[15457345234]

> They're the ones whose population will shrink by half every half-century from now.

How is that a loss?

I think people are realising that the 'grow your way to success' model doesn't work for countries any more, unless you're the US, which is in a fairly unique position simply due to having a geography that no other country shares.

[renewiltord]

The immediate problems are likely to be that they will lose the ability to sustain welfare for their non-productive population (the elderly, children, disabled, etc.). The long-term problems are likely to be that they will fail to protect their borders eventually since they can't field a sufficiently large fighting force.

But perhaps they have another path. I guess it's good to have someone else run that experiment. We can observe and duplicate or avoid.

[shiroiuma]

>We can observe and duplicate or avoid.

If you're the US, you can't. The US never learns from others' example: there's many examples of things other developed nations do far better than the US, but the US refuses to learn from their example. The US only makes big changes when it's their own idea, not because they saw it working well someplace else. Some examples: healthcare, the metric system, high-speed or even regular passenger rail, walkable cities, good zoning laws, etc.