TRANSCEND Media Service, June 13 – Aging, not overpopulation, will be the dominant tendency of the twenty-first century demography, writes Gérard François Dumont in Le Monde Diplomatique in June 2011.
In 1900, the world population was 1.6 billion. It reached 6.1 billion in 2000 and is heading for an estimated 9.1 billion in 2050. But even if all of them moved to the United States of America, the population density would be lower than the Paris region. Then, if the fertility stabilizes, so may the population, and with low fertility–also due to aging–the world population may decrease, like Portugal today.
In 1950, China had 22 percent of the world population, Africa 9 percent, and India 15 percent. Today, the figures are 20, 15 and 18 percent, respectively. They are expected to be 16, 22 and 18 percent by 2050. India will surpass China with 1.5 billion vs. 941 million in the year 2100, according to the UN. It means more poverty in India, as it seems incapable of handling the caste issue.[1] And Africa, already past one billion, would overtake both, meaning less poverty if rich Africa liberates itself from Western neo-colonialism.
Let us consider the growth of the aged (geronto-growth). People above sixty-five years of age were 5.2 percent of the world population in 1950. The figure rose to 7.6 percent in 2010 and is expected to be 16.2 percent in 2050. The median age is moving up from 24 (1950) to 29 (2010) and to 38 (2050). In absolute terms, it means an increase among old-age citizens from 130 million (1950) to a projected figure of nearly 1.5 billion (2050). The balance between the overall population and the old varies not only from country to country, but also changes due to migration. However, the worldwide trend is clear.
Aging is often seen as a problem – ever more retired people, producing nothing, only consuming, seen as carriers of diseases increasingly expensive to treat.
To this author, “retired” for nearly fifteen years and yet more productive than ever, the notion of “compulsory retirement” seems nothing but legitimation of grotesque structural violence. It is the tyranny of the middle-aged.
The young and middle-aged members of society wanting to deny people older than themselves money-making jobs is like denying women education and work outside their homes. Ageism works like sexism and racism. True, older people, like women, may be physically less strong – but with automation and growth of the financial sector, that factor matters less. Rather, the problem is finding jobs for men with muscles and little else. For them, a bad answer is the military for war, possibly a reason for the increasing brutality and stupidity of that institution.
The overall living age has increased from 37 years in 1900 to 69 years in 2010. Morbidity is yielding to mental disorders. And that touches the heart of the matter.
“Jobs” are standard operating procedures for money-making, and may be dirty, dangerous, humiliating, boring, taxing on the body, mind and spirit. On the other hand, “work” is creative self-realization and inner human development, socially useful; networking is good for social development. The idiotic measure of growth perpetrated on us by economists calculates “added monetized market value” only, but none of the inner human, or outer social, growth, positive or negative. Gross National Product (GNP) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are good indicators of Nature Destruction (ND). We base our economies on work for the few on the top, and jobs for the many lower down. The system squeezes tired human lemons through alienating jobs so that throwing them away as “retired” may look like a blessing.
So the first conclusion is to promote a shift from jobs to work. Self-employment may play a key role in expanding the latter. The second conclusion is work for everybody, regardless of race, gender and age. From the brutality of a sudden cut from a 100 percent to a zero percent productive life – often in one day. Many transition formulas can be envisaged and flexibility is increasing (from five to three to one day a week, and so on). The larger the age span in an organization, the more useful the inter-generational dialogue there will be between experience and wisdom and the knowledge of freshly-minted MBAs and PhDs.
The third conclusion is that people work for pleasure, for challenges to their creativity, for real participation as opposed to the fake one on the golf course. Work is a fine mode of living.
Note
[1] In an excellent article “Quality of Life: India vs. China”, New York Review of Books, May 12, 2011, Amartya Sen does not mention caste problems.
ASIANS CAN ACTUALLY READ MINDS!!!!!!!
they can hear, and see what your visually thinking
the reason alot of asians have completely expressionless faces is so they dont accidentally show a particular expression or dirty look when someone thinks something they don’t like, find funny or astonishing
because their all trying as hard as they can to hide their mind reading abilities
the reason alot of asians only associate with asians, don’t associate with non asians that much, and are unusually unfriendly in general towards non asians is the exact same reason, so them mostly being around just asians they aren’t with very many non asians to see them give particular facial expressions when they hear and see someone think something particular
their mind reading abilities and their whole efforts to hide it is entirely whats behind their strange behavior
think about it, its not normal human behavior, that does make perfect sense to do all of that to hide mind reading abilities that they have, because them doing all of that is the basic way for them to hide their mind reading abilities
every single asian alive is hiding their mind reading abilities, they value hiding their mind reading abilities more then their own lives!
thats why nobody knows about it!
I know this sounds crazy, unbelievable, and impossible, BUT IT ISN’T CRAZY WHEN IT’S TRUE
when you are around asians try thinking something as crazy and far fetched as possible because you might catch them giving an expression in reaction to what you just thought\are thinking!
and also when you are around asians look for asians who give random people dirty, or peculiar looks for what appears to be for no reason, that is them reacting to what they heard and saw someone think something that they didn’t like or found astonishing!
that still happens quite a bit despite a large number of them having completely expressionless faces, it would just happen a lot more of none of them had completely expressionless faces
you have to spread the message!!!
the world has to know this!!!!
We need much more of these warnings, then some politicians who are willing to do something about the problem. That’s going to be the big stumbling block.
Aging is certainly one of the problems but the number of births is obviously critical.
The popular free e-book series “And Gulliver Returns” –In Search of Utopia–(http://andgulliverreturns.info) does the best job I had seen on the subject. Book 1 lays out the problem. Book 4 looks at morality generally, then applies it to overpopulation. Book 6 looks at our motivations. Book 8 looks at some ways to accomplish it. Trying to solve the problem is not a simple task. We have the self-centered motivations of most of us on one side– and what is good for society on the other side of the battle line. As pointed out in books, the authors continually look at much later retirement and the necessity of people to contribute enough to pay for their retirements.
While the intelligent thing to do is to somehow limit population, I don’t see how we can do it without a huge shift in our selfish leanings and our democratic idea of absolute freedom. We have probably passed the point of no return. But there is hope!
Illegal immigration, poverty, global warming, famines, the reduction of freshwater and a whole slew of other problems are based on overpopulation. Ecologists know it, but the majority of us either deny the reality or hope that God or science will solve the problem for us.
http://Overpopulation.org is a site that keeps us current on the problem.