incoherent babble about trends, if you want it , or: Trends are not Outcomes
if i make a graph. the Y axis will be years AD, counting up to infinity, snd the X axis is years of age, starting with zero. there will be a clear tend. we could say that starting from the year....AD and moving on, the age of the person will rise in equal rate but not equal proportion. this trend shall be a straight line that will go on forever.
it doesnt. people stop celebrating birthdays, and the final candle is blown, after that...well..ehm.... we merge with the infinite...
its easy to see a trend. to look at a few neat numbers and extrapolate doom.
i remember reading about Issac Newton, doing this math-calculousy thing and coming to the conclusion that with a steady, inevitable decline, by the year 2060 there will be no more religious people and consequently, judgment day will happen.
it didnt. or it didnt yet. because trends are not outcomes. it's easy to draw a neat, straight a line on paper . but things have a way of correcting themselves for better or worse.
plateaues. dips, spikes are the reality, and so a calculation of our total decline as a species is way way off...
lets face it. we blow things up, we hurt, burn, cheat,curse, marginlize , abuse , exploit, extort and teach english to. but some how we carry on. humanity can get throigh global warming, covid, the great election cycle of 2024, 2026,2028 and even 2037 (there will be a constitutional amendment by this time, to turn representational democracy into a reality show. and it will be axed after one season). but ont worry, we will keep going. no danger for us as a species.
numerically though...yeah its going to be harry...
people dont have sex as much?, as related to what? do we have a good indicator or documentation of frequancy of banging around in the Elizabethan period, or the dark ages? people lived till they died at 40 back then..they had nothing to do of interest, except for the beast with two backs, and they still persecuted people for wearing shorts, or abusing an odlly shaped carrot?!
no. they ...didnt always get 'busy'... they employed themselves as their instincts and interests drove them.
oh, and half their kids would not live to age 3.
infant mortality is rare today. i remember reading about a million thungs that could kill you baby when i had my girl. its scary but most of these things are now preventable! it used to be almost expected. like getting a cold, to lose one ofvyour kids...grief was just normal. but then again, it took thousands of years and painstaking statistical research to figure out that babies might have higger survivability if they slept on their backs...
of come a long way..
my point is that statistics about demographic trends are very difficult to interpret correctly. and they do not truly explain why the changes are occuring.
people are changing in their behavior. people can't live without phones. for my generation it was TV and the phobe..
change is a matter of survival. exposure to culture and immigration are things that enrich societies but also protect them from falling apart and collapsing. but you need to adapt and reform habits. big families are not popular anymore. culturally, economically they are not the norm. the ceased to be the norm. but if ever there shall be a new change in society, this norm might reverse.
society will change dramatically, it may reduce its number to some extent, but it will never be to a major decline, until thevthreat of extinction looms. plagues and wars can do that but even they are later compensated for by the over eager survivors.
we can also look at whats going on tbrough the concept of dialectic cycles; thete cant be a direct and unstoppable historical progression or decline. thos os because within every surge upeards or downwards in ideas, freedom, and even technology and its effect on people, with those seemingly straight trends, lies the antithetical undercurrent, that will disrupt, and eventually nagate the possibility of thectrend continuing onward as before. politically , for example, its easy to see how the relatively liberal atmosphere of the 90s was its own reason for a reaction. terrorism, cyberbulltying, populism, trumpism, needed this easy bedrock to grow from. so now there is a new trend; growing devision and distrust, but from that bedrock , a new movement will hrow, and so on and so forth...
well until the flamingos take over...then we're all screwed.