I can't speak for anyone else but I understand perfectly why people with opinions like yours despise me to the core. I just don't give a shit.
It’s been highlighted a lot in America recently, but not so much here, that a lot of “establishment” publications have spent an inordinate amount of time naval gazing about how the “liberal bubble” has failed to listen to, understand or sympathise with Trump voters which, whilst somewhat true, has almost NEVER been countered with the view that Trump voters - who actually won, and are actually in power! - should be under any similar obligation to examine their own “bubble” let alone listen to, understand or sympathise with liberals, or (much) more importantly the minorities they’ve actively put in danger, demonised, disenfranchised and imprisoned..
That is surprising if so, however a lower childbirth rate from a larger population still leads to a bigger increase, in absolute terms. Consider that over the last hundred years there were also two world wars, each of which had a significant effect on the (particularly male) population. The thankful absence of anything like that in more recent years (along with medical advances) would suggest a more sustained population increase over the last few decades.
What on earth are you talking about? Our TFR (Total fertility rate) is below 2. Which means without immigration we'd be heading for depopulation. And depopulation coupled with a shortage of young people and abundance of old people. Which isn't the good kind. Also the average age of first child for women is above 30 and at the highest it has ever been.
No it doesn't. It's relative to the death rates. Our population might be increasing but it is also aging. Our population problem is basically people living too long. Your suggestion seems to be less kids and immigration. That's literally crazy talk.
Unlimited population growth without limitless resources is a logical impossibility so at some point we will have to look at depopulation as something other than a bad thing. Designing a society around that logical fallacy was always going to lead to a point where we have to answer some tough questions. Maybe we should start building structures to deal responsibly with ageing populations and population decline instead of using migration as a crutch and trying to move back to an unsustainable model of economic prosperity based on endless population growth?
Well how do you possibly predict impending Brexit chaos based on nothing ?
I do hope we get past this little moment soon, could do with some kind of "correction".
There you go, overpopulation resolved.
Cracking post.
Exactly. Uk has actually had more births than deaths since 1976 though. Still “not enough”.
It really isn't a concern yet. We're very very far off from reaching the limit of our resources. We have a problem with wildly uneven allocation of resources and also of efficient use of our resources, but not a lack thereof. The food thrown away each week is enough to feed everyone twice over. You are also disregarding human capacity for efficiency achieved through technological advances. Within this century we'll have the technology to create abundant clear, renewable energy. 1000 years ago we wouldn't be able to sustain half the current population yet now we do so comfortably thanks to those advances.
It's copyright directive, not net neutrality but I agree it is shit. The EU net neutrality regulation is actually rather nice!
My suggestion is that we consider a different way of organising a society that isn't built on the assumption that we need continuous population growth to thrive. We know it's a significant contributor to one of those real threats you outlined there, environmental hazards. The idea of solving a problem we've not dealt with before by doing exactly what we've done before is pretty nuts in my book. Particularly given it's all founded on the notion that economic growth is paramount, despite the fact that a laser-like focus on economic growth based on technological advancement has played a pivotal role in creating some of the major issues you're outlining.
Forced depopulation, however, is a disaster. China's one-child policy was anything but a roaring success and its long-term consequences include increasing social tensions (lack of available women, for one).
Agreed. For the record, I also think it's batshit crazy to propose euthanasia as a potential solution to the problem of "overpopulation" too...
Why is there a palpable difference in attitude when you openly advocate curbing immigration levels to keep population growth in check?
Indeed, and had the government exercised more control over immigration from the mid-to-late '90s on, then Brexit would not have happened.
Reposting...
Do to inefficiency, inequality and other things but not immigration or resources....
And if we did start to stretch the outer limits of our global resources, cutting ourselves off from the world and attempting to rely on our paltry bland natural produce is gonna put us at a serious disadvantage... There’s a reason all our popular national dishes are colonial imports!
Well, I’m not sure savings in inefficiency will plug a gap of another 4.5 billion but inequality, well that’s the root of a lot of it isn’t it?
yeah so let's keep up those borders- don't want those poor people coming over here with their aspirations and hard work ethic.
Depends where you look. I told you a year ago that Norway don’t take 75% of EU rules and provided you with sources. You decided to ignore that and talk to Paul the wolf about how awful it would be to fill out a 6 line form to visit Europe. You are the problemYou're literally proving my point.
I'm not arguing against the fact that a lot of Remainers are condescending cnuts. But the fact is that Brexiteers now rarely ever, if at all, defend Brexit on the terms of what it'll actually involve.
Unfortunately that's what happens when people are struggling, want better lives and are told by their own government that the problem is something out of their control (which fortuitously also absolves them of blame). They believe the government who want to stay in power, years of negative press rather than the neutral people actually analysing the issues.
Well no. As it stands, opening the whole world’s borders completely would be a fecking nightmare for the richer countries. Even you must see that. There was a reason for the Eastern European tidal wave you know? Like, disparity between us? Hence their rush for the exits? Recipient country infrastructure then struggling to cope for a while?
Hm - interesting way of terming relocation of workers, but yes. The UK had a demand for workers with the skills that workers from other nations have that are in short supply within the UK or were jobs that UK nationals were unwilling to do. The currency in the UK was far stronger so the workers from Eastern Europe could make a killing relatively.
Hmmmm ok Mr Icke.
The problem with a United States of Europe is that the European countries have a much longer identity than the States of America. As such, it will take much longer for them to lose their constituent country identity.
Those eastern Europeans have been proven to have positive impacts on the countries they came to.
Ok all very good. Just interested to know what would your opinion be on the EU Meister Germany & Austria blocking EE access to their job market for the first 7 years?
Eh? I think you've missed my point about Norway.
How can you say it's based on nothing. If you build a brick wall across the middle of the road it's going to be very difficult to get from one end of the road to the other. Doesn't take a lot of imagination.
Reading the last few pages, you can clearly see the gap between actual population changes and perceptions of those changes. The perception of being 'swamped' by immigration is so strong and widespread that you have the weird situation of areas with hardly any immigration voting for Brexit with immigration as the key reason and yet areas with actual, tangible immigration are heavily in favour of remain. For most people, I think the purported impact of immigration is a cover for some other motivation, implicit or otherwise. Chief among those is xenophobia.
The Uk manufactured a need for those workers by making it economically viable to sit at home on benefits rather than do those jobs.
