EU's "Exit from History" - a new meaning to the term "Old Europe"

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Our integration models are very different from yours you know.

Who cares about "integration"? Integration is for wussies.

[Harovan]

Europe is way overpopulated anyway, so a bit less population will increase the life quality of the remaining. In a population tree, shattered by losses and missed births of many wars it is normal, that times of increased birth rates (baby booms) and times with less birth rates come in waves. This will even out over decades. To extrapolate the current negative trend over the whole century is something incredibly stupid.

[alva]

less people

[Dinner]

The birth rate among young native born Americans has gone way up in the last 10 years. If such a trand can happen in American then why not in Europe?

[Imran Siddiqui]

I have to confess that I'm experiencing a bit of schadenfreude at the prospect that the ancestral and cultural homelands of the ethnic groups that have displaced and even erased so many indigenous peoples throughout the world will in turn themselves be peacefully displaced and erased by foreign ethnic groups in combination with a windfall of amazingly low native birthrates. It seems both refreshingly karmic and also mercifully benign for not producing any victims in the process except for the cultures themselves. This trend manages to accomplish this while sparing the by and large innocent living individuals who make up those soon to be marginalized cultures from the kind of ethnic cleasing that their ancestors took part in. Maybe there really is a God?

[Dinner]

less people=bad economy.

[alva]

Life =! Economy

[tomcat ha]

europe isnt the most powerfull area in the world for 4 centuries. they were from about 1750`s till WW1 WW2ish.

The stupid europeans will never accept muslims like me and i know it as i live in the netherlands.

The possiblities are 1: the growth rate will get higher again. no real problems. 2: if the world economy collapses cause of the high price of oil the people. we might see a third hitler(second one was pol pot). 3: people will just fade away and has immigration drops(it is doing that here) the middle east will get more powerfull.

[Dinner]

I'd be willing to go to Europe in order to assist in the rising of the birth rate.

[Last Conformist]

This is why I'm highly skeptical of any talk about a future "European superpower". Our relative economic strength, the real basis for any long-term political or military power, will almost certainly shrink over the coming century. Concentration of effort can only do so much.

I think it's basically a bad thing. Europe will become a weaker, poorer, more conservative (old people are, as a rule, more conservative than younger ones) place.

[Dauphin]

Two to tango

Originally posted by tomcat ha
The stupid europeans will never accept muslims like me and i know it as i live in the netherlands.

Yes, because comments like that will really endear someone to their adoptive land.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I personally expect a new baby boom (albeit not one as radical as the one in the 40ies) in Europe before the crap really hits the fan. People will one day understand they'll need children to pay for their retirement, and politicians will one day understand that a natalist policy is extremely important to the continent's future.

A grand opening of the immigration gates would be a terrible blow to social cohesion across Europe altogether. We need time to integrate / assimilate immigrants in our societies, and we have mucho trouble already. The strength of Le Pen, Vlaams Blok, Haider, Pim Fortuyn etc. are symptoms of these difficulties.

You are reaping what you have sown. I think a lot of this has to do with the weakening of the family in Europe.

[Last Conformist]

Well, traditional families have been weakened more in Sweden than in Italy, yet Italy has an even lower birth rate. I think it has some impact, but it's hardly the main reason.

I'd rather blame an economic system that effectively punishes having children.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by tomcat ha
europe isnt the most powerfull area in the world for 4 centuries. they were from about 1750`s till WW1 WW2ish.

I'd say that Spains conquests in the Americas and the resulting wealth would make a more logical point to start. Especially since it made Spain the richest and most powerful country in the world so 1550 seems like a good date. WW2 is a good ending date though one could make the claim that the heart of the USSR was in Europe and so Europe continued to have a huge impact. Since we're talking about the end to global domination by Europe the rise of the US post WW2 seems like the most logical point even though the British and French didn't lose most of their Empires until the 1960's.

The stupid europeans will never accept muslims like me and i know it as i live in the netherlands.

Or is it even slightly possible that you haven't bothered to make enough effort to blend in? You after all went to their country and not visa versa. The burden of changing and fitting in doesn't follow on them; instead it falls upon the new immigrant to learn the national language, national history, laws & customs, etc...

If you don't do this then you have no one but yourself to blame.

3: people will just fade away and has immigration drops(it is doing that here) the middle east will get more powerfull.

Since I am now sitting here in the middle east I like to think I've had several months to make objective opinions. The place is a complete mess and this is unlikely to change any time soon. Politically, every Arab country other then Iraq (and even that is still uncertain) is ruled by an adsolute dictatorship which represses the people and impossess crushing taxes/regulations upon business. Given the extremely high birth rates I doubt the Arab countries will even be able to hold onto to the standard of living they have now much less rise to be a new great power.

[tomcat ha]

actually i can speak better dutch than turkish. i have more dutch friends than turkish. the dutch just never say i hate muslims out right but seceretly they are racist.

Till about 1700 the middle east was the most powerfull area in the world. eg: ottoman empire and the persian empire to the right of which i forgot the name.