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Comment by usrn | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't matter when Africa is exploding. All the low birthrate in the West does is weaken the countries trying to protect the environment. As this continues corporations will bring in the people from these undeveloped countries who will bring their unsustainable cultures with them.

This whole "stop having children to save the environment" bullshit is dumber than the anti-nuclear crap and even more obviously wrong.

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>these undeveloped countries who will bring their unsustainable cultures with them.

I live in Latin America, in my trips to the US I get disgusted when I see hundreds of family cars with giant gas engines that we only use in construction trucks, idling all day just to run their air conditioner in a slightly hot day.

It's incredible the delusion that the first world has about how 'sustainable' their lifestyles are.

Yeah, all these African people with their checks notes unsustainable lifestyle of nearly no co2 emissions compared to the rest of the world.

Heh. When the complaint is that the high birthrates of the world are unsustainable, it's the people with the high birthrates that are doing that. Also keep in mind that Africa relies heavily on aid from these countries with the high CO2 emissions. Cutting CO2 really means starving them.

CO2 emissions per capita includes your imports...

> As this continues corporations will bring in the people from these undeveloped countries who will bring their unsustainable cultures with them

Cut this xenophobic crap right now. Have a look at the facts. For example, the per capita CO2 emission in Ethiopia is 0.13 tonnes, whereas it's 14.24 tonnes in the US. That's over a factor of 100 more.

Here's a good source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita

It doesn't matter when they're brought to the West to replace the children we didn't have they'll live with the infrastructure that's already here which means having a similar carbon footprint.

They're also relying on us for a lot of aid, I'm not sure if your calculation takes that into account.

> ... undeveloped countries who will bring their unsustainable cultures with them.

I hope you are aware of the carbon footprint of an american versus someone from, say, ethiopia?!

Doesnt matter how small of a footprint the Ethiopian has. The Ethiopian is an exponential function, and the Westerner is a linear one. The exponential function will always overtake the linear function. Eventually.

Once they move to the US they have a high carbon footprint like anyone else there. Their culture won't change though, that takes many generations and a relatively homogeneous culture to assimilate into which is going away (largely due to attitudes like this.)

Given the "theme song" linked to in your profile, it's quite obvious where this is coming from, but let's talk unsustainable cultures then:

Again, from your theme song and your apparent fondness for the Teutonic Order I'm assuming you're at least familiar with Germany and the German social security system, which is very much a part of their culture.

The German state pension system basically amounts to a Ponzi scheme that requires a continuous influx of new contributors in order to not implode.

Not only is this pretty much a textbook case of "unsustainable", but given German culture is quite averse to change (which is unsustainable, too, by the way) and it therefore isn't particularly likely they're going to abandon their current pension system anytime soon, "bringing people from these undeveloped countries" also is about their only option left to keep the system from collapsing for just a little longer.

I'm not even talking general economic and societal repercussions here. It can be argued that a society with a declining population isn't long-term sustainable and ultimately will succumb to stagnation and a lack of innovation.

Yup, but if you're heading for a crash generally you try to pull up and not just head straight into the ground.

Just looked up the Teutonic Order (from Wikipedia [0]):

> Before and during World War II, Nazi propaganda and ideology made frequent use of the Teutonic Knights' imagery, as the Nazis sought to depict the Knights' actions as a forerunner of the Nazi conquests for Lebensraum. Heinrich Himmler tried to idealise the SS as a 20th-century reincarnation of the medieval Order. Yet, despite these references to the Teutonic Order's history in Nazi propaganda, the Order itself was abolished in 1938 and its members were persecuted by the German authorities. This occurred mostly due to Hitler's and Himmler's belief that, throughout history, Roman Catholic military-religious orders had been tools of the Holy See and as such constituted a threat to the Nazi regime. Hitler based his German Order on the Teutonic Order, especially the Hochmeister's ceremonial regalia itself even though they abolished the said order.

Linking to this "theme song" and your (not yours, usrn's) xeonophic comments have no place on Hacker News.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Order#Modern_organiza...

> The German state pension system basically amounts to a Ponzi scheme

Yes and no - that is how the world, how life works!

The currently working take care of the currently too-old-to-work. No matter what layer and labels you put on top, that has always been and will always be true. Unless you create time machines, or eliminate aging (with its own huge set of issues).

So yes, the new generations have to take care of the previous ones. "Capital" is only an information layer on top of that reality used to determine who gets what, but it does not replace the reality of who and when produces goods and services. You can shift information about capital into the future (you "saved" for retirement - but only this information is transmitted to the future, not goods or services, which are always used in the present), but actual goods and services always have to be produced and provided by the working part of the population. You can shift as much "capital" (information) into the future as you want, "save" incredible amounts of money, it will change nothing.

> Not only is this pretty much a textbook case of "unsustainable",

Quite the opposite. That is the best kind of sustainable because it actually represents truth most faithfully. The "capital" based magic - that is much more problematic. It masks and attempts to hide the reality. Also a problem in the German system is the many exceptions.

The core German system is the most honest one about reality: The currently working take care of those that no longer don't. If there are too few in the new generation to take care of the expected number of old non-working people in the country, then seeing that problem is GOOD, trying to hide it behind some finance magic is bad.

All available data shows that high birthrates are linked to societal effects of poverty, low access to education and healthcare, not to culture. When Africans move elsewhere, their birth rates adapt rapidly to their new home countries, as do every other group.

As such, talking about "unsustainable cultures" here is pure xenophobia.

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