Where are all the Romulans and Bulgarians?

Rux

Seabee42 wrote: »

The current boom in places for infant school (Due to immigrants) suggests at least a medium term intention to stay.

If anything, the UK should be happy to get immigrants of reproductive age with children - and hope they'll stay. The UK population pyramid doesn't look too good.

CLAPTON

Rux wrote: »

If anything, the UK should be happy to get immigrants of reproductive age with children - and hope they'll stay. The UK population pyramid doesn't look too good.

why is unending growth in population a good thing?

Rux

Immigrants have higher birth rates, likely to have more kids etc.

Countries like Romania and Bulgaria are in much bigger s__t than the UK, their active population is shrinking and birth rates are going down over there... not to mention brain drain as well.

In the UK you have elderly population going to live in Spain and young people coming to live here.

danothy

CLAPTON wrote: »

why is unending growth in population a good thing?

Unending growth in population is not advocated, just an increase in working age population to balance the increase in old age people while the average life expectancy is increasing. Since the increases in average life expectancy won't be unending then neither will the required growth in population.

CLAPTON

danothy wrote: »

Unending growth in population is not advocated, just an increase in working age population to balance the increase in old age people while the average life expectancy is increasing. Since the increases in average life expectancy won't be unending then neither will the required growth in population.

it depends upon what ratio of old to young you want to maintain.
though out most of history the population has increased

all we are doing by encouraging population growth is to pass the problem to our children and grandchildren

Generali

CLAPTON wrote: »

it depends upon what ratio of old to young you want to maintain.
though out most of history the population has increased

all we are doing by encouraging population growth is to pass the problem to our children and grandchildren

The coming zombie robot apocalypse might square that circle, after all it's the falling working population in Japan that has driven much of the work being done.

You no longer need an increasing population of people if you have an army of robots whose brains are becoming twice as powerful every 18 months (Moore's Law - the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months).

danothy

CLAPTON wrote: »

it depends upon what ratio of old to young you want to maintain.
though out most of history the population has increased

all we are doing by encouraging population growth is to pass the problem to our children and grandchildren

Not increasing the working age population while average life expectancies are increasing would pass a problem on to future generations as the proportionally larger retired population would be a substantial burden on them to support. If the working age population is large enough to support the retired population and it sustains itself then this isn't a problem inherently. At the moment though the retired population is increasing its proportion via increasing life expectancy. This requires an increase in working age population.

Life expectancy increases will not be unending however, so there will come a time where the retired population ceases to increase proportionally through lack of dying and, assuming a sufficient working age population is present, a stable population would be a feasible option. Additionally, almost any final value of life expectancy could be accommodated by an increase in working age population that sustains itself and works a reasonable proportion of its life expectancy, as the long term equilibrium is for everyone to die at a given rate so the ratio can be indefinitely adjusted.

This is distinct however from a generally increasing population, which may well cause capacity issues, and is distinct from "unending growth in population". There is of course a legitimate concern about capacity, but population growth to accommodate an ageing population isn't inherently exponential, or a pyramid scheme, or unending. It's a function of increasing life expectancy, and you can expect it to stop when life expectancy stops increasing.

CLAPTON

danothy wrote: »

Not increasing the working age population while average life expectancies are increasing would pass a problem on to future generations as the proportionally larger retired population would be a substantial burden on them to support. If the working age population is large enough to support the retired population and it sustains itself then this isn't a problem inherently. At the moment though the retired population is increasing its proportion via increasing life expectancy. This requires an increase in working age population.

Life expectancy increases will not be unending however, so there will come a time where the retired population ceases to increase proportionally through lack of dying and, assuming a sufficient working age population is present, a stable population would be a feasible option. Additionally, almost any final value of life expectancy could be accommodated by an increase in working age population that sustains itself and works a reasonable proportion of its life expectancy, as the long term equilibrium is for everyone to die at a given rate so the ratio can be indefinitely adjusted.

This is distinct however from a generally increasing population, which may well cause capacity issues, and is distinct from "unending growth in population". There is of course a legitimate concern about capacity, but population growth to accommodate an ageing population isn't inherently exponential, or a pyramid scheme, or unending. It's a function of increasing life expectancy, and you can expect it to stop when life expectancy stops increasing.

we are probably talking 100 years or more for population numbers to become stable with a population of more than 200 million?

danothy

CLAPTON wrote: »

we are probably talking 100 years or more for population numbers to become stable with a population of more than 200 million?

There's too many variables to say really. A pandemic could change everything. We could start sacrificing quality of life for those reliant on the working population. We might find that life expectancy tops out quite soon and we are able to encourage a sufficient working age immigration wave to balance it out quickly, which would leave us pretty close to the equilibrium point.

Really, the point is that arguing against immigration (or even implying that it's undesirable) because an "unending growth in population" would have negative consequences isn't well thought out. Firstly the need for immigration is not unending, and secondly, while finite capacity may be a legitimate issue, the cause of the need is increasing life expectancy, so the knock on capacity problem that potentially results from needed immigration is in fact caused by the existing population.

Seabee42

Lets be clear if we all live longer then so will the immigrants therefore all you have is another layer of the Ponzi which doesn't work.