Geopolitics Post AI & Birth Rate Collapse

In this comprehensive discussion, we examine the two major challenges shaping the future of global geopolitics and economics: the rapid development of AI and the ongoing fertility collapse. Our conversation delves into the impact of these changes on various regions and populations. We analyze fertility rate maps to understand how declining birth rates influence geopolitical power. We also explore how AI is reshaping the job market and its broader societal implications. Furthermore, we address potential economic destabilization in various countries due to these trends and their implications for future global stability. This episode provides a critical update on these pressing issues and their potential effects on our world.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing the future of global geopolitics and economics in the face of the two biggest changes the world is facing right now, which is the development of AI and fertility collapse.

So this can be thought of as sort of our fertility collapse update video and our well, and ai. Someone was like, you've been doing so much AI recently, and I'm like. AI is literally going to change everything about the human condition over our lifetimes. Anybody who's not thinking about AI as much as they're thinking about Rome priorities in order, buddy?

Simone Collins: That's, that's a very good point actually. Yeah. Ro roam happened. You, you can't change it. Oh, dear.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I mean, when, as you are, you know, predicting out your career or what education means for you and your kids, or. Really anything what's happening in the space of AI is incredibly important. Now, Simone, I sent [00:01:00] you yesterday some maps

and we'll just go over these in turn with our fans. Okay. Because I think that they're very important for getting a grip on how bad things are now. And this, this first graph is terribly designed. The darker blue areas. Where it gets to like purple and darker blue. Mm-hmm. Those are areas of lower fertility.

The lighter blue areas are areas of higher fertility. So the more

Simone Collins: tan, brown, orange-ish, the higher the fertility, the more darker purple, the lower the fertility and the lighter. And you see, I mean it's kind of obvious 'cause all you have to do on a graph like this to calibrate is look at South Korea and then you kind of know what's going on.

Yeah. And then the Nepal, man, I didn't know Nepal was doing so horribly.

Malcolm Collins: We'll, we'll get to these in a second. So the lighter red is higher FTI lower fertility, but it's higher fertility for the darker red. So they're sort of treating white the 2.1, you know, replacement TFR as the [00:02:00] midpoint, and then you move either to red or blue depending on where you are.

And what are you colorblind? It's, it's,

Simone Collins: it's purple.

Malcolm Collins: What you should immediately see here is, or purple. Okay. Is that, the Americas are now just completely ed out, right? Like I think a lot of people thought that South America would take longer to get to the place it is right now. But we're now at a place where we are.

Depending on how you calculate it, the ma if you, if you do it like per person, so if you Correct. By the population of a country. Yeah. LA Latin America may be below the United States in terms of TFR now.

Simone Collins: Yeah. She's, she's gone guys. And if

Malcolm Collins: it, if it isn't right now, it's going to be soon. And this is really big.

Because when we're talking about the future of geopolitics this is true both within the United States and around the world. And we'll get to this as we explore these different regional maps, because I think that's a better way to do this. Mm. Who's gonna own the future are countries and populations that while [00:03:00] being economically and technologically productive.

Can still be high fertility. Alright. A, a country like Somalia, which you can see right here I'm pretty sure that's Somalia which is super high. Fertility doesn't effing matter? It doesn't matter if Somalia has a. 20 times its currents population that's just gonna be 20 times where people in desperate suffering, it might matter to, you know, surrounding companies in terms of like refugee crises and stuff like that.

But it doesn't matter on like the global stage, right? Like they're not gonna suddenly become a powerhouse. And

Simone Collins: we imagine if they could choose, they, they would probably rather first improve quality of life before they improve.

Malcolm Collins: Which is going to lower population, the birth rate. But

Simone Collins: yeah,

Malcolm Collins: the place where this can really be seen is in East Asia.

And so here we're gonna be talking about the map I have on screen here is East Asia more broadly, but I'm gonna talk about it along with Oceania because they're basically a connected economy. When people think about fertility rate collapse even though it's a bigger problem in East Asia, they often [00:04:00] think about it in the context of themselves and their neighbors and their trading networks.

Mm-hmm. But the biggest disruption that it's gonna cause is, is in this part of the world. And so you've got China with a fertility rate of like 1.2 Japan with a fertility rate of 1.3 South Korea 0.9. And Taiwan. I've seen all sorts of weird fertility rates for Taiwan recently from this one has it at 1.1, but I've seen it down to below South Korea at 0.76.

Simone Collins: Yeah. What's going on?

Malcolm Collins: Get it straight guys. Falling very quickly is the general gist of it. But the, the wider point here is who is declining within this region? It is everyone who is economically relevant is declining within this region and. Well, I should say not everyone. So then the question is, is okay, you're saying there's somebody near this part of the world that isn't in a complete free fall right now.

Who are you talking about? Well, the two countries that are economically relevant in this region and are [00:05:00] not in complete free fall are Australia with a TFR of like 1.56. Mm-hmm. In New Zealand with fertility rates I've seen of between like 1.6 and 1.85. Mm-hmm. Which is actually very robust. I mean, for, for these days.

For these days, right? Yeah.

Simone Collins: I mean, you still need 2.1 people just to remind you, if you, if, if you're new to this podcast and subject, if you want your country to maintain a stable population, you need to have a total fertility rate of 2.1 or more.

Malcolm Collins: Right. And a lot of people can say, well, you know, what about, for example, India, right?

With its, with its TFR of two on average now or slightly below replacement rates. Mm-hmm. And this is again, where you, you sometimes even need to look sub regionally to predict the future of a region. You know, you can't think about these countries as just countries like India, as just India. You need to see who in India.

Is having lots of children. Yeah. And India it's, it's it Muslim extremists. And if [00:06:00] India does become a, a, a country because it's a democracy where Muslim extremists end up running the country. It's going to almost immediately fracture.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And completely change its relationship with Pakistan because that would change things pretty extremely.

India's in a very dangerous demographic position right now. And it's something that's li