Just to riff a bit further on my Robotics v. Helotics post: It is now pretty much a staple of sites like ours to lament (with a frisson of superiority) the aging and graying, and the plummeting birthrates, of Europe and Japan. “These nations are dying out,” we say. “They don’t stand a chance against more philoprogenitive nations like those in the Middle East, and, well, us.”

But the whole world is graying–even the Middle East. The difference between nations is not between those who are graying and aging and those who aren’t: It’s between those who gray and age earlier, and those who do so later. There’s a transition going on, from societies with lots of kids, to societies with lots of oldsters; and it’s going on everywhere. It’s only that some nations are further along with the process than others.

Nations don’t disappear as a result of changes like this, they adjust. Japan isn’t going to disappear. They’ll adjust; and as the first to adjust, they’ll have a head start over the rest of us. By the mid-21st century, they’ll have aged, and grayed, and adjusted, while the rest of us are still struggling through the process. Japan could easily be the mid-21st century superpower.

The situuation among the Europeans is more complicated because of reckless immigration policies. But that’s where the conversation started…