The "Kirk Wager" and the suicide rate: https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/the-kirk-wager/
An essay by Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club
An excerpt:
What if humanity is no longer sacred to itself and too few can be
persuaded to make the Kirk Wager? Then we should observe what we actually
see. The epidemic of suicide and the collapsing demography of the
West. America's "suicide rate keeps rising, but nobody plans on
doing anything about it," says Foreign Policy, calling it a national security issue.
"Imagine if more than 40,000 people a year died from terrorist attacks in
this country?" But 40,000 American suicides a year is peanuts compared to
what Europe is doing to itself. Joel Kotkin in Forbes reels off the demographic
numbers:
The most important EU country, Germany, has endured demographic decline
for over a generation. Germany’s population is forecast to drop 7.7% by 2050
... we can expect Germany to shrink as well as get very old
... Bulgaria’s population expected to shrink 27% by 2050 and Romania’s
22%. ... Things are not that much better in Western Europe, where fertility
rates are also below replacement rates, but not quite so low. Long-term, the
only option for Europe may be to allow more immigration, particularly from
Africa and the Middle East, although this may be impossible due to growing
political resistance to immigration.
Unless changed it will proceed inexorably. As Thomas Andrews was
reported to have told Captain Smith "the pumps will buy you time, but
minutes only. From this moment on, no matter what we do, Titanic will founder.
It is a mathematical certainty."
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