Monday, December 5, 2011

Culture creep

I watched this interesting video on population growth and culture. It looks like most developed countries have a natural population growth of less than 1.6 per couple, while 2.1 is required to maintain the base population. This might sound like a value that would result in the population doubling each generation, but really, it's just maintaining the status quo. i.e. two (point-one) children for each couple.

The only way that developed countries avoid a quickly ageing population is through immigration. What this means is that the culture of each developed nation is gradually being diluted to a point where there isn't a 'French culture', there isn't a 'Dutch culture', there isn't an 'English culture'. It just becomes some culture, rather than a specific one.


I wonder, at what point, we stop using silly terms such as culture? Is it still a culture when a traditional meal is eating fast food? Is it still a culture if the general view of entertainment is going out drinking? I would like to think that people still appreciate the finer things in life but I don't see that continuing into the future. Survival of the Fittest dictates that cultural things will become less of a priority as we devolve into Idiocracy.

Whatever the case, our fate is sealed. Maybe I'm just venting to a non-existent audience or maybe I'm just getting old.

...damn kids.

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