Short of mass genocide, pandemics or large asteroids hitting the earth, demographics are irrefutable, and cannot be changed. Yet we pay little attention to them.
The numbers of kids needing schools can be determined accurately at least five years ahead of time for primary schools and at least ten years ahead of time for high school or secondary education. It depends primarily on the birth rate, which is already easy to document. That is a very practical use of demographics, but they can also be used for much larger realities.
The average age of the population in India is twenty-five (25), and the average age of the population in China is fifty (50). India lags behind China in current overall population, but India is catching up fast and will easily surpass China. Thus, in reality, India has already won the world-domination race. It’s just that neither country has realized it yet.
On another level, the Black population in the United States has already lost the minority dominance and influence game to the Hispanics. The Latino population is already at 16% and will be 30% by 2050. The Black population is currently at 12% and will be 12% by 2050.
Again, neither side has fully realized it yet.
It may seem obvious, but the bigger the population, the more children they will have, and the more influence they will gain, just by sheer numbers.
There is a line from a “thriller” novel, and I can’t remember which one, which has a Middle East Terrorist leader saying something to the effect that “we bad guys will win in the end because we will outbreed you. We have five wives and you have one!
Demographics cannot be changed, except by draconian means!
Nothing about this is new. King Henry II of England decided, in 12th century, that the best way to subdue the Scots was to breed them out of existence. He instituted a law that said the English lord of the manor in Scotland had the right of the first marriage night. In other words, any Scottish woman who got married had to spend the first night of her marriage in the bed of the local lord of the manor. King Henry understood the law of demographics probably better than we do today, and that was eight hundred years ago.
It might even be tempting to think that, apart from the obvious conquest drive of winners of wars and battles, there may be a demographic reason behind the rape that always seems to accompany pillage after a victory. Breeding domination and control. Lions do the same thing. When a new male lion takes over a pride, the first thing he will do is kill all the cubs from his predecessor.
The problem in today’s world is that we have been trained to think in soundbites, and long-term thinking means tomorrow or next week. Certainly, in the world of politics, long-term means the date of the next election.
However, demographics are irrefutable, and don’t go away, To ignore them is dangerous, or advantageous, depending on your perspective.
We need to pay more attention to what demographics tell us. They may be the one fixed statistic in today’s rapidly-changing world.
