Dealing with Inevitable Change

Posted on Tuesday 5 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • How to deal with long-term population decline;
  • Astrology, sigh;
  • A Christian phone network to block reality;
  • Long essay about how Paul, not Jesus, founded Christianity, as many of us already understand;
  • Short items about Republican censorship, lies, the tests for dementia, religious freedom, Trump’s ambitions, and suppressing data.
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Get a grip. Things aren’t about to turn around any time soon.

Vox, Elliot Haspel, today: Falling birth rates don’t have to be a crisis, subtitled “Here’s how America can age gracefully.”

Let’s face it: Another baby boom isn’t coming anytime soon.

The latest round of US birth data, released earlier this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show the general fertility rate has dropped to a new record low of 53.1 per 1,000 females between 15 and 44 — a 23 percent decrease since the most recent peak in 2007.

A main concern is that soon there won’t be enough young people to support the aging population. And there’s the religious motivation to expand the tribe at all costs, never mind the consequences to the health of the planet and thus the long-term survival of the human race.

No low-birth country in the world, from the most repressive misogynistic regimes to the most progressive governments offering generous leave and free childcare, has been able to put their society on a path back to “replacement level” fertility. Establishing the enabling conditions so people can form the families they desire is a worthy goal deserving attention, but the hour grows late and it’s time to start talking seriously about how to adapt for an aging, low-birth society.

We can’t get any younger as a society but we can try to get wiser with age. With a little foresight, it is possible to prepare for a nation — and a world — with fewer children that’s both functional and pleasant to live in.

Imagine identifying a problem and trying to solve it! A long-term problem! Beyond the bounds of current politics!

The article goes on with three themes. First, considering how much older we’re going to get. Second, how to age gracefully. Third, how to rethink how we care for each other. This last may include rethinking how society works, and perhaps overcoming the conservative focus on nuclear and extended families. (Remember their condemnation of the claim that “It takes a village to raise a child,” as was actually true for hundreds of thousands of years.)

Cultural adaptation will be needed alongside physical adaptation. Currently, Americans rely heavily on relatives to help with both childcare and eldercare. As kin networks shrink — the decline in births mean not only fewer kids and grandkids, but fewer aunts, uncles, and cousins — there will be fewer available to help. This will be especially difficult for those in the “sandwich generation,” who are taking care of children and aging parents simultaneously.

Solving this means going against the grain of our increasingly isolated and atomized society and reviving a sense of community beyond our immediate families. Americans would do well to rediscover “alloparenting,” the idea that people other than parents can be actively involved in the raising of children.

Ending,

The days of large families may not be coming back, but steps to adapt to a low-birth, high-age era not only could have broadly positive effects, they might, ironically, help stanch the birth rate decline. A society that is hospitable to parents and children, helps individuals pursue meaning-filled lives, and emphasizes ties of interdependence and care for an aging population may well be one in which more people want to grow their families.

(This piece doesn’t explore *why* people are having smaller families, but this is well-understood as a mark of progress, i.e. the reduction of infant mortality.)

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Not sure why this article is needed just now. The smart people figure this out by the age of 12 or so; yet astrology still appeals to people who think magically or just prefer reality to be simplified to just a few possible options.

  • Slate, Carlos Orsi, today: The Problem With Astrology, subtitled “Most people know it’s bogus. But dabbling in it anyway isn’t as harmless as it may seem.”
  • The subject study here is about a famous astrologer who, after her daughter was found dead, was certain for astrological reasons that the daughter was still alive, and spent a fortune searching for her, until the end of her, the mother’s, life.
  • But for the record, the writer’s summary of the case against.

Science clearly shows that astrology is bogus. The evidence goes from the astrophysical (the stars and planets are too far away, the constellations aren’t where the astrologers’ charts say, and there is no force in nature capable of transmitting the kind of effect astrology requires) to the statistical: For instance, if astrological tenets were true, we should, when studying large groups of people or whole populations, observe an excess of marriages between couples of “compatible” astrological configurations and of divorces among “incompatible” ones. But it just doesn’t happen. Additionally, hundreds of studies, as I found when researching my book, What Science Says About Astrology, have shown that astrologers are unable to predict events or personality traits any better than random people making educated guesses, or above mere chance levels.

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In order to maintain the myth, you have to block reality. (File with: Get ’em while they’re young; home schooling; religious schools.)

Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, today: A Christian phone network aims to purify the internet by blocking reality, subtitled “Radiant Mobile’s “Jesus-centric” network doesn’t just ban adult content. It risks censoring news, education, and basic facts.”

I don’t think I need to quote.

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Long essay about what even the most casual observers of Christianity have long realized: Christianity wasn’t founded by Jesus. It was founded by the zealous, intolerant Paul. Without whom…

The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik, 13 April 2026: St. Paul Remade Human History. How Did He Do It?, subtitled “New scholarship reconsiders the apostle who turned a Jewish sect into a world religion—and whose legacy remains contested two millennia later.”

Again I’m not going to quote. Outsiders see this as another example of the contingencies and chances and coincidences that led to Christianity becoming a dominant religion.

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Briefly noted.

  • Salon, Sophia Tesfaye, today: Trump angers right-wing fans with censorship campaign, subtitled “As some members of MAGA media begin pushing back against Trump, there may be a limit to his campaign of retribution”
  • “For years, the MAGA faithful raged against the left’s supposed creeping culture of cancellation. Now, the machinery of the federal government — using agencies like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) — is being loosed on the president’s enemies with a thoroughness and a vindictiveness that has begun to unsettle even his most loyal media allies.”
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