribute to the problem. What such rhetorics fail to point out is something that I noticed when reading one of my textbooks, maybe sociology or some such. The world may very well have a rapid birth rate, but nearly every major industrial and post-industrial country, possibly every, have a negative population growth. We may be technically helping the worldwide population growth, but we are slowly but surely ensuring the erasure of our countries.
At the moment, America is apparently breaking even, but this is only due to the large number of immigrants coming in and having children. Don't get me wrong, I can't really have anything against immigrants. Most of our ancestors tend to have been immigrants at some point or other, so it's like shooting one's self in the foot, which is not to say that we don't occasionally do so anyway... Regardless, I find it highly ironic how the attitudes of post-industrial, 1st world societies tend to pick up an attitude that is self-destructive and leads to an inevitable destruction of the very society that spawned it. Countries with the attitude that one should not have many, or any, children will dwindle and be replaced by inflooding peoples from other nations that have no such qualms, or will simply be erased. The question then remains what becomes of the new nations created from such. Do they, after a few generations, pick up the same attitude and become likewise dwindled and replaced/obliterated, or do they swarm and grow even further? Both options really seem harmful in the long run. Joy.
At the moment, America is apparently breaking even, but this is only due to the large number of immigrants coming in and having children. Don't get me wrong, I can't really have anything against immigrants. Most of our ancestors tend to have been immigrants at some point or other, so it's like shooting one's self in the foot, which is not to say that we don't occasionally do so anyway... Regardless, I find it highly ironic how the attitudes of post-industrial, 1st world societies tend to pick up an attitude that is self-destructive and leads to an inevitable destruction of the very society that spawned it. Countries with the attitude that one should not have many, or any, children will dwindle and be replaced by inflooding peoples from other nations that have no such qualms, or will simply be erased. The question then remains what becomes of the new nations created from such. Do they, after a few generations, pick up the same attitude and become likewise dwindled and replaced/obliterated, or do they swarm and grow even further? Both options really seem harmful in the long run. Joy.
