Easier said than done, one should think it's not that hard considering how many there are, but when you need one to hug...

Maybe all those people were accidentally born in China.

I am shocked. SHOCKED!

Good thing I was sitting down...

to patch the metastasis out of the system and actually own it?

I have experienced it first hand. Never again.

It turns out that after the One Child Policy was changed to the Two Child Policy, the birth rate continued to decline. It then changed to a Three Child Policy, and the birth rate continued to decline. State-run media then started cranking out articles encouraging women (especially young women) to get married and have children, and the birth rate has continued to decline. And then 2020 happened, and the birth rate declined some more. So everything they've tried, hasn't started working yet.

First-world countries can generally compensate for reduced birth rates fairly easily, by allowing some amount of immigration. But if China wanted to do that, they would probably have to tone down the extensive xenophobic propaganda that they use to deflect blame for anything bad that happens, from the ruling party onto foreigners. And then they would have to find some other way to disperse all that negative energy, or it could turn into social unrest, which the CCP absolutely Does Not Want.

So they either have to find some way to reverse the trend and get the delta birth rate aimed upward again, or else they're going to have some serious population shrinkage. And it's worse than the raw "total number of people" number makes it look, because most of the population is already too old to have children. So even though it's going to be six or eight decades before it finishes happening, the population is going to dip to somewhere around half its current size, unless they can get the birth rate to *explode* upward. Raising it from its current value (1.16 births per woman if you believe the official figures, which may be padded, possibly significantly so) to 2 or even 3 births per woman, at this point, will still leave them with a very substantial population decline in the medium term (a few decades), and _then_ it would stabilize or start to rebound.

At this point, they know about the problem. It took them way too long to realize it, but now they have. They either just haven't figured out what to do about it yet, or they're hesitating to do it for fear of backlash. (At some point, I suspect, they will at least seriously entertain the option of making birth control illegal. And if that doesn't work, there are even more drastic measures that I wouldn't put past them.)

Some combination of social inertia, network effect, bundling, and the fact that most people are either not technically inclined enough or not brave enough to try installing an operating system themselves.

Just because people are useless they won't lie down and die quietly.

Twice so in a country that has more guns than people.

I'll sign it without hesitation. Non-competes are illegal in my jurisdiction, and illegal clauses in contracts are void.

Startups around here get hoovered up including the former owners as "consultants". Basically that means you get money for doing nothing, at least as long as you don't try to start a competitor because guess what "consultation" is no longer needed should you try that...

C'mon. Please. When has the free market ever tied the hands of corporations? If that ever happens (and yes, there is indeed that nonzero chance that we're heading into an employer market, at least in some fields), rest assured that the game will be rigged some more in your disadvantage.

The only reason that corporations were fine with government letting "the market" sort it out was that until now, they had you by the balls. Let's wait what's gonna happen should this change.

Here's the thing, though: I am needed. But unfortunately, I'm one of the few.

But that's besides the point. What matters is that the replacement rate of young people vs. old people is only at about 80%. And that's not gonna change in the near future. For every 5 people leaving the workforce, only 4 will join it. Save immigration, of course, but let's face it, you only need so many goat-herders...

And that's the point. It's not just the burger flippers and shelf stockers that retire. It's also the researchers and doctors, the finance gurus and the engineers. Yes, there has never been a shortage of unskilled idiots. And that shortage sure isn't in any danger of growing, considering that the bar to enter the workforce sure rises yet again with AI taking over more and more unskilled jobs. So I don't fear for the low level jobs that they may go unfilled.

What I fear is that high level, senior positions will be hard to fill. For two reasons: First, the aforementioned 80% replacement rate. But even with 100% replacement rate, if we replace our juniors with AI, where should they get the experience to become those hard to find and highly sought seniors?

How about this one?

You don't consider it serious that you're essentially indentured servants of corporations and that they can easily circumvent due process and force you into settling on their terms?

O... kay...

Yeah, there's a lot of lamenting, but face it, it's tantamount to complaining that the Beef Wellington isn't exactly medium on point where everyone around you is starving to death.

Compared to the problems you face, we're actually, I hate to say it, pretty well off.

Yep. Thus helping the blue states to maintain their dominance in technology work.