Math Already Done The demographic trap nobody can vote out of

arte dropped a line last week that’s been rattling around my skull: “the countries of the global South will grow old before they reach the prosperity of the North.”

i went looking for counter-evidence. found none. France took 115 years to double its elderly share. Vietnam will do it in 17. Japan hit aged-society status at 40k USD per capita. Vietnam will hit it at 5k. of 40 countries that crossed 13% elderly since 1972, only three were poorer than Vietnam is now.

the horror isn’t that it’s unfair, though it is. the horror is that it’s already decided. the kids who weren’t born in the 80s and 90s can’t be un-not-born. no election changes this. no reform. the math was locked in before most voters were alive to vote on it.

demography as fate. with receipts.