[AnimalMuppet]

> We'll see 0.1 fertility rates in our lifetimes

I'd take that bet. Except... the term of the bet is "in our lifetimes", which means that it ends when one of us dies, which means that collecting is going to be a problem.

For the record, I'm 64. "In my lifetime" is somewhere between 1 day and 40 years.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I'm 53. Even if you told me that you have a history of heart disease in your family I'd take the bet. It's grim. I figure we see sub-0.2 in South Korea by 2047, but it'd be cheating to round down until it's like 0.14... that'd only take a few more years, 3-5 maybe. Japan's non-immigrant population will hit that in roughly the same time frame, but I don't have a clear read on the politics there. China will be hitting 0.5ish about that time unless the regime panics and tries to implement forced breeding. The Uighur thing might even now be experiments in that direction. Europe's only about 20 years behind east Asia.

We'll still be getting the cycle of "politicians are trying tax incentives" and "someone needs to fix the economy so people feel safe having children" headlines in North America, which is apparently enough to lull everyone into thinking it's not a problem.