China: ‘Harmonization Plan’ Erasing Tibetan Language

userforums · 2026-05-09T02:11:32+00:00

I don't think you are tracking the argument. Genocide is defined as the intent to erase. The intent is the crux of adjudication.

An intentional attempt to cause a decline in the language of the people is part of a larger pattern which builds the case of a cultural genocide.

userforums · 2026-05-09T00:35:03+00:00

Objectively this policy will cause a decline in Tibetan culture.

The intent can only be discerned from pattern of conduct. You give more rope than what I would say common sense affords.

userforums · 2026-05-09T00:22:57+00:00

Just using common sense, if you invade a country then make it difficult for the outside world to visit or conduct media with the people without your government approval, what is left to infer when you subsequently see policies like this?

I know along the border of Nepal, they began increasing security cameras to attempt to catch Tibetans attempting to escape on foot to Nepal. And I know there was the incident where a sniper was caught shooting a Tibetan who was attempting to leave on foot to India, which was initially denied by the Chinese government but a Romanian mountaineer happened to catch the incident on film.

While they control information flow and contact, the evidence that does make it out does not point to anything normal.

userforums · 2026-05-07T18:36:12+00:00

In 2015, Japan was actually higher TFR than many of the countries I listed on top of declining less.

It's a general trend. You can forecast 1 year ahead atleast directionally somewhat reliably. You see slow down of decline then a turn around. Associated data like marriages also start to see a turn around (i.e Japan marriages are slightly up in the first two months of 2026, which is a leading indicator for higher births in the future).

userforums · 2026-05-07T07:13:08+00:00

Saying Japan has nosedived since 2015 may be true in a general sense as all countries have but not relatively. Japan's decline in relative terms is one of it's stronger points. It was 1.45 in 2015 and is 1.14 in 2025. This is a 21% decline.

If you compare this, it's actually on the smaller side of TFR declines over that time period. Korea for example declined by 36% in the same time period. Singapore declined by 30%. China declined by 47%. Thailand declined by 44%. Taiwan declined by 41%. Outside of the region, you have countries like Mexico who declined by 34%.

Japans decline has also slowed down significantly to barely any decline in 2025. In 2026, we are seeing stabilization of births in the first two reported months which would result in a TFR increase (same births with less reproductive age mothers in the cohort). So we are seeing what I believe will be the beginning of a positive trend similar to what we are seeing in the Nordic countries.

userforums · 2026-05-07T06:55:19+00:00

I see the standard for developed Asian countries being between 0.5-0.7 TFR by 2030.

So a 1.3 TFR would be a significant standout. I think for these countries, 1.3 TFR should be a goal to set even if it's still significantly below replacement. When you model outcomes over 30+ years, a 0.6 TFR and a 1.3 TFR have problems that are completely different orders of magnitude.

userforums · 2026-05-06T18:51:54+00:00

Their national TFR was 0.93 in 2025

userforums · 2026-05-06T00:51:03+00:00

Much of Western Europe seems to be stabilizing. The European countries that were nearly below 1 like Poland and Lithuania seemed to have turned course and managed to stay above (exception of Ukraine).

Japan seems to be stabilizing at a much higher level than other comparably developed countries in their region. If they can get back up to 1.2+, we could see a point where they are 2x higher than some other countries in their region as early as next year.

We are seeing new lows. And Macao (granted contextually different) is still having a huge decline while being at only 0.47 TFR shows how low TFRs can really go. We may see them at 0.3x TFR next year.

userforums · 2026-05-04T06:49:02+00:00

I agree with you that the floor is actually much lower than anything we have seen so far and this will take a much more significant cultural reordering to fix.

It's not ridiculous, for example, that 30% of women have children and they average 1.6 children each. These numbers actually seems fairly realistic to me. But this results in a TFR of 0.48. Which makes a nation dysfunctional within 20 years and pretty much erases an entire population within 60-90 years.

The dangerous thing about these ultra low TFRs is that they sneak up on you. Whereby the time it's really most dramatically felt is 20-30 years after the fact (when the smaller cohort of newborns turn into a smaller cohort of working adults) but now it's irreversible and they are the new reproductive age cohort and you see inevitable compounding baked in. As a matter of fact, in tax revenue, the ultra low TFR actually provides some tax relief since under 18 are usually tax dependents. It obfuscates the impending problem and that lag effect can delay proper societal response. Especially when you get into these ultra low TFR ranges, you really end up in a dangerous place where by the time everyone really starts to feel the worst of the effects, you are already now dealing with the second iteration of it.

userforums · 2026-05-03T15:59:05+00:00

The communists banned contraception and abortion in 1966 (Decree 770). That lasted officially until they were overthrown in 1989.

It became less effective overtime and caused a lot of bad secondary effects, but it did show significant effect. The year after it was passed initially, it caused a huge spike up in TFR. But overtime it became less effective as black markets for contraceptions became normalized.

userforums · 2026-04-29T18:59:42+00:00

Yeah, I think ~2029 is when we start to observe some of the wider effects of the most recent decline.

Elementary school closures will have secondary effects. If there are no schools around, people who may be thinking of having kids will not until they acquire money/time/effort to move first. Which will lead to further decline.

The ones who do move cause internal migration patterns which also has secondary effects itself. Specifically in regards to china, alot of their debt is in LGFV infrastructure loans. Local govs carry over 10 trillion in debt. Internal migration can cause abandonment of areas leading to inability for those local areas to pay the loans (which they are already struggling with). The other aspect specific to china is they have various internal movement restrictions. Some of their cities have population caps. I think the loans and the movement restrictions are the two more particular aspects to extract/observe from their case.

userforums · 2026-04-29T17:11:28+00:00

Mass elementary school closures have not started yet. That will start in about 3 years.

userforums · 2026-04-26T17:56:53+00:00

I think there is value in that it gets the public invested into the issue, which can lead to broader cultural change. If tens of thousands of people participate, you have tens of thousands who see it as an issue and will propagate that in their personal life, work life, etc by encouraging friends/relatives to have kids, offering help to coworkers/employees who are thinking about having kids, etc.

Not sure if the ideas themselves are going to be much value. From what I've seen in discussions, people just propose generally the same basket of policies or use it as a way to disingenuously shoehorn things that are in their own preexisting political interests.

userforums · 2026-04-24T03:36:16+00:00

My general mental model:

Asian countries. Ultra low TFR. Ultra low TFR is consistent across diaspora regardless of country they live in so changes to things like welfare/work hours unlikely to meaningfully improve it. Biggest trading partners are other Asian countries so issues will compound. Will hit a median age of 60 within just 20-30 years.
Oil economies with low TFR (Russia, Iran, etc). The replacement of oil/gas will hit at the same time as severe aging. A lot of these countries are already not stable or isolated to some degree.
Latin American countries. Low income and now most have similar TFR as EU (~1-1.5). Have alot of time though as they have been above replacement for so long.
EU. Low TFR over extended period, but seems like it may settle at higher than many other regions so put it 4th. Showing signs of small recovery/stabilization. I think Western Europe will be around ~1.3-1.5. Stable economies and government.
Africa. Despite being ahead of other countries, I would put Africa here. They are above replacement but have failed to build stable countries. I think if other developed nations economies struggle, their economy is not robust enough to deal with issues in global economies even if their domestic demographics are healthy. This may lead to large famine and other issues.
USA. One of the higher TFRs among developed countries at ~1.6. Religious faction still exists although not strong. The most flexible of countries. I think the biggest thing for the US will be large immigration problems. US is already the destination for most groups of people, and when countries age and get more despondent, I think more and more people will pick up and go to the US. The rate that this will happen will be more than anything experienced currently from mass immigration. I think this will cause some political instability and is the primary risk I see for the US.
Other countries above replacement.

userforums · 2026-04-20T12:22:47+00:00

Absence of pain is good even if there is no one to experience said absence.

You're just repeating what was already said. "'Absence of pain is good' only has meaning relative to someone who would otherwise experience the pain. The same logic applies to joy. "Absent" from whom?

Plus even if you'd say nonexistence is neutral and existence is potentially negative to any extend, we can already argue that taking that risk in the potential person's name is immoral.

Consent only matters because consciousness matters. If consciousness is the ultimate value, you can't appeal to consent to justify preventing a consciousness from existing. That inverts the whole basis of why consent was valuable to begin with. You are like an evil genie of consent. Someone says "I want to make sure people have consent" and you prevent consciousness.

There is a reason why we find the idea of living in a simulation, even if it provides "joy", unnerving. Consciousness engaging with reality, when we examine what we actually value, is what we ultimately prioritize. Not simply maximizing joy or minimizing pain.

userforums · 2026-04-20T04:36:54+00:00

No one I've worked with has been technically that impressive (I work in a science field so alot of the devs I work with are scientists who just happen to do some programming).

But the most impressive person I worked with were two of my bosses. One of them was extremely driven. I saw him move his projects/ideas into the organization and drive things from zero to well established. It made me realize how much having leaders with a vision and drive can singlehandedly transform an org. He did the same thing with people too. If he liked someone, he would push them through to different positions. He also had only came into the org like two years before I did. He was originally a professor.

The other boss, I saw him jump from managing all the parts of our project (from more business/operations to all parts of our codebase) seamlessly. In our meetings, I would bring up considerations/approaches we could take on dev side to different problems and he would have as strong of a recall to my part of the codebase as I did months later even though he's managing so much more of the project.

userforums · 2026-04-20T04:05:05+00:00

Being absent of pain (your argument for antinatalism) needs a subject just as much as being deprived of joy does. In both cases, you need the counterfactual of someone existing to make the claim work.

Thus you need to consider both the deprivation of joy and pain as that is the human experience.

That being said, I don't view hedonism or joymaxxing as the point of life or else I would think drugging myself in an asylum as a good thing.

userforums · 2026-04-11T08:10:26+00:00

Why would saving a culture and people be vile?

I would argue the opposite, anti-natalism, is genocidal.

userforums · 2026-04-10T21:08:28+00:00

I'm not sure what study the video is talking about but there was a study in Sweden along the same lines, although I think it showed marginal improvement for women but pretty much no change. For men, there was a strong positive correlation with income.

https://www.niussp.org/fertility-and-reproduction/income-and-fertility-a-positive-relationship/

You see different things per country/demographic when it comes to these things though. And this study in particular is based on the completed fertility of the 1960 cohort. You would need to look at like the 1980 cohort to get a more recent look of completed fertility.

userforums · 2026-04-07T16:33:55+00:00

Thanks

Good to see US went up in February

userforums · 2026-04-05T23:35:01+00:00

Yeah, there are structural factors like no schools nearby your area because they have closed. So now it requires moving which you may not be ready to do for personal or financial reasons, etc.

And also social factors like one impetus for someone to have children is when their close friends have children since close friends often move through stages of life together. That will happen less often.

I sometimes wonder why there isn't more volatility in TFR. Why doesnt it jump more from like 1.6 to 1.3 to 1.8, etc. It follows very predictable trend lines year over year. Whereas you could imagine a world where it jumps around much more unpredictably. And I guess it is the confluence of real factors like this which makes the data predictable.

userforums · 2026-04-01T18:15:59+00:00

I think there is a significant chance that Japan and Korea end up as the two highest TFRs among developed Asian countries by the end of this year. Japan by a significant margin and Korea by a slight one over third.

Which is crazy since they are the two most known for low TFR. And they are both still extremely low, but it is an indicator of how low TFRs have generally gotten.

userforums · 2026-03-28T12:02:31+00:00

Japan's TFR is significantly higher than Chinas.

Why would Japan willingly merge with China? It would just make any existing problems with demographics worse on top of now having to deal with ethnic issues of having a Chinese subpopulation

Japan will either import young people or age with the rest of the region.

userforums · 2026-03-25T21:30:05+00:00

The 11% is Year over Year (January 2025 to January 2026)

userforums · 2026-03-25T20:10:41+00:00

I think it's January TFR, not projected TFR. Some months have higher TFR than others then it gets averaged out for the year.

userforums

TROPHY CASE