China demographics thread.

[Eventine]

They are indeed occupied by the US, but saying that they developed due to the US is beyond delusional and uneducated as they would be even much better off today had they not been occupied.

Yeah, they needed the US for exports, but the US economy also needed their superior, competitive products. And why do they make such products from the most fundamental kind of standpoint?

- High levels of intelligence, education, conscientiousness, agreeableness, performance, basically everything that Indians on average don't have.

Not questioning that, on a per capita basis, East Asians are more productive than Indians. But arguing this is due to its low TFR? During World War 2, Japan's TFR was regularly above 4 - and that was when it was arguably at the height of its power as a country - independent, strong in industry, and powerful in military.

Today's Japan is a shadow of what it was. China is glad for it because Imperial Japan was a competent and brutal enemy. But from the Japanese nationalist perspective, it's no wonder they wax nostalgic about World War 2 and not modern Japan.

 

[FriedRiceNSpice]

Back then, the known world was only Asia, and the Empire did not disqualify people from even the furthest corners of the known world to join, if they had the correct expertise. Today, the known world is the whole world, so if China is to rule long term when it returns to its historical position as leader of the known world, it also needs to accept people from any corner of the world and let them become Chinese.

Even during the Tang dynasty, the people from the "far reaches," of the known world were mainly Koreans, Japanese, and Northeast Asians. All groups of people that mutually believed that they shared common ancestry and were only distinguishable by language/custom.

Historical China was not a nation of immigrants but an empire, and its lack of racial homogeneity was due to the empire conquering / unifying other peoples. This process began in the Shang Dynasty if not earlier from the Shang Kings engaging in political intermarriage with surrounding states. The Zhou was exactly the same. This is why the core ideological principle of Chinese politics is unification.

For the most part, even before unification under the first dynasties, the ethnic makeup of Northern China was largely homogenous. So these were not states of different ethnicities being unified into a single multi-ethnic empire, but rather certain Chinese states gaining dominance/hegemony over other Chinese states and then imposing unification through force. The closest Western parallel would be German unification during the 19th century. Large-scale conquest and assimilation mainly occurred during China's southward expansion, a process started by the state of Chu and completed during the Han dynasty. By the middle of the Han dynasty, China had basically expanded to the limits of temperate cultivatable land on the East Asian landmass, and the ethnic composition of China changed little for the subsequent two millennia.

 

[Serb]

Not questioning that, on a per capita basis, East Asians are more productive than Indians. But arguing this is due to its low TFR? During World War 2, Japan's TFR was regularly above 4 - and that was when it was arguably at the height of its power as a country - independent, strong in industry, and powerful in military.

Today's Japan is a shadow of what it was. China is glad for it because Imperial Japan was a competent and brutal enemy. But from the Japanese nationalist perspective, it's no wonder they wax nostalgic about World War 2 and not modern Japan.

I'm just arguing that they should certainly know what they are doing more than some other certain groups of people as seen from the past, present, and likely future in terms of comparative results and evidence. Also, believing this will somehow change in the future is coping.

Why did South Korea knowingly go way harder on tertiary education than Japan (which tanked their TFR even lower), despite already seeing their example? Do you think you are smarter than them and discovered a fire or something? It is clear what's more important.

Because technology reached a certain tipping point when it could literally do anything. That's the whole premise of AI/automation. The TFR doesn't matter nearly as much anymore. The advantage of high IQ societies like East Asia will only increase, not decrease, in the current world.

They can "solve" the TFR in hundreds of ways afterward, they just need to be educated and use their inherent gifted potential to the fullest.

You can have 10000 less cognitively gifted people without the ability to program AI and 5 of the people with opposite traits with the ability to do so. Because until you are above a certain cognitive level, you are useless, no matter if there are 1 or 10000 of you out there.

Also, don't keep deflecting and trolling anymore. To add, they don't look up to Imperial Japan due to TFR, but to the freedom from the US, lmao.




Edit: Japan's problem unironically is not that there has been a lack of TFR, but that they dialed down on extremely high education in hopes of reversing it, cuz they started reaching sharp declines in TFR much earlier than Koreans when probably the technology didn't look as promising.

 

[Eventine]

I'm just arguing that they should certainly know what they are doing more than some other certain groups of people as seen from the past, present, and likely future in terms of comparative results and evidence. Also, believing this will somehow change in the future is coping.

Why did South Korea knowingly go way harder on tertiary education than Japan (which tanked their TFR even lower), despite already seeing their example? Do you think you are smarter than them and discovered a fire or something? It is clear what's more important.

Because technology reached a certain tipping point when it could literally do anything. That's the whole premise of AI/automation. The TFR doesn't matter nearly as much anymore. The advantage of high IQ societies like East Asia will only increase, not decrease, in the current world.

They can "solve" the TFR in hundreds of ways afterward, they just need to be educated and use their inherent gifted potential to the fullest.

You can have 10000 less cognitively gifted people without the ability to program AI and 5 of the people with opposite traits with the ability to do so. Because until you are above a certain cognitive level, you are useless, no matter if there are 1 or 10000 of you out there.

Also, don't keep deflecting and trolling anymore. To add, they don't look up to Imperial Japan due to TFR, but to the freedom from the US, lmao.

Edit: Japan's problem unironically is not that there has been a lack of TFR, but that they dialed down on extremely high education in hopes of reversing it, cuz they started reaching sharp declines in TFR much earlier than Koreans when probably the technology didn't look as promising.

To you, Japan and South Korea are successful countries to emulate, who "know what they're doing."

To me, they are demographic basket cases whose impending decline will prove that, in fact, they had no idea what they're doing.

You say that Japan and South Korea's metrics are objective proof of their success. I say that their metrics are don't show anything of the sort, because their people are miserable, their demographics are a disaster, and their "wealth" is temporary, conditional, and illusionary.

History will prove which one of us is right. I don't think there is a need to "argue" about diametrically opposed perceptions.

What I will address, however, is one specific fact that both you and Index consistently ignore - which is that POPULATION STRUCTURE is far more important than POPULATION SIZE.

Having a highly educated population is useless if 70% of them are over 65 years old. It is a biological fact that cognition peaks before the age of 55 (most in the 20s and 30s) and experiences a rapid decline into the 60s and 70s. 100% of your population could have tertiary education, but if 70% of them are retired, 15% of them are children, and the remaining 15% are busy just trying to keep society running, you're going to have a hard time.

And the usual answer to this - "AI / robots will save us" - is just another admission that there is no solution beyond some miracle technology.

 

[Virtup]

What I will address, however, is one specific fact that both you and Index consistently ignore - which is that POPULATION STRUCTURE is far more important than POPULATION SIZE.

Having a highly educated population is useless if 70% of them are over 65 years old. It is a biological fact that cognition peaks before the age of 55 (most in the 20s and 30s) and experiences a rapid decline into the 60s and 70s. 100% of your population could have tertiary education, but if 70% of them are retired, 15% of them are children, and the remaining 15% are busy just trying to keep society running, you're going to have a hard time.

And the usual answer to this - "AI / robots will save us" - is just another admission that there is no solution beyond some miracle technology.

This is exactly what worries me about China. People on this thread often talk about education, 1.4 billion people counterbalancing low TFR while completely disregarding the disastrous effects of having an inverted population pyramid. As you said, the small percentage of functional adults will have to compensate for the much more numerous elderly who are, on average, a burden to the economy. This means longer work hours (if you want the economy to remain the same, not even grow) and less time to think about one's situation, find a partner and create a family.
As of now I'm treating all those visions about AI doing everything for humans as pure post-scarcity BS. Current robots can barely traverse regular terrain like stairs and rocky ground. Better neural network models need far more computational power, are inflexible and unable to learn on the spot. They wont improve the situation any better than industrial robots in the 80s. Plus their advent will probably create new industry fields that we never considered before and that require more people (this consistently happened througout history).

 

[Serb]

You say that Japan and South Korea's metrics are objective proof of their success. I say that their metrics are don't show anything of the sort, because their people are miserable, their demographics are a disaster, and their "wealth" is temporary, conditional, and illusionary.

False, their people are not any more miserable than people in other developed countries according to various happiness and satisfaction-related polls. This is just Euro-Westoid racist propaganda. Their demographics are weak in one aspect, but strong in another as they have one of the most intelligent and educated populations on the planet.

Their wealth is based on the real economy, high-tech manufacturing, and exports, unlike Western money printing, and services, machines that could pop out at any time, a model possible and surviving only on old, colonial glory - but probably not for much longer.


Edit: Just do one Google search man, it's not hard, don't eat all that Westoid propaganda, at face value, see truly how "miserable" who is lmao:

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What I will address, however, is one specific fact that both you and Index consistently ignore - which is that POPULATION STRUCTURE is far more important than POPULATION SIZE.

Having a highly educated population is useless if 70% of them are over 65 years old. It is a biological fact that cognition peaks before the age of 55 (most in the 20s and 30s) and experiences a rapid decline into the 60s and 70s. 100% of your population could have tertiary education, but if 70% of them are retired, 15% of them are children, and the remaining 15% are busy just trying to keep society running, you're going to have a hard time.

Who cares if 70% are old if they created enough value through their productive years to support themselves into retirement age?

Or if the remaining working population is 20 times more productive than Indians for example, and pays explicit and implicit 'taxes' (unlike them), to support their elders (unlike them again)?

That's a good point, but the technology is converging not just in the computer science/AI field but in medicine and life sciences too.

Some world-leading anti-aging experts (not pseudo-scientists) even legitimately think that for example, they could live above 100 or even forever.

You see this everywhere, not only in average lifespans but also in many athletes being active for longer than ever, people working, etc.

And the usual answer to this - "AI / robots will save us" - is just another admission that there is no solution beyond some miracle technology.

Automation is already "saving" Japan for example right now. They have kept their old wages pretty much for decades already despite the inverted population pyramid. Also, when we are talking about technology, there are other technologies that could mitigate this - biotech.

 

[Serb]

This means longer work hours (if you want the economy to remain the same, not even grow)

What about increases in TFP for example brought about by growth in education, science, technology, healthcare, etc?

and less time to think about one's situation, find a partner and create a family.

The first sentence already addressed this, but who knows if this will even be the main child-bearing and child-rearing model going forward anymore?

As of now I'm treating all those visions about AI doing everything for humans as pure post-scarcity BS. Current robots can barely traverse regular terrain like stairs and rocky ground. Better neural network models need far more computational power, are inflexible and unable to learn on the spot.

This does not calculate the current rate of progress which is exponential. Yeah, the AI is currently similar to the dot-com bubble, it won't get fully established and standardized as fast as many predict, but it will nevertheless still happen eventually.

They wont improve the situation any better than industrial robots in the 80s.

Yeah, isn't that why for example South Korea has pretty much the same global share of manufacturing as India, despite 28 times fewer people, lmao?

Plus their advent will probably create new industry fields that we never considered before and that require more people (this consistently happened througout history).

No, this is not the case, because AI is the final invention. Meaning that it could do anything that humans could do, and way better, as its name applies - it is artificial intelligence. Any new fields will also be dominated by AI eventually, but in the meantime, AI-related, created jobs will be occupied by highly educated 120+ IQ people, whereas for example, the average Indian IQ is 75.

 

[Virtup]

What about increases in TFP for example brought about by growth in education, science, technology, healthcare, etc?

Those, while certainly helpful, did not save and are not saving Japan, south korea or Europe. In the case of the latter, immigrants are. But they're also bring a whole different set of potentially fatal problems with them.

but who knows if this will even be the main child-bearing and child-rearing model going forward anymore?

That, to me, sounds like a situation that will either never happen or will appear after China has already faced the consequences of rapidly declining TFR.

This does not calculate the current rate of progress which is exponential. Yeah, the AI is currently similar to the dot-com bubble, it won't get fully established and standardized as fast as many predict, but it will nevertheless still happen eventually.

I don't agree with the exponential progress of AI. What's happening right now is that some fundamental basic tech (in the case of AI, it's the LLM) got discovered and refined enough to be deployed on a large scale, which led to rapid progress for a while. Then we hit a plateau and stagnate for another while till the next "revolutionary" tech is discovered. This pattern is consistent with most industry fields today. We get tricked because humanity advances rapidly due to the sum of multiple "discoveries" being successively made in different fields. This is also the reason why we have generations of complex systems.
As for post-scarcity AI happening eventually, how soon is "eventually"? With current tech, it's in the realm of science fiction and people will still be needed for current and future industries.

Yeah, isn't that why for example South Korea has pretty much the same global share of manufacturing as India, despite 28 times fewer people, lmao?

But what happens when India "eventually" automates its industries and improves its logistics? what if Brasil, vietnam or even north korea does it (with the current geopolitical situation, who knows?)? The fact that India has a similar share of manufacturing to SK, despite the latter being far, far more advanced, should be telling.

No, this is not the case, because AI is the final invention. Meaning that it could do anything that humans could do, and way better, as its name applies - it is artificial intelligence. Any new fields will also be dominated by AI eventually, but in the meantime, AI-related, created jobs will be occupied by highly educated 120+ IQ people, whereas for example, the average Indian IQ is 75.

This final invention won't be happening any time soon and when it "eventually" happens, countries that are currently counting on it will be in no position to make effective use of it.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

False, their people are not any more miserable than people in other developed countries according to various happiness and satisfaction-related polls. This is just Euro-Westoid racist propaganda. Their demographics are weak in one aspect, but strong in another as they have one of the most intelligent and educated populations on the planet.

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[valysre]

Even during the Tang dynasty, the people from the "far reaches," of the known world were mainly Koreans, Japanese, and Northeast Asians. All groups of people that mutually believed that they shared common ancestry and were only distinguishable by language/custom.

For the most part, even before unification under the first dynasties, the ethnic makeup of Northern China was largely homogenous. So these were not states of different ethnicities being unified into a single multi-ethnic empire, but rather certain Chinese states gaining dominance/hegemony over other Chinese states and then imposing unification through force. The closest Western parallel would be German unification during the 19th century. Large-scale conquest and assimilation mainly occurred during China's southward expansion, a process started by the state of Chu and completed during the Han dynasty. By the middle of the Han dynasty, China had basically expanded to the limits of temperate cultivatable land on the East Asian landmass, and the ethnic composition of China changed little for the subsequent two millennia.

I would like to point out a clarification:
The fragmentary period called the "Warring States" which was ended by a Qin unification of the different states was preceded by the vaguely feudal system of the Zhou, which would later spiral into infighting between the different feudal states that made up Zhou's area of control.
Zhou (and the subsequent Warring States) was/were homogenous in ethnic makeup largely due to the expansion of the feudal system under 周公 (which entailed the pushing of what would later be called 汉人) into the far reaches of China proper. What this implies is that China in prehistoric times was not ethnically homogenous, but later became homogenous largely through the forcible integration and/or extermination of the groups that occupied spaces that were taken over during 周公's feudal expansion (extermination is the most likely candidate).
However, 周公's feudal push did not really affect south of the Yangtze. The absence of extermination of the prehistoric groups in Southern China is evidenced by the clear differences in culinary preferences (culinary preferences are perhaps the most durable element of a cultural identity) and also through mitochondrial DNA differences in Northern and Southern Chinese populations. As you say, Southern China was largely integrated during Chu's gradually shifting territory as they were slowly consumed by the other Warring States, and during the Han dynasty.
We can however imagine why there might be substantial mitochondrial DNA differences while there are minimal other differences between the Northern and Southern Chinese populations (all the prehistoric southern men were killed and, well...).

In conclusion: China is ethnically homogenous as a result of large-scale eradications of other competing ethnic groups at different stages in early Chinese history. This is an ugly truth, but it hardly matters--these eradications all happened roughly 2000 years ago (the Han dynasty expansion in the South). and 3000 years ago (周公's feudal expansion). In fact, attempts at direct assimilation of other ethnic groups have gone very poorly in Chinese history, and are referred to by the phrase: 非我族类，其心必异.
Any gibberish regarding China being a multi-ethnic state originates mostly from Communist propaganda in which the Party artificially created multiple ethnic minorities in an effort to make itself seem more popular, as well as buy support from said ethnic minorities by giving them preferential treatment.