Demographics is destiny. You can go Yahoogle birth rates by nation and see who is growing and who is dying.
Another useful way of looking a global demographics is by the median age of each nation.
The Global Median Age is 30.1 as of 2016 estimates. The darker parts of the map are older: Europe, North America, Japan... and the younger nations are in green and yellow.
The median age of the Palestinian Territories is 19, and almost all African nations are lower than that.
The median age of Germany--a very old country--is 47, with the rest of Europe all in their 40's. The US stands at 38, thanks to all the children arriving here, since our native-born birth rate is not much better than Olde Europe.
This explains the epochal global migration we are living through. Nature abhors a vacuum.
What do we do about it?
I admit that Immigration patterns are interesting, particularly as they relate to push-pull factors. I find it interesting too that not only did Barack Obama help to start the bloodshed in the Middle East, he then granted tens of thousands of refugee’s access to the United States. It was a humanitarian gesture, you see, on behalf of the American people —at their expense. I’m not anti-immigrant; I simply want our immigration policy to make sense for the United States of America. No one should ever be allowed to settle here if they have nothing to contribute to the greater society, or if they are not willing to assimilate American culture. No worthwhile skill set? No permanent residence status.
ReplyDeleteSF, you may find the history of the Comanche an interesting bellwether. Over a period of about 150 years, the Comanche adopted thousands of people who had been taken hostage during raids, particularly women and children. They raised these captives to become Comanche. The Comanche even accepted the fact that their culture would eventually become one of mixed-race. In 1845 there were about 45,000 native Americans living in the Comancheria; I seem to recall reading that today, there are less than 1,500 remaining alive. Setting Eurasian diseases aside, why have these once proud people been almost wiped off the earth? There are lessons to be learned somewhere in that story.
Mustang... a lot of historians say those “Eurasian” diseases are the reason for the decline of the Comanches. Why set that aside?
ReplyDeleteI think what you say is true, Dave ... but setting aside pandemic allows us to see, according to some, that Comanche culture disintegrated as a result of their liberal inclusion policies. Over time, these descendants aligned themselves with and sold out to the natural enemies of Comanche tribes. Epidemic disease only accelerated the process of social collapse.
DeleteI don't know much/anything about Comanche culture, but it was competing with Christianity, a proselytizing religion. Did the Comanche die out, or were they converted?
DeleteIslam is also a proselytizing religion, and I'm not sure how easily it will spread through the Europe, which is currently largely secular. Maybe a popular culture steeped in science will prove to be as robust a prophylactic against Islam as some evangelic christians fear it is against their religion; or if not, maybe we'll reclaim our old Christianity in reaction to it.
On a personal level, it would be a great pity to go through all the disruption and distress involved in abandoning christianity, only to then go on to adopt a religion that is even worse.
Jez,
DeleteInteresting observations.
I can't answer your Comanche question, but I can speak of what I personally know of, having lived in the Southwest most all of my adult life.
The Pueblo people offered little resistance to the Spanish, and were "Hispanicized," taking on Spanish first and last names and most converting to Catholicism. They still live today in their Pueblos (traditional tribal groups), having been largely untouched as well by encroaching European-Americans who came in after the Spanish.
Clarification: I don't want to minimize the impact to the Pueblo by contact with Europeans. I leave it to others to describe the good and the bad. I was simply trying to answer your question.
DeleteChecking the comment notification box.
ReplyDeleteCertain populations lost a gene in their DNA:
ReplyDeleteSociobiologists believe that human behavior, as well as nonhuman animal behavior, can be partly explained as the outcome of natural selection. They contend that in order to fully understand behavior, it must be analyzed in terms of evolutionary considerations.
Natural selection is fundamental to evolutionary theory. Variants of hereditary traits which increase an organism's ability to survive and reproduce will be more greatly represented in subsequent generations, i.e., they will be "selected for". Thus, inherited behavioral mechanisms that allowed an organism a greater chance of surviving and/or reproducing in the past are more likely to survive in present organisms.
Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that all behaviors are either reflexes produced by a response to certain stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of an individual's history, including behavioral reward (positive reinforcement) and/or penalty. Add to this the individual’s motivational state and any controlling stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of legacy in determining behavior, they focus primarily on environmental factors. I am one of these individuals. We can see the unhappy result of accepting behavior that is undesirable or dangerous to society. To ignore socially unacceptable behavior, especially by arguing that it is merely a manifestation of a unique culture, as we have done in response to Islamist extremism, we encourage the kind of behavior that we find most intolerable. In its long-term application, I believe your analogy at Bunkerville of the cowbird is particularly apt.
DeleteI was fortunate (I think) to study Wilson and Sociobiology when at Penn. The Prof told us it would be the only year he would be teaching it due to its controversy. I include the Cowbird analogy I gave you.
DeleteWe no longer are making babies to sustain our culture…. and now like the cowbird whose mother plants her egg in another’s nest to hatch, once the cowbird baby “comes of age” throws the mother bird’s babies out of the nest and kills them. So we allow the media to continue this mismatch of the truth as we slide into oblivion. Allowing the Cowbirds (Muslims) into our nest.
Another useful map - Europe and the Eastern US already have enough people.
ReplyDeleteInteresting map. My piece of the "white west" is being filled with East coast refugees and Californicators and rapidly turning demographically red and politically blue...
DeleteThe entire population of the Earth can stand shoulder-to-shoulder in Texas.
ReplyDeleteDo we have a population problem or a land use problem?
who the hell wants to spend their whole life shoulder to shoulder with dang foreigners? ;-)
DeleteWell, nobody. My point was that everywhere on Earth started out as a frontier. And much of the Earth still is.
DeleteThe problem of over-population IS land use. Nobody is worried about packing efficiency! Each person needs a certain amount of land to support his food, absorb his waste and all the subtle ways in which we depend on the whole ecosystem.
DeleteIt seems obvious to me that population cannot continually rise, especially in countries that are already very densely populated like India or most of Europe. So I'm not necessarily alarmed by below-replacement birth rates. They represent an economic challenge, but it's not insurmountable.
Less diplomacy, more war. ;)
DeleteThat's the default "solution". Maybe we can do better as a species...
DeleteWe can never do better "as a species." Too many cats to herd--that is one of the foundational fallacies of progressivism.
DeleteWe can only "do better" as cohesive groups with societal norms. That is what customs and mores do: they coerce and incentivize human beings to delay gratification, cooperate with the community and do for the greater good what they otherwise would not do.
Hmm, yes I wrote that without paying much attention. Although, most of humanity has become civilized. Europe is a lot less feisty than it was in the 1900s. It would be interesting to investigate whether our species has on average become less violent over teh centuries (we'd have to account for the technological advantages of recent centuries.)
DeleteI was pondering the same question...
DeleteIf the lights went out completely in Europe and North America, all our "civilization" would be out the window.
The other factors in human migration are economic opportunity and societal dysfunction. If the people in those "young" nations were happy and prosperous, they would not be seeking to relocate to Europe and the US.
ReplyDeleteYoung people will migrate towards lucrative work. I never wanted to work abroad, but some of my friends did and they usually made a ton of money doing so -- that was the point. Even I moved around within the country a fair bit.
Delete(There's some aspect of adventure too)
But maybe those migrations tend to be temporary? Is permanent relocation motivated differently? There is certainly some migration (not just refugees, but obviously including all of them) that is motivated by dissatisfaction with the restrictive regime they were born into, and I sympathise with that.
Prosperous countries will always be attractive to migrants, we can't alter that but we can perhaps enforce employment laws which address the problem of immigrants being cheaper to employ than locals.
...motivated by dissatisfaction with the restrictive regime they were born into, and I sympathise with that.
DeleteTheir obligation is then to change those regimes, not emigrate. Their problem should not be made my problem. And if they make it my problem, it becomes my obligation to solve it by implementing regime change under MY terms. And if the rest of the world complains, 'F them!
What motivated your migrant ancestors to come to America?
DeleteSocial shame. My great-grandmother got pregnant out of wedlock, so they got married in Aurich, and two months later landed in the US. A few months later, my GFs elder brother was born. They were Iowa farmers.
DeleteI guess they wanted to see what kind of food was fun to kill and eat across the Berimg Strait.
DeleteJez asked what motivated our ancestors to come to America... I only have 1 blood ancestral line... on my fathers side. It’s a direct line to a Thomas Paine. That one is easy. Sadly that part of my family cut all ties to me when I married my wife, then her family became my family. They had no choice in the matter. Her family came as slaves.
Deletethrough culture and personal contact. We'll marry them, form bands with them, play sport with them, serve in the same regiments as them, collaborate in research groups with them, watch each other at the theatre, read each others' books etc. America knows how to do this too.
ReplyDeleteJez asked:
ReplyDeleteWhat motivated your migrant ancestors to come to America?
On my father's side (German), Pennsylvania Dutch in the 1600s -- in search of peace, religious freedom, and good farming country.
On my mother's side, I'm not sure. Probably feuding and looking for a way to get away from certain family members.
We just recently discovered my Dad's Dad's side came from the Rheinland Pfalz, settling in Lancaster County, PA in the early 1700's.
DeleteToo bad I didn't know that when I was stationed there.
Ironically, my mom's family was interned just east of there during WW II.
Interesting stuff, thanks! No need to belabour the rhetorical thrust of my question, which is obvious; I'm getting more out of these responses anyway.
ReplyDeleteJez, Your question is a good one and goes to a fundamental human right: The right to get the hell out and change your circumstances. This runs smack against a nation's right to determine who comes in and who doesn't which is why this such a difficult issue.
DeleteI remember reading some reasoned Mexican leftwing activists a few years back calling for the US to completely seal the border, which would cut off the ruling elite's safety valve and force a popular uprising to change the status quo.
Lebanon was once the Paris of the Levant; an enlightened liberal oasis amidst a desert of squalor and obscurantism. It was also a safety valve where people sought a better life. Look at it now.
That's correct, SF...I had relatives who escaped the Ottomans and went to Lebanon....but it got bad there and they had to hire people to sneak money out, etc. And Lebanon was absolutely the Paris of the Middle East.
DeleteI believe sealing our borders to Mexico won't happen but I do think they're right about what would happen. Except I fear the cartels and other MS-13 types might get the upper hand instead of advocates for a better Mexico for its people.
I've always thought sending money there in order to advance businesses, create better lives for a lovely people who does want to stay home, is an idea, but we have people here who need help, so.....how fair is that? In the long run, yes..more jobs here...in the short run, the optics stink. Do you think that could possibly work?
Z... investing in Mexico would indeed work. But we would need to identify effective NGO’s that have the trust and confidence of local people and government leaders. That’s a tall order...
DeleteDave! so it's WE who'd have to get THEIR TRUST for US to give money to THEM? :-) Um...did it ever occur to you that American money should go only to the people and not to "government leaders" and that's a big reason we don't help? Because we're pretty sure it's so corrupt the people we desire to help wouldn't get it!? WE have to gain THEIR confidence?!!!
DeleteI for one wouldn’t spend. Nickel in Meheecoh
DeleteZ... did it ever occur to you that an NGO is not a government organization? Rather it’s an org run by ppl not affiliated with the government.
DeleteAnd yes, to be effective, that NGO would need to have earned the trust of the society at large and the govt. That’s just how it is working cross culturally.
My maternal great grandfather and my grandparents from both sides of my family came to the USA for a better opportunity when Fukushima Japan went through a huge depression in the early 1900s. Both sides were farmers in Japan.
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese, too?
ReplyDeleteCousin marriages are not uncommon in some muslim-majority countries. Meanwhile instances of inter-faith unions involving muslims in the west are not rare enough to be remarkable when they occur. According to Pew research (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/02/interfaith-marriage/) 21% of muslims in the US are married or living with a partner of a different faith.
ReplyDelete