Where are all the Romulans and Bulgarians?

danothy

Seabee42 wrote: »

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.

Lets be clear. This only holds true while life expectancy is increasing. Life expectancy will not go on increasing indefinitely. It's a fundamental.

CLAPTON

danothy wrote: »

Lets be clear. This only holds true while life expectancy is increasing. Life expectancy will not go on increasing indefinitely. It's a fundamental.

it is clearly so that, with any given morality profile, there can, in principle, be a stable population (constant total) with some given age distribution without immigration.

given where we are, it is uncertain what size that population would be or what it's ability to produce goods and services would be.

danothy

CLAPTON wrote: »

it is clearly so that, with any given morality profile, there can, in principle, be a stable population (constant total) with some given age distribution without immigration.

given where we are, it is uncertain what size that population would be or what it's ability to produce goods and services would be.

In principle, yes. But we have an ageing population due to increased life expectancy and a declining reproduction rate. I would say it's probably not reasonable to cull at the top end, nor is it reasonable to enforce breeding a workforce at the lower end, so we're not going to equilibrate at any less burdensome ratio of workers to retirees than we are currently at without immigration.

CLAPTON

danothy wrote: »

In principle, yes. But we have an ageing population due to increased life expectancy and a declining reproduction rate. I would say it's probably not reasonable to cull at the top end, nor is it reasonable to enforce breeding a workforce at the lower end, so we're not going to equilibrate at any less burdensome ratio of workers to retirees than we are currently at without immigration.

if the objective is to maintain a stable ratio of workers to non workers then we probably have a period of ponzi growth but with an asymptotic maximum; given all else remains the same

whether we 'need' to travel that path is another matter

danothy

CLAPTON wrote: »

if the objective is to maintain a stable ratio of workers to non workers then we probably have a period of ponzi growth but with an asymptotic maximum; given all else remains the same

whether we 'need' to travel that path is another matter

You were the one that highlighted the passing of a problem on to the next generation ... If you don't think we 'need' to not burden them then that's fine too.

CLAPTON

danothy wrote: »

You were the one that highlighted the passing of a problem on to the next generation ... If you don't think we 'need' to not burden them then that's fine too.

why would it be a burden for the next generation?

danothy

CLAPTON wrote: »

why would it be a burden for the next generation?

The working population fundamentally supports the retired population. If the retired population increases proportionally to the working population then the working population is burdened more. If we don't 'need' to travel that path of increasing the working population then the following generations will have more retirees to support per worker.

CLAPTON

danothy wrote: »

The working population fundamentally supports the retired population. If the retired population increases proportionally to the working population then the working population is burdened more. If we don't 'need' to travel that path of increasing the working population then the following generations will have more retirees to support per worker.

yes indeed, if nothing else changes and of course that the next generation welcomes an increasing population


in practice we may see

- older people staying in employment longer
- many early 'retired' are redundant rather than 'choose to retire'
- 100% the young will be virtually guaranteed employment
- improvements in productivity
- the next gen will greatly benefit from better housing if the population is fewer
- they may value the beautiful places in the UK still being beautiful and unspoilt e.g the lakes, devon, cornwall, cotswolds etc etc
- less need to build new roads, trains, houses and associated infrastructure etc etc.


I don't know what the next generations will value but a population of 100-200 million will present them with problems that they may view as a 'burden'.