[idlehand]

Cities have been places where people come to work, live, and die without continuing their line for millennia.

Cities generally vote Democrat, but minorities do too and they have higher fertility than rural whites, who are predominantly Republican.

But I would be wary of drawing any conclusions for future voting patterns from current demographic trends. Politics and the trends can change in mere months or years, the impact of the trends on politics takes decades to emerge.

Elon Musk has probably realized that wealthy white people like him will become a smaller and smaller part of the global population if they cannot reproduce their numbers. Naturally he doesn't include his employees in this important group.

An aristocrat worried about the nobility dying out wouldn't encourage the peasantry to reproduce.

[AlexandrB]

> An aristocrat worried about the nobility dying out wouldn't encourage the peasantry to reproduce.

Well-stated. And it makes me wonder why anyone wants to work for the guy.

[bhouston]

> Cities have been places where people come to work, live, and die without continuing their line for millennia.

Has it? Interesting. I didn't know what.

> But I would be wary of drawing any conclusions for future voting patterns from current demographic trends. Politics and the trends can change in mere months or years, the impact of the trends on politics takes decades to emerge.

Can you explain more?

[idlehand]

For example, a group such as Hispanic voters can be slowly growing over decades as a result of higher fertility.

But their voting patterns may change from one election cycle to another. Hispanic voters are not so solidly Democrat as they have been. So if in 2006 you forecast that the growth of the Hispanic community would tip the scales in favor of Democrats by 2016, you'd be in for a surprise.

I used to think that the future of the US was Democrat rule due to demographics, now I'm not so sure. I think other factors will weigh heavier.

You can do a forecast assuming everything stays static, and note the point where fertility will be the deciding factor. But because fertility is such a slow process compared to most of politics, your forecast would be quite inaccurate.

I suppose the best summary I can make is that political party messaging and voter group preferences will evolve a lot faster than group sizes due to differences in fertility. Trends in turnout are more relevant in your typical political timescale. By the time fertility has had an impact, your forecast is far enough into the future that you have a lot of unknown unknowns, and so it doesn't tell you that much.

I'm sorry if that doesn't make it clearer, it's quite late on a Friday for me but I decided to leave all explanations I could think of so you can pick which ones make sense. I might be wrong too, of course. I have no relevant qualifications in the subject.

[bhouston]

Thanks this is informative. I understand what you are saying.