#Demographic shift

[asrarblog]

Global Fertility Crisis 1 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1084

[insightfultake]

The Declining U.S. Birth Rate: A Demographic Shift with Far-Reaching Implications

For decades, the United States has relied on a steady birth rate to sustain its population and economic growth. However, the latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) paints a different picture—one of steady decline in birth rates across various demographics. This shift is not just a statistical anomaly; it reflects deeper societal and economic trends that could shape America's future in significant ways.

[themetaphorical]

The Prime Species: A Mathematical, Biological, and Philosophical Examination of the Inevitable Truth

Abstract Throughout history, humanity has sought to define itself through various lenses—science, philosophy, social constructs, and even identity politics. Yet, in the pursuit of complexity, we often overlook the simplest, most undeniable truths embedded in the very structure of existence. This thesis presents an argument rooted in mathematics, biology, and historical precedent, using prime…

[lucubratemagazine]

Migration and Development

What about migration? How is the picture when it comes to development in a country and for the individual?

Lucubrate Magazine, January 22nd, 2025 Migration has become a pivotal topic in contemporary discussions surrounding global dynamics, particularly regarding sovereign states and their net migration rates. Net migration, defined as the difference between the number of people entering a country and those leaving it, serves as an essential indicator of a nation’s appeal and the socio-economic…

[kazifatagar]

Malaysia Faces Declining Fertility Rates: A Demographic Shift

Malaysia is experiencing a demographic transformation with declining fertility rates. The Department of Statistics Malaysia reported a 12.3% drop in live births in Q3 2024. The total fertility rate decreased from 2.1 in 2010 to 1.7 in 2023, below the replacement level of 2.1. Malaysia Faces Declining Fertility Rates: A Demographic Shift Experts warn this trend could lead to labor shortages,…

[blaze-papers]

China Raises Retirement Age for First Time Since 1950s

In a historic policy shift, China has announced a gradual increase in retirement age, marking the first adjustment since the 1950s. The decision, approved by the top legislative body on Friday, aims to tackle the challenges posed by an ageing population and a strained pension system.

Starting January 1, 2025, the statutory retirement age will be raised from 50 to 55 for women in blue-collar jobs and from 55 to 58 for those in white-collar roles. For men, the retirement age will increase from 60 to 63. These changes will be implemented progressively over the next 15 years.

The reform comes as China faces mounting pressure from a rapidly ageing population and a pension system under financial strain. Currently, China’s retirement ages are among the lowest globally, necessitating this significant policy overhaul. The new plan also introduces additional requirements for pension contributions. Beginning in 2030, employees will need to make larger contributions to the social security system. By 2039, a minimum of 20 years of contributions will be required to qualify for a pension.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has previously warned that the main state pension fund could be exhausted by 2035, a projection made before the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic was fully understood. The policy changes are intended to extend working years and increase pension contributions to address these concerns.

China's population has been shrinking for two consecutive years, with a declining birth rate and an increasing average life expectancy of 78.2 years. This demographic shift is placing additional pressure on the pension system.

Reactions to the announcement have been mixed. On Chinese social media platform Weibo, some users expressed frustration and speculated that retirement age might be further extended in the future. Others accepted the changes, noting that they align with global trends in retirement age.

With approximately 300 million people aged 50 to 60 expected to retire over the next decade, China faces a significant challenge in managing its pension system. The effectiveness of these new policies in ensuring the system's sustainability and meeting the needs of its ageing population will be closely monitored.

[meltedmush]

Keep making the Binghorse. We gotta ward off people from entering this fandom. We need to keep it pure. I fr don't want this fandom to become famous. I'm scared that there will be toxic fans left and right.

HAHA I absolutely understand the sentiment. I feel a bit contradictory since I want more people to appreciate SVSSS, but the at the same time I like small tight knit communities and I personally can’t handle large fandoms whatsoever. 😭

Although I do feel as though describing the SVSSS as pure is very funny for how lawless this fandom is. But behavior wise, it is definitely a very positive and supportive space!! I haven’t met anyone or seen anything unpleasant since I’ve entered the fandom. Albeit, it’s only been a few months since I’ve started interacting with the fandom, and over half a year since I first read SVSSS, so I have no clue what horror stories the SVSSS fandom has. (I honestly haven’t interacted with that many SVSSS fans tbh…. Even though I want to.)

In addition, funny enough, I feel as though the book almost acts as its own barrier of entry. SVSSS isn’t the type of book you can read once unless you’re good at reading against the grain and noticing all the nuances and subtext. I know the first time I read SVSSS, SVSSS disturbed and confused me so badly. I talked to a few other people who read SVSSS once, who said that LBH and SQQ’s relationship felt like Stockholm syndrome. But people who’ve read SVSSS several times will know, that is not the case, and that SQQ is an INSANELY UNRELIABLE narrator.

I honestly find it funny how effective Binghorse or all the other skin creatures is at filtering toxic fans.😂

There’s always a general reaction to the skin creatures: “Omg, cute!!”, “wtf, but I like it”, “wtf”. Or getting blocked, or death threats. (I haven’t received any…? I don’t think…? One message I received is definitely debatable since I can’t tell if it’s sarcastic or not….😭)

But regardless, I’ll definitely keep drawing Binghorse!!! It’s actually really enjoyable!

[aroaceleovaldez]

Hiii! I hope this ask doesn’t come off as rude or pushy but I just have some questions about your opinion on Rick Riordan since I’m new the space of author critiquing.

I guess I’ll add I’m pretty young and a bit sensitive when it comes to things I like, so I automatically assumed since you post so much PJO content you liked his writing. But based on some of your posts, was I wrong? Again, I don’t want to sound pushy, I’m just new to being critical and honest when it comes to authors I like and would like to know your opinion on Rick Riordan specifically. Is he a bad writer? I just got wrath of the triple goddess and I’m not sure if I want to read it based on some of your posts.

Entirely focusing on writing itself and not the content within: I like Rick's old writing. His style when writing first series is dramatically different from his newer material, which I feel has significantly dropped in quality. A lot of the newer stuff feels very unpolished and gratuitous (towards the audience for marketing purposes, not his own interests) and he has a serious bathos problem that stunts the majority of the humor and sincerity that once existed in the franchise - and often severely gets in the way of a lot of attempts at inclusion and representation, to its detriment. Not to mention how condescending it feels towards the reader/presumed audience. It's also very clear he's trying to riff off of his previous success, including directly lifting previous sections and minorly rewriting them to try and achieve the same effect (not in a call-back manner, but just copying his own work).

I won't say his old writing is like, my 100% favorite or the end-all-be-all of literature. I have plenty of authors whose writing is more something that I think is structurally admirable. But Rick's original series writing is good! It became a pop culture staple for a reason! But the quality has dipped so severely as the series progress that it's hard to ignore and it's becoming increasingly difficult to enjoy the books for me because of this. Particularly very recent books like TSATS to me are so excessively full of simple structural errors and similar that it's baffling to me how it even got published or how we got here.

I think out of his post-first series writing, his works I've enjoyed the most are MCGA and Demigods of Olympus - particularly leaning towards the latter. It's simple but very enjoyable to me. TKC to me is mostly fine and enjoyable, and HoO is Just Okay. TOA is tolerable. TSATS and the marketing trilogy though are kind of unbearable for me.

I do love the franchise as a whole and it means a lot to me, which is exactly why I feel so strongly about the drop-off in quality recently. It feels like an insult to something I love and know can be better and has been better in the past - not from a personal perspective, but from as much of an unbiased perspective I can give as someone who has studied writing. So if he's a "bad writer" in general is kind of up to discretion i suppose.

[notbroadwaybound]

well, this has been a depressing night so far

[katyspersonal]

broke: Souls games need less female characters connected with themes of caring, softness, sacrifice, love/heartbreak, nurturing and motherhood because players are dumb and they might decide that it is what women should do if not explained 50 times that they have a choice uwu

woke: Souls games need MORE MALE characters connected with themes of caring, softness, sacrifice, love/heartbreak, nurturing and FATHERHOOD because the message of humans being capable of wholesome feelings in general is better than shifting it to just one gender

[woozapooza]

I'm trying to phrase this carefully because race/racism and gender/sexism don't function exactly the same (for one thing, I do think that sexism rebounds on men more than racism rebounds on white people) so they can't be exactly equated, but it is interesting to see so many people in progressive circles wringing their hands about how men are only shifting to the right because the left is just so goshdarn mean to them, when a lot of these same people (not all of them, but definitely some of them) would never say that white people are only shifting to the right because the left is just so goshdarn mean to them. To be 100% clear, anyone who says that ~the left~ as an entity should be nicer to white people to stop them from being racist (and there are absolutely plenty of people saying exactly that, but it's not a sentiment that I see often on tumblr specifically), is being ridiculous. It's not the job of people of color to bend over backwards trying to placate people who clearly just hate them...AND it's also not the job of women to bend over backwards trying to placate people who clearly just hate us, and it's frustrating to me when people can understand the former but not the latter.

[beltsourcookie]

devsis is just grasping at straws trying to decide on what their 'evil' should be

like

the dark lore implications back in 2016ish were a lot better (ex: jam is blood and cookies running because they didnt want to get vored)

then kingdom arrives and just tries to be extra edgy by adding cults and death and in general 'harsher' elements rather than hiding it

and the new beast yeast ep2 feels kinda flat after that

shadow milk or whatever is like not really dark or evil. they are just really silly and good at lying. but everyone else is like treating them as if theyre some SUPER EVIL OPPRESSOR THAT NEEDS TO DIE

yeah spreading misinfo and lying are legit bad things, but devsis acts like shadow milk is the worst-of-the-worst when we literally have strawberry crepe who terrorised an entire village and forced them to live in a barren land

shadow milk's definitely more a design to appeal to silly-edgy blue clowncore aesthetic, but compared to other evil jester/clown characters, shadow milk really isnt as evil and it's kinda ridiculous that the main cast believes them to be horrible

[sweetdreamspootypie]

Half the population of the school is muslim. not allowed to pray /during their lunch break/ because students aren't allowed to gather in groups of more than 4, and it might 'threaten inclusion'

[ducktollers]

also speaking of currency when i listed my prices in cad it was basically half american and half non-american clients (or like 60/40) and since i listed them in usd my clients are like 90% american. and i like the implication that some american buyers just dont pay attention if the currency listed isnt usd

[beginnerblueglass]

I love and respect them all very much, but sometimes it do be like:

Elderly people at church: “Oh we’re too old to be planning all these events and organizing all these ministries. Time for the next generation to take that on!”

The next generation: *takes it on*

Elderly people at church: “No wait not like that”

[alternis]

my hot take is an overlooked reason why webcomics seem to be less experimental and more standardised is just bc people read them on phones now. like the reason the long scrolling 'webtoon' style is so ubiquitous is because its designed to work on a phone. the reason you don't get embedded music/video/games is bc it's harder to implement that in a mobile browser, and it would use more of a reader's data allowance that loading a still image. modern phone screens allow for really high image resolution and people hold them closer to their face than a computer screen would be--so artists that take advantage of that with elaborate, detailed art styles tend to draw in a bigger audience--but phone screens are still small enough that you need to have the experience and knowledge to make your work legible, which further disadvantages beginner artists