# Russia's Depopulation Bomb. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 3, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898 "2009-04-03T18:58:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/61 "2009-04-09T15:57:06Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Russia’s declining population is a function of both a high death rate and the low birth rate. Deaths are due to alcoholism, early heart disease, and accidents. The average male life span is only 59. They also have one of the [highest suicide rates](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate)of the world, and six times as many males killing themselves than females. [Depression rates](http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pressparliament/pressreleases2006/pr781.aspx) are high in Russia - 23% of males and 44% of females - and 60% feel that their income and material circumstance as “bad” or “very bad.” But, the Russians have **always** been alcoholic and gloomy; they’ve been world-famous for both characteristics since the 16th Century at least. Why are the effects just catching up to them **now?!** ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/62 "2009-04-09T16:35:05Z")
**Brainglutton** It remains to be seen how these ‘grayby booms’ affect their national economies as it’s a relatively new phenomena, we’ll see how long it takes. These problems can be fixed by automation taking on much of the work, but that doesn’t help the carbon footprint argument relating to overpopulation. It creates a sad state where we don’t populate any less, we just have fewer humans and more robots. In China’s case, it will be seen in about 40 years when today’s children are taking care of their parents and the society is EXTREMELY top-heavy. 4 grandparents taking care of a single child when that child is little is a boon to that child. One child taking care of 4 grandparents when he is old is considerably more difficult. **Lust4Life** The rate of growth of populations worldwide have reduced drastically. It’s not just in Russia, just Russia is moving into the demographic decline phase. As for the desertification of the world, well that’s a function of insufficient technical expertise. So the proportion of population is related to its ability to sustain itself, and not to the ability of the environment to sustain it. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/63 "2009-04-09T17:09:56Z")
The _Homo Sapiens_ population has more than doubled in my lifetime; that’s 200,000 years to get from near-zero to 3 billion, then less than half a century from 3 billion to 6 billion. We’re pulling fish out of the ocean faster than they’re being replaced. I’d love it if we could stop reproducing for a few decades, and get the population down to an even billion by the end of the century. Think I’ll run on that platform. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/64 "2009-04-09T17:11:36Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Actually, Russia is re-arming-they are building new nuclear submarines, and upgrading their aircraft. I think they may well plan a return to superpower status. Actually, I don’t think they accept they ever **lost** superpower status. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2009, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/65 "2009-04-09T17:35:39Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > The _Homo Sapiens_ population has more than doubled in my lifetime; that’s 200,000 years to get from near-zero to 3 billion, then less than half a century from 3 billion to 6 billion. We’re pulling fish out of the ocean faster than they’re being replaced. > > I’d love it if we could stop reproducing for a few decades, and get the population down to an even billion by the end of the century. Think I’ll run on that platform. Right the problem here is that everyone wants a reactionary solution, one that would stone-age us. It’s amazing to me that people’s reactions to rising population are invariably human-hating solutions that threaten our very survival. The idea that rising population brings out hatred of our own species in people is one of the most disturbing elements of modern society. It’s permeated our pop culture so deeply with things like The Matrix and Battlestar Galactica deciding that civilization itself is the problem. I should go out and burn every copy of ‘Ishmael’. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/66 "2009-04-10T02:36:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, the Russians have **always** been alcoholic and gloomy; they’ve been world-famous for both characteristics since the 16th Century at least. Why are the effects just catching up to them **now?!** It is one thing to have a stereotypic archetype and another to have actual frequency rates. Obviously we have no way of knowing how frequent depression, alcoholism, and suicide really were in the actual (rather than fictional literary) population through Czarist times or even through the era of the USSR (statistics were not released if kept or collected with any veracity) but [suicide figures](http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7257-3.cfm) are at least easy to follow. And rates are significantly higher than they were in 1990 or are in the rest of the world. Overall the 90’s and beyond have been [not good years](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9508159) for being a Russian. Why now? I can only guess but my guess would be that it has to do with how Russians view the future. Maybe enough were just optimistic enough in past times to not kill themselves and to have families, and now the melancholic threshold has been passed. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/67 "2009-04-10T13:55:50Z")
Well, [Putin has a solution . . .](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-471324/Sex-motherland-Russian-youths-encouraged-procreate-camp.html) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/68 "2009-04-10T18:12:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, [Putin has a solution . . .](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-471324/Sex-motherland-Russian-youths-encouraged-procreate-camp.html) It’s funny how any display of national solidarity gets compared to Naziism. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/69 "2009-04-10T18:57:45Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > It’s funny how any display of national solidarity gets compared to Naziism. Did I click on a different article than you? What I saw Godwinized were not displays of national solidarity but[ol] [li]book burnings,[/li][li]celebrating past leaders who were in reality mass murderers,[/li][li]revisionist history,[/li][li]and xenophobia blending into outright racism[/ol][/li] True enough that Godwinizing is a cheap rhetorical device, but the target was not mere “national solidarity” but darker elements that the writer claims have become fellow travelers in Russia today. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/70 "2009-04-10T18:59:52Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Did I click on a different article than you? > > What I saw Godwinized were not displays of national solidarity but[ol] > [li]book burnings,[/li][li]celebrating past leaders who were in reality mass murderers,[/li][li]revisionist history,[/li][li]and xenophobia blending into outright racism[/ol][/li] > True enough that Godwinizing is a cheap rhetorical device, but the target was not mere “national solidarity” but darker elements that the writer claims have become fellow travelers in Russia today. Fair enough. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/71 "2009-04-10T19:54:44Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > It’s funny how any display of national solidarity gets compared to Naziism. Hitler never ordered the teenagers of the _Hitler Jugend_ and the _Bund Deutscher Madel_ to get together and breed for the Fatherland. Whatever you compare this to, it’s a little creepy. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/72 "2009-04-10T20:09:02Z")
Yeah. In America the politicians screw you themselves! ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/73 "2009-04-10T20:47:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Hitler never ordered the teenagers of the _Hitler Jugend_ and the _Bund Deutscher Madel_ to get together and breed for the Fatherland. Whatever you compare this to, it’s a little creepy. Didn’t he? I remember something of the sort. > **[Lebensborn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn)** > > Final Solution > Pre-Machtergreifung > [@](#): > > The main misconception was that the programme involved coercive breeding. Apparently not. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/74 "2009-04-10T21:11:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Hitler never ordered the teenagers of the _Hitler Jugend_ and the _Bund Deutscher Madel_ to get together and breed for the Fatherland. Whatever you compare this to, it’s a little creepy. So is a nation with record abortions and people who are too depressed to breed. It’s pretty creepy all the way around. But then again, Russia’s never NOT been creepy. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898/75 "2009-04-10T23:00:03Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > What do others think of this? Especially since many here take it as gospel that the world is overpopulated and that depopulation essentially is a good thing. That depopulation is a political and social problem is not an argument against overpopulation being a problem in the first place…consider my example about exploding rat populations during a bamboo blossom in the overpopulation thread. When resources are plentiful and the rat population is expanding, for any given rat–and indeed, the cumulative population–depopulation is a problem. The fact that depopulation is a problem for human societies results from two things: an unsustainable overpopulation in the first place, and a societal structure in which the aging population’s welfare is built on a pyramidal distribution of supporting youngsters. The unsustainable consumption means that at some point the resources will begin, like bamboo blossoms, to diminish, and the the dependence upon the young results in a negative incentive to stabilize the population. Now the argument has been made that we have been able to keep up–even exceed–production of food and energy for a growing population. I argue that the cost for that has been enormous in terms of its toll on the earth, that the strain is already at a critical level, and that there is little, if any, margin for external catastrophe. Those issues are being debated elsewhere. I disagree with **BrainGlutton** that the “graby boom” is not destabilizing. The bills will come due and the Piper will be calling. The boomers have barely begun to borrow. It is going to get a lot worse and I see no chance it will ever get better. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russias-depopulation-bomb/491898.md?page=3)