(Part 2) Best demography books according to redditors

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We found 109 Reddit comments discussing the best demography books. We ranked the 33 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.

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Top Reddit comments about Demography Studies:

u/blubox28 · 8 pointsr/changemyview

Your position is trivially true on a long enough time scale. As long as the Earth remains a basically closed source of resources and we remain exclusively on Earth, any waste means eventual depletion of resources. However, on human scales this is not necessarily true.

In general Malthusian Catastrophe scenarios fail to adequately take into account human ingenuity. The greater the population the greater the number of people who can contribute to the solution.

Take a look at the first and second Simon-Ehrlich wagers. Paul Ehrlich famously wrote The Population Bomb and believed that the growing population was going to quickly result in all kinds of resource scarcity. Julian Simon, on the other hand, believed that the greater available man power and innovation would counteract that scarcity for the foreseeable future. Simon won the first bet and declined the second on the grounds that the proposed measures were too specific and limiting. For instance, the scarcity of rice might not matter much if rice eating countries switch to flour.

And Simon appears to have been correct. While Ehrlich's specific predictions in the second wager mostly were correct, looking at most of them with a broader viewpoint shows that they measure something that in general has improved in the world, rather than gotten worse, except those related directly to global warming. For example, while per capita cropland and soil have decreased, yields have increased so per capita available calories has increased. Ocean harvests have decreased, but fish farming as increased so that per capita available fish has increased. Per capita firewood has decreased, but per capita energy availability has increased.

The greatest limiting factor to all of this is global warming. Global warming has the capacity to disrupt this trend as the changes are more catastrophic in the mathematical sense. That is why there is an emphasis on renewable energy and the need to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

For a longer discussion of this issue, I encourage you to listen to the Economics Detective podcast, specifically the episode dealing with the wagers: The Second Ehrlich-Simon Wager with Joanna Szurmak

u/allittakes222 · 8 pointsr/nottheonion

The reason it's always Texas has more to do with your size than your politics. Well, it's partly your politics. However, the liberals do the same thing with California. California and Texas are the largest buyers of text books in the country. No text book company wants to produce a Texas version, California version and Rest of America version.

So California and Texas set their requirements very stringently in order to buy text books because they know what they put in their textbooks will be the guide for the rest of the nation. They also allocate much more funding to make sure they're loyal customers in return for getting their ideology in text books.

The thing is, California is joke when it comes to managing money. Their liberal state government just wastes and wastes money. Texas is more organized and sees much more success because they're dedicated.

That's really the lynch pin of GOP success. They're much more organized because they have only one ideology. They cater to wealthy whites. To a certain extent it's wealthy white males.

The liberals get all the overflow. A white gay couple will have a much different agenda than a black heterosexual woman. Although, some gays are starting to vote for the GOP. This is both due to the fact that parts of the Republican party (mostly young) are accepting of marriage equality and partly because there are many gay couples now in their thirties and forties without children who have an interest in maintaining the status quo.

If you're homosexual and already got the right to marry why wouldn't you start voting for the GOP? You're less likely to have children. You both likely work. Why would you want higher taxes? Why would you want to care about abortion? Granted, it's far from a pronounced trend. However, the GOP is winning over hispanics and homosexuals a lot faster than they're winning over blacks or women. The Hispanic thing is mostly because many of them come from strong Christian backgrounds. So they agree with the GOP when they say Christianity should be part of American life.

This stuff is really interesting. At least to me, but not so much at cocktail parties.

Further reading:

America's New Swing Region: Changing Politics and Demographics in the Mountain West


http://www.amazon.com/Americas-New-Swing-Region-Demographics/dp/0815722869

Red, Blue, and Purple America: The Future of Election Demographics

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Blue-Purple-America-Demographics/dp/0815783159/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=115CNAB7JTFY76W1ZE9Y

u/mjacobl · 7 pointsr/Professors

If you are teaching focused and a majority will be young students this is a good read: https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Goes-College-Corey-Seemiller/dp/1119143454

u/buk_lau_tzu · 5 pointsr/exmuslim

If you want some lighter reading, you should read the one linked below. It has a really dumb title, but it's one of the more interesting books I've read recently about race relations in Europe. I have hard copies of Easy meat, Fistfights (linked below), Tommy Robsinson's autobiography, and a book about Islamic beliefs called 'Nothing to do with Islam?: Investigating the West's Most Dangerous Blind Spot', and I loan them out to some of my liberal minded friends. I had my girlfriend read Easy Meat, Fistfights, Nothing to do with Islam, and by the time she got into Tommy Robinson's autobiography she just said "I get it now." Reading this kind of stuff is the only way to break the conditioning. Tommy Robinson's book isn't even well written, but it ties everything together. When you've read the full report on grooming in Britain, and then you read a book by a guy that basically says "one of my family members was tangled up with a grooming gang, and I've been victimized relentlessly by street violence committed by Muslim youths, and I've given up everything to devote my life to speaking out against Islam", and it's hard not to come to the conclusion that maybe guys like him are not the nutcases the media makes him out to be, and maybe guys like him are a rational outcome to the problems modern day Britain.

https://www.amazon.com/Fistfights-Muslims-Europe-Journey-Modernity/dp/0998267600/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486092561&sr=1-1&keywords=fistfights+with+muslims

u/1point618 · 3 pointsr/printSF

Currently reading, and would like to finish:

  1. Interaction Ritual Chains by Randal Collins

    Started in 2014, put down, would like to finish in 2015:

  2. Aztecs by Inga Clendinnen

  3. The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger

    Would like to re-read in 2015:

  4. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

  5. White Noise by Don DeLillo

  6. Anathem by Neal Stephenson

    Would like to read in 2015:

  7. The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro

  8. A couple of books for /r/SF_Book_Club

  9. Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts, back-to-back

  10. At least one or two books on Buddhist philosophy / practice

  11. At least one or two books on philosophy, either philo of mind or more cultural studies / anthro / sociology type stuff.
u/QuantumCatBox · 3 pointsr/politics

Tennessee is currently one of nine states with strict photo ID requirements where a citizen cannot cast a ballot that will count without a specific kind of government issued photo ID. As many of the comments on here demonstrate, these strict photo ID laws are needed to prevent in person voter fraud. Of all the experimental, statistical, and qualitative studies examined in the 200 page September 2014 GAO report, a qualitative study from 2010 found 48 individuals charged with violating federal election laws from 1996-2005 (p. 67). But, that does not really matter. A thousand studies could be released confirming the results and it wouldn't make a difference because the claim being made simply cannot be falsified. The response will always be "well yeah, it's fraud, you are not going to catch it...so we have to work to reduce it...even though it will always be a threat because it can never be measured." It's essentially a claim that can never be defeated as the framing of the issue means you cannot disprove it, and it's hypothetical existence always justifies greater restrictions to prevent it. It really is an ingenious way to gain support for a policy, especially when you throw in the "fear of illegal aliens" - a fear that has rallied support around all kinds of repressive legislation.

So, What kind of company are the people supporting these restrictive voting laws in? Since the fraud issue cannot be disproven given that fraud can never be detected, lets see where the supporters of voter ID laws fall in an historical context.

The nine states with the most restrictive laws are Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, N. Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Do any of these states have a history with enacting restrictive voting laws? Between the dates of 1890-1918 the following states had in place the following restrictions:

  • Alabama [poll tax, grandfather clause, old soldier clause, literacy test]
  • Arkansas [poll tax (declared invalid in 1905...new one approved in 1907)]
  • Mississippi [poll tax, literacy test]
  • N. Carolina [poll tax, grandfather clause, literacy text]
  • Tennessee [poll tax]
  • Texas [poll tax]

    Wow, six of the current nine states with voter ID laws have also attempted to tackle that rascally issue of voter fraud. The poll tax seems like an especially popular method, with Mississippi setting the standard with its $2 poll tax for every citizen between the ages of 21 and 60, with the requirement that the tax receipt be presented in order to vote. At the time Mississippi's black population was 743,000 and the white population was 545,000. But hey, you have to pay money to buy alcohol and tobacco, or to buy gas and insurance to drive to a car, so why not have to pay to vote? I mean isn't that the argument with why voter ID laws are okay; equate the right to vote with privileges to trick your logic circuits in justifying the regulation? I mean who cares if the actual effects meant that in Alabama in 1900 only 3,000 of the 181,471 black males of voting age were registered to vote.

    It's called stopping voter fraud, and this fraud is so dangerous it should be stopped by any means possible or our entire democracy will surely crumble! But I understand, these states recognize that in the face of certain threats a persons constitutional liberty can be slightly encroached on. Wait, eight of those nine states do not require any form of ID or background check for two private individuals to engage in a handgun sale. What the FUCK?!?! Are you telling me the threat of voter fraud is so severe that the states put restrictions on the right to vote, but actual fucking gun related deaths are not enough to constitute any infringement on the right to bear arms?! Does not fucking compute!!
u/nihwtf · 3 pointsr/norge

Cast away stories

Er vel den nærmest jeg finner, men ikke skrevet av en Italiener, de er dog journalister.

Refugee Life - Journey across Africa

Handler om noen som gifter seg med en Italiener, men er ikke journalist.

Crimes of Peace
Mediterranean Migrations at the World's Deadliest Border



Skrevet av en Italiener, men professor.

u/jeanralph · 2 pointsr/OneY

I am piggybacking your comment (hope you won't mind) to mention that Adam Jones' collection of essays on this matter is available on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr and a few other places.

I am in the process of reading it myself and so far I strongly recommend this book to anyone, skeptics included, interested in male disposability and predominantly male issues.

In any case it's nowhere near as "arid" or otherwise tedious and difficult to read as I anticipated. The book is on the pricier side though, unfortunately.

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

these topics are interesting, and there are a lot of related subjects which would be beneficial to learn. I hope it's correct to assume you're in America.

i haven't actually read these linked books, just doing a little search for you because I miss my days studying politics

The American Political Party System: Continuity and Change Over Ten Presidential Elections

The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000

Political Scandal: Power and Visability in the Media Age

Mass Media and American Politics

Demographic Gaps in American Political Behavior

Religion and Politics in the United States

Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama

Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964-1985

How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business (Culture and Society after Socialism)

The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers

I think using the political scandals books would be really important. Because let's face it, yes politicians do lie but they don't always get off the hook. I think the book on rhetoric would also be super interesting. Learning about soviet / chinese society is interesting because they have it worse than us in terms of lying politicians (I'm a good patriot)

You should try and use historical-overview type texts for the bulk of citation. If you are quoting opinionated pieces, you can't just present their opinion as fact. You should reference the topic using the neutral sources as well.

By the way, an incredibly useful tool for constructing this kind of reading list is looking at the bibliographies of other books.

u/outsider · 1 pointr/Anthropology

Go read any ethnography and some books about ethnographic methods.

Some classic ethnographies/etc are

u/lanceschaubert · 1 pointr/Political_Revolution

Would highly recommend the book "For the Love of Cities"

:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Cities-affair-between-people/dp/0615430430

u/kissfan7 · -2 pointsr/AdviceAnimals

>I'm irish you stupid idiot.

You're still racist. Like a Celtic Uncle Ruckus.

>Sorry I'm not a billionaire and can jet-set around the world

I've only been to Canada.

I do have a library card, an Internet connection, a high school education, and basic people skills though. That's all one really needs to realize you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

>Did you know that they just threw chinamen at the TCRR until it was done?

"Chinamen"? That's some vintage racist shit.

>There are a lot of Polish people here too.

But you don't know anything about them because you have the people skills of a mole rat.

>Your hostility proves the un-popularity of this issue. Mr. Genius.

So one the fact that one person disagrees with an opinion makes it unpopular? Well, I guess there are no popular opinions then.

Again, read a book.

EDIT: Read another book too.