Demographic Doom Podcast

In December 2019, Glenn Campbell looks ahead to the 2020s. Economic and political chaos will explode as the bills of the past come due. Massive protests in France, Hong Kong and Chile are just the beginning, because nearly everyone will be unhappy in the coming years. The core issue is that there is not enough pie to go around.  — Also see DemographicDoom.com + Instagram + Twitter. Comment on video at j.mp/dd_decade [Ep. 22 - 14 Dec 2019]

If you are in your 30s and haven't had children, should you feel guilty? Is it your responsibility to create a new life to replace your own? Glenn Campbell breaks down the moral issues. Demographic collapse, like climate change, is a complex problem with no single solution. It is good to want to make the world a better place after you are gone, and this may or may not involve raising children. It may take years to figure out what your mission should be, and your solution may be different than everyone else's. The only thing you should feel guilty about is wasting your personal resources on things you know are not important.

Most wealth is stored in the form of "assets"—that is, things you can own that you assume can later be sold or redeemed for money. Assets can include real estate, stocks, bonds, bank accounts and even cash stored in your mattress. The problem with assets is that their value is always speculative, and their value today may not be their value tomorrow. Even cash carries a risk, because inflation could reduce its buying power over time. Glenn Campbell explores the value of assets based on his experience with real estate in Las Vegas.

Civilization is always getting more complex. This is measurable in various ways, including the number of laws on the books and number of job descriptions in employment records. Modern society consists of systems built upon systems. Each new system is intended to solve a problem, but the total mass of these systems eventually outweighs their utility. When a society becomes so complex that it cannot be governed, it eventually collapses. Glenn Campbell explains complexity, based loosely on the work of anthropologist Joseph Tainter. (Search YouTube for "Joseph Tainter complex".) [ep 19, 23 Nov 2020]

Few of us would question that the world is overpopulated. In 50 years, the human population has roughly doubled, from 4 billion to almost 8 billion. Wouldn't it be best if humanity brought down it's numbers to a sustainable level, like 4 billion again? Probably, but there is no painless way to get there. If birth rates fall, as has already happened, it leaves us with a huge excess of ailing old people and not enough active workers to support them. In many ways, government and economies are addicted to growth, and when the growth reverses, a plethora of bad effects can be expected.

Throughout the world, birth rates have fallen dramatically, and most countries are now below replacement fertility, or the number of babies needed to refresh the population. Only recently, the world was worried about a "population explosion". Now an implosion seems more likely. Why is this so? Why aren't people having children in the same numbers as they used to? The core reason is simple: People aren't having children because the costs outweigh the benefits.

How do we define Millennials, Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers? While no individual should be judged by the year of their birth, large groups of people tend to have different life experiences based on when they were born. Older Americas, for example, may have experienced the Great Depression, World War II and the Swinging Sixties, and this affects both their worldview and their economic impact on other generations. Starting with the oldest still alive, Glenn Campbell reviews the commonly accepted generations and explains how they experienced the world.

Millennials (born 1980-1994) often accuse Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) of ruining the world, and vice versa. Boomers have saddled younger generations with huge debts they cannot repay, while Millennials are derided as "snowflakes" who expect the world to take care of them. Demographic philosopher Glenn Campbell explores the statistical reasons for this conflict. With their sheer numbers, Boomers powered the biggest economic expansion in the history of the world. As they move into retirement, this engine will sputter, leaving the Millennials in a deflating growth bubble. (Skippable—covered better in Ep. 16)

While medical science is saving more lives than ever before, the overall longevity of the population isn't improving. In the USA, longevity is even beginning to decline. Why is this so? Part of the answer is that each life saved results in greater medical costs for that patient in the future. Higher costs, in turn, are eroding the social factors that prevent disease. The medical and economic system is focused more on saving people from heart attacks after the fact rather than preventing them. The net result is exploding health care costs while lives only get shorter. — Also see DemographicDoom.com + Instagram + Twitter. Comment on video at j.mp/dd_healthcare [ep 14] 

Europe is in deep trouble. In every country, fertility has dropped below replacement level, but not all countries are equally affected. Southern and Eastern Europe are in the worst shape, in part because they are losing their best talent to Northern Europe. Germany and other countries of the north are "energy vampires" sucking the rest of Europe dry.