On Breeding Trends Amongst Humans

[A Black Falcon]

Why is it that more advanced and intellectual peoples are not prolific breeders?

People either have children because they have no other choice -- they have no access to birth control or education, so they do not know better -- or because they want to and think it makes economic sense. First world countries all fall into the latter category, which means lower birthrates. That is not necessarily a bad thing. There are a lot of people on this planet already, do we really need lots more? Replacement is the highest we should really want to be aiming for really, I think... and a bit below that would not really be a bad thing, for a while, probably... but yes, there are issues that need to be solved. Some countries are doing much better than others at solving them, certainly. The US is one of the ones doing better, incidentally.

If you think that those countries with the really high birthrates are benefiting from it, you're very much wrong... to a point it makes sense, because small farmers and such need more children (to help do the work), but now that so many fewer people die thanks to better medicine (one of the big reasons people needed lots of children, some of them would die), the extremely high birthrates in some countries are causing massive population explosions that are causing a lot of problems. The countries with the least-under-control population size increases have big problems that will get much, much worse over the coming century as global warming gets worse and worse...

For instance, India vs. China. China got its population under control via cruel means; India has a massive population problem. Which one will be better off in a few decades? Wouldn't surprise me if it's China...

Yes, many first world countries have birthrates that are too low, but it is not universal. Some have better ones than others. I've talked about that many times before, and said some of the things that can be done to improve it -- improve womens' pay, improve access for women to better jobs, improve womens' education (this is a HUGE one, particularly for third world countries - makes a massive, massive difference), more birth control (the Catholic Church, among others, is a huge problem here), more funding for social programs such as longer paid time off after having a child (for both parents), make it so that society doesn't have a problem with unwed mothers (America has not done many of the above things, but we have done this, and it's important), make it so that married women, and mothers, are not socially persecuted for working or expected to not work after getting married and having children (this expectation is still a huge problem in some first world countries -- but not in the US or many of the other ones with higher birthrates), etc... some conservatives think that womens' rights caused the problem, but while that is superficially true, as it becomes obvious when you compare Scandinavia (1.7-1.8 or so birthrate, below replacement but not bad) to Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, etc - 1.3-1.4 birthrates, HUGE PROBLEM) or Japan (1.2, the world's lowest), one thing that stands out is that women have much better status, more rights, and more social programs for their support in Scandinavia than in Southern Europe.

Why is it that more-developed, intellectual, intelligent, refined and civilized peoples stop breeding? Whereas, to be frank, dumber, more rural, primitive ones seem to out-breed them?

We know that the native populations in Europe are stagnant and that they are being out-bred at home by immigrants... chiefly Islamic immigrants. And here in the US, while our situation is not so dire as France's or Italy's, we are being outbred and replaced by a nation of Hispanics.

This kind of anti-Hispanic racism is one of the things wrong with America today. Absolutely horrible. Hispanics are Western, they adapt to our culture over time just like every other group has, they do not have an anti-American agenda, etc... that conservatives actually believe this stuff is ridiculous.

That is -- yes, recent immigrants have a higher birthrate. But worldwide, what happens over time? As people stay in a country longer, their cultural views, and birthrates, gradually fall towards the norm of the country they are in. This is absolutely true with immigrants to the US.

I do agree that Islamic immigrants, particularly in Europe, are more of a problem, because of how common anti-female, anti-democratic, anti-Enlightenment views are among them, as I've said, but that is a completely different problem. As for them and population size due to birthrate, though, we'll see. Who knows what will happen.