Civilization:

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/civilization?s=t

Most of the definitions are applicable

Totalitarianism:

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/totalitarianism?s=t

A bit more difficult, none of the definitions are sufficient.  The best is:

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

I would correct the definition as follows:

"Domination by an authority of political, social, and economic activities. Totalitarianism is a phenomenon inherent to civilization since its inception.   Forms of despotism and autocracy are totalitarian in nature.  A trend towards increased domination over aspects of a system, a social group, or society as a whole. Traditionally, and erroneously, the term totalitarian has been used to refer only to explicitly fascist or communist governments, when totalitarianism should more accurately be regarded as a sociological phenomenon resulting from authoritarianism.  See authoritarian: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/authoritarian.  The term totalitarian is applicable to any form of governance, including liberal democracies, be they leftist liberal democracies implementing neoliberal economic policies or rightist liberal democracies implementing neoclassical economic policies, just as it has traditionally only been applied to fascism and communism.  Totalitarianism is applicable to any social group (corporations, religions, or even families) whose authorities are trending toward increased dominance over aspects of that group.  Even communities seemingly consisting of innately independent and autonomous individuals nevertheless retain attributes of totalitarianism as such might be imbued in that community's individual's personal intellectual perspectives.  Similarly, the design of technologies necessarily retain attributes of totalitarianism as such might be imbued in the personal intellectual perspectives of designers of those technologies.  For example, massive-online video games designed by a player-communities of individual players actively participating in a seemingly idealistic, seemingly democratic design process (i.e. the massive online video game Imperial Conflict) necessarily retain attributes of totalitarianism as such might have been imbued in the individual intellectual perspectives of the individual players contributing to the design of the video game."

I have edited my definition of totalitarianism.  You might want to re-read it before redoing your response.

Okay, let me make the point in as simple and as short a way as possible:

Contemporary systemic totalitarianism over the past 3 generations has lead to lower fertility rates over this period, which has caused the present collapse of western civilization.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?

Data indicates it's primarily 'western countries' with fertility rates of < 2.  Societies with three generations of < 2 fertility rates is a clear indication of an impending and inevitable COLLAPSE of such societies, because of very, very simple math:

Take a society of only 10 people, for simplicity, and say they have a fertility rate of 1.5.

10 / 1.5 = number of people who will be able to produce any offspring the next generation.

And so, after the first generation of 10 people able to produce any offspring, the second generation of that society will consist of only 6.6 people to produce any offspring.

After the second generation with the fertility rate remaining the same (6.6 / 1.5), society will consist of only 4.4 people to produce any offspring.

After the third generation with the same fertility rate (4.4 / 1.5), society will consist of only 2.9 people to produce any offspring.

This is a collapse, within 3 generations, whereby the population becomes incapable of suddenly increasing the fertility rate high enough to recover:

To produce enough offspring such that there will be 10 people (the original number of people capable of producing offspring in the first generation) capable of producing offspring in the 4th generation would have to be: (2.9 / x =10) where x is the fertility rate.

What's x?  If you give a @#%@, you do the math.  I'm absolutely fed up giving answers to people who DON'T give a @#$%!

Basically, if a society's capacity to replenish it's population with offspring is diminished by 76%, that society is INCAPABLE of recovering, be it recovering economically, socially, culturally, etc. - such a society is in a state of COLLAPSE in every sense of the word.

This is a culling of the population of the western world worse than that inflicted by any and all wars and atrocities ever committed in all of human history, COMBINED.

What is causing this collapse? I am saying SYSTEMIC TOTALITARIANISM is causing it.  And if it is INTENTIONAL, well, it would be regarded as the worst TOTALITARIAN crime against humanity ever conceived: literally TRILLIONS of people have been / will have been culled, trillions who could have existed but never will because of the intentional mass culling of humanity by neo-malthusian, social-darwinistic / communist TOTALITARIANISM.

WAKE UP!

First of all, what regimes do you think aren't 'totalitarian'?

...

What we are seeing in global fertility rates is a sociological phenomenon.  Determining the cause of that sociological phenomenon is to trace back in time to when that sociological phenomenon was different.  In this case, we go back in time from our present 1.5 fertility rates to a time when they were 5 or even higher.

Then we ask the question, "Well, what was so different way back when fertility rates were 5+?"

The answer is obvious: less totalitarianism.

That is to say that over the vast majority of human history, the way people lived was less dominated by the state.  Today, regardless of what 'regime' one lives under, virtually every aspect of human life is dominated by various machinations of state control.

This occurred during other times in history: ancient Egypt, Rome, the Qin Dynasty, etc.. and in each and every case, it was increased totalitarianism which resulted in said societies' collapses.

Fertility rates is simply an indicator of such collapses, regardless of the causes of such collapses (not always totalitarianism causes societal collapses).  It is simply a fact that when <2 fertility rates for 3 subsequent generations INDICATES a societal collapse has become imminent.

Wrong.  Every sort of 'regime' is totalitarian, every kind, from the tribal hunter-gatherer society to Nazi Germany to Stalinist Russia - every society has intrinsic to it some measure of totalitarianism.

And it is not to say that totalitarianism causes infertility: quite the opposite can be true in some cases.  What I am saying is that contemporary expressions of totalitarianism in all societies has been resulting in lower fertility rates.

It's a global phenomenon.

It's not specific policies but sociological facts and connecting the dots:

In western nations, people tend to have fewer children regardless of being in the lower class or middle class or even upper middle income / wealth levels.  So it's not simply about income or wealth.  People are making enough to raise children, but still aren't.  The issue isn't money, but, rather, job security: a person's sense of confidence in their future prospect to maintain the stable-enough income / wealth once they get it is the issue.

Why the loss of confidence in one's future economic stability?  Totalitarianism: the economy is forced into transition and instability by state / corporate influence.  And so the vast majority of people struggle to navigate what is essentially a maze of state / corporate implemented dominance over their daily lives that limits their economic opportunity.  It's at the point where people have to be satisfied with low-paying, insecure or temporary jobs without benefits for years; and when they finally DO get a decent job they remain terrified of losing it; it's often not until a person is in their mid to late 30's (especially if they went and got a degree of some sort from a university) that they have finally gotten a stable-enough job that even allows them to contemplate the possibility of getting married and having children; however, in western nations, divorce rates are between, what, 30% and 60%?  And this has been going on for how long now?  What, 40 years? 

These high divorce rates alone makes anyone who is in the position of even beginning to contemplate the idea of maybe getting married and raising a family good reason to think twice about it:  getting into any venture that has a 30% to 60% chance of FAILURE sure seems pretty risky.  And so what has been causing divorce rates to be so high?  Again, totalitarianism: the vast majority of child-bearing aged people who have somehow struggled through the low-job security, chronic underemployment / unemployment, short term contract, little to no benefits phase of their 'career', and thus have the income / wealth level SECURITY necessary to be confident to some degree in being able to raise a child responsibly over the long term, BOTH have to work incredibly hard under a lot of stress just to do so, because two SECURE incomes rather than merely one is necessary.

This puts incredible strains on couples: two incomes in high-stress environments needed "over the long term" just to get the CHANCE to raise MAYBE ONE child responsibly - IF they somehow got over the terror of the fact that doing so comes with a 30% - 60% chance of failure of their marriage, well...  how many / what sort of people are in a position and have the character to take that risk?  Less than most.  And most who do don't RISK having more than 1 or 2 children.

Again, where does this all come from?  Totalitarianism: it wasn't this way in the past.  There was a time when such stressors were NOT imposed upon the majority of people.  So where did it come from?  What's different?  60 years ago, you did not have the global corporate / governmental economy that is essentially DICTATING this state of affairs upon ALL of humanity.

After the third generation of consecutive <2 fertility rates.

First, it doesn't cause a collapse.  The collapse is due to many factors; there are many indicators of a collapse, low fertility rates being a primary indicator thereof.     

That said, low fertility rates in and of themselves might accelerate or worsen a collapse: the economic fall-out of lower population and no possibility of recovery of that population level destroys the economy: housing prices fall, unemployment soars, infrastructure falls into disrepair, etc..

Population decline due to low fertility rates can be 'shored-up' by immigration, but that only hastens the collapse of societies from which people are emigrating if those societies also have <2 fertility rates.

Global instability in markets and social / political unrest that results can cause wars that then, likewise, hasten he collapse of societies.

When underlying factors are the primary cause of the societal collapse, the smart thing to do would be to analyze how such underlying factors might themselves be caused; simply looking at low fertility rates as the underlying cause would be erroneous.

The smart thing for governments to do, rather than just tossing money at people to have children, would be to start understanding the underlying causes of societal collapse and how such result in such low fertility rates.

It will take the state/corporate an honest look at themselves: it's state/corporate-imposed totalitarianism which is the root of the problem.

Economic stability isn't the only factor that affects fertility rates.  You can have nations with economic instability and experiencing a societal collapse and yet still have high fertility rates: fertility rates might not decline in some societies until the late stages of that society's collapse.  They might not see a decline in fertility rates until, for instance, people start actually starving and become physically infertile due to malnutrition.  Also, even in such late stage of societal collapses where there is still >2 fertility rates, it might be because children are seen as commodities: labor, or, in extreme cases, food.

Such societies to which you refer regard children as sources of labor / sources of household income, and so in spite of economic instability in such countries, people regard having many children as a benefit to their household's economy.

This is not the case in the west, where children are seen as an economic liability rather than an asset.  As such, economic instability in western or more 'developed' countries has a more severe negative impact on fertility rates in such nations.  In other words, western or more 'developed' countries are more sensitive in terms of fertility rates to economic instability than are non-western or 'underdeveloped' countries.

How is it racist? 

As for an example, I was thinking Rome's societal collapses: it wasn't that slaves were intentionally still having children for the purpose of selling them as food to the rich; it was more they were 'encouraged' by their owners to give up their children to be sold by their owners (in many cases probably as food) and were probably 'encouraged' to have more children by their owners for this purpose.

Again, how is this racist?  I'm simply stating how things were.

And a lot about what you say about Japan is a myth / represents a small portion of the population.  There might be less economic instability but more than you imply. 

Think late 80's up to 2010, the so called "Lost 20 Years":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan)

Initially, when the credit bubble burst and interest rates rose, you had salary-men in the hundreds of thousands (or maybe even millions) literally flinging themselves out their office windows.

There are other systemic factors, though: housing prices, commute times, culture, especially workplace culture, etc.. - there are countless systemic stressors.  Again, fertility rates aren't affected solely by economic factors.

My take on Japan is that people don't tend to marry or have children because there are too many systemic stressors, with economic instability still bing a major one, probably because Japan is more sensitive than most nations to economic instability.

Has economic instability played the major role in lower fertility rates in Japan over the last 30 years?  Possibly.  The memory of the economic horror inflicted on the Japanese since the late eighties and the stagnation since has made a lot of Japanese people of child-bearing age very wary about being able to provide for 1 let alone 2 children, and in many cases probably prevents couples from even considering starting families in the fist place.

It's a vicious cycle: lower fertility rates only exacerbate / prolong the economic stagnation which then induces further loss of confidence in the long-term economic outlook of would-be parents.

And the whole world is experiencing the same now. 

It's almost like Japan was the test-run for the neo-malthusian / social darwinistic / communistic government/corporate elites who seem hell-bent on 'population control' in the name of 'sustainability'.

Sorry, there was quite a bit to write and because this is such a sensitive issue, I wanted to take care to ensure I selected my words appropriately.

There are two separate cases of racism in the statement you cited.  The first is "cannibalism exists in this pile of countries we're talking about, so let's talk about other regions" without providing sources.  The second, more egregious instance, is insinuating that the cannibalism was a premeditated, calculated part of the society's cycle of fertility such that it would explain high fertility rates in some of the described countries... again, without providing sources.

It's racist because perpetuating such a decisionmaking process as a thing occurring among people in the most impoverished nations:
A: Is factually incorrect absent some evidence to the contrary, as the food required to raise a child would be more than the food that would even be obtained from such a process (i.e., it would not actually be effective to do what was described in times of desperation), and
B: Creates a false impression that would, if accepted as true, justify readers to view those poor people as something less than human.  After all... if those people are willing to slaughter their own children like cattle, not out of a momentary act of desperation, but as part of a calculated process of filicide that parents opt to engage in against their own children over the course of months... the average reader may conclude that the problem isn't simply poverty, but that those individuals (the poor you characterize) are simply morally depraved, beyond help.  "They're cannibals" is one of the first lies that has historically been spewed to dehumanize those in impoverished regions of the world and subsequently justify European imperialism.  Not that I'm saying cannibalism doesn't exist... but you have to pull evidence and be damn specific when hurling things out like that.

Which brings me to the "example" of what you were talking about.

First of all, an example that seems more tame should NOT justify the sentence beforehand, and Trump proves why.  If you make a comment that could easily be incendiary, then follow it up with "Oh, no, I mean this much more tame thing" without apologizing for the first statement, you still justify the wording of the first statement... and justify those who want to cling to that first statement doing so.  It's your responsibility to support your statements with facts when discussing such sensitive issues.

Second, your example is, ridiculously unlikely to be what was meant in this discussion because a spontaneous decision to engage in cannibalism wouldn't affect the fertility rate.  If a parent raised a kid to age 8, and was later "encouraged" by the rich to give up their children, that would have absolutely no effect on the fertility rate because that child has already been born.  A parent raising a child who lives to age 80 has the same effect on the fertility rate for the year the child was born as a parent who raises a child that will die at age 5.

Third, my own look into historical cannibalism didn't find this in Ancient Rome.  I could easily be wrong on this, so linky?

Fourth... and possibly the biggest problem... your example is not relevant (and, in fact, justifies every accusation of racism I have levied) because your example doesn't talk about ANY country that was in that discussion.  We were specifically talking about countries in the modern world that had the highest fertility rates... Afghanistan, Somalia, etc.  The example you can cite for your scenario is Ancient Rome.  Not only is it not relevant, but you are applying behavior to people in modern impoverished nations because "Oh, it was done once in Ancient Rome so it must also be done here."  Moreover, because THIS was your example... even if sources are found that would satisfy the above concerns, they are arguably irrelevant because if your statement was rooted in facts about the countries in question, why cite to this weird scenario in a 2,000 year old country that wasn't part of the discussion instead of using those facts you knew about?

And keep in mind... I have given you one massive out: CITE SOURCES.  Sources differentiate characterization from fact.  If you can point out... with links to reputable sources... instances that justify the factual statements made within the countries relevant to our discussion (i.e., no, a source about cannibalism in Ancient Rome doesn't count), then you're at least partially in the clear (although it would still be incredibly insensitive to apply the cannibalism label generally if only a few countries in the list engaged in the practice... especially if the countries engaging in such didn't happened to be the lowest per-capita GDP countries on the list).

First of all, judging a people's overall behavior in all of history by their behavior at the times of most difficulty is bull.

Second, that argument would make sense if the fertility rate saw a sharp drop (as the Lost Decade was a significant shift in company behavior).  However, the fertility rate was dropping for 20 years before the crash.

http://www.un.org/esa/population/public … /japan.pdf

Explanation?