"I have written a lot about demographics and natalism. Here is an uncomfortable fact: Do you know who else is really into natalism? Racists and weirdos."
And this is EXACTLY why I tend to turn a deaf ear to the dire warnngs of people like Jonathan V. Last, a self-professed right-wing Catholic, about "demographic winter," with their implied chastisement of (white) women for not having babies.
2025 represents a very important year in US demographics. 2025 is 18 years from the great recession, and every single year since that date has seen a near continuous decline in US births.
That means, every year going forward, there are going to be fewer students going to colleges, few recruits for the military and fewer workers for employers. This is not a small thing coming very quickly. #demographics#babies#genalpha
Over the next decade, 300 million people in China will age out of the workforce. Who will take care of them? The country’s past one-child policy combined with a slowing economy have created a mounting demographic crisis. The government has been urging businesses to build infrastructure for elder care, but insufficient pensions make profits far from a guarantee. Read more from the BBC.
A nappy manufacturer in Japan is to stop making the products for babies and instead raise production of adult diapers, in a reflection of the country’s rapidly ageing society. Oji Holdings, which specialises in paper products, said it would stop making children’s nappies in September amid a sharp decline in demand. The firm...
"...a large fraction of the country does not follow the news. Not on TV, not in newspapers, and not on the Internet. They are busy living their lives and politics is simply not important to them."
This insight may come as a revelation.
We easily forget that the community we choose is different from that of the general population. My community on #Mastodon includes the masto-cognoscenti, #writers, #authors, #artists, #photographers, the #autistic, #neurodivergent, people into #SF, #fantasy, and #fanfiction, as well as political activism. Your community probably varies from mine, as does your follow list.
We see the world differently.
Why does it feel like the voting public is so easily swayed or conned by bad candidates or bad ideas? Not all people think way we do, or the way our chosen communities do. The above quote is from the linked article.
Keeping this all in mind, this insight provides...
a basis for strategies to change how the public thinks. We can't expect our arguments to work for them, nor that they're listening to the channels we use to promote our ideas
a reason to re-humanize our thinking about the 99% who, gasp, aren't stupid after all. Instead they're struggling, occupied making life work, or simply disinterested. We can let go of our anger and think rationally.
Samuel Yee takes us on a journey on the #TESS grand unified hot jupiter survey.
Hot Jupiters, though my favourites, are intrinsically rare. So statistics is difficult + most hot Jupiters have been detected from the ground which entails that there are differences between observations and “unified” is not a thing.
To complete the sample of hot Jupiters from the 40 known ones from Kepler and a survey of the known ones from the ground + all that is missing, they used TESS data — but also this required a lot of help from others to be able to exclude false-positives.
Here we go! With all the efforts, we have a nearly complete sample. Let’s do #demographics ✨ #ExSSV
Fewer Koreans are getting married due to rising costs of weddings and apartment rentals. In this context, the decrease in marriages may be the leading cause of the country's falling birthrate since most couples only have children after marrying.
“The low expected turnout in the upcoming elections reflects a popular rejection of the…political system, which is suffering from a legitimacy crisis and the absence of real opposition forces to vie with the parties in power…”
We have no problem identifying low voter turnout as a consequence of political illegitimacy. People decline to vote because they recognize that voting will not produce meaningful change, because it’s not worth it and because they don’t want to participate in a corrupt system…
…as long as we’re talking about countries other than the US. When US voters withhold their participation, they’re almost certainly going to hear about how they personally want fascism to win. Haven’t you heard that this is The Most Important Election in Our Lifetime? All systemic analysis goes out the window and all we can talk about is personal failure.
“The low expected turnout in the upcoming elections reflects a popular rejection of the…political system, which is suffering from a legitimacy crisis and the absence of real opposition forces to vie with the parties in power…”
People decline to vote because they recognize that voting will not produce meaningful change, because it’s not worth it and because they don’t want to participate in a corrupt system…
You are only highlighting political apathy. That may not be the only reason in India. In mega cities of India, including Bengaluru, the calculation of low voter turnout percentage is wrong due to:
Out-of-sync voter lists in mega cities that have a lot of migration and inter-city movement. It may require significant effort to get the name added in the electoral roll after migrating to another city.
Duplicate entries and improper deletions, during an effort to clean up the electoral rolls, leading to the disenfranchisement of genuine voters.
The above does not necessarily mean that citizens can be absolved. Indian political parties must introspect why their election manifestos and candidates are failing to motivate voters to come out and vote enthusiastically.
'Maintain resistance': New Caledonia independence leader calls for protests against France (www.euronews.com)
Sign of the times in Japan as nappy company switches production to adult nappies (www.theguardian.com)
A nappy manufacturer in Japan is to stop making the products for babies and instead raise production of adult diapers, in a reflection of the country’s rapidly ageing society. Oji Holdings, which specialises in paper products, said it would stop making children’s nappies in September amid a sharp decline in demand. The firm...