The Russian Decline

[jordan179]

From my comments on a post by erudito at http://erudito.livejournal.com/842080.html?view=3900768#t3900768

Introduction

Nicholas Eberstadt, in "Drunken Nation: Russia's Depopulation Bomb," World Affairs Journal (Read more... )

Comments

[yechezkiel]

Who are your ancestors? (I apologize if you've mentioned this on LJ before since I've been on your flist, I must not have noticed/remembered.)

I do not see how Russia can reverse its decline. Georgia has had some success in boosting birthrates over the past year due to a promise by her Patriarch to personally baptize any child born to a family that already has two or more children, but Georgia is a smaller and more religious nation than Russia. The cultural strength of Orthodoxy in Russia is among a passionate minority, and it will likely never get back to what it enjoyed in the declining days of the tsars.

[sergeantbrother]

I think that trying to get abortions under control might be a way, I have read that abortions in Russia outnumber live births. Of course, outlawing abortion doesn't completely work, but I would say that it should definitely be tried in the face of national destruction.

Maybe laws that reward child birth might be good as well, maybe paying women to have children. Its certainly not ideal, but this is a national emergency for Russia greater than any threat its ever had since it the Mongols.

[jordan179]

Maybe laws that reward child birth might be good as well, maybe paying women to have children. Its certainly not ideal, but this is a national emergency for Russia greater than any threat its ever had since it the Mongols.

It would certainly be a reasonable response on the part of the Russian government to enact tax laws, in particular, highly-favoring marriage and childbirth. First the Russians have to realize that there's a problem though, which I'm not sure they do. Putin in particular seems to be working on the strategy of "bluster a lot and pretend it's still 1945," which is not helping much.

[stauros]

Has that ever worked apart from a cultural change? I know the Fascists and Nazis made much of large families and rewarded them in various ways, but it didn't greatly affect Italy's population and I suspect the same is true for Germany's. Human fertility seems curiously resistant to governmental exhortation, even in tyranny.

[lather2002]

As far as population statistics go, it is similar to what happened to Germany after WWII. But that is about where the comparison ends.

[jordan179]

As far as population statistics go, it is similar to what happened to Germany after WWII. But that is about where the comparison ends.

Well yeah, and this is a problem for modern Germany too. But at least modern Germany isn't simultaneously trying to gain superpower status while holding herself together with a diminished population. And the Germans don't have as many of the deep social pathologies identified in the article, so it's quite likely that Germany will recover from this.

[lather2002]

That my Cyber Friend is why I mentioned that is where the comparison ends. ;)

[spiffystuff]

You're Russian, and/or of ancestry from part of the former USSR?

My mom's Ukrainian. (well, 1st gen american) Thank god they went to America - Ukraine did not do well under Russia. Still a weird love/hate relationship there.

[jordan179]

You're Russian, and/or of ancestry from part of the former USSR?

Biological maternal ancestry from regions under control of Tsarist Russia, adoptive maternal from Russia, and adoptive paternal from Russian Poland.

[lather2002]

The Ukraine is a made up country. An area that has been either under Polish, Lithuanian, German or Russian and/or Soviet control. Maybe, at some point it was something other. But I do not recall it being a stand alone Nation until recently.

[spiffystuff]

... fortunately I don't actually feel particularly amazingly Ukrainian (being only half Ukrainian an not speaking the language an all) or there'd be some total UKRAINIAN RA3G going on about now...

Just because they were controlled by various other powers for a lot of (somewhat recent) history doesn't mean there wasn't a constant ethnic group of people living there.

[banner]

If you encourage women not to have children, guess what? They don't.

Western society really has put a stigma on child birth and child rearing, so it's not surprising that western societies are falling off in population. Muslim societies with their multiple women per man system, and the total repression of women as a whole are by design child bearing societies.

Until western societies honor motherhood, promote the idea that being married and having children is a good thing, don't expect to see any changes.

[jordan179]

Muslim societies with their multiple women per man system, and the total repression of women as a whole are by design child bearing societies.

This is a classic "high-r" reproduction strategy. The flaw is that the children produced and educated by such a system are of inferior quality: this is literally a case where "one of us is worth x of them." Specifically, Muslims are far less well educated and nourished, and are far more prone to severely neurotic behavior, compared to most non-Muslims of equivalent social status.

[banner]

Which doesn't matter if you breed enough Reavers to overwhelm everyone else through sheer numbers. If "one of us is worth X of them", what happens when they have X + 1 of them for every one of you?

I believe one Euro-Mullah decreed a fatwa that every Muslim woman should bear at least five sons for the Jihad. "We conquer the lands of the Franks! Our weapon shall be our wombs!"

[jordan179]

Which doesn't matter if you breed enough Reavers to overwhelm everyone else through sheer numbers. If "one of us is worth X of them", what happens when they have X + 1 of them for every one of you?

Well, then the good guys lose. But actually the Muslim numerical advantage is nowhere near as great as their own propaganda makes it out to be. They also suffer from the defection of their most competent people to Western civilization.

[polaris93]

That's horrible! I'd seen articles about some of this, but I didn't know it was this bad. You're right -- if Russia collapses, China and the Middle East will pounce on the power vaccuum that creates, and fill it with their own agendas, backed up with military might, and maybe the rise of another Genghis Khan. In that case, the only hope would be that India would be one of the nations that pounced -- yes, she has her own agenda, too, but I think the world can live with it. And she might be able to hold her own against China and various Middle Eastern dictatorships -- she's got nukes, after all, and she and Pakistan have been trying to cooperate to keep from starting a nuclear war with each other, so she might have Pakistan for an ally in that. (If Pakistan can get rid of the damned Taliban.) But that's a rather frail hope. Russia does deserve a better fate than the one she seems inevitably plunging toward. That's what Communism does to a great nation. Which is why, right now, we are in very deep trouble.

[mindstalk]

Right, because we're about to fall into Communism -- wait, no we're not.

[polaris93]

We already have. Either you didn't notice, or you've got a hidden agenda.

[mindstalk]

Or I know the difference between a capitalist economy with progressive taxation and some regulation,lots of free speech, and competitive elections, vs. Communism.