I would say it matters where a person comes from. It’s one thing to develop models for the sake of scoring a few extra points in salon debates against real or presumed Russophobes and Islamic fundamentalists (you killed me with this one ). Though I don’t deny that it’s always right to try to compensate for bad immigration experiences (I had those too).

However, it’s a bit different thing when you develop your models for a country in which you are living with the assumption that your children may well have to do the same.

This minor technicality can account for suprisingly massive differences in people’s perception and even mathematical models

I disagree about your classifying the authors of this report as pessimists. The report is basically about practical recommendations re comprehensive demographic policies and those are difficult to develop on the basis of your “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better” approach.

For a detailed discussion, go here – В первом полугодии 2009 года убыль населения России продолжала замедляться – на 1 июля в стране постоянно проживало 141,9 миллиона человек (h/t JFreegman )

One of the main planks of Thomas Kuhn’s theory on scientific revolutions is that paradigm shifts take a minimum of at least a generation to accomplish – because you need the grand old men (and occasionally women) to die off or retire before younger scientists with more modern and accurate ideas begin to predominate. In a sense to neglect population reproduction is to welcome stagnation (intellectual, economic, etc), which will in all likelihood actually prolong the amount of time it takes to develop life extension, new energy technologies, and all the other goodies we need but don’t have that much time left to develop.

“I guess I just don’t see the use of a strong nation or a successful economy if it only helps the next generation – I want it to help *ME*!”

I understand the sentiment…but what if you fall ill and need expensive treatment? Who’s going to pay your pension? It’s a myth that you save for these things (unless you save by accumulating land, dried food, guns, etc)…you just pay current retirees with your “savings”, and hope the next generation does the same for you. But what if the next generation is much smaller? Then they’ll find it much harder to provide the same level of care as now. The nation will run unsustainable budget deficits…or if they raise taxes, the best and brightest will think, why should I stay in this country? I’d be better off emigrating! And that’s exactly what they’d do, further burdening the working-age folks left behind. Eventually the retirement age will have to be raised to very high levels to cut the dependency ratio, or pension obligations will somehow be defaulted or inflated away.

My opinion is that in the long-term a TFR of much below 1.5 at a minimum is going to be socially unsustainable, barring MAJOR improvements in old-age health AND productivity SOON. I think a good idea is to spend resources on developing an artificial womb so as to make childbearing much easier and more gender-equitable, which is of great importance in many aging, advanced industrial nations today.

Aw, we can do better than that: an even better scenario would be if all the aging industrial societies could a) improve elderly health care b) better promote preventive care/healthy social habits, c) improve access to retraining and encourage a culture of career-hopping, and d) improve the employability of the elderly. These would improve the quality of life of an aging population and probably focus people on improving and extending the lives of people, rather than improving some nebulous “demographic” or “nation”.

Russia (and Japan and much of E Europe, and eventually China maybe) have a unique opportunity due to having the fastest-aging populations in the world – they can be at the forefront of making an aging population immaterial to economic success or geopolitical might. Sounds much better than constantly considering birth rates what “keeps the nation alive”. Not dying is what keeps one alive

I guess I just don’t see the use of a strong nation or a successful economy if it only helps the next generation – I want it to help *ME*!

Russians who spent the past 10 generations being told they were making sacrifices for the next generation should be pretty easy to speak this sort of thing to…

My view is that it is preferable that death rates fall (for ethical reasons) and population growth turns positive – because having the death rate fall without increases in fertility is the worst-case scenario for Russia’s future dependency ratio, which will have increasingly severe knock-on effects on its finances and overall economy. That in turn could undermine or preclude a successful transition to sustainability (more energy efficiency, sustainable energy sources, high technologies).

As someone who’s in tune the whole peak oil/Malthusian crisis/resource depletion thread, I assume you are merely concerned that Russians reduce their death rates and improve overall social health rather than necessarily start filling up Siberia with young Russians?

I personally always thought that a sparse population in the midst a of plentiful share of Earth’s crust was the greatest advantage of Russia and Canada, and possibly why (generally) their finances have had such strong fundamentals in the last decade?