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The year is 2100. The US, China, even Brazil- all, faced with declining populations, they drain their hinterlands- not exactly demographically healthy themselves in lots of cases- for workers to maintain their economies. Vast swaths of Latin America are empty; the world's largest hippo population is now in lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, having expanded from their range in Columbia since the human population left the place empty, having walked to the US or Mexico or Brazil for better economic opportunity cleaning bedpans and pouring concrete and sewing jeans. Venezuela itself has not a single soul under fifty; they export all of them to be hired by Exxon and Pemex and then expat in their home country extracting oil. In China, Tajik and Kazakh workers earn a good wage in the factories, they fly back to their home countries on the holidays to build better hovels they'll retire in. The taliban still holds on in Afghanistan, having deported their entire Hazara population to Iran, desperate for young shiites to prop up the country.
India can no longer fill its sweatshops; Pakistan has attained conventional military superiority due to having more young people and retaken Kashmir. US backing is sufficient to keep Pakistan from expanding further south. In the middle east, Israel regularly conquers territory from its neighbors with declining population, and partners with Ethiopia to occupy Yemen and keep Egypt occupied. Further south in Africa, the megastates launch grinding trench warfare over resources they can trade for Russian or American or Canadian or Argentine grain. A small handful of western mercenaries can turn the tide for million man armies; the Afrikaner breakaway state in South Africa secured international recognition by acting as backer in several cases.
Senator Armstrong's babble makes more sense every day. Sad pepe.
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Future world contains Outer Heaven?
wtf, I love low TFR now?!
I admit to having enjoyed coming up with this.
Maybe 'oddball future history' will be a feature I start on in the friday fun thread.
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