Thread by @asymmetricinfo

A few days ago I remarked that the coming demographic crash was going to have a bunch of bad effects. I got a lot of responses along the lines of "We need to rethink capitalism's stupid reliance on perpetual growth". With respect, this is not thinking things through.

Look, I agree the planet cannot stand exponential growth forever! But there is a difference between achieving steady-state population and having a rapid demographic crash. Who takes care of all the old people if there are twice as many of them as young people?

And this has nothing to do with capitalism--socialism needs warm bodies too.

I know the answer many have in mind:

1) Immigrants
2) Robots

But "immigrants" implicitly assumes that somewhere else has a birth surplus, because if their population is falling, why are they coming here to change your grandma's adult diaper instead of staying home to care for their own families?

Also, having arrived here, why would they vote for a generous social security system to take care of old people here, instead of lower payroll taxes so they can send home more money to their old people?

Global demographic decline changes *everything*, including immigration levels--with less competition for scarce resources at home, and fewer relatives to help care for their kids and elders, more people will stay put.

As for the robots, maybe, but I'm a little scared of betting my golden years that someone will invent a robot that can take good care of a patient.

Ultimately, I think we have to at least have contingency plans that assume "No robot alternatives to human services" and "no steady stream of immigrants to keep the old people alive".

I don't see a good contingency plan for that, if we look like Korea.

I'd also note that women who are very, very glad our generation doesn't have to have kids at 20 should think hard about what jobs and family look like for young women--or young men, for that matter--if a third of the population is over 60. Japan's a few decades away from that.