Great post. Well, essay really.

I am always surprised when I read papers in England complaining that a television show with one non-white character out of 10 does not "reflect Britain.

Yes, this fuzzy, statistically illiterate thinking also results in scaremongering headlines like "90% of British whites have no black friends!". This article fisks it well:

Consider Pakistanis. They make up just 1 per cent of the UK population, 92 per cent of which is white. For every white to have a Pakistani friend, the average Pakistani would need at least 92 white friends.

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European cultures are not characterized by the wall of church-state separation which Americans take for granted, and religious assumptions may "guide" the society in a manner surprising to some.

The Irish public education system is still run by the Catholic Church.

in 1798 the Pope was held captive as anti-Christian revolution swept Europe. Many savants of the age predicted the death of Christianity and the ancien regime.

So often throughout history the Pope has been declared irrelevant or on the brink of finitude, and yet the institution has outlasted all the prophets of doom. The funeral for John Paul II said it all.

the National Front has been a powerful anti-immigrant force (though ineffectual) for a generation now

Yes, and if France had a proportional representation system like in Austria or Denmark, the FN would be very powerful, and would most likely have formed a government with the UMP by now.
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It's also interesting that you hint at the Christian conservatism that permeates all levels of German culture. I'd imagine most Americans are completely unaware of this, even fellow Europeans don't realize how conservative Germany is at heart (as German Eurotrash pop/porn is its dominant cultural export) This is obviously important given Germany's place at the center of European civilization, and the dominant player in the EU. There are obviously regional differences - Bavaria is not East Germany, but Christian Democracy, not socialism, has been the maker of post-WWII German culture. After the war German conservatives needed to embrace a rooted culture untainted with Nazism, so they chose Christianity.

Interesting stat: Only 16% of German mothers with children under six go to work. In Britain it is 67%.

Razib's discussion of the quirky logic elites employ in support of Turkish EU membership brought to mind a recent EU survey by those geniuses at the Economist, and their op's on why Turkey MUST join the EU:

"A fallout between the EU and Turkey, one of its biggest and most important neighbours [and Russia would be?!], would be disastrous. It would surely put an end to any hopes of settling the Cyprus problem [?]. Worst of all, many Muslims would see a failure of Turkey's membership hopes as a rebuff administered by a Christian club. Not only would that further sour the West's relations with the Islamic world; it would also cause disaffection among the EU's own 15m-strong Muslim population, many of whom are already hostile to the countries they live in [so invite more!]...

To say now where enlargement will end might also be a good way to reassure nervous voters in existing member countries who have turned against the idea. But their nervousness reflects mainly a failure on the part of EU leaders to explain the benefits of expanding the club [does it? are you really REALLY sure about that?], not a hostility to any specific countries (Turkey being perhaps an exception). And it would seem odd to set limits now to a policy that has worked such wonders. If Turkey and Cyprus, why not—one day—Lebanon? Why not Israel (already a participant in the Eurovision song contest)? Indeed, why not—another day—Morocco or Russia, both of which have a strong European heritage and culture?"

The Economist offices are smack bang in the center of London, so they feel the full brunt of mass immigration every day. But it shows all this can have the opposite effect on the chatterati to the one Razib articulated - ie. the cognitive elites decide that everywhere should be like London, and that nations should cease to exist. Hence the EU as world state.

Very interesting...

I'd always vaguely assumed that the endless scaremongering in the conservative media of the pending "Islamification" of Europe was just another neocon hoax, but I'd never dreamed that the hoax was so patently ridiculous.

Put another way, the Muslim percentage in Europe seems about the same as the Asian percentage in North America, and perhaps growing less rapidly.

Therefore, maybe Rush Limbaugh and National Review should focus on problems closer to home such as America's horrific "Yellow Peril" and the risk that within two generations Mandarin will have replaced English as our national language.

Put another way, the Muslim percentage in Europe seems about the same as the Asian percentage in North America, and perhaps growing less rapidly.

Therefore, maybe Rush Limbaugh and National Review should focus on problems closer to home such as America's horrific "Yellow Peril" and the risk that within two generations Mandarin will have replaced English as our national language.

1) numerically the analogy is very good right now. the low bound estimates of growth are about the same as asian americans (5% now, 10% in 2050), but the high bound estimates are (as i note above) about twice as much (20%).

2) the analogy has problems in the details because "asian americans" are very different in many characteristics from "muslim europeans." both groups are pretty diverse, with the latter exhibiting a lot of regional localization (e.g., in france "muslim" ~ north african, in norway "muslim" ~ pakistani, in macedonia "muslim" ~ albanian). in fact, there are problems with making an analogy between muslim americans and muslim europeans. again, part of the issue is that muslim americans don't exhibit regional substructure, they're diverse, but not in a local manner but all over the place (i.e., brown, african and middle eastern muslims might be found at different concentrations across the country, but it is not so exclusive as to allow one to make a religion & ethnicity identity). and of course, another major issue is the relationship between muslims in europe and below-median-socioeconomic status. that is not true in the united states. analogies can be helpful, but so long as make proper correspondences between cognate facts and structures. knowing the details helps in that. i think a somewhat informative analogy between muslim europeans and america would be an what if: what if blacks were mostly muslim? there are obvious differences (a substantial number of european muslims can pass as white, obviously since 1/3 are native european from the balkans, but also a number of turks and north africans, they are ethnically diverse with varied histories, etc.), but i think it gets to the synergy of religious opposition/difference and social & economic alienation. this is a serious problem then obviously. that being said, i doubt one would be talking about white americans assimilating to a black muslim cultural complex (though some white americans would "convert" and assimilate).

After the war German conservatives needed to embrace a rooted culture untainted with Nazism, so they chose Christianity.

well, catholic christianity more. remember that the protestant hierarchy was seriously suborned by nazism (ergo, the "confession church"). the exclusion of the lander in the GDR tilted germany toward a greater catholic-protestant balance. the descendants of the centre party which became the CSU/CDU were the main non-left forces with any legitimacy, so of course they stepped into the vacuum.

Interesting stat: Only 16% of German mothers with children under six go to work. In Britain it is 67%.

i recall part of the issue here is that german basic goods stores close very early, mandated by law (or this was the case). so someone needed to stay home to do grocery shopping and what not. this difference in work was one of the major differences between west & east germany. the latter was more anglo-scandinavian. the relative conservatism of west german abortion law (which was expanded to the east) was also another source of cultural friction.

the cognitive elites decide that everywhere should be like London, and that nations should cease to exist.

desensitization. they perceive that they wouldn't see a difference. of course, just because they went to oxford doesn't mean that they are able to take into account the unexpected problems and controversies that would ensue....

Thanks for the book recommendation, Razib. I am definitely going to read "God's Continent". It will be a good antidote to Mark Steyn, little green footballs, and the like.

I did read "America Alone" (Steyn) and actually enjoyed it. Mark is definitely an entertaining writer. However, he does play loose with his number where there are numbers. All of his demographic predictions are purely straight-line projections right out to 2070 or so. He does not consider even the first order derivative (rate of change in birth rates) which is quite silly.

Razib,

Couple of points.

1.There's a huge spectrum between "Eurabia" and "Nothing to Worry About, Just Immigrants Like You and Me." A society could evolve toward the midpoint of those two extremes and still be in a shitload of trouble. That is where France strikes me as moving. I've said here and elsewhere that France has always had immigrants and has historically done a great job of seducing them to Frenchness (which I think is a terrific national culture in most ways, geez) but a possible 20% of the population? Methinks the French cobra will have to strain mightily to digest this big fat bird.

2. That said, which nations in Europe are really important? This gives a clue. Let them have Romania.

However, he does play loose with his number where there are numbers.

which means he's writing fiction. i prefer fantasy & science fiction myself, at least they're honest about what they are.

1.There's a huge spectrum between "Eurabia" and "Nothing to Worry About, Just Immigrants Like You and Me." A society could evolve toward the midpoint of those two extremes and still be in a shitload of trouble.

i think that's pretty clear in my post, no need to reiterate what i said (see my last sentence).

That is where France strikes me as moving. I've said here and elsewhere that France has always had immigrants and has historically done a great job of seducing them to Frenchness (which I think is a terrific national culture in most ways, geez) but a possible 20% of the population? Methinks the French cobra will have to strain mightily to digest this big fat bird.

first, the "20%" are not immigrants in a strict sense. they are going to include 2nd & 3rd & 4rth generation people. after all, more than 20% of france's population are already "immigrants" if you use this definition. france has traditionally had large streams of migrants coming from iberia, italy and poland, as well as various assorted eastern european countries. second, one would have to see the % of immigrants in the past in france's history (e.g., when it went through demographic transition in the early 19th century). i'd be curious about a french speaking reader (or even a canadian) digging some data up on this. third, the 20% is pretty much the future % of peoples of some muslim origin,* so if that's what you mean, just say that (after all, france has a large christian arab and black immigrant and 2nd gen population which we aren't worried about in this scenario). separating the categories is essential to teasing apart the problematic variables.

[i deleted your addendum comment where you acknowledged these problems because i posted this simultaneously]

2. That said, which nations in Europe are really important? This gives a clue. Let them have Romania.

the only nations muslims will demographically take over (assuming muslim is very broadly construed) in the next two generations are those that have a majority of muslims (e.g., albania, where most of the population is still secular, and the world capital of the wine drinking bektashi sect of sufism considered non-muslim by many other groups), and macedonia, assuming that the birthrate differential between albanians and slavs is projected forward in time. muslims will create enclaves. rotterdam will be a predominantly muslim city after all, since we can project that when they are already at 50%. but they won't take over nations demographically, and seeing as how they tend to be economic parasites i am highly skeptical about their potential for being agents of emulation (like i said, much of the "tipping point" analogy assumes that europeans have no indigenous cultural capital, something which many americans and muslims can agree upon. but i think this perception is based on ignorance and arrogance).

* there are obviously people of part muslim origin because of intermarriage.

p.s. it is important to note that 16th century spain had a large crypto-muslim minority. these "moriscos" were eventually converted to christianity, with the remnant who remained practicing muslims expelled early in the 17th century. this minority was certainly larger than any european nation has to deal with today. one could say the same of sicily (though there weren't any expulsions except for elite emigration from what i know of), but that was far back in history. crypto-muslim bandits were a problem in the andalusian background even in the late 1600s (the last record of them).

p.p.s. there was no quantitative data in god's continent which i was unfamiliar with. my recommendation to GNXP readers to purchase it is based on my long experience with the reluctance of readers to actually look up this data and become familiar with it before offering their opinions. i assume that shelling out $$$ might induce people to soak it up so that they get their money's worth at least! jenkins does have some interest facts though which i didn't know of, for example, the anti-assimilationist figure behind the obnoxious 'european arab league' supports gay marriage and is from a shia background. it seems that this organization is more like a black separatist vehicle than it is an arm of international islam. these distinctions are important to note.

btw, for those who haven't read it, check out The Much Exaggerated Death of Europe by r. neuhaus, which reviews the same book and covers the same territory. but, unlike myself, neuhaus tends to be skeptical of many of jenkins' points. i said i'd hold off on talking more about muslims until part 2, but i will add this: many american conservatives (and islamists!) tend to view the 'muslim problem' through the lens of ideology. this is a component of the dynamic, but as i have said many times reducing religion to simply the explicit set of the beliefs only captures part of the picture, so reducing the muslim problem to simply one branch of the global islamist problem is removing information. for example: sweden has large communities of iranians (who fled the shah) and "turks" (often kurds who fled ethnic-political persecution). these are both muslim groups, physically similar, and even generally speaking similar languages (the kurdish dialects are related to persian). but obviously they are different in a variety of ways, and the biggest is that the iranians were sampled from the "forward" elements of their nation, while the "turks" were sampled from the "backward" elements. in terms of assimilation that has resulted in a large difference (though the generous welfare state of sweden has been corrosive even for the iranians). another example would be the muslims who are "indian" in britain (that is, their ancestors are from india proper), and muslims who are "pakistani" and/or "bangladeshi." these groups are pretty much indistinguishable to the white british, and are all muslim, but their SES outcomes vary. why? human capital matters. many of the "indians" are ismaili refugees from east africa who were part of the merchant class. and so on.

many american conservatives are working within a blank slate mentality where culture is the parameter par excellence. but one of the major problems with europe's muslims is that frankly they don't bring value added human capital. their main asset when they came to work in the industries of europe was their willingness to accept a lower standard of living and reduced monetary compenstation vis-a-vis the native working classes (who had shifted up to more value added manufacturing in any case, or whose children were making the transition into the service sector). marxists were wrong to reduce everything to class, though class is a major parameter, but the circle at first things is wrong to reduce everything to "culture" (specifically, religion).

desensitization.

In the UK BNP support is traditionally strongest in mostly white areas that may 'turn'. Front National support has always been skewed every-which-way on the societal spectrum due to the diverse descendents of the Pied-Noir demographic, but I recall some articles saying that its support was very strong in completely white countryside areas. Fear can be a powerful force. On the other hand once the transition happens it is human nature to get used to things and put a positive spin on it, whether this is Stockholm Syndrome or desensitization I don't know.

Of course the rich are different (they've got more money!), and typically mingle with the cognitive elites of each respective minority rather than a representative sample. Also - they can mix with immigrants in a buffet-like manner as they tend to live away from them, while the poor do not have the buffet option.
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I haven't read much of the Eurabia genre, but I was wondering do any of them discuss Germany in a bit of depth? Most of the articles I read on this subject typically ignore what is the heart of Europe (except to go on a scare-mongering rant about the tiny number of German Turks)

national front successes. a disproportionate # seem to be around marseille. someone who can read french should look it up, i'm curious. i know that there is "word" out that a lot of NF are defectors from the communists, so that would imply a working class SES skew.

...whether this is Stockholm Syndrome or desensitization I don't know...Of course the rich are different (they've got more money!), and typically mingle with the cognitive elites of each respective minority rather than a representative sample.

saying it's stockholm syndrome makes no sense. have you seen a longitudinal study of european psychology, or are you just saying what comes to mind? if the latter, cut it out, i don't care for stream of consciousness. the muslim minorities don't have much of a "cognitive elite," so i have no idea who european elites are supposed to be socializing with (quite often the "muslims" who assimilate are marginal in some way, e.g., the alevis in germany are more well represented in german civil society than other turks from what i can tell). you can look at the psychometric data for that. from talking to europeans i don't get the impression that muslims are well represented at the elite universities (in britain it is somewhat different because of the large numbers of non-muslim minorities, hindus, sikhs and chinese, who aren't so disadvantaged in terms of human capital. a similar dynamic obtains with muslims in the USA because of the selective nature of the immigration).

i recall part of the issue here is that german basic goods stores close very early, mandated by law (or this was the case). so someone needed to stay home to do grocery shopping and what not. this difference in work was one of the major differences between west & east germany. the latter was more anglo-scandinavian. the relative conservatism of west german abortion law (which was expanded to the east) was also another source of cultural friction.

Just to mention it since I am a German. :)
Today shops in Germany can open from 8am to 10pm Monday to Saturday. I agree that it was a lot more restricted just a few years ago.

Concerning abortions.
Yes, that was a huge discussion and fight. And it´s still more restrictive than American laws.
Legally, a woman can have an abortion
- in case of rape or health reasons for obvious reasons
- or in the first three months if the woman was counseled by a state approved help organization.

Concerning stay-at-home moms.
That´s a more difficult topic.
One part of it is culture. Like believing that a baby should have one person to focus on in its first years.
Another part is that there are/were simply not enough kindergarten places available. So some parents - mostly mothers - simply didn´t have the chance to find any (affordable) day care.

Concerning Muslims in Germany.
Most Muslims living in Germany are of Turkish origin. With around 1 in 7 of them Alevites.
Brief information about the German Conference on Islam (pdf-file).

It´s obvious that for too long Germany didn´t pay any attention to these immigrants. Thinking that these were guest-workers who would after some years leave Germany. That assumption has changed.

Their main asset when they came to work in the industries of Europe was their willingness to accept a lower standard of living and reduced monetary compensation vis-a-vis the native working classes...

Not totally true about Germany.
If they had an industrial job in Germany, they likely had the same union-negotiated wages. For obvious reasons.
The problems are their children and grand-children. Growing up in a Turkish-speaking household didn´t help them in German schools. Followed by not helping them to get a job at all since they didn´t speak German that well.

tx for the PDF detlef! much appreciated.

or are you just saying what comes to mind?

Of course! And I said I 'don't know'.

the muslim minorities don't have much of a "cognitive elite,

I'm thinking professionals. The kind of Muslims who live near elites would be doctors etc, not a representative sample. They wouldn't live that close to one another either, bigger houses.

In my exp many Euros have a deluded, quite orientalist view of the typical Muslim. French television has an endless line of of North African folk groups, exotic personages etc, it's very unusual. As they don't live near many Muslims, this is the view the elite may ingest. In the dive bars of Amsterdam I remember many a painting of Chibouk wielding Turks smoking (what was implied to be) dope neath the Oriental shade. Weird, exotic, peace & love pre-Raphaelism.

I'm thinking professionals. The kind of Muslims who live near elites would be doctors etc, not a representative sample. They wouldn't live that close to one another either, bigger houses.

yes, there are muslim professionals. but quantitatively there aren't that many, as compared to say jewish professionals in berlin in 1925. in the united states south asians that americans meet tend to be skewed toward higher SES. this is obviously a biased sampling, and americans can get a misimpression from the south asians they meet as to modal nature of south asians in the world. my point is that most europeans at elite universities wouldn't meet many muslims anyway, they wouldn't make a mistake about the general nature of euro-muslims. by analogy, there are plenty of middle class blacks at universities in the united states, but american whites routinely overestimate the number of blacks who are underclass (about 1/4). e.g., i have a friend at the university of leiden and asked him if he met muslims at school much. he thought and thought, and remembered one moroccan girl. in contrast, 7% of american medical students in 2006 are south asian.

7% of american medical students in 2006 are south asian.

only 7%? clearly the aunties and the uncles haven't been schooling the betas and betis hard enough.

Personally, I'd like my two daughters to go to MIT; but I'll settle for them being doctors. Good god. what have I just admitted to?? I've been assimilated into brown culture.

btwm woot to the shoutout 'bout the ismailis.

OT: re: brown docs. look here:
http://www.im.org/AAIM/PublicPolicy/Docs/ AAMCMIM05.pdf.

20% of med students are Asian American. 36% of applicants who are Asian are Indian or Pakistani. Assuming similar acceptance rates that means 7% of medical students in the United States are brown. so that's where i get the #. just for the record....

The fluid but stable state of religion in Europe shouldn't be a great surprise. Ireland has always been Catholic, but before the famines it has been estimated that only a third of the populuation regularly attended Mass. After the famine it was 90+% up until this last generation. In Poland, the Reformation made great strides for a while, with Lutheranism becoming the confession of choice among burgers and Calvinism among the aristocracy. However, the counter-reformation, along with foreign invasions, brought most of the Polish population back to Rome. The point being, historically European culture has many times rejected it's Christian roots, only to reembrace them when faced with crisis, particular a crisis associated with external cultures.

up until this last generation.

re: ireland, from what i hear/read it is within the last half-generation even!

In Poland, the Reformation made great strides for a while, with Lutheranism becoming the confession of choice among burgers and Calvinism among the aristocracy. However, the counter-reformation, along with foreign invasions, brought most of the Polish population back to Rome.

the material i've read suggests that protestantism tended to have shallow roots in rural areas for many generations (an analogy with the original introduction of christianity can be made here). the polish elite's flirtation with protestant (even unitarian) religious ideas was relatively short lived (on a historical time scale), so it seems plausible to consider that the population saw little overall change in practice over this period anyhow.

The point being, historically European culture has many times rejected it's Christian roots, only to reembrace them when faced with crisis, particular a crisis associated with external cultures.

i don't think your examples show this at all. after all, the reformation was a battle between christianities, not between christianity and non-christianity! the anti-christian sentiment during the enlightenment and later was due to endogenous cultural dynamics (the rise of nationalism being a primary one), not external ones. now, that being said, i think that the battle between christianities can tell us something, for example, the powerful influence of catholicism on the irish psyche during the early 19th century as they rejected protestant domination.

"Another reader in a chat was worried about the numbers of Muslims in France, and when I asked him numbers he assumed they were in the 20-30% range."

Strictly speaking, I think that chatter said that the proportion of children in France could be as high as 20-30%.

The muslim population pyramid is obviously very different from the rest of the population with fewer old people and lots more children.

If you give 15% as the high bound for the population of all ages then 20-30% for the children is not a bad estimate at all. The 15% figure is probably a bit high, but its hard to get figures when (I think) it is government policy not to collect such data.

The reader's concern was not so much about the muslim population today (which is arguably not coping well with higher rates of unemployment, and making up 70% of the french prison population) as the trends for the future. Will the muslim population level out as a percentage or is there no end in sight to the demographic change? Will this be a good thing for French non-muslims (and muslims)?

It's easy to worry about such trends and the seemingly rising popularity of Wahabbiism in many muslim populations but perhaps memetic changes will prove there is nothing to worry about and this immigrant population will prove to be a great import for France and Europe. I would expect rates of exogamy are higher in France than in places like Britain so perhaps "tribal loyalty" will not be as divisive as ethnic boundaries are blurred.

All things considered, I think it's not entirely clear these trends are desirable at present.

I've seen in German TV some documents about alleged increase in Evangelical or Charismatic groups, that are focusing on youth. The overall tone of the documentary was somber, like announcing a new peril for the society - all these young Christians taking their beliefs seriously. Sounded even more pessimistically than documents about secret mosques.

"most europeans at elite universities wouldn't meet many muslims anyway": what? Not my experience: are you sure? (P.S. I'm counting Britain as part of Europe.)

All things considered, I think it's not entirely clear these trends are desirable at present.

of course the trend isn't desirable! who exactly is arguing that the trend is desirable? the question is the velocity and acceleration of the trend. there are a minority of muslims on this weblog who might (or might not) argue that the trends are desirable, but they aren't part of the debate, so again, you're just wasting time reiterating something which is a background assumption. as to the numbers, what proportion of french (to give a precise number) are attracted to wahhabism? i can give a rough estimate based on my reading, but nothing precise. do you know? if not, that is exactly the short of problem. e.g.,

1) 20-30% of french youth are of muslim origin (let's stipulate this #)

2) some of these are attracted to wahhabism

what does some mean. 1%? 0.1%? 10%? the discussions are often squishy numerically, and, they involve masturbating about whether the trends are positive or not, when generally whether they are positive or not is pretty clearly indicated by the norms you adhere to. but the latter is easy to talk about, while the former involves analyzing and looking up numbers.

Hi Razib, long time.

I was wondering how this factor might impact all these projections.

I was wondering how this factor might impact all these projections.

this depends on region. for example, it used to be common in denmark, but far less so when they increased the necessary age for a out-of-country-spouse. i don't think it is a big issue in france. the trend is most european nations is to try and figure out legal ways to discourage this from what i can see (i think we can agree that this is a good trend).

a trend is a trend. whether its desirable is probably too subjective to really assess. Unless you oprefer to indulge in base tribal metrics like "me not muslim; more muslims bad!" or "me muslim; more muslim good!".

Aziz, that is a very perceptive comment, if I may say so.

Anyway Europe is a special case. Practically an entire continent has decided that breeding is optional. No one can save a lifeform that makes that decision. Even earthworms aren't that stupid.

By 2020 many of the States of Europe will be facing the beginnings of a massive population crash as the ageing Baby-Boomers - the children of the last fertile generation - start to die without having anywhere-near replaced themselves.

What we have seen of the second post-baby boom generation shows that they probably aren't going to resume breeding either. So this thing has momentum. It will take many decades at least until the death-spiral can be reversed. A generation would have to decide to breed and the bulge would have to pass through the entire 70-year demographic curve to fully halt the crash. That's not likely to happen now much before the 22nd century. If it happens at all.

Remember this crash has been building since the pill became available in the 1960's. It's not long after that, when European women decided to stop having babies. By 2020's the s* is going to hit the fan. By 2030's it will be a full blown collapse. By 2040's it will be a panic. But by then there will be surprisingly few native Europeans under 50 and able to have children even if they wanted to. They'd have to be members of the third or fourth compounded scarcely-breeding generation.

So the problem mankind faces is what are we going to do with the European wilderness, when the ageing humans that formerly inhabited it die off, leaving their pet dogs, cats and farm animals to inherit the earth?

In a case like this, with a world that is so overpopulated elsewhere. It seems reasonable that squatters' rights prevail. The nearest available fecund population should just move in and take over the derilict real estate as it becomes vacant.

Ergo the Islamicisation of Europe is really the only practical solution.

If you think I'm exaggerating this I suggest you try running a computer simulation. Scary.

BTW this crisis will consume, to varying degrees, the entire European heartland from Lisbon to Vladivostok. So who else if not the Muslims?


I wonder if anyone has given any serious thought to the possibility that modern contraception combined with women's rights and rampant individualism could theoretically cause the extinction of the entire human race?

Contraception if overused is deadly dangerous to the species. Why am I explaining this on GNXP of all places?

Dan it may be worthwhile buying the book. The problem with extrapolated demographics using computer models is that the models probably simplistically assume no rebound in the declining populations. This is a mistake. To see why assume that a country FecundBarren has a declining population, with a fertility rate of 1.5. In FecundBarren there are two kinds of couples (extreme, I know, this is a thought experiment): one type produce no kids for ideological reasons and have 0 kids per couple, the other types do have children either for religious, or other reasons, and have 3 kids per couple. Assume also that the rate of fertility per-couple is inheritable ( culturally people map to their parents ). Everybody couples, everybody who wants to can have children. Thus the fertilty rate increases in the next generation to 3.0. You may assume that i am talking about muslims as the religious population, not so, as the book ( which we should buy) points out there are growing Christian revival movements in Europe and this will increase as the inability of secular liberalism to defend it's turf increase s in the next generation, and as the proportion of secular liberals decreases as they fail to breed. Mormons are going to be fairly populous in the US, for instance. The thing may not be religious either, the rich and poor tend to have more kids than the middle classes.

I am talking culture here, but - back in the real world now - there may be some actual darwinian selection going on at the moment favouring women with later menopauses and/or higher fertility at "advanced" ages ( 35 +); Dont know how inheritable that is.

Eoin I'd agree with that. The natural selection and the Christian revivalists and even Roman Catholic hardliners who refuse to use the pill. Whatever kind of Europe it is that one day reemerges from the crash, it's going to be very different from the Europe that went into it.

But the crash itself is now unstoppable. The baby boomers are in their 50's, Whatever children they will ever have, they have already had or not as the case may be. (The females anyway).

And also don't forget, many Europeans of talent are going to take one look at the collapsing situation and flee to America. This might benefit America but will further weaken Europe.

I sometimes wonder though. How could rational Europe have got it so wrong? If only radical feminism had tempered itself with biological science. Population theory. This was so predictable. The intellectual classes in Europe were too much dominated by literary figures. Marxists and PoMos. Too few biologists. Yet women so dominate the life sciences.

I will say this though. There is one thing that could still prove me utterly wrong: If human lifespan was to increase dramatically as a consequence of transhumanist technology. Then the falling birthrate would no longer matter.

Dan: It's worth noting that Third Republic France went through the same trends of an indigenous population not reproducing itself, with a relatively liberal urban population not reproducing itself as much as relatively conservative rural populations, and immigrant populations from more conservative neighbouring countries (Belgium, Italy, Spain, Poland, et cetera) reproducing themselves at higher rates than the indigenous population. Towards the end of the Third Republic, immigration alone was responsible for such population growth as there was.

What happened next?

That's why they planted the trees along the Champs Elysee, so the Germans could march in the shade.

For all that Randy, I've heard there never was a population crash like this one. Not since the black death.

a trend is a trend. whether its desirable is probably too subjective to really assess. Unless you oprefer to indulge in base tribal metrics like "me not muslim; more muslims bad!" or "me muslim; more muslim good!".

as an areligious person the issue with a religion isn't the name (muslim, christian, etc.). for example, look at this excellent research paper that just came out on american muslims. here is one major finding: muslim americans are fiscally liberal and socially conservative. if you are a libertarianish person in a society which is already characterized by a lot of moralism and big gov. (from your perspective) the immigration of muslims isn't a positive thing if it results in more people who promote this ideology. if, muslims were inverted in their political orientation then it would be a good thing.

(this big gov. social conservatism is probably more significantly correlated with latinos, who are a going to reshape politics somewhat in the next generation i suspect)

BTW this crisis will consume, to varying degrees, the entire European heartland from Lisbon to Vladivostok. So who else if not the Muslims?

dan, this is the reason it is hard to take people like you seriously, you're so gripped by the meta-narrative that details are pretty much marginal to you. after all, we know that muslims are not going to take over vladivostok, the chinese are! (they already are a significant presence in the russian far east) but of course, rhetorically it makes good sense for you to talk about lisbon to vladivostok, muslims from the atlantic to the pacific! similarly, it makes rhetorical sense for you to compare the crash to the black death. but rhetoric gets old and is thin gruel at the end of the day.

No you misunderstood me. I am using rhetorical flourishes here by the score, but the basics are there. I have in the past, run my own computer simulations on this.

The point about Vladivostok was only to indicate that Russian Europeans are likely to be affected as much as the Western parts. Russia seems to be likely to undergo its own Islamicisation. Even if the far east is more likely to come under Chinese control.

Actually this question about Chinese demographics is an interesting one in its own right.

The one child policy is going to have to be unwound at some point or else the future of China is just as doubtful as that of Europe. What will happen then? The fact that the Chinese policy is a planned demographic transformation obviously counts for something, but don't you wonder if it will prove more difficult to turn around than the planners imagine?

The problem as I see it is that what makes these low birthrate population crashes so dangerous is the inverted demographic curve that results. You know with the aging population and very few young. That's what causes the frightening inertia when you try to turn it around. You have to wait decades for the bulge to move through the curve before the net population decline starts to turn around.

The counterpart of that is the delay from the time when birth rate starts to drop till the time when the population starts to crash. The birth rate dropped in the 1960's-70's but the population crash won't start until the 2020's.

computer simulations are important. we have to go off what we know now as prior assumptions to project. that being said, by induction we also know that these simulations are often wildly off. e.g., the UN global population projections keep overshooting (and have for 50 years) because they don't predict demographic transition in many parts of the third world. the hyper-low-fecundity of southern europe, including relatively christian greece, was totally inexplicable at first. many muslim countries themselves are now dropping in fertility. tunisia and iran might be the tip of the iceberg. so i hold that "the basics" aren't that elementary, the neighbors of europe themselves might not be very fecund in a generation or so. that doesn't negate that europe does have internal population dynamics, and that he proportion of muslims will increase. but, it does suggest that we temper apocalyptic predictions with a sober assessment of various outcomes. the 'graying' of the world is a universal problem, europe and japan will hit it first, but it will come to us all.

So the problem mankind faces is what are we going to do with the European wilderness, when the ageing humans that formerly inhabited it die off, leaving their pet dogs, cats and farm animals to inherit the earth?

Europe got along pretty ok in the past. Britain's pop was just under 6 million in 1603.

And also don't forget, many Europeans of talent are going to take one look at the collapsing situation and flee to America.

Aren't like half of children under five in the US now minorities? The white birth rate in the US is similar to Europe's, indeed it might actually be less than the French one.

The one child policy is going to have to be unwound at some point or else the future of China is just as doubtful as that of Europe.

I don't want to sound rude but that's sheer hyperbole, given that we're talking about a nation of well over a billion souls, and I severely doubt the ethnocentric Chinese would ever dream of solving the problem with mass immigration.

razib,
the greying of the population as you call it is actually a profound danger signal. If you know how to read it. Actually it is not a surplus of old people so much as a dearth of young. It's an inverted curve caused by the birth rate dropping below replacement. In the long run this forecasts a crash as soon as the oldies start to die off and there are fewer newborn young ones to replace them as a result of the negative gradient.

Omar
Europe got along pretty ok in the past. Britain's pop was just under 6 million in 1603

6 million and rising is a very different thing from 50 million and falling. And in terms of power politics 6 million in todays world would make you a very minor power indeed.

The white birth rate in the US is similar to Europe's, indeed it might actually be less than the French one.

The French one is I believe one of the highest in Europe (partly as a result of their own immigrants) so yes America's has varied around replacement. The immigrants are an enormous demographic safety net for America.

I don't want to sound rude but that's sheer hyperbole, given that we're talking about a nation of well over a billion souls, and I severely doubt the ethnocentric Chinese would ever dream of solving the problem with mass immigration.

I don't know what they will do. They have a very rapidly aging population and a shortage of women. The one child policy didn't start till after Mao I think I recall. It's true, they have 1.2 Billion or something but I was looking ahead. When they decide to stabilize, it will take 70 years to turn around a curve that's been dropping for generations and has a deeply inverted structure. You really have to plan ahead. Presumably an authoritarian system has more ability to control these things. Will the Chi-Comms still be in power in 70 years?

let's not focus on china at this point. the conversation is already started to get unwound and splatter all over the place. dan, i'd appreciate it if you modulated the rhetoric/assertion to analysis/projection ratio so that people could bite into some meat instead of slipping all over the place. in that vein, do you have source code for your simulations? some of us could run them ourselves and dispute or examine the parameters.

I've been trying to find it. I deleted this stuff a long time ago. It's got to be a decade since I studied it.

It's not that hard to create on a spreadsheet though, which is how I did it. Many countries publish their demographics and all you do is divide the curve into 80 * 1 year slices say and advance each column up the page subtracting the deaths. The births are fed in at the bottom. From memory I used curves I found somewhere on the web for UK as a starting point. Death rates I got from actuarial statistics from a someones statistical year book. I only wanted to get a general idea of how the thing worked. I found some interesting stuff though.

For instance I found that an aging population doesn't necessarily cost all that much more because the number of old people practically offsets the number of missing young. The ratio of dependents to working-age stays pretty constant over a very broad range. Of course the elderly can be self-funding whereas children are a financial burden on their parents.

I found it was amazingly easy to create a baby boomer phenomenon. All you do is have a sharp drop in the birth rate. (Say like when the pill hit in the early 60s) The upward sloping demographic curve of the growing population pre-pill creates a good sim of the boom part. Of course the real thing was more complicated because of the distortions induced by WWII and the Great Depression.

Sorry I can't be more specific.

Sorry make that upward sloping total population curve of the growing population pre-pill.

I think one of the reasons why the Eurabia narrative holds so much attraction for certain commentators (beyond the political angle) is the subjective impression people have about the "de-Christianization" of Europe. People who have a "good old days" attitude towards things tend to look at a country like France and figure that 100 years ago the population was over 95% Catholic and that now it's become a massively secular country with very low church attendence. However, what they forget is that 100 years ago that church identification was pretty much complsory (and didn't necessarily result in very fervent practice.)

Speaking as someone on the inside of conservative/orthodox Catholic circles in the US, we have a situation here where within the 25% of the population who identify as Catholic you have maybe 3-5% of the US Population which are actively practicing, doctrinally educated, etc.

Even in countries such as Italy and France which have become highly secularized, my guess is that you still have a larger percentage of the population that is fairly orthodox/traditional (and incidentally probably reproducing at a much higher rate than the average given their attitudes about birth control) in those countries than you do in the US.

Given the figures Jenkins is citing for the Muslim population, it's possible (perhaps even likely) that they're a smaller segment of the population than the (also still very small) percentage of high reproducing/high fervency of belief Catholics and Protestants who are still around in "secular Europe".

The immigrants are an enormous demographic safety net for America.

My point was - America is becoming Latin America at a much quicker rate than Europe is becoming North Africa, so why would Europeans want to go there?

in terms of power politics 6 million in todays world would make you a very minor power indeed.

And? Ireland has a population of 4 million, we're pretty happy! Who gives a s**t if your country becomes a 'minor power'? In fact I prefer 'minor powers' to vast, incoherent quasi-Empires.

DarwinCatholic

Italy & Spain have the lowest birthrates in Europe, along with some of the highest levels of religiosity (as in social religiosity - the 'priests watching what you do' kind) France has shown that in countries where 'career women' are the norm things like adequate childcare provisions, paid maternity leave etc are more important for the birthrate than religiosity (In Italy & Spain childcare is typically the perogative of the extended family, usually grandparents, and women are afraid to have babies) Germany and Austria have implemented more conservative measures than the Nordics or France, encouraging mothers to stay at home with the children. I view having children as a biological urge everybody has, not something implanted by religion/culture.

and incidentally probably reproducing at a much higher rate than the average given their attitudes about birth control

I have met many conservative catholics in Europe, and at this stage in the game none have any qualms about birth control. I've seen no evidence of this.

I have met many conservative catholics in Europe, and at this stage in the game none have any qualms about birth control. I've seen no evidence of this.

Well, I guess it all depends what you mean by "conservative Catholics". Certainly the folks you'll tend to find in movements like Communion and Liberation tend to frown on birth control and have larger families. Even more so the traditionalist/Tridentine groups.

In regards to that and the above as well, recall we're talking about a very small group. Probably 6-8% of the population at most.

I view having children as a biological urge everybody has, not something implanted by religion/culture.

I'd certainly agree with you that the biological urge is there. (In what species is it not?) However, to the extent that humans have become intellectual/ideological creatures, some philosophies of life seem much more in tune with the reproduction of the species than others. I'd say that in general most more traditional stripes of religious culture (whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, etc.) tend to support child bearing. (I don't think this is necessarily anything about religion per se, but rather an indication that these cultures have been around a long time and have a fairly realistic hold on the needs of the human species in that regard.) However, other highly individualist and/or intellectual approaches to life sometimes seem to put significantly less value on childbearing. As increased wealth makes these philosophies possible and even attractive, you tend to get segments of society that have little interest in reproducing.

My point in bringing up the conservative Christian elements that still remain in Europe was that to the extent that there is a rapidly reproducing, religiously conservative subset of Muslim immigrants in Europe, there is probably a roughly equally-sized or slightly larger group of religiously conservative (though not necessarily politically so) and rapidly reproducing Christians. However, since that sub-group of Christians is dwarfed by the 10-20x greater number of secularized and/or low reproducing Christians, it doesn't get the attention that the Muslim subset does.

Omar,

My point was - America is becoming Latin America at a much quicker rate than Europe is becoming North Africa, so why would Europeans want to go there?

I dunno Omar. Maybe the same reason the Lebanese Christians or the Egyptian Copts try to get to the West when they find living in the Dar ul Islam too challenging.

Anyhow to Europeans there's nothing special about speaking English. Latin America's still mostly Western and Christian. If they can't get to USA, maybe Argentina's an alternative. Maybe Quebec if you're francophone. Plenty of European expat communities all over Latin America. Europeans I find, feel very differently about Latin America than Anglos do. Of course especially if you're Spanish or Portuguese.

DarwinCatholic

However, since that sub-group of Christians is dwarfed by the 10-20x greater number of secularized and/or low reproducing Christians, it doesn't get the attention that the Muslim subset does.

The muslim component is growing because of rapid immigration too, and it's much more visible culturally.

Also Omar don't forget the economic opportunity argument - the effect of economic growth of a falling population. The effects on investment opportunities of a shrinking market.

And above all I am not arguing against muslim immigration. If the Europeans can't turn the crash around this century, and especially if there is a significant native-European flight of the remaining young and productive, then immigration is going be essential to supply the workforce just to care for the old folks in their nursing homes.

Heaven knows their kids aren't going to look after them cos they didn't freakin' have any.

This is the tragedy of the commons, demographic style:

"The state will look after me in my old age" only works if there aren't too many people with the same brilliant idea.

If no-one has any kids then your only option, when the time comes, is to import poorer thirdworlders to nurse you.

They then inherit your civilization when you die. Who else you gonna leave it to?

then immigration is going be essential to supply the workforce just to care for the old folks in their nursing homes.

dan, the gray transition is a serious problem. that being said, and not to be delusional, but i do find it strange that you are bereft of any hope that improvements in technology (robotics, etc.) and concomitant gains in economic productivity might not mitigate the necessity of immigrants continue the cycle of a productive base of a pyramid supporting a smaller elder population?

Yeah the Japanese are hoping for that.
I'd rather have the muslims and other thirdworlders.
Perhaps because I am so horrified at a civilization that was too stupid to breed. (And I was born there)
Whatever Islam's faults, that is not one of them.
Anyways are you going to leave it to the robots when you die?

then immigration is going be essential to supply the workforce just to care for the old folks in their nursing homes.

France imports large numbers of North Africans who just go on welfare straight away, as there are no jobs in France. So the opposite is actually happening, the older French are taking care of the younger Muslims. France purposely seeks the global idle, not the kind of characters you'd want inheriting a civilization, or looking after you in your old age for that matter. I'd love to have a proper read of how the French chatterati justifies this, given that they can't use the 'doing jobs we won't do' argument. Probably a lot of feigned, secular Christian emoting.

The muslim component is growing because of rapid immigration too

Conservative Catholic Poles are spreading out over the continent at an enormous rate since their accession to the EU in 2004. In Britain 500,000 Poles arrived, legally, within the space of 18 months, and Catholic churches are now over capacity. There has been barely a peep from the population at large, with most papers etc obsessed with non-European migration. So the type of immigrant matters a whole lot.

Ha! Dan I was googling around and came across this headline in the Sunday Times: Pets pay price of Polish exodus.

Omar.

France. The crash isn't really underway yet. Not until after 2020. The boomers births peaked around 1950's and 1960's so they will have their highest deathrate in the 2030's. At that point the demographic curve will be at it's maximum inversion. Native population will be falling rapidly. Lots of old people, nursing homes full, very few children. All the schools seem to be full of immigrant children.

Going forward, the native demography will stay much the same, but each year there will be fewer and fewer natives. The immigrants will look around and see that more and more they are seeing one another. The native Europeans are disappearing. Young Europeans leave for jobs overseas in the Americas, they don't come back. The jobs they leave behind become available for immigrants. There is a growing shortage of labor and a strong push from industry to import more immigrant labor. The jobs are increasingly immigrants working for immigrants.

Poles in EU. I'd consider that internal migration rather than immigration.

Europe is not the US, migrating from Poland to the UK is not the same as migrating from New York to Florida. I can't just pick up my bags and head for Germany, it's a whole different culture and language to get used to.

Dan, the immigration statistics for any European country counts immigrants from other European countries. This is because the countries remain sovereign ( albeit that sovereignty is pooled) within the EU. I suspect Eurabianists ( to coin a term) extrapolate from all immigration in any European country as if it were non-EU ( and specifically all muslim). Were the level of Eastern European immigration seen in the last few years matched by Islamic immigration the Eurabianists would have a field day. i am willing to wager any bet that the most significant religion of all immigrants to Ireland and the UK in the last 3 years was Catholic, and by an order of magnitude. Also: unless they get a further derogation, the other Western European countries who as yet have not opened their borders to the East will have to by 2011, while they will no doubt maintain strong restrictions on non-EU migration. I assume that populations will shift from the East to the closer West at that stage rather than to the soggy islands, and I would assume the neo-conservative extrapolation of demographics is not taking that major population shift - the largest in internal European history - into account.

"the largest in internal European history - into account." should reallty say "in peacetime". Looking for some statistics on this to publish here.

Population declines in different parts of Europe will be at different rates depending on how far below replacement the fertility rates are.

Internal, that is within-civilization migration (the type of thing you can hardly detect any more after one generation to overcome language/dialect barriers) will complicate the situation. And may create local demographic anomolies.

e.g. Population fall in Eastern Europe may become much faster if it is supplemented by a net migration to Western Europe. That in turn will help Western Europe to stave off population collapse for a while.

Regions of economic opportunity within Europe may not notice any deep changes for decades. But the civilization is drying up like a puddle evaporating in the hot sun. Some parts dry faster than others, and there is increasing patchiness, but in the end the puddle is gone.

And to get some idea of how fast it will be net;

In a place where fertility is 1.5 children per female per generation then the population will shrink at a rate of around 25% per 30 years say, or about 0.75% per annum.

Undetectable year to year, somewhat noticable over a decade, devastating over a century or two.

Of course the old folks hang on for a long time. It is the shortage of native children that is noticed first relative to the background breeding/immigrating, immigrant community.

Then teenagers become scarce, then young adults, etc.

All this is a consequence of demographic inversion.

And incidently, Saxons and Danes, the ancestors of the English, are neighbours to the Poles.

English are possibly closer to the Poles than than they are to the Welsh.

And incidently, Saxons and Danes, the ancestors of the English, are neighbours to the Poles.

English are possibly closer to the Poles than than they are to the Welsh.

possibly here means a small chance vs. the alternative, which increases toward parity of possibility in east anglia. the balance of the evidence now seems to be that the 'english' are still more than not the descendants of the pre-anglo saxon populations, though overlain with the anglo-saxon element with increasing frequency as one converges upon east anglia from all directions.

He admits that it will probably be a “bumpy ride” for Europe. Much depends on whether Muslims continue to identify themselves primarily as Muslims. “If the poor and deprived come to link their condition to their religious identity—if the young, poor, and Muslim overtly confront the old, well-off, and Christian—then Europe would face a quite different, and far grimmer, future, which we could term Lebanese rather than American.

Interestingly enough from this excerpt from first things you see more glimpses into reality and how actually the worry is legitimate when you look at specific muslim populations in major western countries (UK and France, esp.) They have HUGE groups of unassimilated muslims that are the very essence of what Razib calls "economic parasites". The ethos of Europe has been convenient and welcoming for Muslims in the most damaging ways -- namely that they presume that Muslims think like they do. Advancement, technology, and innovation comes out of cultures like the west and now you have the beginning of an economically insolvent welfare state that may or may not be aided (fueled) by world politics if not terrorist sponsoring nations. Just saying that they get up to 30-40% in any of these countries, they'll have a major push in say/bargaining/politicking due to the very nature of the tribal-esque enclave society. It is one that is ultimately self defeating, for Europeans and themselves alike. Muslims view of the world is so different, even if they take over western technologies it would be hard to see that they could do much with them towards progression. By that time "White" euros might emigrate.

My main point here is that islam is totally UNLIKE any other culture/religion seen by the Europeans, so history isn't that good of a standard. To not be concerned would be naive given the global climate and terms like the "umma", or principles like dar al-harb vs. al-islam, etc. No mainstream person has had any success challenging them, and I don't see why he might even in 20 years time, given currrent indications.

Razib,

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that.
Still the English are likely to have some connection to the Poles, given even a smaller Saxon-Viking component.

Another way of putting that post-crash decline rate, that I estimated above, is that it would assymptote to an exponential decay curve with a half life of 72 years. So in one human lifetime you would see the native population decline by a about a half.

There is another issue, with regards to the "islamic takeover" fear, that noone has brought up here. The Central Asian countries (the 5 "stans") have a far higher percentage of muslims to non-muslims than either Europe or Russia. Yet, they have relatively low birth rates and show no trend towards islamification in their governments or society.

I remember that rhetoric had it (in the early 90's) that these places would be under islamic governments by 2000, which never happened.

The "muslims are taking over the world" people like Mark Steyn and others need to plausibly explain this anomaly of Central Asia. So far they have not.

Just now read your very interesting review and digesting. One note: it's Scots, not "Scotch," the latter being a spirit. Scotspeople are (understandably) sensitive to this common error.

diana

"1.There's a huge spectrum between "Eurabia" and "Nothing to Worry About, Just Immigrants Like You and Me." A society could evolve toward the midpoint of those two extremes and still be in a shitload of trouble. That is where France strikes me as moving. I've said here and elsewhere that France has always had immigrants and has historically done a great job of seducing them to Frenchness (which I think is a terrific national culture in most ways, geez) but a possible 20% of the population? Methinks the French cobra will have to strain mightily to digest this big fat bird."

I agree. Protestant immigration to Ireland (for that is what it was, NOT invasion) which has made Ireland 20% Protestant has had a profound political effect on that island due to geographical concentration.

Turning Europe as a whole into Yugoslavia is not a good idea even though Yugoslavia was less than 20% Muslim. There are many variables to consider.

razib

"the only nations muslims will demographically take over (assuming muslim is very broadly construed) in the next two generations are those that have a majority of muslims (e.g., albania, where most of the population is still secular, and the world capital of the wine drinking bektashi sect of sufism considered non-muslim by many other groups), and macedonia, assuming that the birthrate differential between albanians and slavs is projected forward in time. muslims will create enclaves. rotterdam will be a predominantly muslim city after all, since we can project that when they are already at 50%. but they won't take over nations demographically"

Nations are not sacred fixed geographical entities. They can be both created and destroyed over time by demographic imperatives. We see areas at the cusp of this process in Sri Lanka, Ireland, former Yugoslavia etc. Increasingly globalisation will probably make more of the world look like those places in the future.

"I've seen in German TV some documents about alleged increase in Evangelical or Charismatic groups, that are focusing on youth. The overall tone of the documentary was somber, like announcing a new peril for the society - all these young Christians taking their beliefs seriously. Sounded even more pessimistically than documents about secret mosques."

Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians have fertility rates rivaling Muslims, and probably not dissimilar total population numbers in Europe, and Mormons are ahead of Muslims in fertility but without the base numbers.

They don't have the advantage of growth by immigration to the same extent though. The big converter though seems to be Wicca. So it seems that everyone in 2100 will either be a Muslim, evangelical Christian or Wiccan. Then again something else might happen....

My epitaph for the Europeans:

You were the greatest civilization in history.
You discovered Science the key to the secrets of the universe.
You could have ruled the Galaxy.
Had you valued children more than your careers.

My main point here is that islam is totally UNLIKE any other culture/religion seen by the Europeans, so history isn't that good of a standard.

say more. i'm open to the idea, but generally skeptical. especially given that muslims have always bounded europe, and have existed within europe as minorities for nearly the whole time of islam (pre-modern examples would include spain and sicily).

Mr Dare,

It seems to me you are discribing a world where there is a steady state of "overpopulated third world" sending imigrants to first world countries. The UN projections, which elsewhere in this discussion have been characterized as consistantly overestimating worldwide population growth for 50 years were recently adjusted to predict a fall off in WORLDWIDE population before the end of this century. Reported elsewhere is the claim that the world has reached a tipping point where half the global population is now found in cities, where before more that half were in rural areas. In all of history cities have been demonstrated to be population sinks. The idea that the first world will be over-run by the third world presupposes that the third world will not cease to export population. How can you claim that this will continue if the third world, now also an urban world like the first, also has a demographic crash?

Do you disbelieve in the "law" of supply and demand? If you do believe in it, or at least that it serves as a guideline, then what do you believe will happen as the human population declines? At some point human labor will be so valuable that single provider households are once again economical in established 1st world cities. Once that tipping point is passed any couple interested will be able to have children and will be able to believe that those children will have no difficulty finding jobs and homes of their own. How could this situation not lead to a new population boom?

The world I precieve is rapidly, globally urbanizing and automating it's agriculture. It's population will "crash" and then rebound to a much lower level, globally. I see no evidence that any population will grow without ceasing and I also see no good argument for eulgizing any community with 100+ million individuals today.

But perhaps I'm too subtle. Your argument is patently millenial. You are entranced by an "End Times" vision and not making rational projections. Kindly turn off your Wagner soundtrack. The concensus here is that all human populations will fall back due to urbanization, react to the environmental and economic changes and then rebound. Post evidence they will not rather than "cute" faux epitaphs.

Good luck with that Mr Nutley, I'll believe it when I see it.
As long as the standard of living in Europe is higher than Pakistan, or Sudan, say. I am expecting immigration to continue.
Ask the Americans for advice about keeping out illegals.

I do believe in the law of supply and demand. It's complicated.

Imagine you are an investor/employers advocate. Imagine you have an investment in an industry and your labor supply is tightening. Are you going to wait for demographics to fix your problems? (Remember the 70 year turnaround time I spoke about above) Or are you going to threaten the government with withdrawing investment unless they allow more immigration?

It's the time-value of capital (in effect the interest rate) that makes industry so impatient.

Just reminding you about the turnaround time. Once a low-birthrate crash begins, even if you start having babies today, the total population keeps falling for another ~70 years. Only immigration can change things faster than this.
This is a consequence of the inverted demographic curve. There are so few young people able to have babies.

Anyway I never said that Europe's population will fall indefinitely, I said that the Native Europeans' population would fall. People have pointed to other subpopulations who will not be falling. Muslims, Christian revivalists, fanatical darwinians maybe.

I would add maybe robots, cyborgs, transhuman immortals. All of these are also possibilities if technology could figure it out. We ARE talking about a century or two.

Anyway, I'm not sure how sensitive the birthrate is to economic incentives as opposed to ideology. Europeans have never been better paid with more help with education etc, It doesn't seem to make them want children. Perhaps putting Viagra in the water supply. Perhaps banning the pill or abortion.

Earlier generations had children despite tremendous difficulties. What's changed with us?
The pill and a highly narcicistic- individualistic culture it seems to me. And perhaps a touching faith that the government will provide?

Take away the old age pension and see how quickly people will have children.

"I also see no good argument for eulgizing any community with 100+ million individuals today."

That's fine Mr. Nutley
Your vasectomy is subsidised.
YOu can receive it along with your Darwin award.

Thank you for removing yourself from the gene pool and leaving more room for the rest of us.

Oh I should mention:

The 70 year thing assumes a minimal plausible increase in birthrate. If every young person was willing to have 20 kids you could turn it around quicker.

Just for the record. It's not going to happen without artificial wombs and without robots to rear the kids. Brave New World.

At some point human labor will be so valuable that single provider households are once again economical in established 1st world cities

This is a classical error in economic thinking.

In the 19th century people lived in tiny little hovels and tenaments in western cities in order to afford keeping a family. Don't you think you could afford a house like that? they had shared toilets, sometimes an outdoor water supply.

If the consumers demanded ultracheap housing so that they could afford to have 5 children, don't you think the market would provide it? We are much more efficient now. I am sure you could have ultracheap, mass-produced, high density housing with minimal amenities.

Of course you could not afford a plasma TV, and you might not be able have your first car until you were in your 30s. Airconditioning and central heating might be only for the wealthy.

These are the implicit choices we make. The are so invisible we are not even conscious we are making them. These are our values. They are implicit in the demand curve. The market adjusts the supply possibilities of the economy through the price mechanism until all the choices balance out.

Kindly turn off your Wagner soundtrack.

It's not a Wagner Soundtrack. It's more like a "Lord Of The Rings" soundtrack.

The Elves leave Middle Earth (Eurasia) forever and go to the Western Havens after they win the war against Sauron (Hitlerism-Stalinism).

Elves are immortals of course. JRR.Tolkien believed Christians were immortal because of Jesus Christ.

Razib,

For starters, as I stated, its precepts are about the community (small/tribe) and that goes out to nation and then out to umma, for which we mainly see less and less attachment, at least currently. Islam as religion does not have introspection or individualization/interpretation. These things are only learned from this west, and stifled within the community setting of Islam. Why else have we never seen scientific type growth? The "Golden Age" was proved to be false and clearly a short lived phenomenon due exactly to the fact that they just conquered things and ultimately left them, as their frame of mind didn't fit (eg Averroes exiled from the religion for trying to integrate any type of Platonic ideas). Freedom, equality and choice are all interrelated and you don't see these in Islamic societies or the religion itself --- the structure is the call to prayer and listen to the imam's interpretation, resting on an immutable and unchanged text in heaven, written word by word to earth, and then the hadith to understand what amounts to indiscernible blathering between God and Muhammad through Gabriel. The approach is exactly this. It is NOT to question (or risk barbarian type punishment) --- and this exists in other societies and religions but not on a mainstream and grand scale. The corner that islam has put itself in has basically been set since 1400 years is quite a long time and points of departure are harder on core elements. Contrasting with Christianity and Judaism, you always had many types of interpretations and differences, without so much fundamentalism, but rather ways to repair your life through understanding that God is in fact a MAN as well as he is God (more or totally towards Christianity). Since you can find this relationship, self-development can always and eternally change. This very fact has been evidenced by the Christian underpinning to western society, as much as other don't want to admit it. More can be said, but I think this is clear for now. Cheers.

Even if you manage to turn around the total population faster than 70 years with a higher birthrate, the positive economic impact is never going to be instant because making workers biologically is a slow process. Copulation to Graduation is around 20 years.

The only way to get more workers "yesterday morning" the way industry will want, is to fly them in from elsewhere.

And speaking of the economic impact. We have recently seen a strong political push in the US for amnesty for illegal immigrants. This has deeply irritated many grassroots conservative circles in the US, like the conservative blogosphere.

One of the inputs into this, that a lot of people aren't aware of, is the imminent retirement of the boomers over the next decade or so. This is likely to create a strong need for new labor to replace them.

Market forces are strongly favoring easy immigration to hold down labor costs.

"The concensus here is that all human populations will fall back due to urbanization, react to the environmental and economic changes and then rebound. Post evidence they will not rather than "cute" faux epitaphs."

I've been thinking about this point. That is why it's taken me a while to reply. It's not evidence i'm afraid, since it concerns a future event - more like a plausibility argument.

No other culture has gone as far as Europe down the road of welfare-statism, cradle to grave. This contributes to Europe independence from the family for welfare.

No other culture has gone so far in implementing ideological egalitarianism between the sexes, and "anti-darwinian" measures like gay marriage, abortion, and a culture of small families (Some of these items the Japanese would be Europe's equals).

Europe has gone further down the road of trivialization of sexuality - its tolerence of nudity, commercial sex etc. Its generally libertine attitude. This discourages seeing sex as a deeply important matter for a species. It has made sex into entertainment not survival.

No other culture implemented almost universal subsidised access to contraception as early as Europe did.

The baby-boom phenomenon was accentuated in the West by the end of WWII. People had delayed families during the war. When it ended there was a catch-up effect.

Put it all together, and Europe will be among the first to go over the edge into crash mode. And the consequences will be worse there than anywhere else.

The reason others will not crash quite the same way as Europe - is that they will have Europe for an example. When they see what happens to Europe it will give them earlier warning to avoid going over the edge of the "black hole" themselves. It will show them where the edge of the black hole is; and it will help them to pursuade their populations to implement measures to avoid it.

For all time, Europe will be an example to the rest of humanity, of the dangers implicit in the excessive use of contraception.



I have posted all these detailed arguments bit by bit because you raised many interesting points, and they deserved serious answers. Some of them took me a while to figure out responses.

Sorry I left off one point. Migration.

Europe is unfortunately placed wrt immigration. Stretching accross the north of the Eurasian landmass, it has huge neighbours of quite different and sometimes problematic cultures. This is because Eurasia, together with Africa, with which it forms a cluster, is the ancient homeland of human origin. History is very complex here and very deep.

Japan does not allow large scale immigration. It is isolated by sea.

USA and the Americas generally are fortunate in being isolated from the rest of the world by two oceans. They can regulate this aspect easier.
For intra-hemispheric migration, they have far more similar cultures. They share many of the same roots, like Europe and Christianity; variegated only by the Native Cultures of the Americas and different origin cultures in Europe. The latter aren't nearly as different as they think they are IMHO. Immigration will make them even more similar. I don't forsee any total catastrophes, unless you consider speaking Spanish or bilingualism a catastrophe. It's conceivable we'll all be speaking Mandarin in the future anyway. The Americans are unlikely to flee to Europe if the Hispanics become too numerous.

Dan, do you have kids?

Not yet. Men can always say that.

You might want to get on it then...

Time is running out.

;-)

You are right ogler. I am a boomer.

I'd recommend a nice, bright Chinese lady. Your genes should then have a good shot at prospering far into the future...

;-)

I agree with Diane’s central point. Absolute takeover will not be in the cards in a single generation or two, but the consequences of not immediately GREATLY tightening Muslim immigration standards in Europe could be quite serious and clearly negative in a number of places for native Europeans.

of course the trend isn't desirable! who exactly is arguing that the trend is desirable?

Most of the center left European media establishment seems to largely argue and report as though the Muslim trends are just fine, nothing to worry about, and in fact are something to be proud of.

This seems to be the general position of the BBC for example, who influence in Britain has no US analog. Perhaps it’s ike all three networks and CNN rolled together with the NYT’s website. (It’s widely acknowledged that the BBC has by far Britain’s best web news site just as something similar is acknowledged about the NYT’s.)

I believe it’s largely in hopes of reversing this that some of the more exaggerated claims by the Mark Stein’s et. al. are made. No I don’t like that either. However I don’t think he, much less Bernard Lewis are arguing for America to turn it’s back on Europe or give up on it either, due to it’s impending Islamic takeover

The thing is there is so little in the plus column for Europe to continue to allow the present rates of low human capital mass Muslim immigration. It combines all the low skill economic and social weight on European society that nearly unrestricted Mexican and Central American immigration does, with the Islamist almost inherent or certainly difficult to address alienation, civilizational conflict, and support for and harboring of terrorism issues.

Apolitical said:
My main point here is that islam is totally UNLIKE any other culture/religion seen by the Europeans, so history isn't that good of a standard. To not be concerned would be naive given the global climate and terms like the "umma", or principles like dar al-harb vs. al-islam, etc. No mainstream person has had any success challenging them, and I don't see why he might even in 20 years time, given currrent indications.

Yes. Exactly. If such things weren’t the case, there wouldn’t be the worry. There isn’t for example with respect to Hindus particularly, either in America or in Britain. Yet if anything that’s an even more alien religion. It’s simply not a threatening one, whereas in the current civilizational conflict context, Islam is.

It’s almost entirely a multiculturalist ideological blindness that keeps more countries in Europe from SHARPLY restricting further mass low skilled Muslim immigration, and in fact kicking some recent arrivals and illegal militants out.

dougjnn:

"The thing is there is so little in the plus column for Europe to continue to allow the present rates of low human capital mass Muslim immigration."

Leaving your arguments aside, what "mass Muslim immigration"? Yes, there are population movements from the Maghreb and Turkey to various destinations in southern and western Europe, but this is hardly the only word on immigrants. After the oil shock, immigration from Europe's peripheries has taken on smaller proportions than that of the involuntary migrations from the former Yugoslavia, or the voluntary migrations from the former Warsaw Pact and Latin America. 85% of Spain's immigrants are non-Muslim (at least, non-Maghrebin), while only a slightly lower proportion of Italy's immigrants has a similar background, and the largest influxes of immigrants into Britain and Germany in the past decade have been from (respectively) central Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Leaving your arguments aside, what "mass Muslim immigration"?

The mass muslim immigration that has made up to 15% of those living in France and 50% of those in Rotterdam having a Muslim background and identification. Many who aren't so observant for quite a while turn to radical terrorist supporting Islam the next. Such was the history of a number of the 9/11 recruits for example, and some of those supporting or involved in British radical cells with plots at various levels of development.

While I do understand that the crime rates of Muslims in Europe are apparently very high, I am not sure about "50% of those in Rotterdam having a Muslim background and identification"

I saw ten percent, but the source wasn't cited.

ogler,

"In major Dutch cities many of the young people are not of indigenous Dutch extraction. In Amsterdam 55% of those under18 are immigrants, mainly Moroccan, Turkish or Antillean (West Indian). In Rotterdam the number has surpassed 50%. Everywhere this percentage is rising dramatically. Dutch society has failed to inculcate the children of immigrants with Dutch values. Perhaps the latter was simply impossible. There are 1 million Muslims on a total of 16 million inhabitants in the Netherlands. At over 6% of the population this is proportionally the largest Muslim immigrant population of all Western nations, except for France which has 6 million Muslims on a total of 60 million inhabitants. The Muslims are younger than the indigenous population and tend to be concentrated in the cities."

Fingers in the Dyke (Brussels Journal - a paleocon Euroblog)

Note the extraordinary age-related impact of a normal-demographic subgroup on an inverted-demographic host community.

In the maternity hospitals the ratios must be even more extraordinary.
This is a form of secondary ecological succession.

I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough: This is how Darwin's Law of Evolution by Natural Selection works. This is what happens when you allow your breeding rate to drop below replacement for an extended period of time.

There is no good and bad about this. It is nature.

You walk off a cliff; gravity pulls you down.
You drop your breeding rate below 2.1, and after a reasonable time to correct the error, Darwin's Law starts to eliminate your kind. The only way living things can escape death in the form of extinction and ecological replacement is by outbreeding it.

I think they are conflating "Muslim" and "immigrant." Still two different things.

Here is the official Netherlands stat site claiming 10.2 percent in the Rotterdam region are Muslims. (2004)

I don't doubt that this is causing a lot of problems and I don't doubt that birthrates will exacerbate the situation with time.

But 50% and 10% are very different things.

Here's another European epitaph-type book I read about today.

Dan, maybe you can go to Holland and start some kind of European breeding society? They mastered tulips and bell peppers I think, so it may not be too big a jump. If you do it right, you might be able to engineer a native Dutch breeding bubble.

;-)

ogler, also don't conflate "total population" and "under-18".

Anyway. It doesn't matter if they are muslim or something else. If you are talking about the replacement of the Native Europeans then the ecological consequences for them are the same.

I am really more detatched about this than you might imagine. In a way it is a fascinating natural experiment in human evolution. I am a European, but I am also a man of reason. I try to learn from everything I see.

"Dan, maybe you can go to Holland and start some kind of European breeding society?"

Ogler, I can breed with any human female. I am indifferent to race. There are beatiful women in all races.

There are beatiful women in all races

That, I know. ;-)

You can just start the ball rolling for the natives through some union organizing or something, but for you I recommend Chinese.

Thank you for your recommendation.There is much that I admire about the Chinese.
For instance I am a passionate fan of the Daodejing. Laozi is my favorite ancient philosopher.

I also love Chinese cinema. I recently saw a beautiful Chinese film by one of my favorite directors.

Well, if the Muslims don't succeed, perhaps this is Europe's future.

ogler,

One day I would like to see Mankind living in space, then the Earth could be left in peace as a natural laboratory.

For all we know it may be the only planet in the Galaxy that has evolved life. If that turns out to be true then its scientific value vastly exceeds its practical use to us as a homeland.

Man and nature's other creatures can live in Space Colonies of the O'Neill type anywhere. In orbit around any stable star.
There may be only one Earth.

Ogler,
just to clarify if my previous message was not clear.

The Brussels Journal quote above only refers to " those under-18".
It is not referring to total population.
That is why it is evidence of demographic inversion.

Islam as religion does not have introspection or individualization/interpretation. These things are only learned from this west, and stifled within the community setting of Islam. Why else have we never seen scientific type growth?

Its astounding how much text someone can generate when they are unfettered by the chains of knowledge.

"The mass muslim immigration that has made up to 15% of those living in France"

A cite for this, please? 10% is more common and accurate--15%, 10 million people, is exceptionally implausible.

"and 50% of those in Rotterdam having a Muslim background and identification."

Again, a cite?

"Many who aren't so observant for quite a while turn to radical terrorist supporting Islam the next. Such was the history of a number of the 9/11 recruits for example, and some of those supporting or involved in British radical cells with plots at various levels of development."

How many?

"Anyway. It doesn't matter if they are muslim or something else. If you are talking about the replacement of the Native Europeans then the ecological consequences for them are the same."

It _does_ matter, certainly if you've been referring to data which talk about specifically Muslim patterns which are relevant only to a minority of the immigrant population.

"It _does_ matter, certainly if you've been referring to data which talk about specifically Muslim patterns which are relevant only to a minority of the immigrant population".

True.

These Sunni and Shia clerics follow sectarian Islam that relies on hadiths for 95% of its jurisprudence. Hadiths were "compiled" 2 to 3 centuries after the prophet. They are the "supposed" deeds and speeches of the prophet that the clerics use to "explain" the Koran. Each sects have hadiths that refutes the other. Both claim that their hadiths have been rigorously "authenticated". The Koran gave COMPLETE freedom for everyone. The Quran(Koran) Concerning other monotheist faiths:


Not all of them are alike; a party of the people of the Scripture stand for the right, they recite the Verses of God during the hours of the night, prostrating themselves in prayer. They believe in God and the Last Day; they enjoin good and forbid wrong; and they hasten in good works; and they are among the righteous. And whatever good they do, nothing will be rejected of them; for God knows well those who are God fearing. 3:113-115

And there are, certainly, among the people of the Scripture, those who believe in God and in that which has been revealed to you, and in that which has been revealed to them, humbling themselves before God. They do not sell the Verses of God for a little price, for them is a reward with their Lord. Surely, God is Swift in account. 3:199

Verily! Those who believe and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in God and the Last Day and do righteous good deeds shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve . 2:62

Say: "O people of the Scripture : Come to a word that is just between us and you, that we worship none but God, and that we associate no partners with Him, and that none of us shall take others as lords besides God. 3:64

And they say: "None shall enter Paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian." Those are their (vain) desires. Say: "Produce your proof if ye are truthful."Nay,-whoever submits His whole self to God and is a doer of good,- He will get his reward with his Lord; on such shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. The Jews say: "The Christians have naught (to stand) upon; and the Christians say: "The Jews have naught (To stand) upon." Yet they study the (same) Book. Like unto their word is what those say who know not; but God will judge between them in their quarrel on the Day of Judgment. 2.111-113

If any do deeds of righteousness,- be they male or female - and have faith, they will enter Heaven, and not the least injustice will be done to them 4.124


The Quran(Koran) Concerning who we fight or don't:



As for such who do not fight you on account of faith, or drive you forth from your homelands, God does not forbid you to show them kindness and to deal with them with equity, for God loves those who act equitably. God only forbids you to turn in friendship towards such as fight against you because of faith and drive you forth from your homelands or aid in driving you forth. As for those from among you who turn towards them for alliance, it is they who are wrongdoers. 60:8-9

Permission (to fight) is given to those against whom war is being wrongfully waged, and verily, God has indeed the power to aid them. Those who have been driven from their homelands in defiance of right for no other reason than their saying, ‘Our Lord is God.’ 22:39-40



The Quran(Koran) Concerning freedom:


2:256 There is no compulsion in religion, for the right way is clearly from the wrong way. Whoever therefore rejects the forces of evil and believes in God, he has taken hold of a support most unfailing, which shall never give way, for God is All Hearing and Knowing.

16:82 But if they turn away from you, your only duty is a clear delivery of the Message .

6:107 Yet if God had so willed, they would not have ascribed Divinity to aught besides Him; hence, We have not made you their keeper, nor are you a guardian over them.

4:79-80 Say:'Whatever good betides you is from God and whatever evil betides you is from your own self and that We have sent you to mankind only as a messenger and all sufficing is God as witness. Whoso obeys the Messenger, he indeed obeys God. And for those who turn away, We have not sent you as a keeper."

11:28 He (Noah) said "O my people! think over it! If I act upon a clear direction from my Lord who has bestowed on me from Himself the Merciful talent of seeing the right way, a way which you cannot see for yourself, does it follow that we can force you to take the right path when you definitely decline to take it?°

17:53-54 And tell my servants that they should speak in a most kindly manner. Verily, Satan is always ready to stir up discord between men; for verily; Satan is mans foe .... Hence, We have not sent you with power to determine their Faith.

21:107-109 (O Prophet?) 'We have not sent you except to be a mercy to all mankind:" 64:12 Obey God then and obey the Messenger, but if you turn away (no blame shall attach to our Messenger), for the duty of Our Messenger is just to deliver the message.

67:25 26 And they ask, "When shall the promise be fulfilled if you speak the Truth?" Say, "The knowledge of it is verily with God alone, and verily I am but a plain warner."


And We have not sent you, but as mercy to all the worlds. 21:107


Islam is peace!