Just to piss off you Hugh-hata's out there, I sent my piece to Hugh and lo! he posted a link. It drove literally tens of people to my site! Behold the power of the Intarweb!

But seriously: I think Steyn (one of my favorite columnists, by the way) is a little too pessimistic. He assumes that the situation will remain static, when in fact demographics is anything but. Just remember what the predictions were about the Soviet Union when Ronald Reagan came into office in 1980: they'd be around forever, we'd just have to live with them, etc. A decade later the whole edifice had collapsed.

Ah, Monty, I think Steyn expects European birthrates to start going up in the not too distant future.

Of course, those "Europeans" will all be Muslims, but...

When's the last time a birthrate implosion was reversed?

When's the last time a birthrate implosion was reversed?

Europe after the Black Death. Reason? The Enlightenment. Ergo: better ecomonic conditions, better (and more plentiful) food, and a more mature political system.

Europe after the Black Death. Reason? The Enlightenment.

It was either that, or all the rat-eating cats.

Well I had a whole different take on this yesterday.

Monty, your thesis is, how shall I say, totally misguided. We don't have a demographic dilemma. The American birthrate is the highest in the civilized world (yes, even among non-Hispanic whites), by a fair amount. It's the Euros who do... and they've been cut off from their "frontier" for so long that they've come to view it -- us -- with loathing.

Any project of ours would only repel them further. The impetus -- the recognition and desire to change -- has to come from within. But how will it, when so many of the ambitious Euros just come here anyway?

With the British Tories, of all people, now pissing away their inheritance, things will have to get a lot worse over there before they can get any better.

Monty, your thesis is, how shall I say, totally misguided. We don't have a demographic dilemma. The American birthrate is the highest in the civilized world (yes, even among non-Hispanic whites), by a fair amount. It's the Euros who do... and they've been cut off from their "frontier" for so long that they've come to view it -- us -- with loathing.

Any project of ours would only repel them further. The impetus -- the recognition and desire to change -- has to come from within, from among the Euros. But how will it, when so many of the ambitious Euros just come here anyway?

With the British Tories, of all people, now pissing away their inheritance, things will have to get a lot worse over there before they can get any better.

Word up for the linkage, dude.

Sorry for the double post. Wierd munuvian server action.

RWS, I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion, but I think you're misreading some of the particulars. First, birthrates are actually starting to drop in the Islamic home countries -- Iran, for example, may already be below replacement (this is a fascinating article btw, which you should read in toto). This will accelerate further as women's rights begin to take hold there: and indeed, this is one of the hidden imperatives towards encouraging Islamofeminism. None of them are going to pass us. Second, immigration will keep our population growing even if our birth rate stays exactly where it is. US population will in fact grow quite a bit.

Now Europe, on the other hand...

Good grief, Monty. How does the Black Death support your hypothesis? The plague drove the death rate to a level where births couldn’t keep up, and remember: even in “normal” times, pre-modern people had to spawn like guppies just to break slightly more than even. Demographic collapse in populations with no plague, no famine, no Mongols, and low infant mortality is historically a new development, and the next country that reverses it will be the first to do so.

I wish I bought into your prescription, because I think that serious space exploration and settlement would be enormously culturally beneficial. Unfortunately, I think Ace has a point: outwardly-directed efforts, like settling a frontier, may encourage cultural optimism. But there has to be a certain pre-existing level of cultural optimism before they can even get started.

Monty, your thesis is, how shall I say, totally misguided.

I don't think so. America's demographics are not as bad as Europe for two reasons: we're more religious, and we've got a strong and growing economy, which means more immigration. Our actual birthrate, however, is barely at replacement level.

Space exploration, to me, isn't just some geeky science-fiction stunt. If we wish to keep growing as a culture, we have to move outward -- not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. I am just barely old enough to remember Apollo; it's been said that Apollo was the last really hopeful thing that happened in the twentieth century. This is not because of Apollo's technical achievements, but because of what they meant: American vigor, technological supremacy, strength, and (most importantly) vision.

We need to think of legacies. When people only live for themselves, the horizon becomes close and the population becomes very risk-averse. But a legacy-driven people are bold, willing to sacrifice, and more family-oriented.

I think the line that best sums up this demographic problem is
"He's not gay, he's British."

Shouldn't the comparison to "Sgt Pepper" be "Pet Sounds" instead of "Endless Summer"?

Augh! Quick non-geeky quibble!

The race to the Moon didn't, in my opinion, have jack to do with cultural confidence or exploring frontiers or anything like that. It had everything to do with developing missile and rocket technology that could blow the crap out of the Soviets.

Just my two cents.

it's been said that Apollo was the last really hopeful thing that happened in the twentieth century

But you're still missing my point, that your prescription is a giant non-sequitur: it has nothing to offer the Euros, who are the ones having the big crisis Steyn writes about. There may be an American crisis 50-100 years after that. Or not (we'll have built that space elevator by then, you know). But that's waaay out there and off the actual topic.

I think that any sort of national focus that is oriented towards a goal that moves the nation forward is enough to do the trick. The pre-WWII Germans were plenty dispirited before a sense of national purpose turned them into a technological, industrial, and military powerhouse. The heady days of the internet (or, as Dave@GR says, of INTERNET) are another example of how quickly an outward goal can inspire and energize a population.

Monty's idea of space exploration is already being practiced by the Chinese, showing their populace and the world that they're ready to become a first-tier player in technology. Unfortunately, our launch technology hasn't evolved much in 40 years (damn the rocket equation!), and so we haven't progressed much in terms of the ease, expense, and safety of getting out of our gravity well. This has led to the disillusionment of much of our population with our incrementally-improving space program.

Because, you know, Reagan's election and the fall of Communism wasn't hopeful at all. Nope.

Point one: Communism didn't fall. China, Cuba, and North Korea are still in business.

Point two: while I'd agree that the events you describe are good news, they weren't exactly "hopeful". They were responses to a grave and existential threat (the Soviet Union).

And whatever else the Apollo was (and it was very much a Cold War power-play), it still had the effect of energizing the entire world for one fairly brief moment. Remember that dazzling full-globe picture from Apollo 8, or the famous earthrise picture?

Or consider the Voyager probes: if the Sun were to go supernova tomorrow and wipe out all traces of the earth and humanity along with it, the only evidence that human beings had ever existed at all would be some lonely spacecraft trundling out into the void -- not machines of war, but machines of science, bearing the sigil of the United States of America.

We sent those incredibly expensive machines out into the void as expressions of faith: that there is value in knowledge, and in discovering the worlds beyond ours. I think there was always an implicit understanding that this was simply breaking the path so mankind could follow.

I agree with Monty that we should do more space exploration. I think there are answers out there to many of our questions. Discovery has been the one of the greatest endeavors of man.

Meanwhile my contention about the answer to our problems is a dream that I don't expect to ever come true.

monty-

Space exploration, to me, isn't just some geeky science-fiction stunt. If we wish to keep growing as a culture, we have to move outward -- not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well.

Me? I'm all about the Benjamins...

I first read this Jerry Pournelle 25 yrs ago... He continually drives home the point that "It's raining soup!"- and we're too dumb to grab a bowl...

Steyn brilliantly stated some of the views that have been circulating among the military strategists for some time. The world has been fairly peaceful recently, but not for the long term.

Bottom line: Whatever Europe chooses to do, they will face an influx of immigrants from Africa in the very near future. A democratic bulwark in the Middle East is, to a large extent, an unstated reason for our current interest there. To our great good fortune, it seems to be working somewhat.

This is a simple analysis that you can do yourself. Check out the Population Reference Bureau and examine the 2005 data sheet (under quick links). Check the list of top and bottom reproduction rates.

Europe will be muslim soon. It's inevitable.

Rusty

Yeah, right, low fertility is just a European problem--as evidenced by the fact that in the U.S., the descendants of the Europeans are the ones with fertility below replacement level. European fertility in Europe sucks, and "European" fertility in the U.S. sucks. That's not much of a basis for self-congratulation.