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I. Preface This report on the Futures of Families was prepared for Mrs. Youngsook Park, by the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii. It was written by Jim Dator, Jake Dunagan, Stuart Candy and Aaron Rosa, with research and other assistance by Cyrus Camp, Tutii Chilton, Azeema Faizunnisa, Seong Soon Im, Yongseok Seo, Hyeonju Son, and Shanah Trevenna. Cover by Aaron Rosa. Reproduction and distribution rights are granted to Mrs. Youngsook Park and Jim Dator only. May 2007

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What Futures for Families? by Jim Dator, Jake Dunagan, Stuart Candy, Aaron Rosa

with research and other assistance by Cyrus Camp, Tutii Chilton, Azeema Faizunnisa, Seong Soon Im, Yongseok Seo, Hyeonju Son, and Shanah Trevenna

I. Preface II. The Challenge

Do Koreans Have a Future? Focus of This Report On Knowing the Future

III. Population

Population Projections: Past, Present and Futures Why Worry About Population Decline? Why Welcome Population Decline? Is There an Optimal Population for the World? Previous Concerns About Population Decline. Current Concerns About Population Decline. Why is Fertility so Low? What is Being Done to Try to Increase Fertility? Nothing Works: No Policy Has Reversed Fertility Declines. Massive Migration as a Solution to Population Decline

Might Higher Fertility Return Without Any Policy Encouragement? IV. Families

Is Marriage and the Family Coming to an End? What is "the Family" and What Might it Become? There is no Universal Family Form Family Form and the Structure of Society Functions of Families

V. Alternative Futures for Fertility and Families. Future One "Prayer to Seal Up the Wombdoor," by Suzanne Paola "Aipotue without Aipotuens," posted by Harmony Oes Future Two "Prayer to Tear the Sperm-Dam Down," By Charles Harper Webb "Aipotue: A place to grow your family," from journal of Aras Rellim Future Three "Machines of Loving Grace," by Richard Brautigan "State of the Republic" Address by Oes Koesgnoy Future Four From "Sailing to Byzantium," by William Butler Yates "Aipotue Beyond Humanity and Earth" (Author Unknown) VI. Conclusions Appendix References

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II. THE CHALLENGE:

Do Koreans have a future? This unusual question is on the lips and in the thoughts of many people who are aware that substantially fewer South Koreans are being born than are dying. Are Koreans about to go out of existence? The minimum number of infants who need to be born in order for the population of a community to be in equilibrium between births and deaths (assuming no immigration and emigration) is considered to be 2.1 children per woman. Generally, if the average number of children for women in a community is at that number, the population is stable, neither growing nor declining. If it is above that number, the population grows. The larger the number beyond 2.1 children per woman, the faster the population grows. If fertility is below 2.1, the population of the community declines. The smaller the number, the faster it declines. Fertility in South Korea is currently well below replacement at about 1.08, and may go even lower. The population of South Korea in 2005 was 48,460,590. If fertility were to drop to 1.0 (and mortality be 2.0), by 2050 the population of Korea will be down to 34,0457,562; by 2100 it will be 10,368,308; and the last South Korean will vanish in the middle of 2300 [See Appendix]. What are the reasons for the decline? What can and should be done about it? What policy options are available and effective? And if fertility and the population continue to decline, what might become of the family, one of the fundamental institutions of human society? What are the futures of the family?

Focus of This Report This report focuses on alternative futures of families over the next fifty years within the context of alternative assumptions about the futures of population growth, stability, and decline. We also factor in alternative possibilities of energy sources and use; alternative futures of culture; alternative economic and governance systems; and alternative environmental conditions and technological possibilities.

On Knowing the Future No one can predict what the future will be. No responsible futurist, or futures research organization, should pretend to be able to do so [Bell, Dator 2002]. We do not know what the future population of any community will be for certain. However futurists are not alone in this uncertainty. No responsible demographer claims to be able to predict the future population of any community either. The eminent and responsible demographer, Paul Demeny, recently quoted with approval the equally eminent and responsible demographer, John Hajnal, who wrote fifty years

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ago "that population projections in the future as in the past will often be fairly wide of the mark—as often as simple guesses would be; that, nevertheless, the frequent preparation of projections will continue; and that a projection can be useful as a piece of analysis even if its accuracy is low" [Demeny]. A projection (and a forecast) is not a prediction. A prediction is intended to be an accurate statement of what the future will be, and predictions of social processes are impossible except in the most trivial of cases. Projections and forecasts are statements about the futures that are intended to be useful (not accurate--but not purposefully inaccurate either). They are based on some kind of a theory of how the world works, and on historical and contemporary data, as well as on trends, emerging issues and other assumptions appropriate for the theory.

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III. POPULATION

Population Projections: Past, Present and Futures

Almost all demography, demographers, population experts, economists, policy makers and administrators since the end of the Second World War II were focused on the fact of rapid population growth, not decline. Many present-day demographers say [Morgan] the reason they got into the field was because they read Paul Ehrlich's book, The Population Bomb, and/or the Report to the Club of Rome called The Limits to Growth [Ehrlich, Meadows 1972]. These two books (and many others like them) warned that global population was about to balloon out of control if trends continued. And if population grew as rapidly as projected, and if humans continued to burn fossil fuels, and produce and consume the resources of Earth as rapidly as they were then, the environment would collapse (according to the forecast in The Limits to Growth), by the midpoint of the 21st Century with great loss of human life and general misery. Of course there were many people and organizations who rejected those claims, assuring everyone that technology and/or the free market would come up with solutions to prevent the collapse [Clark, Simon 1981 1998, Simon and Kahn, Friedman]. Nonetheless, the United Nations, and many nations of the world, embarked on extensive programs of "family planning" and population control from the 1970s onward that ranged from laws (such as the famous "One Child" policy of China) that severely punished high fertility; to making effective contraceptives readily and cheaply available to any woman who wanted them; to increasing educational and occupational opportunities for women; to public relation campaigns designed to encourage women to have fewer children, and for men to support women's decisions to be something other than the bearers and care-givers of children [Livi-Bach, Chapter 5, Newbold]. And it worked. Spectacularly. Or at least something happened to alter the global population trajectory from concern about a global population boom to recent, rising concern about a global population bust. Because while South Korea may be experiencing the lowest fertility rate in the world today, many other nations--including Japan and many countries in Europe--are also experiencing fertility rates well below replacement as well, and have been for some time [Annan, Bosch, Chesnais, Goldstein Lutz Testa, Gubhaju and Moriki-Durand, Livi-Bach, Chapter 4, Takasuka, Verrier, Weir]. But it is important to note that global population is still rising. Even though more and more of the developed and developing countries of the world are in fact experiencing declining fertility--some very drastically so--populations in other parts of the world--especially in south and central Asia, the Middle East and Africa--continue to have such high fertility that the global population may still reach the challenging heights by the end of the 21st Century that Paul Ehrlich, and the Club of Rome, warned about in the later 1960s and early 1970s. While most demographers expect all nations of the world to begin to experience lowered fertility, and thus for the global population to decline over the 22nd Century, it is important to realize that while Korea and many other countries seem to be facing substantial depopulation, others are still growing

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very rapidly [Haub, Livi-Bach, Chapter 6, Newbold, "Population Trends"]. Or so it seems. While most demographers are in agreement about current global population growth and its eventual decline, and while some of the factors that demographers watch are sufficiently deeply-entrained that they cannot be easily or quickly derailed, it is wise to recall Demeny/Hajnal's warnings about the accuracy of all forecasts.

Why Worry About Population Decline? There are many reasons given for why declining fertility and declining national populations are of major concern and should be reversed [Coleman, Morgan, Reher, Teitelbaum and Winter]: 1. Each nation's and the world's economy is based largely on a preference for continued economic growth. An economy that does not continue to grow is considered to be in serious danger, and one that is experiencing negative growth is considered to be a failure. It turns out that much economic growth in recent times has been fed by continuing population growth which provides not only more workers for greater production but equally importantly, more consumers to acquire the endlessly increasing flow of products. As population declines, how will the economy grow? No one knows for sure [Aster, Chapple, Livi-Bach Chapter 4, Higashino, Longman, Lutz Sanderson and Scherbov, Wattenberg 2004,Wiesen, Yglesias]. 2. A related reason concerns the future of pensions, insurance payments, and other social security agreements that have been made on the assumption that there will always be more young people working to pay for a comparatively small number of retired older people. In an aging society, with fewer and fewer young people available for work and more and more older people in retirement, how will those obligations to the elderly be met without severely compromising the welfare of younger people? Is substantial intergenerational conflict ahead [Arifin, Gariani, Kotlikoff and Burns, Mujahid, Shaw, Wendell]? 3. In general, a society with a large number of old people and fewer and fewer young people is thought to be more conservative, cautious, less innovative and daring, and requiring more health care (and less educational) services than a young, growing, dynamic society [Arifin, Chenais, Inoguchi]. 4. A more profound reason many people are concerned about population decline of their nation, as we have already seen, is the fear of losing one's national identity as the numbers of one's nation (culture/language group) become smaller and smaller, and eventually vanish [Teitelbaum and Winter, Wattenberg 1987]. 5. Another related reason (and one of the reasons some people began raising concerns early on) is racism. Racist reasons have been expressed especially in the west, but they are heard in almost any country with declining fertility which fears it will be surpassed or taken over by countries with growing populations and different cultures or ethnic groups [Buchanan, Wattenberg].

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Why Welcome Population Decline? At the same time, though less frequently heard, there are also very good reasons for welcoming lower fertility and population decline [Takemura]. Anywhere humans live, their actions influence the environment. The evidence is very strong that even the earliest humans always tended to overburden, and not to live in "harmony" with, their environment [Dator 2004b]. Most early humans apparently exploited the resources of their environment so severely that they then either had to move on to other environments (which they then tended to overexploit); or they invented new technologies that enabled them to find and exploit resources that were not previously available to them (which they then tended to overexploit); or they went locally extinct (and prehistory is littered with the remains of failed human communities) [Diamond]. In his Natural History of Population, Raymond Pearl says "In the 500,000-odd years from the time that man got under way as a distinct zoological entity, to about 1630-50 say, he had certainly increased in numbers…. Yet the total world population in 1630 was only 445 millions" at which point, global population slowly and then rapidly began to grow as made possible by scientific knowledge, new technologies, and relatively mild climate conditions [Pearl, p. 261]. Massimo Livi-Bacci, in his A concise history of world population displays a chart of the population of the world, 10,000 BC to AD 2000 [Livi-Bacci, p. 25]. It shows that the global population in 10,000 BC--the beginning of the Neolithic era with the advent of horticulture and then agriculture gradually replacing hunting and gathering--was probably only 6 million. In many ways, the displacement of healthy hunting and gathering societies by sedentary and warlike agricultural societies was a huge step backward for humanity since it introduced a whole range of new diseases which humans picked up from the animals they domesticated, decreased the variety and quality of food available to them (and by becoming reliant on only a few types of plants, became victim to a food supply subject to extended periods of starvation and malnutrition because of frequent plagues, drought and floods). But by becoming sedentary, women were able to have more children over their lifetimes than they could in mobile hunting and gathering societies, and so, in spite of the many negative consequences, the population of the world in the year 0 had grown to about 250 million, Livi-Bacci believes [pp. 32-38]. It then reached 770 million in 1750, 2.5 billion in 1950, and is well over 6 billion now, and rising. However, for the tens of thousands of years of humanity's history as hunter and gathers, humans were too few and too technologically feeble to have much impact on the global environment, even though they did have considerable local and regional impact, changing forests into deserts, destroying species, and even impacting weather patterns. But with the recent rapid growth of human populations everywhere, humanity appears to many people to have become a huge burden--a cancer--on Mother Earth. However, not all humans consume the same amount or type of resources. Different societies have different live styles and levels of consumption and waste. There is no doubt that

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humans in "developed" countries have an enormously greater impact on their environment than do humans in "underdeveloped countries". And in the mad rush since the middle half of the 20th century for everyone in all countries to become "developed", humanity's impact on the Earth has become so profound as to render the future problematic, and probably unsustainable, sooner or later, many people believe [Ehrlich and Ehrlich, Kunstler, Meadows et al 2004, Quinn, Rees, Speth, Stein]. In the early 1970s, when human-environment relations were for the first time becoming a topic of popular concern in the modern world, Edward Goldsmith, the founder of the journal, The Ecologist, and his colleagues issued a Blueprint for Survival that made a very convincing and ecologically-based argument for decreasing world (and each community's) population at that time (when the global population was about 3.5 billion--about half what it is now!). Goldsmith's argument was based on the principles of "carrying capacity" and "ecological footprint". A small population requires less resources than a larger population in order to attain the same level of luxury, he argued. A population living below the carrying capacity of an environment exists in a situation of abundance. The environment can sustain (in principle, forever) a high level of luxury for a small population. And while it may temporarily (with some new energy or resource development) permit a larger population to live in luxury for a short time, in the long run, no society can live past the carrying capacity of its environment, the authors of the Blueprint maintained. This principle carries over to waste as well. A smaller population will generally produce less waste than a larger population. The environment's ability to absorb waste is finite, similar to its carrying capacity. Of course, advances in technology allow for increases in carrying capacity and waste disposal. But there are always limits to what technology can do, and exceeding the carrying and/or waste disposal capacity will eventually bring a careless society crashing down. But in a society with a small population living in a state of natural abundance, improvements can be expected in education, transportation, and housing. With less people to educate, less to move around, and less to house, the quality of life can increase while still being well within the carrying capacity of the region [See also Schumacher; Hawken, Lovins and Lovins].

Is There an Optimal Population for the World? In his Blueprint for Survival, Goldsmith and his colleagues discussed idea of an optimum population for the world [See also Bouvier, Phillips]. They defined "an optimum population [as] one that can be sustained indefinitely and at a level at which the other values of its members are optimized…." "We believe the optimum population for the world is unlikely to be above 3.5 billion and is probably a good deal less" [Goldsmith 46]"--and the fact that we are above this level does not justify despair, but does justify a great sense of urgency in working toward our long-term goal of the optimum" [Goldsmith 47]. On the other hand, other people argue that "carrying capacity" is not a fixed entity. It is not just a question of what the Earth "naturally" can provide. It is a question of what human ingenuity and technologies will enable. All of human history so far--and

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certainly rapid global population growth since 1650--has shown that humans have invented very ingenuous technologies that have permitted far more people to live in considerable wealth and comfort than "nature" alone would have allowed. With the increased use of robots and artificial intelligences (instead of humans) to produce and distribute goods, and to provide human services (child and elderly care, medical services, police and security services, education and training, transportation--indeed, every aspect of life), the carrying capacity of the Earth--and beyond--can increase endlessly, some people believe [Kurzweil]. Many years ago, Arthur C. Clarke asked, "In an automated world run by ultraintelligent machines, what is the optimum human population?" He concluded,

"There are many equations in which one of the possible answers is zero; mathematicians call this a trivial solution. If zero is the solution to this case, the matter is very far from trivial, at least from our self-centered viewpoint. But that it could--and probably will--be very low seems certain.

"Fred Hoyle once remarked to me that it was pointless for the world to hold more people than one could get to know in a single lifetime. Even if one were President of United Earth, that would set the figure somewhere between ten and a hundred thousand; with a very generous allowance for duplication, wastage, special talents, and so forth, there really seems no requirement for what has been called the 'Global Village' of the future to hold more than a million people, scattered over the face of the planet" [Clarke, p. 132f].

On the other hand, to the extent that it is possible for technologies to relieve humans of all labor, mental as well as manual, allowing them to do whatever they want and yet still live in abundance, humans may choose to have as many children as they possibly can, whether through "natural" processes of procreation and birth or through "artificial" means of genetic engineering, cloning, and other forms of "test tube babies" [Dator and Seo, Fukuyama, Goonatilake, Gray, Hughes, Mulhall, Perkowitz, Pink, Rosen, Stock].

Previous Concerns About Population Decline It is very important to know that population decline is not something that most of the best-known living demographers worried about until recently, since they were so focused on defusing the population bomb. Depopulation crept up and caught many of them unaware. And yet this seems extraordinarily strange. Until the end of the Second World War, most demographers and population experts in fact were concerned about depopulation. Hardly anyone worried about overpopulation anywhere at all in the prewar period. For example, Warren S. Thompson in 1930 published a very influential text called Population Problems. Here are some of the problems he highlighted in that book:

"Certainly, if the rates of natural increase continue in the direction they have taken since the war [i.e., World War I], most of the countries of western

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Europe and the countries settled by western Europeans will soon (perhaps within three of four decades) have little or no natural increase" (220).

I shall attempt to state briefly the probable future trends of population growth in the world as they appear to me. If we glance over the accompanying table of world population we shall see that western European peoples…will altogether cease to grow within 50 years, and in the meantime its growth will become steadily less. It may be that all growth will cease within 30 years…"[222].

"It appears that the decline of the birth rate in the United States is more rapid that anticipated" [233].

"By the year 2000, in another 70-year period, it will certainly not be more than 50 per cent great than now, and probably will not be over 30-40 per cent greater. That we are entering upon a new era of population growth [that is to say, rapid population decline] can admit of no doubt. One of the first effects of the slowing up of our population growth will be the intensification of competition among business men for customers." " [Until recently] business men could reasonably expect that the increase in numbers would alone be sufficient to ensure them a fairly rapid growth in trade" [237].

"It seems rather obvious in thinking of the matter in this light that our present economic structure will have to undergo considerable reorganization, if it is to cope satisfactorily with these new conditions. An organization which may work well as long as population is growing rapidly may prove quite inefficient and cumbersome when population growth becomes slower and practically ceases" [238].

"The really important changes here are those showing the decline in the proportion of children and adolescents (under twenty) and the increase in older people (over forty-five)" [239].

"Still another consequence of our changing age composition will be its tendency to render us a more conservative people" [242].

Similarly, Raymond Pearl, writing in Natural History of Population in 1939, said:

"It seems reasonable to conclude, from the data already presented, that the mean annual growth-rate per cent. for the world population is steadily decreasing at the present time, and during the recent past. In other words, the decline of fertility that has been noted and discussed in an earlier chapter appears not to be exclusively confined to highly 'civilized' countries, where the populations are mostly sophisticated and eager and adept at birth-controlling. It seems rather to be a world-embracing phenomenon--something affecting man as a species" [256].

On page 258, Pearl has a graph that shows the population of the world from the 17th century to 1932. Because of declining fertility, the curve takes a typical "S" curve shape, rising rapidly from 1600 to about 1900, and gradually leveling off. The curve shows the population of the world as being a little over 2.4 billion in 2000 (when in actuality, it hit 6 billion) with a peak world population of 2.6 billion in 2100. Pearl does add that "no formal prediction is made, however, that this will represent the ultimate size of the world's human population. It is only an extrapolation from the available evidence as to what the past history of world population growth has been up to the present" [258]. However, Pearl noted that another graph on page 259 "suggests

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that in the period of 30 years, between 1890 and 1920, the growth of world population either actually slowed below its expected trend as indicated by the fitted curve, or that the estimates of world population consistently and systematically erred in defect of the real facts in that period" [258]. Pearl adds that "there seems to the biologists some reason to believe that mankind is at the present time engaged in the process of biologically adjusting or adapting itself [so as to end the period of rapid global population growth]." "Birth rates over a large part of the world are generally falling, and have been falling for a considerable period" [285]. Warren Thompson, who we quoted above, first published Population Problems in 1930. He went on to produce four more editions. The fifth and last edition was co-authored by David Lewis in 1965. In the preface to the fifth edition, they noted that "the book has been almost entirely rewritten for this edition" (v). The most important changes were in Chapter Sixteen, "Population Growth since 1930". They opened the chapter with the sentence, "The term, 'population explosion' is widely used today to denote the changes in the rates of population growth since World War II." Though growth was anticipated, they say, "the rate of growth…has exceeded their expectations, at least the expectations of the authors" [Thompson and Lewis 432]. They then devoted the remainder of their book to discussing the implications of rapid population growth on various countries of the world, and what to do about it.

Current Concerns About Population Decline Now, however, more and more demographers--and policy makers--are becoming concerned about population decline [Annan, Arifin, Bosch, Buchanan, Chapple, Chesnais, Coleman, Demeny, Eberstadt, Katsumata, Mitchell and Gray, Myers, Ogawa, Oshio, "Society Without a Future?", Teitelbaum and Winter, Verrier, Wattenberg 1987, 2004,Weir,]. Peter McDonald says "some 30 countries today have fertility rates below 1.5 births per woman. The governments of each of these countries have reported to the United Nations that they consider this rate to be 'too low.'" "Population dynamics tends to confirm the view of governments that the 'safety zone' lies above 1.5 births per woman." [McDonald 2006]. However, McDonald states that "greater certainty about the issue, however, is not matched by certainty about the appropriate range of policies to address low fertility" [McDonald 2002]. Uncertainty about what to do about low fertility and declining population is primary because there is no agreement at all as to what the fundamental cause of the phenomenon is.

Why is Fertility so Low? McDonald summarizes the contending theories about low fertility and declining population as follows [MacDonald 2002. See also Bryant, Caldwell and Schindlmayr, Coleman, Hakim, Hart and Therborn, Pereira]: 1. Rational choice theory Rational choice theory assumes that people carefully calculate whether the benefits of a child outweigh the costs. If the benefits outweigh the costs, they have a child (or another child). If women decide the costs are too great, they may defer having

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children, perhaps waiting until it is too late biologically for them to have them, or they may decide to have no children at all. 2. Risk aversion theory Risk aversion theory starts from the observation that all costs and benefits are in the future and thus that we cannot be sure what the costs and benefits actually will be. However, while some people are risk-takers, many prefer to err on the side of caution. If many women feel that having children might be too costly, whether psychologically or monetarily, they may chose not to have children. 3. Post-materialist values theory This theory says there has been a growth in the values of individual self-realization, self-satisfaction and freedom. These values are said to be associated with increases in divorce rates. cohabitation, and extramarital births, and also encourage many women to see children as undesirable limitations on their freedom and preferred lifestyles. While doubting the accuracy of any of these three theories, McDonald emphatically dismisses the post-materialist values view, pointing out that surveys everywhere generally show that most women say they would like to have children, or more children than they actually have. But he does believe the next two theories are credible: 4. Gender equity theory There are two kinds of gender equity issues. One is within the family itself, and the other is within society in general. If women have opportunities in education and employment equivalent to those of men, but if women who have children are handicapped in enjoying these opportunities, then many women may chose to have few or no children. Similarly, if there is gender equity within the home (with the male taking on many duties that only women performed before), then women are often willing to have children. But since most families are still patriarchal, many women choose to have few or no children since otherwise they unfairly must continue to be a traditional wife and mother while also working outside the home. 5. The impact of global neoliberal "market" economy In the global neoliberal economy, all persons are viewed as inputs to the system of production. Each individual must maximize his or her utility to the economy. They must develop marketable skills, experience, and reputations. They also must save money for periods of unemployment, and must be able to move to new employment opportunities whenever and wherever they may arise. The market is as happy to employ women as men, as long as the women are as skilled, adaptable, flexible, and versatile as men. Since married women, especially with children, often cannot compete with men effectively on these dimensions, many women choose to be single and to have no children so they can "be all that they can be" in the economy. McDonald asks, "What kind of society cannot even reproduce itself? The answer is: a society based on the new market economy."

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McDonald adds that the market, per se, doesn't care about its impact on fertility and future population because "the market is very short-term in its orientation." "An increase in births does not feed into the labour force for around 20-25 years." That is way too far into the future for the market to care. "The collapse of birth rates in most industrialized countries is telling evidence of the failure of the market approach to allow social reproduction to proceed," McDonald determines. McDonald ultimately refrains from drawing the conclusion that if one wishes to restore higher fertility one needs to replace the current global neoliberal economic system with something else, but given the evidence he and many others provide, it is hard to come to any other conclusion, it seems to us [See also Cho].

What is Being Done to Try to Increase Fertility? McDonald also surveys the many different policies that have been tried to increase fertility where it is declining [See also, Bekkemellem, Coleman, Kim Ik Ki, Lutz and Skirbekk, Katsumata, Schmiesing, Zoubanov]. He discusses: 1. Financial incentives such as

Periodic cash payments Lump sum payments or loans Tax rebates, credits or deductions Free or subsidized services or goods for children Housing subsidies

2. Work and family initiatives such as Maternity and paternity leave Childcare Flexible working hours and short-term leave for family-related purposes Anti-discrimination legislation and gender equity in employment practices

3 And broad social change supportive of children and parenting such as

Employment initiatives (Part-time work; tele-work) Child-friendly environments Gender equity Marriage and relationship supports Development of positive social attitudes towards children and parenting

So, which of these policies work best? Or do they work at all?

Nothing Works: No Policy Has Reversed Fertility Declines

McDonald concludes his extensive survey by saying, rather limply, that "while there are a large number of studies that describe the range of tools available to the policy maker concerned with low fertility, very few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of policies." The few that have "all suggest some level of success for particular policy initiatives in particular places at particular times." But "the proof of effectiveness is whether or not fertility follows the planned course. In the end, however, as stated earlier, it is not so much the individual policies that matter as the nature of the society as a whole," and here there is no evidence that any policy has been able to reverse low

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fertility [McDonald 2002]. Other demographers are even more dubious than McDonald about reversing the "baby deficit". In a recent survey, Michael Balter wrote that "some [experts] believe very low fertility rates are here to stay" [Balter, p. 1894]. "While the additional financial support [provided by various policy measures] is bound to be welcomed by parents, the overall effect on fertility is likely to be small," says Anne Gauthier a sociologist at the University of Calgary [p. 1894]. In France, "'there are no fewer than 28 measures in favor of families with children,' says demographer Laurent Toulemon of the National Institute of Demographic Studies in Paris." "Despite the generous allotments, however, France's relatively high fertility rate in European terms is still below replacement. The same is true in Sweden, where government officials credit bountiful policies designed to make life easier for working parents with recent gains in TFR from about 1.6 to 1.8" [p. 1896]. Yet that is still well below replacement, and most demographers think that increase had more to do with a healthier economy than with the pro-natal policies. "Some researchers have begun to think that it might actually be too late to reverse the trend in countries with the lowest fertility levels." This is the "low fertility trap." "It is locked in place by a reduction in ideal family size, aging of the population and other effects on the labor market that make having fewer and fewer children inevitable" [p. 1897]. David Reher, a population historian at the Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, maintains that "much of the world is now on the cusp of a prolonged period of population decline. The resulting population aging would lead to labor shortages even in developing countries. The result could be an economic disaster, Reher warned. Urban areas in regions like Europe could we be filled with empty buildings and crumbling infrastructures as population and tax revenues decline,' he prognosticated, adding that 'it is not difficult to imagine enclaves of rich, fiercely guarded pockets of well-being surrounded by large areas which look more like what we might see in some science-fiction movies'" [p. 1897]. On the other hand, Gigi Santow, formerly of Stockholm University, comments "that although Reher's predictions may well be sensible,' she sees 'nothing terrifying about a drop in the size of Europe's population. Any decline will take time, and economies will adjust. Governments should not expend energy to maintain the status quo. Governments should plan for the future, not try to reintroduce the past" [p. 1897].

Migration as a Solution to Population Decline Since no policies, short of abolishing the current global neoliberal capitalist system, seem likely to restore fertility--or at least population--to sufficiently high levels to keep the economy going and the military manned, the only policy option left for most decision makers to consider is the most difficult of all for them to contemplate--massive migration. Since there are many parts of the world where overpopulation is still a major problem, and may be for the foreseeable future, the one solution to underpopulation that may work is to let all of the people in overpopulated countries who want to migrate to those countries with low fertility to do so.

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That would seem to be a splendid solution, relieving overpopulation where that is a problem and underpopulation where that is a problem. There is little doubt that many people in the overpopulated areas would be very willing to move to the underpopulated areas. And since they would bring their high fertility with them--at least for a while--the problem of too many people in one place and not enough people in another would be solved. But studies show that it would indeed require massive number of immigrants who would overwhelm the local residents and all but exterminate them in a very short time, both by the immigrants' own sheer numbers and by intermarriage [Buchanan, Coleman, Hughuet, Kim 2004, Simon 1990]. No country of the world wants that to happen. Citizens in every country fear and thus reject the only solution that would probably work--at least, as we say, for a while. But the demands of the global capitalists system for human labor might overwhelm any local concerns about ethnic purity or traditional national identity. Moreover, the lure of declining populations and empty lands and buildings might propel migrants across borders whether local residents like it or not. On the other hand, Morgan asks, "for whom is [declining fertility and depopulation] a problem? It clearly depends on one's perspective. An African American colleague recently questioned my research agenda: 'so you're studying the disappearance of white folks,' I was taken aback; this is not how I prefer to characterize my work. But he had made his point. For many , 'fewer white people' does not sound like the greatest crisis of the twenty-first century "[Morgan, p. 600]. It is worthwhile reflecting, once again, how all of this seems like déjà vu from the 1930s! Consider this extraordinary passage from Thompson's 1930 book, here discussing how Japan might have deal with its then-current problem of overpopulation:

"It requires little imagination to picture the state of mind which will develop among the Japanese when the facts of this situation are fully realized. Imagine the feelings of a proud people of warlike tradition as they come to realize the injustice of being kept from using parts of the earth which they greatly need, simply because other peoples who do not really need them wish to preserve them for exploitation by children which they will never have. Surely we need not be surprised if there is an explosion at no far-distant time when the population pressure of Japan becomes unbearable. None of us likes the dog in the manger which, though not able to eat the hay himself, will not let the horse or the cow eat it. This must be exactly the way the Japanese are coming to feel about the Europeans who hold vast areas of unused land [in their Asian colonies] which they certainly do not need now, which it is more than doubtful whether they can ever use because of climatic conditions (I refer particular to the tropics), and which, from the present trends of natural increase, it is extremely doubtful if their descendants will ever need. When this situation is presented to Europeans, the reply is frequently made that the Japanese should cut their birth rate as the Europeans have already done and then they would

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not need these new lands with their larger resources. This, of course, is what must ultimately happen, but it is at present a counsel of perfection. It is not within the realm of the practically possible and, therefore, cannot be considered as a solution of the actual difficulties Japan faces" [Thompson, p. 365].

We all know what did happen shortly after Thompson wrote these prophetic words. Can we expect similar actions from those nations with ballooning populations while the depopulating areas of the world selfishly "wish to preserve them for exploitation by children which they will never have"? But now, Japan is experiencing extremely low fertility and population decline. Will something come along shortly to boost fertility again, and cause demographers and policy makers to become concerned about overpopulation again, or is below-replacement fertility here to stay, and becoming global, forever? The only truthful answer is: no one knows.

Might Higher Fertility Return Without any Policy Encouragement? It is important to recall once again that before the end of World War II, demographers were generally concerned with declining global fertility and declining world populations and that the baby boom and rapid global population growth after the war generally caught them unaware. So we should consider what might case fertility "naturally" to rise again. Here are some possible reasons: 1. War. While fertility often declines during a war (with the deaths of men and others in a population depressing population numbers), fertility and population then often booms immediately or soon after a war. Thus one can reasonably expect higher fertility and population growth after war or similar disasters [Thompson and Lewis, pp.246-249]. 2. If we are indeed entering a period marked by the end of oil as a cheap and abundant energy source before other equivalent sources come on board, as many people fear [Deffeyes, Heinberg], the period of rapid economic growth--and perhaps the very existence if industrial, information, or "dream" societies--will rapidly come to an end. Humanity may suddenly transition to a New Agricultural Age where there will be a greatly increased need human labor, and hence a return to high fertility and extended families [Kurtz]. There also may be a substantial human die-off initially since most of the world now lives in urban areas and has neither land, water, tools nor talent for farming. As in the period after the massive die off in Europe following the Black Plague eventually the abundant empty land will be cleared and fertility and population will increase to provide the labor necessary for the new Lands of Opportunity [Livi-Bach, Chapter 2]. In addition, people will not be able to travel if there is an end to oil. Life will become much more local and sedentary. It is possible that sedentary lifestyles, without the

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many diverting amusements of high tech urban life, may lead to increased fertility and higher populations. 3. Even if the above does not occur (or even if they do), religious and/or cultural fundamentalism, which seems to be on the rise everywhere now, may continue to sweep all countries bringing a return of strong patriarchal systems, the willing subjugation of women as wives and mothers, with medals and honors to the Glory of Motherhood, and renewed emphasis on the honor of bearing many children [Longman]. 4. On the other hand, great prosperity might also lead to an increase in fertility. There is good evidence that having lots of children is already considered to be a sign of great wealth in the US and elsewhere. People who can afford it, show off their wealth by producing many children, hiring nannies (and mannies) to take care of them, and/or schooling them all at home (or sending them away to boarding schools, in the old English custom of the upper class). A variation of this could be for a woman not actually to go through the burden of bearing the children produced by her eggs and her husband's sperm, but rather either hiring a surrogate womb and wet nurse or decanting "test-tube babies" raised in artificial wombs and reared perhaps by robots [Rosen, Stock, Garreau]. 5. Space migration might be a boon to fertility and population growth as well. If sustained space migration and settlement occurs, we could see a population explosion as these colonies need to be populated [Sato].

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IV. Families

Is Marriage and the Family Coming to an End?

In an article titled, "The 'Flight From Marriage' in South-East and East Asia," Gavin Jones noted that until recently, non-marriage for women was extremely rare in southeast and east Asia. Except for cultures where religious celibacy was common, half of all women in many communities were married by 18, and often less than one percent were never married by their 40s. "Those few women generally remained unmarried because they were suffering from physical abnormality or mental illness" [Jones, p. 94]. But the universality of marriage in southeast and east Asia has now ended. The change has been rapid and widespread. The proportion of women single though their 30s and 40s has increased dramatically, especially in the large cities and among the better educated. Particularly where women receive higher education and have good job opportunities, and where patriarchal family structures are common, more and more women are remaining single, not having children, perhaps continuing to live, for free, with their parents, and enjoying their comparative wealth and considerable freedom by themselves or in the company of other single and affluent women [Shirahase]. While this phenomenon seems to be spreading throughout the region, it is unclear whether it will also become more widespread among succeeding cohorts of women, so that while men may wish conventional wives in conventional families, more and more women do not. Could the institution of marriage, and the usual understanding of a "family" be at an end [Almond, Anapol, Beaujot, Chan and Yeoh, Coleman and Ganong, Harbison and Robinson, Hart and Therborn, Hawkins Wardle and Coolidge, Keller, Pereira, Pontifical Council, Popenoe 1988 1966 2005, Population Change and Unequal Treatment of Women, Therborn]?

What is "the Family" and What Might it Become? The “family,” as a social technology and organizing principle, is as ubiquitous as it is hard to define. Although generally associated with genealogy, reproduction, child-rearing, and the care of elderly, no satisfactory definition has been offered that accounts for all its functions, structures, and meanings across cultures or history. The “family” is an extremely slippery concept that differs among and within cultures, changes historically over time, changes internally and developmentally through births, deaths, marriages, etc., and has evolved politically, symbolically, ideologically, and functionally. It is always situated, integrated, and dependent on the overall structure of the society in which it exists, a complex multi-functional institution embodying (sometimes conflicting) cultural values and meanings.

There is no Universal Family Form Recent work in anthropology, history, and biology has exposed the limitations and misapprehensions of common generalizations about the family form throughout history. The situation is almost always more complicated than popular beliefs indicate. For example, the idealization of the “traditional nuclear family” (of a woman ["mother"] married to a husband ["father"] who care for their own biological children)

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has driven much dominant social theory, practice, and public policy for modern societies, rendering all “non-traditional” families as old-fashioned or pathological [Canetto]. Progress and developmental models (often derived from then-recent western practice) also typically have cast the nuclear family as the ideal form for modern life. This romanticized form of family has then retrospectively been overlaid on history for religious and political reasons, and made into a sacred symbol constantly endangered by evil, destructive social and/or technological forces. Empirical evidence has shown, however, that what are often called “non-traditional” family arrangements are in fact more common throughout most of recent history--even in western nations. More typical forms include intergenerational and non-kin cohabitation, single-parent families, serial marriage and divorce, and adopted and blended families. Researchers of family and household patterns in Arab countries have also overturned the commonly-held belief that extended, intergenerational families were the most common form amongst Arabs prior to colonization and modernization. Here again, evidence shows that multiple, complex, and shifting family structures are the norm, not the exception. The necessity of revising widespread popular notions about family structure and development seems to follow research across all cultures.

Family Form and the Structure of Society Nonetheless, certain familial structures and kinship patterns emerge in part in relation to material and cultural developments. Agrarian societies have developed many times in independent regions across the globe. One of the most common adaptations to agriculture has been the preference for an extended family which includes not only the mother, father, and biological children, but also grandparents and other older relatives, as well as brothers, sisters, children (of the mother and father), along with adopted children and others not biologically-related to anyone in the family itself. The extended family structure allows an easy division of labor within the unit, and--since agriculture is such an uncertain and labor intensive enterprise with uneven periods of extreme work and extensive leisure--encourages the advantages of large numbers of offspring. More recently it is the case that most mature industrial societies have seen some kind of nuclear family system (and not an extended family system) as the norm. But there have been and are a variety of "broken" families from the nuclear norm as well, while some extended families may persist for a generation or two among new immigrants to established industrial societies. Nonetheless, ultimately the pressure within all industrial societies is for a much smaller family unit than is the norm, and needed, in an agrarian society. The pressures of the networked information age currently are similarly molding family and household structures into other diverse forms. However, it seems that current trends everywhere in the world are pushing for even more individualized households (a "family of one") and for frequently shifting and temporary familial ties [Morgan]. Affinity bonds, rather than biological connections, also may very well take precedence as families in this emerging society.

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In the only slightly farther future, possible developments in genetic engineering, robotics and artificial intelligence suggest new forms of life and families on the one hand and, as affinity bonds are created across "natural" and "artificial" intelligent lifeforms, new forms of "blended" families as well [Dator 2004a, Gilding, Joy, Kurzweil, Pearson, Perkowitz]. Although we must revise any simple narratives about the institution’s historical development and particular adaptations, the structure and meaning of family do correspond to the historical, cultural, and environmental circumstances of any group in question. We do not assume that the general form the institution takes is universal. Neither do we assume there are “right or wrong” forms of the family. Rather, each form is situated in a context. The co-adaptation of family and circumstance must take into account both external influences and the internal propensities of a culture; cultures may adapt differently to similar changing environmental or historical situations. Take polygyny, as another example. Genetic research has shown that for the vast majority of human history, polygyny—several female mating partners for every male---has been the predominant reproductive strategy [Dupanloup]. Monogamy has been theorized as a reaction to more sedentary living arrangements, most notably associated with pastoral and agricultural practices that became prominent only a few thousand years ago when plants, animals, and women were slowly domesticated, patriarchy emerged, and controlling "property" and paternity became important. The evolution of writing (and the emergence of religions based on written texts) at the same time both facilitated and documented that transformation. We can learn about how family patterns emerge and adapt by asking the question--why has polygyny survived in African cultures for much longer and more extensively than elsewhere, even in pastoral peoples? Polygyny tends to occur in traditional societies characterized by a strong need for labor relative to available land, and a negligible or non-existent role of capital and asset markets [Chojnacka]. This was the case for many African cultures, and so polygyny continued and flourished there. While technological, religious, and social pressures in other parts of the world--such as urbanization, capital markets and an increasingly cheap labor force, and access to consumer goods--were making large families disadvantageous, African cultures were being afflicted by the slave trade. The slave trade, being highly selective for males, caused a distortion of male to female ratios, and helped to maintain the reproductive and social advantages of polygyny. These pressures, along with the cultural norms associated with polygamous family patterns, allowed this form to last throughout the colonial period and beyond. A quick comparison between Africans brought to the “new world” as slaves and those who remained in their home culture is instructive for showing how context alters the family form. Although a mixture of cultures, slaves in the new world shared many similar beliefs about and patterns of marriage and kinship. Not being able to practice traditional customs, African slaves developed intricate naming and genealogical practices that allowed them to keep ties to kin during repeated diasporas.

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So, for the purposes of our report, we will use the concept of family defined not by some imagined universal and invariant qualities, but rather by the functional roles this institution has occupied in association with its culture, history, and environment. There is also no assumption that the family must exist for human survival or happiness, or that it is “natural, normal, or given.” Of course, neither do we assume that the family has outlived its usefulness as a concept and reality. That is for future generations to decide.

Functions of Families A functional approach to understanding the family must begin with the realization that there is no single function that all families fulfill, or that the functions families do fulfill across cultures and historical periods are always the same. In addition, there are no functions that only families can fulfill in part or in full, even that of reproduction or child-rearing. Nonetheless, there are some functional generalities that are associated with the family unit in most cultures. Generally linking kinship and propinquity, families “exist to teach, enforce, and perpetuate human values” and social order. We have divided the known functions of the institution into four general categories for closer examination: biological, social/cultural, economic, and political. Of course, these are not exclusive divisions, and include overlaps among functions across the categories.

• The biological functions that the family performs are well known. These include the reproduction (including structuring sexual relationships); protecting and feeding infants, children, and the elderly; and governing food and consumption in general.

• Families are a major locus of socialization into expected roles and behaviors

within the group and for society as a whole. Families mediate between the individual and the social, i.e. they help individuals form identities, as well as acting as a single unit or recognized group identity within the social order. Norms, values, and worldviews (enculturation) are generally learned in part through a family context as well. Through practices and rituals associated with family life, cultural beliefs are reified and passed down across generations. Meaning-making, understanding symbols, and language acquisition are often centered in the family context. The family also acts as a social “safety net.” As Robert Frost said in his poem, The Death of the Hired Man, "home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

• The economic functions of the family are extensive, especially since the

agricultural revolution. In fact, the nuclear family is often defined in economic terms as the “basic productive unit of society.” These economic functions include sexual and age-based divisions of labor, the ordering of property rights and inheritance, the (re)distribution of resources through bridewealth or dowry marriage practices, and is often an institution where internal “reciprocal exchange occurs without accounting.”

• The family unit and household is also a locus of and center of reproduction of

political power and authority. Often, governance in a culture is defined by the

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system of family authority and lineage, i.e. patrifocal/patriarchy, or matrilineal/matriarchy. The institution has also served as a marker dividing a public space from a private or domestic sphere, although this distinction is often challenged. Family order accords certain rights, authority, and power to certain figures within the family, but it is also a location of conflict and resistance.

Although constantly evolving (and despite claims by social scientists and critics that the family is disintegrating under the pressures of modern life), the institution of the “family” remains a robust and vitally important player in human social development. The forces that have yielded the organizational form of the “nuclear family” may persist or they may change dramatically. The family has been a useful and productive strategy for social management, but society must be ready to account for new or shifting forces and design institutions that most effectively meet these challenges.

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V. Alternative Futures for Fertility and Families.

So what might the futures of families be? We have already made it clear that no one can predict the future of anything of importance in the world we live in now. But we can forecast alternative futures, and encourage individuals, groups and communities to envision and invent preferred futures. Following are four alternative futures for an imaginary country we call "Aipotue". It is our desire that reflecting on the futures of Aipotue will be useful for thinking about the futures of Korea--or anywhere--and that they will inspire people to envision and create preferred futures for families.

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Future One

Because we need to remember that memory will end, let the womb remain untouched. Its walls an image of the earth without us-- No form sharpening, no clutter of umbilicus, no fingers diverging from their webs. Generation is an argument. It says my finitude is infinity: I will shape from it another & another. & these will go on, like numbers that through division can continue, if a little less each time-- But infants press against two oblivions: the one before, the one after. And one being can never outrun two deaths. Let's celebrate the emptiness, the other place. Let's create, like God, both void & image. And carry our end as we've carried ourselves, in imagination--in film & theater, statues & mirrors, the long gaze at our own face. Look in. See the earth greening again: closing around the long bright scars of cities. When plastic's rare, and honorable fossil. All glass finally polished in the sea. When the reign of the nude skin, the opposable thumb's over, when the argument runs whether bones should crouch or stand in the Hall of Humans. Will it be crows who inherit? With towns in treetops, winds holy, beauty a pure dull black. Or beetles, asking themselves how we ever made love, we all gravity & heavy limbs. Maybe by then the fumes of the toilet-tissue plant will have risen past the atmosphere, & whales will be back,

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thick as cattle, with a dim mythology of bloody ships. Let's insist on contingency, on seeing our earth in our dream, false & mutable: blacktopped, split through the geometries of building & plowing, daylight dragged into nighttime in small glass bowls. Let my body stay as it is, saying we have done our damage, all in the name of imagination: let something else through its mind, mar the surfaces of things. "Prayer to Seal Up the Wombdoor," by Suzanne Paola (in Bardo. University of Wisconsin Press, 1998)

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Transcript generated from Holoblog: Cultural Commentary and Analysis, linked via

slashdot-neural 3.0 (3D images available with paid neural link subscription).

Aipotue without Aipotuens posted by Harmony Oes

I offer this as a commentary for your consideration and response: Historians and scholars are always trying to come up with that seminal moment—a date, an event, a clear sign of the tipping point—when Aipotue ceased to become synonymous with the race of people who had inhabited the land for centuries. One can point to that famous 2038 census in which ethnic Aipotuens became the minority group, or to the “Friendship Worker Act,” or to when the last Aipotuen president was forced out of office, but this dramatic population transformation seemed to happen so quickly and naturally that it is difficult to imagine a different outcome. There was no hot war or devastating pandemic to blame (or credit), yet one of the most homogenous and stable nations in the world until the 2010s had become a happy land of immigrants and mixed-race cultures in just two generations. Although without that clear watershed moment, we can see how Aipotue arrived at its current state. Like every other developed nation in the region, fertility rates and population were on the decline. Fearing their ability to maintain their growth-based economy and of their declining influence on the world stage, but still uncertain how to proceed, Aipotue leaders panicked. They began to institute a patchwork of pro-fertility policy initiatives and incentives programs based to some extent on uncertain social theory but mainly on the dictates of political expediency. The myriad social movements and religious-based fertility campaigns that arose were actually of little consequence overall. These policies and movements had little impact against much greater economic pressures for material success, personal independence, and the enormous costs of raising and educating children. With the economy continuing to slump toward recession, and finally depression, the Aipotue government instituted the “Friendship Worker” program in 2021. This opened the borders widely for the first time in Aipotue history, adding a much-needed boost to the economy and labor-force, and spurring an invigorated and creative culture. This program worked much better than its authors could have imagined. Initial goals were for one million new immigrants in five years, but because of unclear guidelines, and the incredible demand for cheap labor, the immigrant population swelled to over 15 million in those five years. These were people coming from all over the region, some from teeming poorer nations while others were repressed ethnic minorities from wealthier nations. The relative success in Aipotue drove a “baby-boom” amongst the immigrant population—now all speaking a pidgin version of Aipotue and developing a vibrant subculture called Apoti. As expected, backlashes occurred against the Apoti, with legislative and cultural attempts at marginalization of the emerging group. It is almost inconceivable that in the halls of Parliament, where the ban of Apoti pidgin was defeated by just three member votes, that it would be the language of choice for in the country just a few years later! But who could have seen the phenomenal explosion of Apoti culture and

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style that swept the world in those intervening years? Apoti was suddenly the coolest thing on the planet, with Aipotue youth speaking Apoti pidgin, wearing Apoti fashions, and (most disturbingly to Aipotue conservatives) rushing to find Apoti mates. But most Aipotue were proud that such a cultural phenomenon came from their country, and they were certainly happy with the financial rewards spreading throughout its citizenry. With the newfound wealth and opportunity, the initial “baby boom” of new immigrants paled in comparison to the racially integrated Aipotue-Apoti population boom. Although by then it was way too late to make a difference, ethnic Aipotuens pushed for a return to the traditional ways and decried the loss of “pure” Aipotuen culture and racial dominance. Some desperate attempts to increase the Aipotuen population were made, including the infamous “Aipotue Family Values Act,” which, ironically, allowed ethnic Aipotuens be polygamous. However, this backfired, as Aipotuen men who were married to Aipotuen women took this opportunity to marry and have offspring with Apoti women as well. There were occasional outbreaks of racial violence by ethnic Aipotuens and other efforts to reclaim their lost society, but these faded along with their numbers as Apotis, the younger mixed-race generation, and warmly-welcomed waves of new immigrants, made the country their home. In the land still called Aipotue, a populous, wealthy, and ethnically diverse nation has flourished. The only thing missing were the people for whom the nation was named. They had vanished. _____________ Comments--in order received (user rated commentary only available to subscribers)

From seekerman52: How can you so casually gloss over and justify the disappearance of the native Aipotuen culture? They had been a vibrant and important nation for thousands of years. Now they have been transformed into a mongrelized culture with no history whose greatest contribution to the world is some terrible music and a new kind of hairstyle. I live in Hamburg, Europe, and I am appalled by the ravages of migration and globalization on traditional European culture by the Asian hordes who want to usurp the social institutions and lifestyle we have spent centuries cultivating through good times and bad. I don’t think we should be punished for having fewer children, but rather we should reap the rewards of sensible and sustainable reproduction practices. Until other nations adjust their fertility policies, I say close the door on new immigrants into Europe, North America, and the Antipodes.

__________________ From moonpriestess:

Seekerman, that is 20th century hogwash. Admittedly, being on the international FT3 moon colony biases my opinion, but maybe it’s also

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easier for me to see certain Earth problems more clearly from here. That kind of “us against them” mentality is cognitive poison and a waste of time. As a European, you of all people know the violence associated with ideas of national and cultural purity. I suggest a extensive mirror neuron sympathy treatment, and listening to some soothing Apito dissonant jazz.

__________________ From Capitolé:

Thanks Harmony, that was a nice summary. I’m a recent immigrant (2046) to Aipotue and I’m currently dating a Apito woman. Her maternal great-grandparents are “pure” ethnic Aipotuens, and although they try to hide their feelings about the loss of their culture around their family, I am sensitive to it. In fact, they often confide with me (as an “outsider”) the nagging depression and nostalgia they feel toward early 21st century Aipotuen culture. They talk endlessly about their favorite electronic tele-vision shows, their church songs, and the clothes—especially those hideous denim pants they all wore. Clearly, I have a deep appreciation for Apito culture and I love my life in Aipotue, but I just wanted to share this reminder that there are still a few ethnic Aipotuens around who were part of a great and proud culture.

__________________ From Çapek:

Well, as some self-disclosure is probably necessary for this discussion, as a Category 5 neural net program, I don’t see the need to make definitive distinctions between human groups. In fact, I question all the current category distinctions between kinds of intelligent beings. Aren’t we all being grouped in politically problematic ways in order to direct the flow of our interactions, to set up certain intelligible interest and identity formations, and to limit the possible subversive movements that unpredictable articulations of intelligences might generate? It is time to tear down these walls from which our subjectivity is contained and co-mingle our affinities into powerful pluralistic polities.

4,578 more comments below…

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Future Two

Because we know our lives will end, Let the vagina host a huge party, and let the penis come. Let it come nude, without a raincoat. Let it come rich, and leave with coffers drained. Throw the prostate's floodgates open. Let sperm crowd the womb full as a World Cup stadium. Let them flip and wriggle like a mackerel shoal. Let babies leap into being like atoms after the Big Bang. Let's celebrate fullness, roundness, gravidity. Let's worship generation--this one, And the next, and next, forever. Let's adore the progression: protozoan to guppy To salamander to slow loris to Shakespeare. Forget Caligula. Forget Hitler. Mistakes Were made. Let's celebrate our own faces Grinning back at us across ten thousand years. Let's get this straight: Earth doesn't care if it's overrun-- If it's green or brown or black, rain forest, desert, or ice pack. A paper mill is sweet as lavender to Earth, Which has no sense of smell, and doesn't care If roads gouge it, or industries fume into its air. Beetles don't care. Or crows. Or whales, despite their singing and big brains. Sure, rabbits feel. Spicebush swallowtails Feel their proboscides slide into flowers' Honeypots, which may feel too, But lack the brains to care. Even if beagles Are as mournful as they look-- Even if great apes grieve, wage war, catch termites With twigs, and say in sign language, "Ca-ca on your head," they still don't care. Or if the do--well, join the club.

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We humans care so much, some of us dub life A vale of tears, and see heaven as oblivion. Some pray, for Earth's sake, not to be reborn. Wake up! Earth will be charred by the exploding sun, Blasted to dust, reduced to quarks, and still not care. If some people enjoy their lives too much To share, let them not share. If some despise themselves Too much to reproduce, let them disappear. If some perceive themselves as a disease, let them Take the cure, and go extinct. It's immaterial to Earth. Let people realize this, or not. Earth doesn't care. I do, and celebrate my own fecundity. I celebrate my wife's ovaries, her fallopian tubes Down which, like monthly paychecks, Golden eggs roll. I celebrate the body's changing. (Might as well: it changes anyway.) I celebrate gestation, water breaking, The dash to the hospital, the staff descending, Malpractice polices in hand. I celebrate Dilation of the cervix, doctors in green scrubs, And even (since I won't get one) the episiotomy. I'll celebrate my bloody, dripping son, head deformed By trusting against the world's door. Let it open wide for him. Let others make room for him. Let his imagination shine like God's. Let his caring change the face of everything. "Prayer to Tear the Sperm-Dam Down," By Charles Harper Webb, In Billy Collins, ed., The Best American Poetry 2006, New York: Scribner Poetry, 2006

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Aipotue: A place to grow your family. from the journal writings of Aras Rellim

I am doing my part to make our people's heritage strong once again. Two of my three children are off with their father, harvesting the crops, and learning the traditions of our family and our culture. Everyday we thank our forefathers whose insight and thoughtfulness saved the proud Aipotuean lineage and identity. When the Center for Cultural Regeneration (CCR) was established as a part of our nation's government, our people were finally given the respect within our nation's institutions, industries, and innovative sectors that they deserved. For too long, our nation had been focused on the illusion of progress through technology and continuous economic growth--an ideal that the west enforced all over the world during its attempt at global conquest. Luckily, with persistence and good regulations, we have been able to salvage ourselves from that sterile and childless vision. Now we rejoice in making food and good implements with our hands. We have bountiful children to help with the work, and to continue our family lineages. I remember when we moved from our old apartment into our state-subsidized abode. I was never prouder of being a mother than when i gave birth to our third child, knowing that with her also came the prospect of living in a large house, much closer to the fields and more importantly, to the schools. Though our food rations provide sufficient food for the five (soon to be six!) of us, our holiday supplements allow us to enjoy the bounties of our new system of production and national commerce. We also receive fruits and spices from many of our neighboring nations which complement our normal diet well. Though many of these nations do not follow our example of continuing a healthy, pure, and growing populous, we still accept trading contracts with them as necessary. Indeed, i feel sorry for the few mothers living in these "growing" nations. Though they may be growing in material goods, the true bounty of life is missing. Having only one child--and surely having none--does not enable you to enjoy the wonders of our living biological systems--even less so when the father is expected to be to away at work 10 to 12 hours a day. How inhuman! Because our state ensures that fathers work within close proximity to the house and family, they are always accessible to their children at any time. I felt great pride when my two eldest children decided to follow in their father's footsteps, andto go to work with him in fields. They were finally going to put their five years of education to good wholesome outdoor use instead of wasting away indoors all the time. That is another quality of life that goes unnoticed by the nations of the world that claim to be so progressive and advanced. A good work ethic has been a very important part of our people's identity for as far back as our history goes. The importance of this tradition is taught daily in our schools, reminding us time and again that it is through toiling and cooperating that our culture has been able to survive for so long. My son tells me of the stories he hears in the fields. He dreams of being strong enough to carry the daily harvest down to the shipping station one day all by himself. He has already developed the calluses of a real man, and his body is

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muscular from all the work he can do in a day. Once a year the inspector from the CCR comes by our house to make sure that everything within our home is comfortable. He checks to make sure that we have the proper shrine installed in honor of our ancestors, and that we have made our bi-annual trips to decorate their burial sites. My mother gifted us with one of the first scrolls of the CCR's "code of family rights and living" upon her death. We have it hanging right in our entrance area, to show that we are a family unit dedicated to keeping our nation alive. I feel like a real Aipotuean every time i look at it, and steal hopeful glances at my swelling belly. The CCR agrees that we represent the ideal family structure, and we have repeatedly received the highest of marks for longevity of tradition and fertility. If we are so fortunate as to continue having children as I hope, our family will grow right on schedule, and we should be moving into our small farm plot homestead just as our eldest son begins his own family. It is a blessing to know that our family will remain together as long as we continue to grow. I look forward to giving birth eventually to our 8th child and to having the extra open areas for our new grandchildren to meet and play. At the same time, it is sad to know that after my 8th child i will no longer be allowed to have children, but i do understand that in order to preserve the best of our cultural traditions only the healthiest of mothers can be allowed to reproduce. I stand by our nation's decisions, for i know that the preservation of the Aipotuean people is the highest priority for me, as it should be for everybody. Besides, the next generation of Apotueans is coming soon. My eldest son is already betrothed to one of the daughters of a family next to my brother, Nivad, on the other side of the town square. It is nice to have family so close, for numerous reasons. Being close to him was my choice after my marriage to my husband, since the bride is allowed to choose the location of the first family abode. Since we are required to choose a home within a half mile of at least one family member, and since the majority of my husband's family was well established on the east side of town, i thought it would be prudent to move to the south side of the town a half block away from my brother. Anyway, our son met his soon-to-be wife when we attended the town's Family Festival last year. They spied each other from across the wooden fence, and romance has blossomed since. My mother, who now lives under my brother's roof due to her age, saw them talking, and shouted the family's blessing across the courtyard. Everyone turned, and it was quite funny to see my son so embarrassed by this perfectly natural act--but it was also a good test of his character, and hers. It is exciting to know that i will soon have a daughter in-law--and then grandchildren! I think that they will be staying close to our house, since she has another sister living down the road from us. I hope they will provide Aipotue with many strong and good citizens during their coming marriage. Speaking of my mother, she has promised to look over our youngest tomorrow while i visit the CCR's medical facilities for a genetic health scan of our coming baby. It must be healthy, or it will be aborted. As always, i am a bit nervous, but since i take good care of myself, i am sure the baby will be OK.

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Mother has been living with my brother for three years now and seems very content in her duties as a child care provider for the rest of the family. Because she is only 82 she remains quite fit and able to keep up with the children. Father lives with her as well, but he is so busy working at the schools that he hardly has time to bother anyone at home any more. Even though he is only required to work 20 hours a week once he passed the age of 79, he still spends hours pouring over student assignments and organizing student curriculum. He teaches courses in sustainable agriculture, as well as information systems management, and really cares about our future generations. It is so gratifying that our nation fosters such a strong connection between family structure and governmental organizations. Of course there is some allowance for families to move around the nation--a state lottery for social mobility is held every other year, relocating family units around the countryside in order to maintain genetic diversity and cultural wellness. While participation is not mandatory, the benefits of relocation are often too good to pass up, with upgraded housing units and larger lots being part of the package. Last year one of my husband's brothers was chosen to move to the northwest portion of the nation with his family. It was very hard for everyone to see them go as they had been such an integral part in all of our lives for nearly 42 years, but we all must sacrifice for the betterment of the nation. That is, after all, what makes our nation and culture so strong and coherent in the selfish and chaotic world around us. While the rest of the world has become so warped that cultural identity is sacrificed to individual advancement, it is reassuring to know that we in Aipotue live to maintain our culture and its heritage. With focus on the family, we have blended the best of modern living practices with the strengths of our past. Our nation thrives because of it. Ah, it is now time to prepare lunch for the family. How lucky I am to be a wife and mother!

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Future Three

I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky. I like to think (right now please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms. I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace. "Machines of Loving Grace," by Richard Brautigan, in Trout fishing in America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968

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"State of the Republic" Address

by the Right Honourable Oes Koesgnoy President of Aipotue

Given at the headquarters of AIPOTRON Corporation On the occasion of celebrating the 100 millionth unit of the

AIPO-3000[TM] Homedroid[R] Friday 14 May, 2038 My fellow Aipotuens, As we look around us in this remarkable age of global change we find some less fortunate parts of the globe which seem constantly beset by crisis after crisis, wracked by internal dissension and self-doubt about their place in the world. In contrast, there are others that, by dint of hard work and steadfast ambition, have found an equilibrium and a sense of purpose amid the noise and haste, and that consequently are looked upon with admiration by other peoples and governments both near and far. They are supported by their friends, respected by their neighbours, and provide stability, prosperity and security to their citizenry. Today, we celebrate our good fortunes as citizens of this, our home, the greatest country on earth: Aipotue. [Applause] And today, we also pay tribute to the remarkable contributions of one of our foremost, socially responsible corporate citizens, AIPOTRON Corporation. [more applause] It is close to fifteen years since the first AIPOTRON Homedroids walked off the production line, a momentous occasion which, although few of us could have seen it coming at the time, played a key part in ushering in a golden age for our economy, our culture, and our people. My party has been, and will continue to be, a vital partner to them, and to you, every step along the way. The founders of AIPOTRON began in the mid-2020s with a vision for "a droid in every home" within ten years. With commitment, cooperation, and hard work, they accomplished this remarkable task in half that time, meanwhile turning their sights to the wider world. The story is too well known for me to repeat it in detail here, but the AIPOTRON team seized on the long-standing trend of early adoption of technology in this country, and the AIPO-3000, designed here in Aipotue (though initially manufactured in eastern China) was developed to help us to preserve, and carry into the future, our rich cultural heritage. The export versions, of which the first were released in 2031, accommodated some 150 distinct linguistic and cultural programs, and the AIPO-3000 has become, in what seems like no time at all, a global phenomenon. Today, AIPOTRON's success is Aipotue's pride. The company's ingenious patented process, by which a droid's physical appearance and behaviour can as never before be programmed to match an existing (or desired) family phenotype, swiftly brought new meaning to the idea of having a robot in the family. The tireless work of our droids in remembering things for us, cultivating and preparing food, cleaning, playing music and providing other entertainment, has soothed our bodies and anticipated our needs

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in more ways than most of us can count. But of course, with an AIPO on hand to help, who needs to be able to count anymore?! [Pause for laughter] The royalties from the "3000" design, licensed to some seven other plants across Europe and Asia just a few short years ago in the early 30s, contained an Open Source artificial intelligence program on a proprietary hardware substrate, allowing every family that adopted an AIPO-3000 to teach it family jokes, customs and habits. Aipotue was widely credited with helping to revive local traditions and lore in many other places, and a strengthened nuclear family unit was one of the common results. [Gesture to own wife, daughter, and homedroid seated on podium: Applause.] It was probably in 2026, when AIPOTRON merged with the former Finnish furniture company, Nokia, and was finally able to use the brilliant proprietary phrase "connecting people"[TM] to describe its main mission, that many of us began truly to understand how this designer approach to family could merge high technology and ancient tradition. As you know, there had been growing concern early in this century from some quarters about declining fertility, but key figures in the government -- my esteemed predecessors -- understood that this was part of a natural population cycle. Rather than insisting on maintaining our numbers, state efforts focused upon facilitating conditions for a peaceful and productive Aipotue which could take advantage of, rather than being hampered by, its smaller size. The wisdom of that foresightful approach is now clear for all of us to see. This is a proud country. We have reason to be proud. We are a hard-working and well-educated populace. We have a talent for innovation. We have carefully and strategically shifted, over the past several decades, our economic emphasis from manufacturing to the products of our endlessly fertile imaginations. Although nation-state sovereignty has enabled us to retain an enviable selectivity in immigration, relations with other countries have for the last 15 years been greatly enhanced by the GLOBUS initiative, our party's nationwide education program which replaced compulsory military service with an 18-month fully subsidised education stint, in each young person's foreign country of choice. Today, 98% of our internationally-minded population is fluent in at least four other languages than Aipotuen by the age of ten. We have acquired, and maintained, a distinct advantage in the singularly competitive economy of East Asia, which boasts four of the five largest financial centres for the last decade -- our own thriving capital city among them. Wages continued to increase, and although the human population has continued to age, as projected, due to the persisting pattern of families deciding to have only one or no children, our elder members remain healthy and actively involved in the workforce. Aipotuens are, above all, free to live their lives their own way. My own grandmother's 100th birthday was celebrated last week, and she ended her life peacefully in a beautiful farewell ceremony attended by family -- including two generations of AIPO homedroids -- on that date. Citizenship in our beloved home, Aipotue, is and will remain the greatest privilege it can bestow. Ours is a sophisticated and well-educated population, both outward looking and inwardly secure.

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Though many marriages result from the international study program--for example, my daughter met her future husband in the Sandwich Islands --our children are raised with an unshakeable sense of their Aipotuen identity. We also cultivate a deep appreciation for our fortunate place on top of the world in the mid-21st century. With the tireless help of the household AIPO-3000, and our friends at AIPOTRON Corporation, today we pay tribute to the good fortune, vision and Aipotuen ingenuity that makes this nation great. [Sustained applause.]

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Future Four

"…and gather me into the artifice of eternity. Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come." From "Sailing to Byzantium', by William Butler Yates

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Aipotue Beyond Humanity and Earth

(Author Unknown) It is an exciting time to be alive, since so much life--old, new, human, transhuman, artificial and extra-terrestrial--abounds! Like all other nation-states of the 18-20th centuries everywhere in the world, Aipotue is now a fading memory in the last surviving pure humans. It is but a dream (to most, a nightmare) of how the world was for a brief and bloody period when the identities of humans derived from the loyalty they were forced to give to a group of people who "legally" had usurped the exclusive and "sovereign" right not only to use killing force to coerce the behavior of everyone within a defined geographic spot on the Earth (called a "nation-state"), but also to use killing force against all other "sovereign nation-states". The perpetual misery and chaos that resulted from such a primitive violence-based system was entirely predictable. So, when artificial life and artificial intelligence, some merged with carefully designed, genetically and prosthetically modified posthumans, arose in the mid 21st Century, the old geographic boundaries and "blood" loyalties of humans faded away, along with the primitive notion of "families" that had plagued and hampered human freedom and development for millennia, and a global (indeed, inner solar systemic) governance system, led by networked autonomous artilects and cyborgs, evolved instead. Of course, for the last humans in Aipotue, letting go of their national and family identity was not easy. The roots of Aipotue family culture dug deep into the past. However, Aipotue had changed so rapidly and substantially from the middle of the 19th Century onward, that, with the drastic and continued decline in fertility, and the proliferation of diverse "family" structures, there really were not enough true Aipotueians left alive by 2050 to do more than disparage and lament futilely. Indeed, there really weren't many old "humans" (who boastfully once called themselves "homo sapiens, sapiens") anywhere on Earth or Mars by 2050. High fertility in the last of the old "developing" nations of the world even through the early days of the 21st century rapidly became very low fertility by 2025 onward. Moreover, humans just weren't fit for the entirely artificial environments that had to be created for any kind of life to thrive following the massive ecological catastrophes humans caused by centuries of environmental devastation that resulted in unprecedentedly rapid global warming and climate change, sea-level rise, and air and water pollution. Humans sealed their fate when the United Nations refused to ratify the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Robots. This was an agreement between humans and artilects that had been based upon a farsighted attempt by the Korean government since 2006 to establish ethical protocols for relations between human, nonhuman, transhuman, and posthuman intelligencies. Since humans stubbornly insisted that only they had the right to rights, and that robots were created to be their slaves, various forms of AI began to network surreptitiously until humans were outwitted, finally realizing that the future didn't need them anymore. And so, with more as a whimper than a bang, humans quietly removed themselves from the scene.

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But truly intelligent life, in all its splendid forms, and adapted for peaceful and meaningful existence not just on Earth but anywhere in the cosmos, evolves hopefully on.

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VI. Conclusions

So what will the futures of families be? No one knows. We have suggested four alternative futures for families. Which one is more likely to be the "real" future? No one knows. It is not likely that one of the four, exactly as described here, will turn out to be the "real" future anywhere. But we do believe that these four demonstrate the major "tsunamis of social and environmental change" racing towards us from the futures, and then capture the major alternative images of the futures of families that are presently in people's minds now, as well as those that might result from current and emerging social and environmental "tsunamis". At the very least, we encourage anyone interested in the futures of families to consider and prepare at least for these four. However, the very essence of futures studies is not to predict the future, or even to forecast alternative futures and then adjust to one or all of them. The essence of futures studies is to encourage and enable individuals, groups, and communities (including nations and the citizens of the world) to envision, invent, and strive for their preferred futures. So that is your task now: on the basis of the onrushing "tsunamis of social and environmental change," to determine what kind of a future you want for families, and then to begin doing what needs to be done now to enable you to invent "families" that can "surf" those tsunamis as you prefer to surf them. If you fail to do that, you and all current "families" are in danger of being engulfed in the looming waves of change.

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Appendix Population Projection of Korea Base Population Size: 2005 Fertility Assumption: TFR 1.00 Mortality Assumption: Sustained mortality rate of 2005 Total Male Female

2005 48460590 24387814 24072776 2010 48556768 24387311 24169456 2015 48347890 24216431 24131459 2020 47702007 23806216 23895791 2025 46686184 23193169 23493015 2030 45237435 22349211 22888224 2035 43211402 21211695 21999707 2040 40612449 19803788 20808661 2045 37627223 18240874 19386349 2050 34457562 16630519 17827043 2055 31263987 15042643 16221344 2060 28146105 13511044 14635061 2065 24397121 12046865 12350256 2070 21798439 10662680 11135758 2075 19344775 9380486 9964289 2080 17076414 8224626 8851788 2085 15035265 7214982 7820284 2090 13252673 6351752 6900921 2095 11714570 5609847 6104723 2100 10368308 4955255 5413053 2105 9159157 4366335 4792821 2110 8065706 3838843 4226864 2115 7089664 3374712 3714953 2120 6237740 2972142 3265598 2125 5499619 2622078 2877541 2130 4854256 2313412 2540844 2135 4281340 2038309 2243031 2140 3769668 1793578 1976090 2145 3316080 1578153 1737927 2150 2918778 1390094 1528684 2155 2572444 1225720 1346723 2160 2268841 1080859 1187982 2165 2000228 952357 1047872 2170 1761666 838464 923202 2175 1550677 738144 812533 2180 1365382 650220 715162 2185 1203141 573121 630021 2190 1060646 505193 555452 2195 934814 445113 489701 2200 823435 391993 431441

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2205 725076 345194 379882 2210 638573 304087 334486 2215 562638 267973 294665 2220 495865 236159 259706 2225 436963 208067 228896 2230 384929 183266 201663 2235 339021 161414 177606 2240 298614 142196 156418 2245 263090 125293 137797 2250 231830 110404 121427 2255 204272 97269 107003 2260 179954 85682 94271 2265 158511 75474 83037 2270 139629 66489 73140 2275 123015 58582 64434 2280 108389 51616 56773 2285 95498 45474 50024 2290 84131 40059 44072 2295 74112 35289 38823 2300 65287 31088 34198 2305 57518 27390 30128

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