The low birth rates are a concern because they need the bodies to generate revenue so they can take care of old people who will lean on government services.
Why should you care about population decline? Fewer people are good for the climate, but the economic consequences are severe. In the 1960s, there were six people of working age for every retired person. Today, the ratio is three-to-one. By 2035, it will be two-to-one.
Some say we must learn to curb our obsession with growth, to become less consumer-obsessed, to learn to manage with a smaller population. That sounds very attractive. But who will buy the stuff you sell? Who will pay for your healthcare and pension when you get old?
Ok, so what does that have to do with your question…
What age group tends to be the biggest voting bloc, the most xenophobic, the most nationalistic…? Old people. Get those foreign people off my lawn, keep those foreign drug dealers, thieves, and layabouts out of my country.
Then there’s exploitation of foreign labor to undercut wages and work rules of citizens of the country the labor is being imported into.
I’m sure there’s more, but basically it’s a hefty dose of xeonphobia and nationalism along with groups not wanting to literally lose jobs to someone who will do it for a lot less.
TBH because of his physical presentation at the debate. Yeah, it’s short-sighted, but welcome to the public thought process. Whatever is churned thru the latest 15 minute media cycle seems to be what they believe.
Doesn’t matter if he had a cold and was dosed up on NyQuil or whatever; his voice was weak, he stumbled over making coherent sentence multiple times, and he just had a blank, open-mouthed stare when between questions. I’ve had shitty colds and been drugged up with cold meds and I know that feel of being sore, exhausted, hoarse, and disconnected. You just want to go have a lie-down, not a public debate against a raging, insulting, narcissistic asshole. But it takes someone willing to understand all that and give Biden the benefit of the doubt.
There are far too many that start from the “old” part and just attribute everything possible to that which they find disagreeable.
Yeah, asd/adhd does that to you when you see how other people function “normally” and how your hangups are wildly more uncontrollable over trivial things. Then you get the adhd on top of that. Focus is a highly ambivalent and fickle creature. Good times. The brain being the reality we each experience, I think people with neurodivergence actually do experience a different reality than normative people do.
Is it any better than the people that screenshot instagram or Facebook to share on other social media? I’m not a fan of the low-effort share, all these platforms’ users are low-effort and rip off each other’s work to re-re-re-share it everywhere. I don’t see people here being too much different or Reddit content being any more objectionable than the rest.