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Demography

The Long View 2005-06-13: The 34th Annual Conference of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC)

Peak Oil was an interesting idea. I can see how it seemed compelling: it was based on data and experience, and the model fit the data reasonably well. However, the model and it's assumptions always struck me as wrong-headed. It turns out I was right about that, but

The Long View 2005-05-26: High-Powered Jobs, Then Mostly British Stuff

Work-life balance is important, particularly insofar as a lack of it contributes to lower fertility in precisely the people who should be having more kids. However, the problem is that you can't make a job with time off for raising kids equal to a job with brutal hours

The Long View: How Abortion Builds Better Families

I was going to say that John missed the big picture on replacing AFDC with TANF in the late 90s: Chronic, mass illegitimacy is a product of the lifestyle of the population that has become dependent on AFDC. If the program is removed or modified, there might be a temporary

The Long View 2005-03-25: Good Friday

This quote is remarkable, and has colored my view of government and constitutions ever since: Griswald-Roe-Caseyeven if the constitution says the sovereign has no such power Pre-constitutional functions of government is a great turn of phrase. Good Friday Terri Schiavo does not have long now, unless some official decides to

The Long View 2005-03-11: Chinese Green; Blogosphere Backlash; Never Mind

China has only continued to get more polluted since 2005. So far, it shows no signs of getting better. Chinese Green; Blogosphere Backlash; Never Mind If you believe Der Spiegel, "The Chinese Miracle Will End Soon." At any rate, so says Pan Yue, China's Deputy Minister

The Long View 2005-03-08: Very Bad Things

I hadn't remembered this term, but John brings up 'debt strikes' here. This is apparently a thing, but it is a thing that hasn't quite caught on yet. John is right that this would have bad consequences on the financial system if it ever

The Long View 2005-02-07: Terror War, Geezer War, Culture War

John Reilly posited two possible ways to deal with the aging of the population in the Western world: 1. Euthanasia 2. Have more kids I know which one I would choose, but we ended up getting some combination of both 1. and 2. However, 2. was modified to be solved