Great website, not going to downplay the problem, but you can check out other countries, and see that a lot of places - particularly in the West - are f*cked. That China is too, is not much of an upside, Honestly its kinda shocking how bad things are going to get, and Im not sure what can be done if anything at this point.
China is probably the among the best countries in the world to handle so-called "demographic collapse". Elders are relatively healthy and multigenerational households more common. Leader in robotics. News flash: you don't need a billion hard-working peasants in 2026 to be productive.
People in general don't seem to look at how much "productive" population you need in the real economy to support a given population. Things look pretty fine by those metrics and if the AI claims are to believed about to rapidly get even better. How to motivate and compensate that small number of people in the real economy that supports human welfare is a different question.
Also people appear to be blind to the real material limits that really start to be pushed by large populations. You could end up making life materially worse by trying to "fix" the demographics by adding more humans.
This is a profoundly important - central, even - issue that I am very surprised to not see widely understood or acknowledged.
China is in a life-or-death race against time. A good number of their decisions are explained when viewed through this demographic implosion-bomb they are facing.
The same can be argued for Russia. Many-- myself included --believe it's the #1 reason Putin decided to invade the Ukraine as its youth are seen by the Kremlin as "Russian enough".
Great website, not going to downplay the problem, but you can check out other countries, and see that a lot of places - particularly in the West - are f*cked. That China is too, is not much of an upside, Honestly its kinda shocking how bad things are going to get, and Im not sure what can be done if anything at this point.
China is probably the among the best countries in the world to handle so-called "demographic collapse". Elders are relatively healthy and multigenerational households more common. Leader in robotics. News flash: you don't need a billion hard-working peasants in 2026 to be productive.
People in general don't seem to look at how much "productive" population you need in the real economy to support a given population. Things look pretty fine by those metrics and if the AI claims are to believed about to rapidly get even better. How to motivate and compensate that small number of people in the real economy that supports human welfare is a different question.
Also people appear to be blind to the real material limits that really start to be pushed by large populations. You could end up making life materially worse by trying to "fix" the demographics by adding more humans.
This is a profoundly important - central, even - issue that I am very surprised to not see widely understood or acknowledged.
China is in a life-or-death race against time. A good number of their decisions are explained when viewed through this demographic implosion-bomb they are facing.
The same can be argued for Russia. Many-- myself included --believe it's the #1 reason Putin decided to invade the Ukraine as its youth are seen by the Kremlin as "Russian enough".
Korea has a similar demographic shape, and Japan already passed its peak in 2005ish https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2024/
Roujin Z shows Japan saw what's coming over 20y ago, already.