[SR71]

Bit of a ramble. Sorry had a few days off and turned contemplative, which is at least entertaining for me, if not very productive.

One thought occurs that may apply here and abroad, sort of parallel developments of a common theme. The prosperity paradox. Fully developed nations tend to have lower birth rates and have older, shrinking populations. Less developed regions have the opposite. I understand the mideast nations have young populations, by the measure of median age. I don't know if this is true of Latino nations to our south or not. In any case, I have heard or read that immigrants are required if the wealthy northern nations want to maintain their population size. I believe Russia is also experiencing that, as well as places like Japan and Korea. Inversely, scarcity tends to be greater along with population growth in the countries that are sources of emigration.

Begs the question, is a decreasing population of a wealthy nation necessarily a bad thing? Can we find ways to enrich poorer nations or more directly, encourage them to reduce their rates of birth, practically and from a human sensibility perspective, such that these efforts would not be resented or simply ineffective? How much of that can the resources of earth sustain? Would it even resolve the pressures that drive emigration, or are the pressures not really related to scarcity, but more the result of political or ethnic conflict, or some other type of social problem that impels emigration?

I just googled, and indeed, median age in Honduras or Guatemala is only 21 to 23 years, Nicaragua, 25 years.

Yemen, Syria, 19 and 20 years.