[nugget]

Demographics are destiny. America can probably attract and assimilate enough immigrants to be OK. That has always been and continues to be America’s superpower. As global birth rates continue to plummet, most of the rest of the world seems headed for a hard landing.

[zeedude]

The West has been importing its population for decades, full gas since 1965. Not only is this strategy failing, it is a significant contributor to the West’s current decline. The core problem is more centered on the dynamics of the 20th century that led to mass immigration.

[maerF0x0]

> it is a significant contributor to the West’s current decline.

Can you explain this further please?

[starkd]

But new immigrants will need a vibrant economy they can assimilate into and pay taxes. If not, we will just be swamped and become another shithole country. That helps no one.

[cpursley]

There's several places poised for good demographic growth. Egypt, parts of Africa, Mexico. Not China, most of Europe. USA should be fine as long as the quality of the human capital stays high (education, law and order, etc).

[justrealist]

Fleetingly few places that have both the demographics and the institutional stability to capitalize on demographic growth though.

Maybe a couple places in Latin America, but those countries have a habit of electing the wrong autocrat and utterly collapsing.

[cpursley]

Those are certainly big factors but don't underestimate their future potential. There's some big mega projects happening in Egypt that most people in the west are not even aware of, for example. I think Mexico is the really interesting one to keep an eye on as the world bifurcates (huge near-shoring manufacturing potential).

[dirtyid]

Growth =/= divident. Demographics is more than just pyramid, have to consider workforce / productive composition and actual ability to realize potential, especially when comparing polities with order(s) of magnitude difference in population and human capita catchup/potential.

> Not China

Hence especially China.

Scale of PRC moving workforce from currently 25% skilled to 70-85% over (developed economy level) next few generation even with net population decline is roughly creating 3-5 new Japans, or another 1-1.5 US worth of high productive divident. Within a few generations, through system largely with good track record ability to move up skill/value chain. Most other developing countries have been spinning wheels for too long to take face value postive prognosis seriously. But PRC doing so at PRC scale is special case, no other country is structurally able to replicate this feat, because they lack scale (US even with immigration), or coordination (India on other in same pop class but systemically incapable and not trending towards being so).

[cpursley]

I actually totally agree with you on both.

I mean China regarding pop growth. China will be fine because like you said, highly skilled workforce and fully developed modern infrastructure. And I think AI and robotic automation will fill the void of population decline.

Mainly I'm alluding to the up and coming places that aren't developed. With all the negativity out there now, I see tons of potential - but it's outside of the western world (in particular, outside of Western Europe).

[dirtyid]

>tons of potential

I agree there's a lot of potential, but IMO forces working against pop growth potential is increasing. I'm more weary of associate pop growth with assumed developement potential, there some analysis showing old pop heavy export oriented industrial model working less well - trend last few decades is industrialization opportunites being milked dryer sooner and at lower levels of income. What helped East/South Asia is may not be uplift LATAM or Africa to nearly same degree. Geopolitics and labour saving technologies is going to remove a lot of human potential from being realized, meanwhile a lot of the govs of developing countries are futzing hard themselves.

I'm feeling we're entering era where developing opportunties will be limited, and more people will simply mean more people left behind. And if developed countries with declining pops decide to pivot to immigration, brain drain from developing countries is going to get harsh, especially with opennings in western highered if PRC decides to turn off talent taps i.e. PRC demphasising English to limit talent flow out in future gens. If India gets wise decides to not export their demographic divident away, that's ~2M extra braindrain west will be taking from global south. Countries with 1B+ may have surplus to keep going, large countries with 100s of millions may not.

TLDR is I think potential is going to be harder to realize going forward.

[midoridensha]

Afghanistan is growing rapidly. It basically doubled its population in the last 20-something years. It'll be a world leader very soon....

[cpursley]

I didn’t mention anything about leadership. What I’m interested in are raising standards of living and the markets that opens up. People who need to buy their first washing machine, etc.

[twelve40]

Mexico is below replacement, that's the opposite of good demographic growth

[dirtyid]

Economically OK, but expect more social fissures between cultures and generations, especially when welfare and upward mobility will diminish with more bodies.