Re: TI-Burr-Brown parts shartage?
- From: bill.sloman@xxxxxxxx
- Date: 1 Apr 2007 10:39:35 -0700
On Apr 1, 6:41 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Apr 2007 08:11:09 +0100, Eeyore
<rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Larkin wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Would you like to make children compulsory ?
Certainly not. Children should be wanted and treasured.
I agree totally.
The population density in Europe is quite high you know. We don't actually need >anymore.
That's fine. Strange, but fine.
Not really that strange. The same applies to at least 1/3 (getting on for 1/2 in fact)
of the world's population. See China and India too for example.
Graham
What's strange is that individuals should elect to not reproduce
because (?) the population density is high but declining. Evolution
will clearly select the minority who do breed. Certainly low aggregate
fertility can be good for a population, but it isn't good for an
individual, genetically speaking. The result can be is a wealthy,
healthy society with low average birth rate but that includes
minorities who take advantage of the situation and have lots of kids.
Nature adjusts. The evolution thing.
The U.S. fertility rate is hovering around replacement - the bulk of
the U.S. population growth comes from immigration, and the relatively
high fertility of first generation immigrants.
http://discuss.prb.org/content/interview/detail/1172/
The current European fertility rate is well below replacement, but the
populations are still growing, due mainly to the demographic
consequences of the post-war baby boom, which means that fewer people
are dying at the moment than would be dying in a stable population of
17 million.
Last year's (2006) figures for the Netherlands illustrate that
immigration (101,489 ) and emmigration (132,682 ) are not far behind
births (185,124 ) and deaths (135,809 ).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Netherlands
Quite a lot of the emmigration is in fact people living just across
the border in Germany and Belgium where houses are some 30% cheaper.
Our house is just 8 km from the border with Germany, and the villages
just over the border are full of new houses built for and occupied by
people who work in Nijmegen.
The Netherlands is very densely populated, and finding space to build
new houses isn't easy, and the land becomes very expensive as soon as
it is legally permissible to build a house on it, which encourages
people to delay having children until they've got enough money to buy
a place with enough floor-space to make child-raising practical.
The U.S. is much less densely populated, so it isn't surprising that
the birth rates are higher. In evolutionary terms, this is a short
term problem - we are all going to have to evolve societies with more
or less stable populations, where the more successful will be able to
use their greater power, wealth or influence to grab a
disporportionate share of the scarce good things, which will probably
include the right to reproduce at more than replacement rate, quite
possibly via some proxy like a bigger than average house or apartment,
or jobs with unusually generous provision for maternity or paternity
leave.
--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
.
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