Agree. Even on a practical level, fertility boosting policies implemented in countries like Poland and Hungary have been shown to have modest effects despite the enormous costs involved.
My own position is that people who want to have lots of kids should have them and people who don't shouldn't. I'm not actively anti-natalist but I do think as mass automation starts to kick in there will be fewer jobs and we won't need as many workers. I agree that demographic decline is only a short term problem and will correct itself over the long term.
On a moral level, obviously I don't approve of abortion or euthanasia. However, I also tend towards the position that if people wish to abort their kids or euthanise their elderly, I can't really stop them. If the secularists wish to kill off their family members and sink deeper into demographic decline then so be it. They can leave the resources for the fertile religious who are left behind.
Many conservatives want to "save the blue haired from themselves," while at the same time failing to take control of education, finance, immigration, the military, or anything else... The child-tax credit ideas being pushed by JD Vance are insulting.
I resonate with this, people who are willing and able to care for their kids should have them. The ability to provide for them can be debated (e.g. paying college tuition) but 18 years of active support can yields infinitely better results for children’s intangible qualities.
Just started reading this, havent reached the end yet, but it seems worthy to bring up that the price of housing goes into the GDP calculation. Increasing in the valuation of homes from a variety of reasons (including speculation) inflates GDP numbers, even after adjusting for inflation.
Yeah, the Case-Shiller Index is rather high, although, the theory behind it is that until America reaches maximum Malthusian density, housing is a self-fixing problem. Everyone wants to live in a city or suburb, and as cities and suburbs expand, they create more suburbs, which increase in value... Then theoretically the value of the inner cities decreases, and the value of office buildings declines with remote working. There are many ways where the cost of housing could be elastic -- not within a given city, but at a national level.
>California lost 1.19% of its population, but it gained 9.12% in GDP
Good thing they put in that anti inflation forcefield back in 2019
>migration is a behavior correlated with ambitiousness, upward mobility, existing resources, openness, adventurousness, and intelligence.
So were the people who migrated away from California's dogshit fentanyl tax paradise unproductive retards or ambitious, upwardly mobile, possessed of savings, open, adventurous and intelligent? "Dad, what's two times two?" "Son, depends if we're buying or selling." Schrodinger's Migrants.
>Natalism always raises the fertility of the least productive groups, while it has little-to-no effect on the most productive groups.
Jews, the most productive group in the world, are the result of an explicitly natalist worldview.
>The resulting populations will be genetically inoculated against the causes of low fertility (biological, psychological, or spiritual)
Doesn't work that way. The choice between life and death happens in every generation at the personal level.
Sounds like the US's covid policy was pretty good, using this lens. Allowed more of the elderly and unhealthy to die than similar nations, encouraged idiots to infect themselves/treat those infections poorly and take themselves out of the gene pool.
I don't think the proposed antinatalist stance would have the desired effects. Particularly, cultural antinatalism is unlikely to have equal effects across class. Elites' behavior is more sensitive to cultural signifiers, and elite fertility would be disproportionately depressed by cultural antinatalism. Additionally, material antinatalism (e.g. reduced child tax credit) may well have little-to-no effect on the fertility rate of the lower classes. Just as material natalism has had little-to-no effect, there's no reason to expect interventions in the other direction would have any more so. The fertility rate is much higher in countries with much poorer conditions than the policies would be likely to produce, after all.
More likely to have desired selective effects would be cultural natalism combined with drivers for increased labor hours and female labor force participation among the lower classes. This could include material elements, but would likely be more comprehensively accomplished by cultural and indirect (e.g. reducing oversight on labor violations among low-wage workers or decreasing the efficiency of public transit for undesired schedules) means.
Additionally, pushing for increased population share of highly-fertile groups like the Amish and Orthodox seems unlikely to have the desired effects for 2 primary reasons: first, they likely achieve their fertility through cultural, not genetic, means. Their cultures are intentionally isolated from the standard US culture and formulated in a way which drives fertility - it's unclear whether there's any underlying genetic basis to this. Second, they have low innovation. I feel like I shouldn't have to clarify that the Amish are not a driving force of innovation in the US, but I'll do so. This likely includes genetic as well as cultural factors. Each of the mentioned fertile religious sects selected for conformity, desire for less complexity, and closed thought when being created, and has mechanisms which continue this selection. AIUI, the average IQ of all of these groups is lower than the US average. Selecting for these groups would drag innovativeness down, even if it would drive fertility up - fertility may be somewhat correlated with innovativeness in the US as a whole currently, but this subgroup selection would negate that.
I think Sweden had the best COVID policy, although I wasn't on the ground there so I couldn't say for sure. Maybe if the "elite" are conformist trend followers, they shouldn't be reproducing anyway.
Very nuanced look at natalism. I can see the overall focus on eugenic process being allowed to take place naturally, and workig to eliminate the distortion introduced by natalist initiatives. Couple of points:
- How do you differentiate between the Pressure Release Model and the effects of Black Death? Is there something I'm missing or is there another factor of starting IQ important here? Immigration to other countries usually involves the most enterprising and risk-tolerant individuals, which means "weaker" examples stay home, while Black Death had hugely eugenic and income-levelling effects. Could this be it?
- In the Vacuum Model we could perhaps look to raising baseline level IQ of native population through improvements to general living conditions and improving education, as those have been shown to have epigenetic effect. We have achieved measurable improvements during late 19th and early 20th century as sanitation and medicine alleviated malnutrition and poor living conditions that have large dampening effect on IQ development. This would lead to natural increases in population through overall improvement of fitness, in line with your proposed mechanisms.
- We want to avoid rapid population collapse, where societal mechanisms fall apart altogether or make us susceptible to an invasion - if we talk about generational change, the gradual cutting of old age welfare and timescales allowing high IQ fertility to express themselves, we will need bodies in place to keep things stable. Current immigration experiment was supposed to support the process, but has become a clear hindrance, as you described. How do we do it without resistance?
Counter points: 1) trans stuff tends to sterilize mostly higher iq people. This is dysgenic
2) And given that the culture was strongly anti-natalist and still is to some degree ( the whole population explosion propaganda from a half a century ago), more elite people just don’t do children. If you have a culture that explicitly promotes having children as something good and genuinely convince higher iq people of that, they might rearrange their life to do a lot of children.
Tldr: high iq people apply the current « culture », which is anti natalist. Low iq people are more primitive and get less influenced by the anti-natalist ideologies . (It can be compensated with other factors)
This is not a government policy, but there are some volunteers and some kind « charities » that pay 200$ to drug addicts to sterilize themselves. And they culturally belong more in the progressive camp than the conservative one
But this is a cultural issue. Pro-abortion elites just don’t want children while anti-abortion elites want children. If the government banned abortions but not other forms of birth control, you would just see more low class babies. Maybe long term with some convoluted second order effects, the culture would somehow self correct to become more eugenic or pro-natalist, but I don’t see it.
I think Poland tried to ban abortion, I don’t see a lot of positive effects in that direction
The natalist term needs to be broadened and better defined. Just saying “everyone procreate” is stupid, and I don’t think anyone who’s sincere actually thinks that’s a good idea.
It seems you didn't even bother to read the conclusion: "Natalism is the worst of all possible worlds. If a natalist policy is “successful,” it wastes significant resources in order to promote the breeding of the stupidest and laziest people. But there has never been a successful natalist policy, stretching back to ancient Rome. It is a lost cause."
Agree. Even on a practical level, fertility boosting policies implemented in countries like Poland and Hungary have been shown to have modest effects despite the enormous costs involved.
My own position is that people who want to have lots of kids should have them and people who don't shouldn't. I'm not actively anti-natalist but I do think as mass automation starts to kick in there will be fewer jobs and we won't need as many workers. I agree that demographic decline is only a short term problem and will correct itself over the long term.
On a moral level, obviously I don't approve of abortion or euthanasia. However, I also tend towards the position that if people wish to abort their kids or euthanise their elderly, I can't really stop them. If the secularists wish to kill off their family members and sink deeper into demographic decline then so be it. They can leave the resources for the fertile religious who are left behind.
Many conservatives want to "save the blue haired from themselves," while at the same time failing to take control of education, finance, immigration, the military, or anything else... The child-tax credit ideas being pushed by JD Vance are insulting.
This is why DeSantis is better than the vast majority of other conservatives. He actually wants to take control and do something.
I resonate with this, people who are willing and able to care for their kids should have them. The ability to provide for them can be debated (e.g. paying college tuition) but 18 years of active support can yields infinitely better results for children’s intangible qualities.
I dont see evidence we are at cusp of mass automation
Tax benefits are offered if you have more kids. Yet results have been lackluster. How would your policy be more effective?
Just started reading this, havent reached the end yet, but it seems worthy to bring up that the price of housing goes into the GDP calculation. Increasing in the valuation of homes from a variety of reasons (including speculation) inflates GDP numbers, even after adjusting for inflation.
Yeah, the Case-Shiller Index is rather high, although, the theory behind it is that until America reaches maximum Malthusian density, housing is a self-fixing problem. Everyone wants to live in a city or suburb, and as cities and suburbs expand, they create more suburbs, which increase in value... Then theoretically the value of the inner cities decreases, and the value of office buildings declines with remote working. There are many ways where the cost of housing could be elastic -- not within a given city, but at a national level.
>California lost 1.19% of its population, but it gained 9.12% in GDP
Good thing they put in that anti inflation forcefield back in 2019
>migration is a behavior correlated with ambitiousness, upward mobility, existing resources, openness, adventurousness, and intelligence.
So were the people who migrated away from California's dogshit fentanyl tax paradise unproductive retards or ambitious, upwardly mobile, possessed of savings, open, adventurous and intelligent? "Dad, what's two times two?" "Son, depends if we're buying or selling." Schrodinger's Migrants.
>Natalism always raises the fertility of the least productive groups, while it has little-to-no effect on the most productive groups.
Jews, the most productive group in the world, are the result of an explicitly natalist worldview.
>The resulting populations will be genetically inoculated against the causes of low fertility (biological, psychological, or spiritual)
Doesn't work that way. The choice between life and death happens in every generation at the personal level.
Is the reason you won't debate because you are afraid to dox yourself?
Sure, I'll debate. Channel and time?
The only thing worse than basic bitch leftist takes are edgy leftist takes. Just stop, man, you don't need to try so hard
Sounds like the US's covid policy was pretty good, using this lens. Allowed more of the elderly and unhealthy to die than similar nations, encouraged idiots to infect themselves/treat those infections poorly and take themselves out of the gene pool.
I don't think the proposed antinatalist stance would have the desired effects. Particularly, cultural antinatalism is unlikely to have equal effects across class. Elites' behavior is more sensitive to cultural signifiers, and elite fertility would be disproportionately depressed by cultural antinatalism. Additionally, material antinatalism (e.g. reduced child tax credit) may well have little-to-no effect on the fertility rate of the lower classes. Just as material natalism has had little-to-no effect, there's no reason to expect interventions in the other direction would have any more so. The fertility rate is much higher in countries with much poorer conditions than the policies would be likely to produce, after all.
More likely to have desired selective effects would be cultural natalism combined with drivers for increased labor hours and female labor force participation among the lower classes. This could include material elements, but would likely be more comprehensively accomplished by cultural and indirect (e.g. reducing oversight on labor violations among low-wage workers or decreasing the efficiency of public transit for undesired schedules) means.
Additionally, pushing for increased population share of highly-fertile groups like the Amish and Orthodox seems unlikely to have the desired effects for 2 primary reasons: first, they likely achieve their fertility through cultural, not genetic, means. Their cultures are intentionally isolated from the standard US culture and formulated in a way which drives fertility - it's unclear whether there's any underlying genetic basis to this. Second, they have low innovation. I feel like I shouldn't have to clarify that the Amish are not a driving force of innovation in the US, but I'll do so. This likely includes genetic as well as cultural factors. Each of the mentioned fertile religious sects selected for conformity, desire for less complexity, and closed thought when being created, and has mechanisms which continue this selection. AIUI, the average IQ of all of these groups is lower than the US average. Selecting for these groups would drag innovativeness down, even if it would drive fertility up - fertility may be somewhat correlated with innovativeness in the US as a whole currently, but this subgroup selection would negate that.
I think Sweden had the best COVID policy, although I wasn't on the ground there so I couldn't say for sure. Maybe if the "elite" are conformist trend followers, they shouldn't be reproducing anyway.
Elites' behavior is more sensitive to cultural signifiers, and elite fertility would be disproportionately depressed by cultural antinatalism.
Key point
Very nuanced look at natalism. I can see the overall focus on eugenic process being allowed to take place naturally, and workig to eliminate the distortion introduced by natalist initiatives. Couple of points:
- How do you differentiate between the Pressure Release Model and the effects of Black Death? Is there something I'm missing or is there another factor of starting IQ important here? Immigration to other countries usually involves the most enterprising and risk-tolerant individuals, which means "weaker" examples stay home, while Black Death had hugely eugenic and income-levelling effects. Could this be it?
- In the Vacuum Model we could perhaps look to raising baseline level IQ of native population through improvements to general living conditions and improving education, as those have been shown to have epigenetic effect. We have achieved measurable improvements during late 19th and early 20th century as sanitation and medicine alleviated malnutrition and poor living conditions that have large dampening effect on IQ development. This would lead to natural increases in population through overall improvement of fitness, in line with your proposed mechanisms.
- We want to avoid rapid population collapse, where societal mechanisms fall apart altogether or make us susceptible to an invasion - if we talk about generational change, the gradual cutting of old age welfare and timescales allowing high IQ fertility to express themselves, we will need bodies in place to keep things stable. Current immigration experiment was supposed to support the process, but has become a clear hindrance, as you described. How do we do it without resistance?
Counter points: 1) trans stuff tends to sterilize mostly higher iq people. This is dysgenic
2) And given that the culture was strongly anti-natalist and still is to some degree ( the whole population explosion propaganda from a half a century ago), more elite people just don’t do children. If you have a culture that explicitly promotes having children as something good and genuinely convince higher iq people of that, they might rearrange their life to do a lot of children.
Tldr: high iq people apply the current « culture », which is anti natalist. Low iq people are more primitive and get less influenced by the anti-natalist ideologies . (It can be compensated with other factors)
I have a proposal for the senior population.
Why don’t we privatize the retirement market?
This can relieve the hands of the state. Whilst theoretically allowing seniors to indulge in whatever hobby they want.
Yeah, democratic voting makes privatization difficult.
Well
Obama passed Medicare despite huge opposition
And Trump created the Supreme Court majority to overrule roe v wade.
I think we can do it despite initial backlash.
You are failing to differentiate between 61% opposition and 77% opposition:
https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2022/12/22/voters-overwhelmingly-oppose-gop-efforts-to-privatize-social-security
The Supreme Court cannot privatize Social Security.
A majority of voters favor government healthcare.
What would you think of paying people below a certain IQ to sterilize themselves?
“$1000 and two cartons of smokes for every vasectomy”
Sounds like a policy that will never come to pass in a democratic system. See my essay on McGenics:
https://deepleft.substack.com/p/mcgenics
This is not a government policy, but there are some volunteers and some kind « charities » that pay 200$ to drug addicts to sterilize themselves. And they culturally belong more in the progressive camp than the conservative one
I agree. Most of our current national problems stem from the democratic system itself.
I've provided evidence against dysgenics. Can you directly engage with the data? Why is the Finnish and Norwegian data wrong?
I have heard that low class poor people actually do use abortion more. So abortions is technically eugenic.
But this is a cultural issue. Pro-abortion elites just don’t want children while anti-abortion elites want children. If the government banned abortions but not other forms of birth control, you would just see more low class babies. Maybe long term with some convoluted second order effects, the culture would somehow self correct to become more eugenic or pro-natalist, but I don’t see it.
I think Poland tried to ban abortion, I don’t see a lot of positive effects in that direction
The natalist term needs to be broadened and better defined. Just saying “everyone procreate” is stupid, and I don’t think anyone who’s sincere actually thinks that’s a good idea.
He explicitly addresses that
It seems you didn't even bother to read the conclusion: "Natalism is the worst of all possible worlds. If a natalist policy is “successful,” it wastes significant resources in order to promote the breeding of the stupidest and laziest people. But there has never been a successful natalist policy, stretching back to ancient Rome. It is a lost cause."