Europe submits voluntarily

[Jokodo]

Everything ordinary is made by robots. You earn enough in 1% of your life to buy a lifetime's worth of robot products. Everybody lives happily ever after. What's the problem?

Except that's not possible at present.

If by "possible" you mean technologically feasible: Not at the moment maybe, but very much within reach.

If by "possible" you mean compatible with our economic system, maybe, maybe not.

The fact is that, even as productivity has leaped in the past half-century, the average hours worked per person have stagnated at best, and in many locales grown.

 

[Hermit]

Like most of angelo's claims in this thread, this one is based on an assumption that is completely wrong, and which a few minutes on Google would have shown him to be wrong. But clearly he either doesn't care about, or simply rejects the existence of, facts.

Ideological blinkers, I think. How else can someone look at a chart that illustrates the halving of birthrates in "shithole" countries and describe those birthrates as out of control? Angelo is an Aussie of a certain age. He might recall or disastrous inflation rate of 18% in 1973. By 1990 inflation had halved - still way higher than was good for us, but would he have described the drop as inflation being "out of control"?

The ideological blinkers Angelo displayed in this post are jawdroppers."look at it!!!!" indeed, Angelo. Please, please do.

Which makes argument with him futile (other than for pure entertainment purposes).

I agree with that whenever I am not being ambushed by unreasonable, irrepressible optimism. The same applies to some other forum members (there are actually a couple even my untameable optimism shies away from), but actually listing them by name here would probably be considered bad form.

 

[Derec]

Ideological blinkers, I think. How else can someone look at a chart that illustrates the halving of birthrates in "shithole" countries and describe those birthrates as out of control?

No. Just being logical. If you drive say a Porsche 911 GT3 on public roads at 198 mph (top speed according to website) and you slow down to 120 mph you are still driving at a dangerously high speed. Same goes with reducing total fertility rate from 8 children per woman to "mere" 5 children per woman. TFR of 5 is still out of control, just like 120 mph is still dangerous outside a racetrack no matter what TFR or speed was earlier.

TFR of 5 means doubling of population every generation unless offset by high death rates. And since a lot of shithole countries have their womenfolk marry and have children very early, generations are shorter than in the West.
See for example this. Can't get much more shithole than Gaza.

Naema el-Batsh is just 20 years old. She already has 11 children, including five sets of twins.

Afghanistan has such a population growth rate that they can send a million Afghans to Europe every year and not decrease their population. Isn't that out of control? It is probably more out of control than it was when TFR was at 8, because at least then it was partially offset by high death rates. But now you can have huge birth rates and very low death rates (for example Gaza has one of the lowest death rates in the world - due to all the EU funded hospitals and access to Israeli healthcare too - and thus population doubles every 20 years or so).

 

[Hermit]

Ideological blinkers, I think. How else can someone look at a chart that illustrates the halving of birthrates in "shithole" countries and describe those birthrates as out of control?

No. Just being logical. If you drive say a Porsche 911 GT3 on public roads at 198 mph (top speed according to website) and you slow down to 120 mph you are still driving at a dangerously high speed. Same goes with reducing total fertility rate from 8 children per woman to "mere" 5 children per woman. TFR of 5 is still out of control, just like 120 mph is still dangerous outside a racetrack no matter what TFR or speed was earlier.

TFR of 5 means doubling of population every generation unless offset by high death rates. And since a lot of shithole countries have their womenfolk marry and have children very early, generations are shorter than in the West.
See for example this. Can't get much more shithole than Gaza.

Naema el-Batsh is just 20 years old. She already has 11 children, including five sets of twins.

Afghanistan has such a population growth rate that they can send a million Afghans to Europe every year and not decrease their population. Isn't that out of control? It is probably more out of control than it was when TFR was at 8, because at least then it was partially offset by high death rates. But now you can have huge birth rates and very low death rates (for example Gaza has one of the lowest death rates in the world - due to all the EU funded hospitals and access to Israeli healthcare too - and thus population doubles every 20 years or so).

Slowing a car down from 198 to 120 mile per hour is not sufficient, but neither can the process of slowing down be regarded as "out of control". On the contrary, you're getting the the car into control. In the past 50 years the TFR has dropped by half in all regions. Cherry picking doesn't wash. The Gaza strip is a 13 square kilometre area populated by two million people. Look at the bigger picture comprising "shithole" countries instead, like so:



Looks like the TFR of all the listed "shithole" countries listed there is dropping. All but Israel. that is, where it has been rising in the past couple of decades, but then I doubt you would include Israel among the list of "shithole" countries.

Anecdotes don't work too well either, unless you can demonstrate that women like Naema el-Batsh are typical of women in "shithole" countries.

As for Afghanistan, the number of people who leave that particular "shithole" is irrelevant to the TFR, which, while still too high, is also dropping since 1996.

 

[Bomb#20]

On an individual level this works--you save during your working years to have money to spend during your retirement.

However, on a level of society this doesn't work. Simple thought experiment: You have a society of 99% retirees. What happens?

Everything ordinary is made by robots. You earn enough in 1% of your life to buy a lifetime's worth of robot products. Everybody lives happily ever after. What's the problem?

Except that's not possible at present.

But a society of 99% retirees isn't possible at present. People are worrying themselves silly over a gradual rise in the number of retirees per worker, over a period of many decades, from .125 to .5, and you're talking about what happens when it reaches 99. If it ever gets that high it will be so many centuries in the future that robots will be everywhere.

 

[angelo]

I'm wrong? For F sake, take a look at it!!!!

OK, let's have another look.

View attachment 14034

The birthrates of all "shithole" countries have dropped to half the rates they were at 55 years ago. Where is the "out of control" bit?

First you need to find a country that can't afford to feed its current population.

Thirty years ago, you might have pointed at Ethiopia; but Ethiopia's population has almost trebled since the 'Live Aid' famine of the mid-eighties, while famine has disappeared from that country.

In fact, famine has disappeared from the entire world - right now, there simply are not ANY countries that are unable to feed their current population.

Like most of angelo's claims in this thread, this one is based on an assumption that is completely wrong, and which a few minutes on Google would have shown him to be wrong. But clearly he either doesn't care about, or simply rejects the existence of, facts.

Which makes argument with him futile (other than for pure entertainment purposes).

As that chart clearly shows, the birth rate of shit holes of the Middle East are 3 times higher than those of western Europe!

 

[angelo]

The argument that Western Europe needs to import millions of economic migrants to increase the taxpayer base is pure unadulterated bulltwang!
Out of 1.2 million Merkal's economic immigrants let into Germany in 2016, 34.000 or 2.8% have found jobs. Only 1% in Sweden while in Britain migrants were found to be a net drain of 115-160 billion on the economy.

Source, Die Welt.

 

[Jokodo]

There are rules to multiplication and division, you know?

 

[Hermit]

First you need to find a country that can't afford to feed its current population.

Thirty years ago, you might have pointed at Ethiopia; but Ethiopia's population has almost trebled since the 'Live Aid' famine of the mid-eighties, while famine has disappeared from that country.

In fact, famine has disappeared from the entire world - right now, there simply are not ANY countries that are unable to feed their current population.

Like most of angelo's claims in this thread, this one is based on an assumption that is completely wrong, and which a few minutes on Google would have shown him to be wrong. But clearly he either doesn't care about, or simply rejects the existence of, facts.

Which makes argument with him futile (other than for pure entertainment purposes).

As that chart clearly shows, the birth rate of shit holes of the Middle East are 3 times higher than those of western Europe!

The chart also shows without the shadow of a doubt that birth rates in the "shitholes" have halved during the past 55 years. That is clearly contrary to them being "out of control".

 

[Jokodo]

The argument that Western Europe needs to import millions of economic migrants to increase the taxpayer base is pure unadulterated bulltwang!
Out of 1.2 million Merkal's economic immigrants let into Germany in 2016, 34.000 or 2.8% have found jobs. Only 1% in Sweden while in Britain migrants were found to be a net drain of 115-160 billion on the economy.

Source, Die Welt.

This is not how providing a source works. You obviously haven't even read the article, or you would know that it's from over a year ago, and the figures probably a few months old guesses even then. And asylum seekers with their application pending are not allowed to work in Germany (with some rather specific exceptions). So at the time those figures refer to, a large number of 2015's and almost all of 2016's arrivals where not allowed to work as their claims were still being processed. That makes the total number of arrivals an invalid basis for a comparison and expressing the number of workers as a percentage of that number meaningless - the proper basis for comparison is the number of accepted claims, a number nowhere to be found in your post.

Here is the article you probably meant. Besides the irrelevant 1.2 million, it mentions two other figures: 406,000 searching employment and 160,000 registered as unemployed. If we take the latter as the basis of comparison, the percentage who found work within the first year among those with full access to the labour market is actually around one quarter, far from the 2.8% you arrived at by comparing apples and oranges.

 

[bilby]

First you need to find a country that can't afford to feed its current population.

Thirty years ago, you might have pointed at Ethiopia; but Ethiopia's population has almost trebled since the 'Live Aid' famine of the mid-eighties, while famine has disappeared from that country.

In fact, famine has disappeared from the entire world - right now, there simply are not ANY countries that are unable to feed their current population.

Like most of angelo's claims in this thread, this one is based on an assumption that is completely wrong, and which a few minutes on Google would have shown him to be wrong. But clearly he either doesn't care about, or simply rejects the existence of, facts.

Which makes argument with him futile (other than for pure entertainment purposes).

As that chart clearly shows, the birth rate of shit holes of the Middle East are 3 times higher than those of western Europe!

Which one(s) can't afford to feed their current population?

Or are you dropping that particular bullshit from your argument, now that it's been called out as bullshit? Can we have an assurance from you that you won't use this incorrect argument again, now that you realise that it is wrong? Or is it just going to lie dormant until you hope everyone has forgotten that it's bullshit?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Everything ordinary is made by robots. You earn enough in 1% of your life to buy a lifetime's worth of robot products. Everybody lives happily ever after. What's the problem?

Except that's not possible at present.

If by "possible" you mean technologically feasible: Not at the moment maybe, but very much within reach.

If by "possible" you mean compatible with our economic system, maybe, maybe not.

The fact is that, even as productivity has leaped in the past half-century, the average hours worked per person have stagnated at best, and in many locales grown.

We have a fair ways to go before it's technologically feasible. 99% of goods being produced robotically is within reach. Services are quite another matter, though--and those retirees need plenty of services.

 

[whichphilosophy]

First you need to find a country that can't afford to feed its current population.

Thirty years ago, you might have pointed at Ethiopia; but Ethiopia's population has almost trebled since the 'Live Aid' famine of the mid-eighties, while famine has disappeared from that country.

In fact, famine has disappeared from the entire world - right now, there simply are not ANY countries that are unable to feed their current population.

Like most of angelo's claims in this thread, this one is based on an assumption that is completely wrong, and which a few minutes on Google would have shown him to be wrong. But clearly he either doesn't care about, or simply rejects the existence of, facts.

Which makes argument with him futile (other than for pure entertainment purposes).

As that chart clearly shows, the birth rate of shit holes of the Middle East are 3 times higher than those of western Europe!

Which one(s) can't afford to feed their current population?

Or are you dropping that particular bullshit from your argument, now that it's been called out as bullshit? Can we have an assurance from you that you won't use this incorrect argument again, now that you realise that it is wrong? Or is it just going to lie dormant until you hope everyone has forgotten that it's bullshit?

Ethiopia still has a long way to go


http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ethiopia-population/

Poverty in Ethiopia
Despite its wealth in culture, Ethiopia, unfortunately, does not suffer the same fate economically. With a significantly agriculture-based economy, it is not surprising that in today's technologically thriving world, Ethiopia has one of the lowest incomes per capita. Its reliance on domestic investment restricts foreign investment, which could otherwise account for a comparatively successful economy. However, improvement in agricultural practices has shown a decrease in the level of starvation that the country had been previously accustomed to. The GDP is also increasing, showing a 7% increase in 2014. The composition of the labor force is almost 40%, accounting for another step toward progress. However, only if the conditions of the average Ethiopian get better will the country be able to witness a better tomorrow.
Similarly, the conditions of poverty entail deterioration in health for many of Ethiopia's inhabitants. The most common diseases that cause mortality among many Ethiopians are AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and various communicable diseases that occur due to improper sanitation and malnutrition. Most women give birth to children outside of the vicinity of hospitals. Often the mothers are only attended to by an elderly midwife. The mortality rate of mothers while giving birth is high. Various organizations, governmental and non-governmental, seek to improve the deplorable health conditions in Ethiopia. The World Health Organization is working to initiate a healthy Ethiopia. Low literacy levels also support the inferior health conditions. Therefore, it is important to provide the Ethiopians with adequate knowledge regarding common diseases and their appropriate medication and cure. The empowerment of women could also help achieve improvements in the circumstances pertaining to the well-being of Ethiopians.

 

[SimpleDon]

The problem is that the birthrate in all of the developed countries is dropping. And it is dropping below the replacement rate which means that the number of retired people will increase relative to the number of workers.

Part of that calculation involves equating wealth with manufactured goods. If you look at the entire planet as a single resource that varies only with the level of technology used for exploiting that resource, a diminishing population makes everyone "richer". Yeah, things do get tough, even in the zero-sum game, when the population declines. But once it reaches a stable point, everyone is better off.

All that I am saying is that because of declining birth rates there will be fewer workers paying the payroll taxes that are used to pay the old age benefits, unless Germany and eventually the US increase immigration. It is a simple concept.

I don't understand why I am being bombarded with complaints that I am equating wealth with manufactured goods or to think of the entire world as single resource, a bizarre, useless idea or that inflation suppresses wages or that because retirees don't produce anything it means that everyone else who does produce has to do with less stuff.

If you know how to wean economies off of pursuing growth as a goal, start a thread about it and I will participate.

Meanwhile allow me to state this simple concept without having to correct all of the mistaken ideas on how the economy operates.

 

[Jokodo]

The problem is that the birthrate in all of the developed countries is dropping. And it is dropping below the replacement rate which means that the number of retired people will increase relative to the number of workers.

Part of that calculation involves equating wealth with manufactured goods. If you look at the entire planet as a single resource that varies only with the level of technology used for exploiting that resource, a diminishing population makes everyone "richer". Yeah, things do get tough, even in the zero-sum game, when the population declines. But once it reaches a stable point, everyone is better off.

All that I am saying is that because of declining birth rates there will be fewer workers paying the payroll taxes that are used to pay the old age benefits, unless Germany and eventually the US increase immigration. It is a simple concept.

That is only necessarily a problem if you assume constant productivity. If you allow for productivity to grow (and to outgrow the proportion of retirees to the total population), even a 90% payroll tax doesn't have to be a problem: Because producing stuff becomes cheaper, workers might well be able to buy all they're buying now and then some with what they take home.

I don't understand why I am being bombarded with complaints that I am equating wealth with manufactured goods or to think of the entire world as single resource, a bizarre, useless idea or that inflation suppresses wages or that because retirees don't produce anything it means that everyone else who does produce has to do with less stuff.

If you know how to wean economies off of pursuing growth as a goal, start a thread about it and I will participate.

If you believe continued growth is a sustainable model in the long run, you should start a thread over in the Science forums disproving exponentiation; alternatively, you might want to disprove the notion that the speed of light is unsurmountable.

Continued growth is not a workable long-term strategy. A growth of even on tenth of a percent, within a mere 100,000 years, implies a multiplication of the population by a factor of 2.5571013e+43. For comparison: The visible universe contains about 10e+25 stars. In other words: In order to accomodate that many people, you'd need to put 10^18 times the current population of the Earth around every single star in the visible universe. Unfortunately, you'd barely have reached the other end of our galaxy by then. That is, at the speed of light.

Meanwhile allow me to state this simple concept without having to correct all of the mistaken ideas on how the economy operates.

Simple doesn't mean right.

 

[bilby]

Which one(s) can't afford to feed their current population?

Or are you dropping that particular bullshit from your argument, now that it's been called out as bullshit? Can we have an assurance from you that you won't use this incorrect argument again, now that you realise that it is wrong? Or is it just going to lie dormant until you hope everyone has forgotten that it's bullshit?

Ethiopia still has a long way to go


http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ethiopia-population/

Poverty in Ethiopia
Despite its wealth in culture, Ethiopia, unfortunately, does not suffer the same fate economically. With a significantly agriculture-based economy, it is not surprising that in today's technologically thriving world, Ethiopia has one of the lowest incomes per capita. Its reliance on domestic investment restricts foreign investment, which could otherwise account for a comparatively successful economy. However, improvement in agricultural practices has shown a decrease in the level of starvation that the country had been previously accustomed to. The GDP is also increasing, showing a 7% increase in 2014. The composition of the labor force is almost 40%, accounting for another step toward progress. However, only if the conditions of the average Ethiopian get better will the country be able to witness a better tomorrow.
Similarly, the conditions of poverty entail deterioration in health for many of Ethiopia's inhabitants. The most common diseases that cause mortality among many Ethiopians are AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and various communicable diseases that occur due to improper sanitation and malnutrition. Most women give birth to children outside of the vicinity of hospitals. Often the mothers are only attended to by an elderly midwife. The mortality rate of mothers while giving birth is high. Various organizations, governmental and non-governmental, seek to improve the deplorable health conditions in Ethiopia. The World Health Organization is working to initiate a healthy Ethiopia. Low literacy levels also support the inferior health conditions. Therefore, it is important to provide the Ethiopians with adequate knowledge regarding common diseases and their appropriate medication and cure. The empowerment of women could also help achieve improvements in the circumstances pertaining to the well-being of Ethiopians.

Ethiopia can feed its current population.

Which is three times the population it had last time there was a famine in Ethiopia.

Nobody suggested that Ethiopia was a wealthy nation - the claim was that there exist

" shithole " countries that can't even afford to feed their present populations where the birth rate is out of control.

There exist NO countries that can't even afford to feed their present populations. Therefore the claim is false, and the rest of the argument fails. Regardless of the number of Ethiopians who would prefer things to be better than they are.

Of course, when things are demonstrably dramatically better now than they were three decades ago, it does also suggest that they are heading in the right direction.

 

[repoman]

All that I am saying is that because of declining birth rates there will be fewer workers paying the payroll taxes that are used to pay the old age benefits, unless Germany and eventually the US increase immigration. It is a simple concept.

That is only necessarily a problem if you assume constant productivity. If you allow for productivity to grow (and to outgrow the proportion of retirees to the total population), even a 90% payroll tax doesn't have to be a problem: Because producing stuff becomes cheaper, workers might well be able to buy all they're buying now and then some with what they take home.

I don't understand why I am being bombarded with complaints that I am equating wealth with manufactured goods or to think of the entire world as single resource, a bizarre, useless idea or that inflation suppresses wages or that because retirees don't produce anything it means that everyone else who does produce has to do with less stuff.

If you know how to wean economies off of pursuing growth as a goal, start a thread about it and I will participate.

If you believe continued growth is a sustainable model in the long run, you should start a thread over in the Science forums disproving exponentiation; alternatively, you might want to disprove the notion that the speed of light is unsurmountable.

Continued growth is not a workable long-term strategy. A growth of even on tenth of a percent, within a mere 100,000 years, implies a multiplication of the population by a factor of 2.5571013e+43. For comparison: The visible universe contains about 10e+25 stars. In other words: In order to accomodate that many people, you'd need to put 10^18 times the current population of the Earth around every single star in the visible universe. Unfortunately, you'd barely have reached the other end of our galaxy by then. That is, at the speed of light.

Meanwhile allow me to state this simple concept without having to correct all of the mistaken ideas on how the economy operates.

Simple doesn't mean right.

Most people here have replaced the god of the bible (may he rest in piss) with the god of progress and human ingenuity.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Ethiopia can feed its current population.

Which is three times the population it had last time there was a famine in Ethiopia.

Nobody suggested that Ethiopia was a wealthy nation - the claim was that there exist

" shithole " countries that can't even afford to feed their present populations where the birth rate is out of control.

There exist NO countries that can't even afford to feed their present populations. Therefore the claim is false, and the rest of the argument fails. Regardless of the number of Ethiopians who would prefer things to be better than they are.

Of course, when things are demonstrably dramatically better now than they were three decades ago, it does also suggest that they are heading in the right direction.

The last sentence is correct. My comment was it has a long way to go and there are a lot of issues still to resolve per the last para I quoted.

 

[bilby]

Ethiopia can feed its current population.

Which is three times the population it had last time there was a famine in Ethiopia.

Nobody suggested that Ethiopia was a wealthy nation - the claim was that there exist

" shithole " countries that can't even afford to feed their present populations where the birth rate is out of control.

There exist NO countries that can't even afford to feed their present populations. Therefore the claim is false, and the rest of the argument fails. Regardless of the number of Ethiopians who would prefer things to be better than they are.

Of course, when things are demonstrably dramatically better now than they were three decades ago, it does also suggest that they are heading in the right direction.

The last sentence is correct. My comment was it has a long way to go and there are a lot of issues still to resolve per the last para I quoted.

Every sentence is correct.

I know what your comment was. I just wonder why you imagine that anybody cares, in the context of a completely unrelated discussion.

 

[angelo]

The supporters of a borderless and re-distribution of wealth world such as many here are, would in reality bring equality to all. Everyone would live in shit holes except for some elites of course!