this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Amazing how they lament about (unfounded) low birthrates, when then they turn around and do stuff like recommending against vaccines. As a childless person, why would I want to have one right now?
No child care, pure blindness to science, abortion rights eroding (which if something goes wrong, yes that matters and makes me less likely to have a child), school shootings, defunding education.
As George Carlin said:
I have children right now, 9 and 12 years old. we are moving cross country next week bc im afraid my kids wont get the services needed to create adults. this place is fucked and the people waiting & watching for the right moment are gonna lose
Low birth rates are a global pandemic that will likely cause many countries to fold. China being the first.
Based on the current demographic transition models, South Korea and Japan are much further into stage 5 than China, with lower birthrates. South Korea is expected to experience the effects of critical decline the soonest, iirc. Do remember that China's birthrate was so high that they instituted the one-child policy up until 2015. Even projections out to 2050 place China in a better place than modern day South Korea.
The problem is statistics in China are suspect at best. Local governments have inflated population data for years when reporting births to the central government. The problem is likely much worse than anyone including the Chinese central government realizes.
China is also carrying a debt burden that is much higher than Japan or Korea. As the population of working age workers shrinks this is only going to get worse.
Chinas problem will be all of the old people that are alive but not contributing and it will be sudden. Their economy is all about making things and pushing it onto other countries. When they can’t do that, either because they don’t have the people, the supply chains are broken, or other counties can’t afford to buy their widgets, their situation looks bleak and immediate.
Japan is better off than you would think but only because they’ve accepted their fate and have pushed much of their manufacturing into other countries where they merely need to supervise and send some of the profits back home.
They also have a capable navy and are naturally resistant to invasion due to their geographic situation.
South Korea is so fucked, but the blast radius won’t be as bad as China. China won’t go down without taking Taiwan (with force or just from economics) and that’s the end of advanced CPUs.
That's exactly what I was talking about with the demographic transition models. Both South Korea and Japan have demographic transition models where the age imbalance is already worse, and both are worse today than China is predicted to be by 2050. This also isn't just about gross exports, the biggest factor in the decline is going to be infrastructure, medicine, and other critical workers. When you have a population that is mostly comprised of elderly who are unable to contribute to society, you also need to account for the detriment that poses to society at large. That places necessity in medical care (which is already a huge problem in the modern day) and other necessary jobs, such as building and maintaining infrastructure, operating markets, etc. The GDP is only one of many problems with population decline.
If you think China is first, you’re drunk on the Kool-Aid. The global economy is headed towards another depression and US citizens are seeing debt default rates at record levels.
The US is probably going to hurt the least. Easily defendable, farming that’s insulated from attacks, distributed power, roads, rail, and waterway distribution systems. Additionally the us has oil and can refine it.
I’m not saying the us will be fine.
Unfortunately the USA does not refine its own oil. It sells it and imports and refines foreign oil. Changing or replacing oil refineries stateside to refine domestic crude would take billions of dollars and years to construct.
I’m assuming that Canada remains a cool trade buddy.
I don't think we can avoid the multiple extinction events we're heading for... And I'm not convinced that we should, to be honest.