Demographic Collapse — China's Reckoning (Part 1)

Audio editing by Eric Schneider
Motion graphics by Vincent de Langen
Everything else by Evan

Thanks to Katzenland for the Vietnamese subtitle translation.

This includes a paid sponsorship which had no part in the writing, editing, or production of the rest of the video.

Video supplied by Getty Images

[PolyMatter]

⭐️ If you have Nebula, go watch this there for the full, extended version. If you don't, why not? It's only $15/year and gives you extra-

[ghosts]

this dude got assigned to make a powerpoint presentation for history class once and just never stopped

[juanpablo]

"what was the last time you saw a headline about declining births"

Me living in europe: Every day

[johnkeefer]

“3 single men for every 2 single women”.
Ah yes the good old “Love Pentagon”

[daxshell]

its true. my first thought was "they could just have more children"

then i thought about me and my wife, living with both my parents and her parents on a meager salary. would i want more than 1 kid? would i want any? especially if both of us only grew up as only children?

its a death spiral.

[chriskapou]

0:45 As a Greek its simultaneously funny and tragic that my country ends up in almost every financial graph, even when completely unrelated 🤣

[Meandbroafter]

"Most useless of them - babies"
"Little money eating machines"
6:48

Seems like you are a father

[exexalien]

"Consider the last time you saw a news headline about declining birth."

Since I live in Japan, roughly every couple of months or so.

[diewaarheid]

I am not entirely sure what culture will develop amongst 34 million single men. But I feel very safe in theorizing a keen appreciation for quality hand lotions as a shared attribute.

[Doping]

"Assuming it takes 2 people to make a baby"
I need to see studies on that topic

[KhallDrake]

I learned this whole concept from a game called Banished. I wasn't producing enough food or clothing so I didn't add more houses for people to have more babies. Suddenly almost everyone was too old to have babies. I build some houses and had a few babies, but my population plummeted over the next 20 years. From a town of 600 to 200 within a few years. Now every other house was abandoned, outposts unmanned, not enough firewood to trade for livestock, fields going unharvested. It was pretty bad and I learned a valuable lesson about linear population growth instead of exponential.

[WeldonSirloin]

My man roasting babies and kids with absolute zero chill. 10/10

[Raptor]

China: Runs out of people

Everyone Else: Well, that's ironic

[bhsiao]

Wendover Productions: Airplanes
Real Life Lore: Toyota Corolla
PolyMatter: China

[Dunebuggy]

As a former baby i can confirm it is all true

[oliverm]

“Little money eating machines which conveniently wait several decades before offering anything of value.” That’s surprisingly accurate.

[capiae]

Today, 90 days after uploading this video the Chinese government declared emergency measures and now recommend that every family has 3 children.

[vipermad]

“Stocks”? “Retirement Funds”? Expensive “vacations”? What are these strange things you speak of, wizard?

[somethingsecretsteersus]

I ve always been finding it completely insane how modern people underestimate demographic policy and how few we see about that in medias.

[lewismassie]

This reminds me of something an Asian friend once said to me in a mild rage (in response to him graduating and his parents immediately asking him about a wife)
"How did you expect me to go from study, study, study to wife in one go? All my life has been 'no girls, only work' and now you flip the script? How is that supposed to work?"

So yeah, birth rates in east asian countries aren't doing so well, and haven't for decades in some cases