The remarkable, even staggering decline in Muslim fertility rates is too great to be accounted for by rising incomes.
The 70% drop in Iran alone over the last 30 years is making me wonder if somebody in the bowels of the Reagan-era CIA weaponized these guys’s work somehow.
Probably not, as the potential blowback would be too great. No, it’s that invidious, inexorable infiltration of porn, the West’s greatest export outside of the concept of Liberty, IMO.
I credit Joe Huffman.
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thank you for the credit! But I think you are being too generous. I just produce it and advocate for it. I don’t distribute or weaponize it.
It has been noted before, and there has been speculation that Islamic extremism, which is very dependent on men 15-30 with few prospects for jobs or wives, will die in due course as this demographic change sweeps the region. Let’s face it, kids are a lot of work, and expensive – many who do not like their government or prospects WILL limit their reproductive activities significantly if they can. The details of how it will shake out are entirely speculative, of course, but a number of good articles have been written on the phenomenon. Porn and Hollywood are pervasive around the world, for better or worse, and it’s spreading culture (and legs) everywhere it goes.
Does that mean as my generation ages we might expect to see a “last gasp” of 50-something extremists who have run out of eager and gullible recruits? Seems to me as I age I am becoming more aware of my own mortality… certainly of my own physical limitations. I just don’t feel better the day after I get hurt, anymore…
Still, my father was exceedingly fond of that bumper sticker that reads “Youth and Talent will be Overcome by Old Age and Treachery” (Perhaps a fitting motto for our entire social welfare experiment as well). An old fanatic who’s evaded capture and drone assassination his entire life might be able to pull off something really horrific before he goes on to his reward…
Mollbot – a very brief bit of history. When you have a large young male population with few prospects in terms of job/income, wife/kids, fame/fortune, things tend to get very turbulent. Things in Europe were pretty stable, population-wise, and war/economy-wise, until a Pope made contraception a capital offense. The resulting population boom produced LOTS of young men going out to war, conquest, joining the church to missionary/monks, etc. Think “conquistadors” and “Latin America” and African slave trade, and all that. A LOT of it was driven by young men who knew they couldn’t inherit the family farm/business because they were not the first son, so they had to make a name for themselves if they wanted to attract a quality babe. And, because of all the attendant problems with childbirth, there was a shortage of them for the non-missionary second sons to compete for, so the competition was VERY fierce.
Compare that to today’s middle east and other Muslim-dominated nations. Population bulge. Polygamy resulting in the high-mucky-mucks having 2, 3, or 4 wives, and either oil wealth going to the ruling elites or abject poverty because of no oil. No western work ethic, and heavy government regulation and corruption surrounding business opportunities that DO exist. Repressive Islamic government that doesn’t allow “normal” venting of sexual and other frustrations. A tribal culture of violence and retribution. POOF, you have a cauldron for getting lots of hot-n-bothered young men with nothing better to live for than going ‘splody-fo’-Mo. As the population bulge ages, there will be a lot more prospects, relatively speaking, for the young men, meaning the relative attractiveness of a suicide mission falls big-time.
Right, I understand that. But there will still be a few who “led from behind,” as it were, and may prefer ending in a blaze of glory rather than dying of old age with no one to carry on their “work.”