Why Japan, China, and most of the world is in big demographic trouble (but the U.S. is not)

[The Barbarian]

Republicans have lost their nerve and are now whining "you will not replace us", and bemoaning the growing population includes fewer "legacy Americans."

It's not Ronald Reagan's party, that saw America as a "shining city on a hill" where anyone willing to come and work would be welcomed to build our nation.

 

[mindlight]

Even if they could, it would be a waste of effort. Darwinian biologists like Reginald Punnett long ago debunked the entire idea of eugenic improvement. It would take centuries to eliminate harmful recessives, even if there was a way to identify all of them. Pleiotropy (one gene doing a number of different things) and epistasis (one gene affecting the activity of another) make this a really challenging problem. It may be a very, very long time before we can rationally mess with our population genome. Animal breeders use Darwinian methods to improve a breed; breed many, remove most of them. Not something even a totalitarian state would be likely to get away with doing.

Without supporting it, it worked in Germany. They eliminated the more obvious manifestations of stupidity and that drove up the overall scores. However, it also resulted in massive shortages of labor at the lower levels when the economy recovered after the war.

But this is not just biology. Successful parents breed successful children for environmental reasons. If you grow up in an environment of learning you are more likely to learn yourself. All studies of intelligence indicate parental education, income and maternal IQ are the primary factors determining the IQ of children. Even biological handicaps can be overcome in the right learning environment. The Chinese recently banned gaming as a dumbing down factor in their culture.

If only stupid women breed the potential is still there for upward mobility in intelligence but only by removing the parental factor from the equation through an intrusive and well-funded education system. However, these children are still less likely to be successful because of their mother's IQ. Those first five years are all about the mother.

Early life predictors of intelligence in young adulthood and middle age

Studies on early predictors of intelligence often focus on single or few predictors and often on childhood intelligence. This study compared the contributions of a broad selection of potential early predictors of intelligence at different adult ages.Information ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[mindlight]

Did them little good. Mentally defective people are rarely doing productive work. Trimming the bottom will not increase the top. Fact is, the Flynn effect significantly increased IQ in the last century or so, in almost all nations. It's slowing now, and whatever caused it (certainly not Darwinian processes) seems to have run its course.

It's a big enough boost that Americans are so much higher in IQ than American in the late 1800s that most of the 1800s Americans would have been rated as being of low intelligence.

IQ isn't the whole story, of course, but we aren't getting dumber.


The same objections were made about the Irish and Italians and Jews. And you know how that turned out.

Darwin pointed out that even "savages" brought to England would be, in a few generations, just like Englishmen. He was correct. Hitler mocked the "mongrel American nation", but he had no idea what the confluence of cultures and ideas do for a society. America is far from the first group of disparate refugees and immigrants to form a strong and prosperous society.

It's a common theme in world history.

Developed countries have seen a topping out of the Flynn effect while emerging countries like China continue to benefit from the factors that drove these rises.

1) Better education
2) A more stimulating environment
3) Better health
4) Better nutrition
5) Removing lead from petrol

China will continue to see massive increases in its overall potential as it brings peasants into the cities. Within the US the greatest potential for improvement is with Black people with improving scores there, with low-end Hispanic immigrants, and also with poorer whites, so better educational investment could be focused there. But it is clear that overall the comparative advantage that the USA and Europe have had for the last century is diminishing.

 

[mindlight]

Republicans have lost their nerve and are now whining "you will not replace us", and bemoaning the growing population includes fewer "legacy Americans."

It's not Ronald Reagan's party, that saw America as a "shining city on a hill" where anyone willing to come and work would be welcomed to build our nation.

People may have a slightly rosy-eyed view of the historical American immigration process. The immigrants would land at Ellis Island where they filtered out the sick and the stupid and sent them right back. They were also quite racist in their assessments. Some Jewish families saw their deported relatives murdered in Nazi death camps as a result.

But you are right Reagan's reforms allowed big increases in Hispanic and Asian legal immigration at the expense of European-origin whites.

 

[The Barbarian]

People may have a slightly rosy-eyed view of the historical American immigration process.

It's who we are. For better or worse, we are a conglomeration of peoples, cultures and religions. And yet there's common American set of values. Go figure.

The immigrants would land at Ellis Island where they filtered out the sick and the stupid and sent them right back.

That was quite a scandal. Read Stephen Gould's The Mismeasure of Man to learn how unqualified people classified who was stupid and/or sick. It's a blot on our honor as a free nation.

They were also quite racist in their assessments.

No kidding.

But you are right Reagan's reforms allowed big increases in Hispanic and Asian legal immigration at the expense of European-origin whites.

That's what I was talking about. We are richer and stronger as a result of that wave of immigration. Any "expense" is a myth born of fear and hatred. If we halted immigration, we would begin to decline in population. That was my point. The right has lost its confidence in America as a transforming idea. Hence their suspicion of elections as a means of selecting leaders, fear of other Americans who are not the same religion or culture as they, and so on. Tucker Carlson, as one wise commentator observed, did not say he was on Russia's side because he wanted Russia to beat the United States. He wants the United States to be more like Russia.

 

[The Barbarian]

Even if they could, it would be a waste of effort. Darwinian biologists like Reginald Punnett long ago debunked the entire idea of eugenic improvement. It would take centuries to eliminate harmful recessives, even if there was a way to identify all of them. Pleiotropy (one gene doing a number of different things) and epistasis (one gene affecting the activity of another) make this a really challenging problem. It may be a very, very long time before we can rationally mess with our population genome. Animal breeders use Darwinian methods to improve a breed; breed many, remove most of them. Not something even a totalitarian state would be likely to get away with doing.

Without supporting it, it worked in Germany.

No, it didn't. Because harmful recessives are spread throughout the population, it's almost impossible to remove them. Culling those unlucky enough to get two of the same harmful recessives does almost nothing at all. As Punnett pointed out, it would take centuries to get a significant improvement, and that only by Draconian controls on marriage. Finland, which never engaged in eugenics, has a higher national IQ than Germany.

China will continue to see massive increases in its overall potential as it brings peasants into the cities. Within the US the greatest potential for improvement is with Black people with improving scores there

That's an interesting issue. When the U.S. entered WWI, Prof. Yerkes convinced the Army to let him give an IQ test to every recruit. He analyzed the data and triumphantly announced that black soldiers had lower IQs than white soldiers. What he didn't reveal the findings that northern black soldiers had higher IQs than southern white soldiers. Culture was stronger than genes.

 

[Laodicean60]

Interesting thread. The question is why do we need to backfill our population? The American worker participation rate has been in decline, the trend has been downward since the turn of the century. Especially after the GFC 2008 and I believe it had to do with The FED's monetary policy with asset prices.

Labor Force Participation Rate

View data of the percentage of the total U.S. population that is neither employed nor actively seeking work.

fred.stlouisfed.org

Maybe our kids are lazier?
"These men generally
do not appear to be engaged in constructive activities such as home production
or acquiring more education and skills, but
rather, according to time use surveys, they
appear to be watching more television
and playing more video games"

Maybe disabled? This is unrelated to Americans but My wife worked in the school system, dealt with undocumented mothers with kids and they received Medicaid by claiming disability for their kids, which allowed them to stay at home.

"number of nonparticipants citing “in school,” “disabled,” or “retired” as the primary
reason for their nonparticipation."

https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/economy/articles/economic-insights/2017/q4/eiq4_where-is-everybody.pdf

I will say it's a complex problem.

I believe part of the problem is prosperity, my kids can't afford to have more than one child, and also environmental conditions affect fertility. Our kids are starting families later in life also.

The Long-Term Decline in Fertility—and What It Means for State Budgets

When the economy takes a downward turn, couples often temporarily put off having children.1 But in the years following the Great Recession, births never rebounded. Instead, fertility has largely continued to follow a downward trajectory across the country, falling to a record low in 2020.2 State...

www.pewtrusts.org

 

[The Barbarian]

I believe part of the problem is prosperity, my kids can't afford to have more than one child, and also environmental conditions affect fertility. Our kids are starting families later in life also.

Our population continues to grow slightly. Immigration has assured enough workers to keep the economy going.

 

[Laodicean60]

Developed countries have seen a topping out of the Flynn effect while emerging countries like China continue to benefit from the factors that drove these rises.

1) Better education
2) A more stimulating environment
3) Better health
4) Better nutrition
5) Removing lead from petrol

China will continue to see massive increases in its overall potential as it brings peasants into the cities. Within the US the greatest potential for improvement is with Black people with improving scores there, with low-end Hispanic immigrants, and also with poorer whites, so better educational investment could be focused there. But it is clear that overall the comparative advantage that the USA and Europe have had for the last century is diminishing.

I think the American high school education system needs to have a heavy course load of STEM and vocational tech education in every school. I hear the German government is subsidizing energy costs is that sustainable?

 

[Laodicean60]

Our population continues to grow slightly. Immigration has assured enough workers to keep the economy going.

Any thoughts on American worker participation decline? Yes, immigration is for the ones willing to work. I think all should be issued a work permit with a requirement to work. If there are not enough jobs then we don't need the influx of immigrants.

 

[The Barbarian]

I think the American high school education system needs to have a heavy course load of STEM and vocational tech education in every school.

Yes. Instead of politically-correct stuff like "how slavery was good for black people", states with substandard public education should focus on the things that prepare kids for jobs ten years down the road.

 

[The Barbarian]

Any thoughts on American worker participation decline?

Inevitable with people living longer, and the boomers now almost all in retirement. The side-hustle culture among college students and young adults is also probably distorting the numbers. My thought is as my cohort dies off, worker participation will rise again, particularly as immigrants continue to have more children. As they move up into the middle class, that effect would slow, I suppose.

 

[Laodicean60]

The side-hustle culture among college students and young adults is also probably distorting the numbers.

You are probably right a lot of millennials are still living with their parents. I can understand why with the cost of living.

 

[Laodicean60]

Yes. Instead of politically-correct stuff like "how slavery was good for black people", states with substandard public education should focus on the things that prepare kids for jobs ten years down the road.

Also instead of teaching transgenderism and doing away with test scores.