Interesting Links for 05-02-2019

[andrewducker]

Why British politicians shouldn't be using WW2 as a rhetorical ploy

(tags:UK europe Germany history wwii )

Princes Street could be ???entertainment hub??? - Edinburgh reacts to looming ???shop exodus???

(tags:edinburgh )

UK ministers are (rightly) concerned about the US siding with Ireland over the backstop

(tags:UK usa ireland )

The World Might Actually Run Out of People

Large swathes of the world are already well below replenishment rates of reproduction. It's only a matter of time.
(tags:population thefuture viaSwampers )

How Austerity Caused Brexit

(tags:UK europe austerity )

Voting for Trump in primaries inversely correlated with attending church

(tags:religion usa politics )

Warwick students suspended for rape chat won't return

(tags:university RapeCulture )

Where Wednesday Addams got her name

(tags:tv history names )

Two types of gut bacteria consistently found at low levels in people with depression

(tags:microbiome depression )

The Caucasus: Complex interplay of genes and cultures

(tags:prehistory genetics )

Preliminary Thoughts on Brexit Related Water and Energy Security

(tags:UK europe doom )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

I like the idea of Princes Street as an entertainment hub.

[danieldwilliam]

Warwick Uni have not performed well there.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, note the lack of information about who decided they weren't coming back.

[danieldwilliam]

I did note that.

Which suggests to me that the decision wasn't taken by the university.

[cmcmck]

Such as that rumour of la belle May setting a general election date for the anniversary of D Day!

Just wtf?

What price Churchill on the posters? Don't they know he's been dead a while? :o/

[danieldwilliam]

Presumably the Conservative Party manifesto for foreign policy will be to liberate Europe and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war.

[cmcmck]

Something along those lines I suspect!

Soft underbellies will probably be mentioned.......

[e_d_young]

Haven't read the Wired article but I rather like the idea of a dwindling human population. It could be the earth's chance to recover from man-made pollution and the other harm we've caused.

[haggis]

I thought the stuff in the Wired article was already well known? Wherever people have the ability to control their fertility or family size, the average number of children falls drastically. If it falls below 2 on average, the global population will decline. We are approaching the point of Peak Child (ie the rate of children being born is balanced with the rate of total death rate). The global population will continue to increase after that because life expectancy is increasing but will reach a maximum and then decline.

I also believe this is a really good thing and means that population will decline to a sustainable level for the globe without needing human rights violating policies like China's 1 child policy.

[channelpenguin]

assuming we retain enough medtech for effective contraception, and societies continue to give women universal access to it ... neither of which is a given.

[danieldwilliam]

How are you thinking we might lose the medical technology for effective contraception?

[channelpenguin]

any number of doomsday scenarios ... but I suppose they all reduce the human population drastically anyway.

lack of universal access is the more likely threat (see the USA)

[haggis]

Leaving aside the doomsday scenarios (which are not included in the UN models or the models in the Wired article) ...

I do not believe even wannabe theocrats like Pence can substantially roll back the consistent and global demographic changes that are lowering birth rate. They are having some success at reducing access to legal abortion services in the US but since both demand and the technologies exist, abortion will continue to be available, even if it is DIY or illegal or requires a trip abroad/out of state. Abortion pills can be sent by post which is really hard to block. To be brutal, backstreet abortions have a much higher risk of complications that cause infertility or even death - which reduces the birthrate.

Abortion access is being reduced in the US - lots of other jurisdictions are widening it eg Ireland, IoM and several South American countries. Apart from the US, I believe abortion is most restricted in countries where the Catholic Church has a strong influence. That influence is being drastically reduced by the revelations about abuse cover-ups.

The hardcore theocrats want to reduce access to contraception but that will be an even harder sell outside their clique. If it passes, I would foresee a thriving black market and the law being routinely flouted.

Finally, theocrats like Pence are also white supremacists. Their concern is white women breeding and everyone else deported or sterilised. So even if they acquire the power to ban contraception, they are not interested in increasing the global birthrate, just the birthrate in specific locations.

[elf]

Even without medical tech, just information about how fertility actually works will keep pregnancies lower. "Natural family planning" hasn't got the reliability rate of condoms or pills, but it works a whole lot better than the "hope and prayer" method that's used in communities that don't understand biology, or that forbid women to have any control over when they have sex.

Just the basic awareness of "there's usually a 3-5 day per month fertility stretch for women, often located opposite the start of the period on a calendar" is enough to help.

There's reasons that increasing education lowers birth rates, even in impoverished areas that have very little access to modern tech.

[calimac]

"How austerity caused Brexit" is ruthless, and entirely true.

The World Might Actually Run Out of People

[jack]

I mean, hopefully we'll move from growing to declining, but AFAIK we haven't much recent experience with raising birth rate in wealthy countries, I imagine things like "free childcare for everyone" would make a big difference, so it seems premature to say "run out of people" if we haven't even needed to try policies to re-increase birthrate to a sustainable level yet.

[agoodwinsmith]

It's back! Woo hoo!