I’ve remarked often that the social machinery of the United States, our very identity as Americans, is dependent on carving industrial empires out of the wilderness with a firehose of immigrants from Europe. As soon as the frontier closed and the flow of people from … Continue readingOne Billion Americans, 19th Century Style?
In “Scratch One Tassel”, I shared the latest concept I have for Tassel, including an Egyptian boyfriend, the worldbuilding context of a pharonist Egypt overseeing a Coptic language revival, and all that good stuff. One aspect I became interested in is how this alternate Egypt … Continue readingFlowers in the Desert: Worldbuilding A Larger Israel
I’m a secular irreligious person who wants a big family, at least six kids or so. That makes me something of an anomaly…or does it? Might we be greatly underestimating the long-term demographic heft of secular “breeders”? Sure, highly religious people do have more children … Continue readingThe Secular Shall Inherit the Earth?
Recently, I was prompted to consider the issue of what kind of sexual, marital, and familial landscape we’re heading towards by comparisons on Twitter between the political effects of mass singleness, childlessness, and virginity in South Korea as a prelude to what will be the … Continue readingNo Solace for the Single?
“What?” you might ask: “Third Rome? Viking Tsars? Russian Turan?” I’m talking, of course, about what happens in the Russian sphere of influence in my alternate timeline, the history all of my science-fiction and space opera stories, from the 20th century to over a thousand … Continue readingThird Rome, Viking Tsars, Russian Turan, and Beyond
Leaving aside questions of interplanetary or interstellar demography, or demography in an alternate history, topics I’ve blogged about before, there are also interesting aspects to real-life demography. Demography may not be destiny but it does shape the future; what kind of demographic future is in … Continue readingStop Worrying and Love the Birth Dearth?