07/21/2024
I talk about demography a lot on VDARE.com, mainly about the decline in fertility rates all over the civilized world.
There are also demographic issues at the other end of the age range, though: not just too few kiddies, there are also too many geezers.
I was reminded of this the other day when I pulled up my news aggregator and saw, on the same page, nearly adjacent stories from both ends.
First story: from Newsweek, July 18th, headline: China Is Hiding A Population Secret, Analyst Claims.
China Is Hiding A Population Secret.China’s decades of population control policies are all wrong & that all of China’s economic, foreign, & defense policies, as well as those of the U.S. & other countries towards China, are based on faulty demographic data https://t.co/44fT3OrWk0
— Brian O’Shea (@BrianOSheaSPI) July 20, 2024
The story is about a demography researcher with a Chinese name at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who believes the ChiComs are fudging their population statistics big-time to make their population decline seem less dramatic than it actually is.
Second story: This one’s from Agence France-Presse, July 17th, headline: First suicide pod use ’soon’ in Switzerland: campaigners.
The text here is about that suicide pod: a nifty little capsule you can climb into, close the lid, press the button, and replace all the oxygen in the thing with nitrogen, causing unconsciousness in thirty seconds then painless death after five minutes — a method that’s been used for capital punishment in Alabama.
The society sponsoring this thing tells us that people in Switzerland, where assisted suicide without medical supervision is legal in some of the cantons, are queueing up to use it — although a later report says prosecutors in Switzerland’s Schaffhausen Canton have threatened to prosecute any clinic using it.
Switzerland BANS ’suicide capsule’ dubbed the ’Tesla of euthanasia’ that was ’due to be used for the first time this month’ and threatens to prosecute assisted-dying advocate behind it https://t.co/nbc1msuz3T pic.twitter.com/iz0lTRnd8K
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) July 10, 2024
It’s not hard to believe. We’ve all known old people who are sick and/or lonely and would be glad to take a peaceful exit. Let ’em go.
Whatever you think about the morality of this, get used to more news stories about it. Demography is a big topic, and getting bigger… at both ends.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.