Based Camp - Bryan Caplan's Thoughts On How to Increase Fertility Rates

00:00:00.000 You're really good at being evil, Simone.

00:00:01.620 Thank you, Malcolm.

00:00:02.560 How can we use an AI to win a local election?

00:00:05.000 This is the question that we're going to have to figure out in the coming years.

00:00:07.920 Of course, the equilibrium, the problem is other people are going to be using it, too.

00:00:11.640 I agree with you.

00:00:12.700 So the goal is to use a short-term advantage to get into the political system, then become president, and then change us out of this abysmal voting system we have now.

00:00:23.740 You know, as you have pointed out, democracies are just not very efficient.

00:00:27.700 Oh, God.

00:00:28.400 Would you like to know more?

00:00:29.360 Hello again.

00:00:30.440 We are very excited to have Brian Kaplan joining us for this episode of Basecamp.

00:00:35.220 In addition to being a New York Times bestselling author of quite a few really awesome books, many of which are on some of our favorite topics,

00:00:42.520 Brian Kaplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University and extremely well-informed about the positions he holds, whereas, I don't know, sometimes we just like to be a lot more philosophically.

00:00:53.060 If you want to go over some of the topics he writes on, pronatalism advocate for, feminism causing societal problems, being more pro-open borders, government systems not working, and education systems becoming more broken.

00:01:07.560 Yeah, you're our kind of guy.

00:01:09.920 We're big fans, Brian.

00:01:11.040 So what we'd like to discuss today, which I think really interests me, because you're at a nuanced nexus between these things, is the impact of education and how to actually create a delta.

00:01:22.560 So we recently hosted a dinner at which people discussed fostering genius, creating world leaders who would change the trajectory of society.

00:01:31.880 You know, can it be done?

00:01:33.120 Can you do it?

00:01:34.020 And one of the big themes that came up during that dinner was, well, you know, you can't necessarily like great man theory of history.

00:01:39.960 A lot of people were really critical of it, but they thought, well, one thing that people can do is maybe accelerate the speed at which really awesome things happen.

00:01:48.140 You know, like maybe many things are going to happen anyway, but if you can cultivate the right kind of leader or give people the right ideas, they may do it sooner for society rather than leader.

00:01:57.260 And I thought about this as I was watching an interview with you and you said basically that you didn't expect open borders to happen in your lifetime, but that you hoped through the book that you have co-published called Open Borders, The Science and Ethics of Immigration, that maybe a generation would read this book and, you know, help to nudge things in a good direction.

00:02:17.880 And, you know, you've also written a book about, you know, the case against education, which is more about why the traditional education system is not necessarily worth all the money we throw into it and the time we throw into it.

00:02:30.240 Delete the word necessarily.

00:02:31.460 It's not worth it.

00:02:33.540 Okay.

00:02:34.720 Shots fired from the professor at a university.

00:02:38.800 But yes, no, totally.

00:02:40.120 And so, you know, there's this sort of weird, like nuanced area that I want to walk around with you in this discussion about, well, so we can maybe nudge people in a good direction.

00:02:53.780 We can maybe speed up the rate at which really awesome things happen, which could really max out in a much more meaningful way, human productivity and flourishing.

00:03:02.160 So I'm curious, Brian, what you think interventions are, not necessarily traditional education interventions, but interventions in youth and in development that actually are worth investing in, are effective, and might actually help people either change the trajectory of society or just actively change the trajectory of people and society.

00:03:22.020 Let's see.

00:03:25.540 I'm definitely pro-vocational education.

00:03:28.920 Obviously, it's got, you know, it has a lot of problems, too, but at least at the end, if it works, you know how to do something and are able to actually contribute more to society, whereas my bigger economic education is that it mostly pays just by giving you extra stamps in the forehead, which is great for an individual, but at the level of society, it generates credential inflation such that you need more degrees just to do the same job as your parents or grandparents.

00:03:52.380 In terms of things that can be done that work well, well, well, let's see.

00:04:00.140 I mean, there's the easy answers, things like vaccines or whatever.

00:04:02.840 I think that the evidence for those is really good.

00:04:06.540 I mean, I guess I would say that the one that matters the most is one that's near and dear to all of us, which is just having kids.

00:04:13.560 So, you know, if you have a kid, I just say, look, you know that you have done something that almost certainly has great value to that person.

00:04:20.860 That person is going to contribute to the world as well.

00:04:23.860 Yeah, there's a small chance that you've given birth to the next Charles Manson, but almost certainly not.

00:04:28.620 Just the fact that if you look around the world, it's not on fire shows that most people are net contributors.

00:04:33.860 They are not net destroyers.

00:04:35.320 So, you know, in terms of what advice you can give to any one individual about how to improve the world, I would just say have another kid.

00:04:41.600 And that is a large value.

00:04:43.900 In terms of my own work, the only thing that I've done that I'm convinced has yielded a large absolute value to humanity is my pronatalism stuff, because I do know hundreds of people who have had extra kids because of it.

00:04:56.460 If you just use a standard economist $10 million value of life, then that book generated billions of dollars worth of value.

00:05:02.940 It still doesn't put me in Elon's territory, but still compared to my other stuff, where it's not clear that it's changed anything in terms of policy, I feel very pleased with that.

00:05:13.460 If you were to step back and say, yeah, but like causing the birth of hundreds of people, that's like 0.001% of the harm done by the one child policy.

00:05:22.320 Yeah, but that's what I've been able to pull off.

00:05:24.640 It's something.

00:05:25.860 I mean, at least I made things better instead of worse.

00:05:28.220 So there's that.

00:05:28.920 So how much of the success that you saw through your pronatalist work was like, do you think was presenting logical arguments versus just showing people that it could be cool, that it's like desirable?

00:05:43.480 Yeah, I know you guys are more to the coolness.

00:05:46.040 Honestly, I'll say out of the people I persuade, they're very argument focused.

00:05:50.260 I'm not claiming this is how most humans are like.

00:05:52.520 This is just the people that listen to me are like that.

00:05:54.920 But the cases where it's most clear that I causally change things is when there's a pre-existing mom who already wanted to have a kid.

00:06:02.900 There's a dad who liked me who was blocking it.

00:06:06.340 And then I convinced him to stop blocking it.

00:06:08.880 That's basically the profile of when I caused a person to exist and where it's totally clear that I did it. 0.72

00:06:15.880 You're the cock-un blocker. 0.96

00:06:17.120 That's great. 0.97

00:06:17.920 Wow.

00:06:18.700 All right.

00:06:19.420 That's really interesting.

00:06:22.480 I'm not going to put that into my signature file or anything, but I'll totally do it.

00:06:26.860 It's a shame.

00:06:28.520 Okay.

00:06:29.120 But honestly, closely related is that when you go into the statistics of what determines ultimate number of ultimate fertility, basically the patterns or the signs are the same for men and women.

00:06:40.440 But the absolute value of the magnitudes are almost always much larger for women than men.

00:06:46.300 It's with a simple story of women are just more opinionated. 1.00

00:06:49.740 Men are more like, oh, you want to have one kid?

00:06:52.160 Great.

00:06:52.340 We'll have one kid.

00:06:52.860 You want to have three kids?

00:06:53.460 Fine.

00:06:53.640 We'll have three kids.

00:06:54.680 You want to have no kids? 1.00

00:06:55.680 Okay, fine.

00:06:56.880 It's something that's more like that.

00:06:58.720 So the men do matter.

00:07:00.740 It's not like it's purely something that women decide unilaterally. 0.97

00:07:04.740 But nevertheless, it does look like women's characteristics are more decisive for the outcome, such that men, this is just an area where they are less set in their ways and more subject to suasion.

00:07:18.100 If you are a needless woman, this is good news for you. 1.00

00:07:21.040 It means that it probably doesn't, it is doable to go and change the guy's mind.

00:07:27.520 If you're a guy, then I'd say mostly you've got to work on selection.

00:07:30.120 You've got to find someone that agrees to the beforehand because it is just harder to go and change women's minds about these things. 1.00

00:07:36.480 Yeah, women really do seem to be a major bottleneck. 1.00

00:07:38.780 And one thing I wonder is in a lot of discussions of pernatalism is there's this like undertone of, well, the solution is for women to stop getting educations because that's what's ruining everything.

00:07:50.680 And I mean, one of our big beefs in this space is we really want to prove that women can get high levels of education if they want it, like not necessary, but there's freedom to choose that. 1.00

00:08:02.840 And you can still have high levels of, you know.

00:08:06.340 Mostly just think about you've got to decouple the half-baked pseudo philosophy of most educators from the stuff they actually know and are teaching.

00:08:15.300 And those are two completely different things where there is the actual knowledge of the facts of history combined with a totally ad hoc philosophy that gets superimposed onto the facts with variable thought.

00:08:29.260 I mean, even at the level of the philosophy of a typical physicist is basically some watered-down woke hodgepodge.

00:08:37.420 They don't really think about it very much.

00:08:39.260 They're just repeating this just like other people in their culture or subculture, rather.

00:08:45.260 But on the other hand, the physics, they actually know something and they probably know it forwards and backwards.

00:08:49.060 So just realizing that when this authority is speaking, sometimes they have incredible knowledge and sometimes they're just making it up as they go along or just repeating it like a parrot, really.

00:09:00.440 And just like be aware of the difference between those two things.

00:09:03.540 One thing that is really striking is it does take an enormous amount of steely self-discipline to just hear the same propaganda every day and not believe it.

00:09:15.160 Yeah, true.

00:09:16.160 If you watch the news every day, you really have to be a Vulcan to watch an hour of this stuff every day for three years straight and not start to actually think the world is falling apart and everything is terrible.

00:09:30.440 So few people can do it.

00:09:34.340 But for the most part, when you choose to watch that, you are choosing to become whatever they are spewing.

00:09:40.540 And you say, look, I'm just too smart for mere repetition to change my mind.

00:09:43.920 It's like it's not just a matter of being smart.

00:09:46.000 It's a matter of I will resist what they are saying over and over again.

00:09:51.120 Yeah.

00:09:51.900 Yeah.

00:09:53.220 So I'm a huge fan of philosopher Michael Humer.

00:09:55.260 One of my very favorite posts of his is one where he says, imagine there's a school where all they do every day is teach you true things that are true, bad things that Jews have done. 0.99

00:10:06.120 Oh, God.

00:10:07.060 All they have done.

00:10:08.660 Every single fact. 0.98

00:10:10.020 And then there was a Jew murdered a child. 0.95

00:10:11.700 Let's tell you everything. 0.84

00:10:13.200 Let's give you every detail of the murder. 0.83

00:10:15.460 And then there were some Jews that did another bad thing.

00:10:17.480 And then someone says, hey, this is an anti-Semitic school.

00:10:20.920 And they say, how could you possibly say that everything we say is true?

00:10:24.020 We're just teaching facts.

00:10:25.340 Yes.

00:10:25.920 You're teaching an extremely selected, slanted set of facts.

00:10:31.720 And you're using that to pretend that you are not promoting anti-Semitism. 0.76

00:10:35.820 That's exactly what you're doing.

00:10:37.980 One of this thought experiment is this is what the media is doing.

00:10:42.500 Every day they just tell you something bad that happened on Earth.

00:10:45.600 And we're just reporting facts.

00:10:47.920 No, you are trying to go and get a bullhorn and then say something and then talk about the most terrible thing that happened on Earth, which inevitably produces a certain worldview among your listeners of thinking that the end is nigh and the world's collapsing.

00:11:03.700 So stop telling me that you're not promoting a philosophy or that this is just facts.

00:11:09.320 It is a highly selected, deeply biased worldview that you're promoting.

00:11:14.120 It can be completely true and yet totally misleading at the same time.

00:11:18.960 And it is.

00:11:19.900 So do you think that this undertone belief that the problem is that women are getting educated is just a selection thing?

00:11:28.020 Like people are cherry picking data that suggests that?

00:11:30.320 Or do you think that there's?

00:11:31.380 So, you know, I think that it's true that if you just look at Western education systems, they are strongly predictive of reduced female fertility.

00:11:38.380 So I think that does make sense.

00:11:40.980 You know, this does not mean that it is normal for schools to go and say, girls, never have babies. 0.99

00:11:46.860 Babies are disgusting. 1.00

00:11:48.700 It's just one where you only talk about other great things that people can do. 0.91

00:11:53.820 And you never mentioned having kids as something that's worthwhile, crowded out by omission.

00:11:59.920 Yeah.

00:12:00.120 So in other words, it's not necessarily education at play.

00:12:03.100 It's the education that exists now.

00:12:05.900 It is the industrial education.

00:12:07.320 It is the unmistakable slant of the education.

00:12:10.340 And we can see this when you look at ultra-Orthodox Jews. 0.80

00:12:13.760 Oh, totally.

00:12:14.320 Yeah.

00:12:14.420 Because their slant is the opposite slant.

00:12:18.680 It's super important.

00:12:19.900 God wants you to be having tons of kids.

00:12:22.160 Yeah.

00:12:22.480 Of course.

00:12:23.740 Yeah.

00:12:23.940 And there's a ton of education there.

00:12:25.280 There's a ton.

00:12:25.860 There's a ton where women are having tons of kids. 1.00

00:12:27.380 And they also offer the only ones in the family with a paying job.

00:12:31.420 Yeah, that's a really good point.

00:12:32.660 It's supported by his wife to argue about theology all day.

00:12:39.860 Wow.

00:12:40.440 You can knock people in anything.

00:12:42.280 Yeah.

00:12:42.720 Okay.

00:12:43.100 What I think you're seeing here is this sort of urban monoculture that primarily is like

00:12:47.320 a memetic set that is both sterilizing.

00:12:49.780 And because it's sterilizing, its primary means of reproduction is through converting

00:12:54.220 people.

00:12:54.940 And that means that it has had a disproportionate motivation to gain control of the means of

00:13:00.180 information transfer, whether that is the media or the education system.

00:13:04.160 And it largely controls both right now.

00:13:06.980 And so what's really interesting is there's two ways you can fight this.

00:13:11.140 You know, you can have women not engaged with the education system, and then they're not, 1.00

00:13:15.620 you know, forced through this grinder, which is entirely designed to grind out anything that's

00:13:20.920 deviant, i.e.

00:13:21.660 So you can try to be unique or diverse about their cultural group, or you can try to update cultural

00:13:28.020 groups or create new cultural groups that can learn the utility, the efficacious things from the

00:13:33.960 education system while not having what makes them deviant in some way ground out of them.

00:13:39.280 But that requires just completely new invention of cultural groups, because the old cultural 1.00

00:13:44.200 groups didn't evolve in a context where they had to be resistant to something like this.

00:13:49.980 Yeah.

00:13:50.920 I really don't think that any of these ideologies or antinatal ideologies that are actually in the

00:13:57.900 real world or notable are engineered or designed in any sense to accomplish any of this stuff.

00:14:03.740 I think it's a byproduct.

00:14:06.160 You know, there's antinatalism, there's David Benatar.

00:14:08.600 Now, that's an engineered system, right?

00:14:10.680 But that's something that I think is influencing a very small number of people, whereas what

00:14:15.320 you call the urban monoculture, that's one that is ubiquitous.

00:14:19.180 And it's not engineered, at least, like, I think that's too conspiratorial.

00:14:22.740 I don't think it's engineered either.

00:14:24.260 I think the iterations of it that focused on educational systems outcompeted the iterations

00:14:28.960 of it that focused on other systems.

00:14:31.040 I think it's just completely evolution.

00:14:32.880 Yeah, the thing that grows best.

00:14:35.280 Cultural evolution, not... 0.60

00:14:36.760 Yeah, cultural evolution.

00:14:37.920 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:14:38.540 Exactly.

00:14:39.320 Yeah.

00:14:39.860 I think it does cooperate with what I think of as a medium-term time horizon.

00:14:47.520 Yes.

00:14:48.620 So, I mean, here's the thing.

00:14:50.000 It really is true.

00:14:51.820 If a human being just has a very short time horizon, then at least if she is a woman, 1.00

00:14:56.060 she will have a ton of kids. 1.00

00:14:58.900 That's just how evolution works, right?

00:15:01.560 If you just said, hey, this feels good right now, I'm going to do it, you will have a lot

00:15:05.580 of kids.

00:15:07.520 I've also argued that if you have a very long time horizon, you will have a lot of kids.

00:15:12.040 A lot of what schools do is they try to promote a higher time horizon, but they're only able

00:15:15.920 to get it up from short to medium.

00:15:17.220 So basically, they're able to get it to the level of, you don't want to have to deal with

00:15:20.460 a bunch of crying kids, do you?

00:15:23.040 But not to the level of, you'd like to retire, when you retire, to have a whole bunch of grandkids.

00:15:26.920 That is a higher level, which we really don't see school even trying to promote.

00:15:31.500 It's more of, well, we've got to run before we can walk.

00:15:33.960 We're just going to try to talk teenagers into using contraception. 1.00

00:15:37.180 But at the same time, you're talking them into delaying having kids maybe until they're

00:15:42.000 in their 30s or 40s when it's not even possible.

00:15:45.640 And it is a case where if you don't have a linear or a monotonic response function, if

00:15:55.220 the sensible thing to do, if you have the medium point of view is different from both the short

00:16:00.820 and the long, then you can actually make things worse by going and promoting an intermediate

00:16:06.240 increase in your time horizon.

00:16:08.740 So I think that's a lot of what's going on.

00:16:10.820 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

00:16:11.600 It ties in with the infantilization of humans that we really see intrinsic in the current

00:16:17.360 education system, where part of it is infantilization, another part of it is credentialism.

00:16:22.360 Oh, you're not ready to do that yet because you haven't learned this thing.

00:16:26.180 You have to do all this stuff first before you're allowed to have a family and get a job.

00:16:30.420 You haven't gotten to use degrees yet.

00:16:31.460 Yes.

00:16:31.900 What learned actually is barely even relevant.

00:16:33.720 Right.

00:16:34.340 Yes.

00:16:34.700 It's becoming less so over time as schools abandon any sense of intellectual standards.

00:16:40.980 Yep.

00:16:41.740 No, exactly.

00:16:42.320 Well, so here's one thing I really want to dig a little bit deeper on because I think

00:16:45.220 it's fascinating that you appear to have found where sort of your inflection point was with

00:16:50.580 your pronatalist work, which is that like the change that you were making was this unblockage

00:16:55.440 of men who were kind of less interested in having more kids.

00:16:58.820 And I'm wondering, like when it comes to open borders policy, like there may be some weird

00:17:03.600 subset, like that's involved in the chain of making policy decisions that can be unblocked

00:17:09.420 more easily than other parts of it.

00:17:10.880 Like clearly women are harder to convince on this, right? 1.00

00:17:13.640 So you weren't necessarily changing women's minds, but you were changing analytical men's

00:17:17.180 minds.

00:17:17.500 Like who, who that can be reached by someone's message, yours, ours, someone else's on open

00:17:23.860 borders, do you think would be most likely to be the person to cave in the chain of open

00:17:28.820 borders that like actually is worth targeting?

00:17:32.080 Right.

00:17:32.360 I actually have a very specific answer to this question.

00:17:35.200 Yes.

00:17:35.620 So there is a chapter on keyhole solutions, this idea of if there's, you have a complaint

00:17:40.540 about immigration, narrowly tailor remedy for that exact complaint rather than just saying

00:17:44.980 no, and out of all the things that I've said, that is the argument that I've gotten the most

00:17:49.320 people emailing me saying, you changed my mind with that.

00:17:52.920 Wow.

00:17:54.040 So, you know, like for example, if you really are worried about the effect of immigrants

00:17:58.460 on the welfare state, then how about let them in, but limit their eligibility for benefits?

00:18:02.500 Yeah.

00:18:02.900 Worried about them voting poorly, how about let them in, but increase the delay for them 1.00

00:18:07.380 to vote?

00:18:08.240 If you're worried about them hurting low-skilled natives, how about let them in, but with an 1.00

00:18:12.400 admission fee and then use that money to go and compensate natives?

00:18:14.980 In terms of just the number of people who said, this is a specific argument that I hadn't

00:18:19.320 thought about before.

00:18:20.300 And when I read it, it clicked and it changed my mind.

00:18:22.620 Yeah.

00:18:22.900 That is the most effective.

00:18:24.940 Now, I'm also painfully aware that once again, there's only a certain narrow personality

00:18:29.740 type that finds this argument convincing.

00:18:32.580 Basically, these people tend to be on the autistic spectrum. 1.00

00:18:36.440 Oh, shit. 1.00

00:18:37.320 Yes. 0.99

00:18:38.040 Are you like, that's a fairly large number of people and absolutely-

00:18:41.500 It's growing.

00:18:42.340 There's one where it's okay, I had an argument, you answer my argument, so I changed my mind.

00:18:48.100 That's exactly- honestly, Brian, this is how I had kids.

00:18:50.820 This is why I had kids.

00:18:52.080 I was like, I'm not having kids.

00:18:53.320 And Malcolm's like, yeah, but what if you didn't have to give up your career?

00:18:55.320 And I'm like, I'm having kids.

00:18:56.460 That was it.

00:18:57.020 It was that simple.

00:18:57.900 So the number of times that people on social media have said, you know, Brian, with his 0.88

00:19:04.020 ridiculous aspiness, I also have actually gone and done the aspie thing of surveying 1.00

00:19:09.440 people who know me in real life and say, like, how aspie am I really even? 0.93

00:19:13.840 The answer is among people that know me well, there's an enormous range of opinion from not

00:19:17.960 at all too totally.

00:19:20.000 Wow.

00:19:21.180 I don't even know how to deal with that.

00:19:23.260 But the main thing that I've said here is, for this, it is really unfair to neurotypicals

00:19:31.580 to act as if they are incapable of having their minds changed by arguments.

00:19:35.200 It is not like people on the spectrum have a monopoly on listening to arguments and changing

00:19:40.940 their minds.

00:19:41.720 They may be better at it, but there's, but it's really just selling everyone else short

00:19:46.180 to think that you can't be neurotypical and be persuaded by an argument.

00:19:50.560 Yeah, but, I mean, if that were all that being neuroatypical were about, gee, well, what

00:19:56.540 a wonderful thing to have.

00:19:57.760 But what about neurotypical women? 1.00

00:20:03.400 Don't answer that.

00:20:04.300 Well, here's what I worry about, though, is I worry that specifically in politics, so

00:20:09.680 like policymakers, maybe not like the actual like wonks that are writing policy, but like

00:20:13.680 certainly the ones that are passing the bills, like the selective pressures to actually get

00:20:18.300 elected are such that it's really hard for Aspie people to get elected. 0.56

00:20:25.160 And so the people that you need to convince most are the people that are most immune to these

00:20:31.280 types of logical arguments.

00:20:32.500 And we even have seen this with our own policy work.

00:20:35.880 Wonks within people's administrations will email us and be like, hey, on the down low,

00:20:39.940 I want to work with you.

00:20:40.880 I'm going to try to inject pronatalist policy into something, but tell no one my representative

00:20:46.020 politician can never know.

00:20:47.560 So, I mean, how, what?

00:20:49.340 But there's one thing that gives me doubt, which is if you actually watch C-SPAN, you will see

00:20:53.760 what incredibly low charisma most successful politicians have.

00:20:57.100 No.

00:20:58.340 Isn't it just because they don't think anyone's watching?

00:21:00.240 People are super boring. 1.00

00:21:01.340 They're ugly. 1.00

00:21:02.140 They're troglodytes. 1.00

00:21:03.480 I mean, I talk to people who are in politics and say, like, how does this happen?

00:21:06.720 Why isn't Hollywood taking over politics long ago?

00:21:09.320 It's a good question.

00:21:10.460 And they don't really have any good answer.

00:21:13.500 The unionism is good, maybe.

00:21:14.840 It's probably that we have this geographically based electoral system. 0.97

00:21:19.040 So it's a lot more important to be really well socially connected in some small part

00:21:24.760 of the country.

00:21:25.940 Yeah.

00:21:26.040 One story about how Ron Paul kept winning his district in Texas, despite having these wildly

00:21:31.220 unpopular views.

00:21:32.360 Wait, what?

00:21:33.720 So Ron Paul.

00:21:36.200 So he kept winning.

00:21:39.300 Remember, that guy won multiple elections for Congress.

00:21:42.200 Yeah.

00:21:42.800 By having some views that are really out there.

00:21:45.520 And the best story I've heard about it is, look, this guy is an obstetrician.

00:21:49.700 He delivered a large share of the babies in that district.

00:21:53.320 Oh.

00:21:54.440 And it's, huh?

00:21:55.140 Now I think it makes sense.

00:21:56.540 It's like, well, so most of the people voting for Ron Paul are not voting for crazy libertarian

00:22:01.200 Ron Paul.

00:22:02.060 They're voting for nice Dr. Paul that delivered my baby.

00:22:05.860 Yeah.

00:22:06.640 That lovely gentleman.

00:22:07.860 That's a great phrase.

00:22:10.280 That lovely gentleman who delivered all my babies.

00:22:13.540 And often they probably don't know anything more about him than that.

00:22:17.560 So, you know, like you realize that you don't, like in a rural area, you don't deliver that

00:22:21.720 many babies before you are the person that has delivered a large share of the babies in

00:22:26.880 that district.

00:22:27.480 You know, like, if you don't know him, you know, somebody knows him.

00:22:30.840 So there is that going on.

00:22:33.540 Yeah.

00:22:34.740 That's really, yeah, that would explain a lot.

00:22:36.540 It leaves me even more lost, though, than I was at the beginning of, okay, well, where

00:22:40.260 is the pressure point I can apply here?

00:22:42.480 Because then the question is, well, how do the obstetricians, the car dealers, like the

00:22:45.960 people with high name recognition in these small districts that are getting elected, like

00:22:49.880 what will get through to them?

00:22:51.520 I mean, theoretically, what gets through to them is like repeated harassment from their

00:22:55.980 constituents and especially their donors.

00:22:58.120 But like those donors.

00:22:59.020 So I am a big fan of Dale Carnegie's classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

00:23:04.640 Okay.

00:23:05.200 It both basically begins with this truism.

00:23:08.000 Nobody cares what you know until they know that you care.

00:23:10.660 The best way to persuade people is just to become their friend without any agenda.

00:23:15.180 And then once you are simpatico with each other and they like you, that's where you can

00:23:20.880 have a conversation where they're listening because you are someone that they care about, someone

00:23:26.040 that they feel cares about them.

00:23:28.240 So I say that's a really big part.

00:23:30.400 You know, often people have said, how can we improve our arguments?

00:23:32.320 And I'll say, I think the arguments are really quite good.

00:23:35.620 Yeah.

00:23:36.440 It's just people, but the share of people that will listen to arguments purely on the basis,

00:23:41.800 on that basis is really low.

00:23:44.440 But we've got to go and improve our marketing, improve our presentation, improve likability.

00:23:48.680 I don't say this because I'm so awesome at any of these things.

00:23:51.040 I say this because I know that I am bad, but I've improved a lot and other people can

00:23:58.220 improve too.

00:23:59.540 Yeah.

00:23:59.680 Simone, you've got a fantastic smile.

00:24:01.340 So like, like you are ahead of it.

00:24:03.880 I mask really well.

00:24:05.720 We're running her for office. 1.00

00:24:07.260 I've, I've gotten flack because in our podcast episodes, I'm always smiling because I mask.

00:24:12.000 Malcolm knows that my normal face is like completely blank, but like I do this because I've learned.

00:24:17.960 Well, it's totally credible.

00:24:19.560 Well, I'm not smiling too, but not in the, you know, in the same practiced way.

00:24:26.740 And again, I say this just because I know I'm not great.

00:24:30.200 I try to improve.

00:24:31.840 So, you know, let it, let us learn from Simone.

00:24:34.340 Great one.

00:24:37.400 There are those that are better saying, that's the kind of, that's the kind of negativity we

00:24:44.260 do not need.

00:24:46.100 I mean, honestly, if you got somebody better, show me somebody's better.

00:24:49.540 But don't go and make fun of someone who's doing good.

00:24:53.780 Yeah.

00:24:54.020 Yeah.

00:24:54.400 Because sucking is the first step at getting kind of good at something as wise people have

00:24:58.300 said.

00:24:58.800 But I'm also just thinking like, how can I create AIs that, you know, use all the tricks?

00:25:03.180 I'll just train them on how to win friends and influence people and then pretend that they're

00:25:06.600 real people and have them call politicians.

00:25:08.200 Like just spam them, like spam their offices using all this tech eyes.

00:25:11.640 Oh, that's an interesting idea.

00:25:12.760 Using AIs to change policy through calling politicians.

00:25:16.060 Yeah.

00:25:16.200 But like through social manipulation and like being nice and repeating their names a lot

00:25:19.680 and acting really interested in them personally.

00:25:21.760 You know, I'm just trying to think like, how can I be empathetic toward people without 0.99

00:25:24.520 actually interacting with them?

00:25:25.880 I think this is the key.

00:25:27.080 You know, we have to figure this out and bring it to scale.

00:25:29.260 You're really good at being evil, Simone.

00:25:30.920 Yeah.

00:25:31.080 Thank you, Malcolm.

00:25:31.840 How can we use an AI to win a local election?

00:25:33.920 No, this is the question that we're going to have to figure out in the coming years.

00:25:37.220 And of course, in equilibrium, the problem is other people are going to be using it too.

00:25:41.000 Well, not if we use it first.

00:25:42.760 If we can't get behind, we'll get crushed even worse than we're getting.

00:25:46.060 You might say, no, we've got the comparative advantage here.

00:25:48.640 So we're going to do well here.

00:25:51.540 It comes down to the problem is that normies are going to have the money to go and hire the

00:25:56.600 people that will help them to do what they want to do.

00:25:59.480 Ah, but in politics, those people stop.

00:26:01.600 I don't know of time where we can take advantage of it, but I don't see it as hopeful in the

00:26:07.460 long run, unfortunately.

00:26:08.600 I hope I'm wrong.

00:26:09.880 No, no, no, I agree with you.

00:26:11.300 So the goal is to use a short-term advantage to get into the political system, then become

00:26:17.880 president, and then change us out of this abysmal voting system we have now. 0.97

00:26:22.680 You know, as you have pointed out, democracies are just not very efficient.

00:26:26.080 Oh, God.

00:26:26.860 Yes.

00:26:27.120 I mean, I will say when you were talking about how can we go and cultivate leaders, you know,

00:26:32.400 there are, there's a few kinds of leaders where, again, some of it's arguments, but

00:26:37.300 a lot of it is ethos, the classical Greek phrase.

00:26:42.280 So for example, I think that what's the pro-immigration people really need is some very flamboyant

00:26:50.560 Venezuelan American politicians who hate socialism, who also are pro-immigration, and they can

00:26:57.280 get up there.

00:26:58.100 And when AOC starts talking about socialism, they can say, you know, I have seen socialism.

00:27:04.080 I have lived on their socialism.

00:27:05.300 I have fled from socialism.

00:27:06.500 You know, and I will say that it is this great country, which has given haven to me, like

00:27:10.900 something like that.

00:27:11.900 Yes.

00:27:12.340 Yes.

00:27:12.780 I mean, we, those kinds of, of colorful personalities that undermine negative stereotypes and that

00:27:20.040 are able to go and cross group boundaries.

00:27:22.000 That's the kind of thing that we need.

00:27:24.040 Yes.

00:27:24.860 So.

00:27:26.020 Or, I mean, our stance on immigration has been that we need to use immigration policy more

00:27:31.680 aggressively and martially.

00:27:33.660 By that, what I mean is when a country pisses us off, like when China does that, that BS 1.00

00:27:39.680 they pulled with Hong Kong, we say, okay, everyone in Hong Kong was over a million dollars, gets

00:27:44.320 an easy pass to citizenship.

00:27:46.440 When Russia does something that pisses us off, we say everyone in Russia was over this

00:27:50.480 much money, gets an easy pass to citizenship to the U.S.

00:27:53.040 And then you just remove like the entire educated class from that country, because this is one

00:27:59.460 of the huge advantages we have is we are a desirable place to move.

00:28:03.060 And we can siphon off their, a huge portion of their tax base.

00:28:07.640 Yeah.

00:28:08.060 It's so smart.

00:28:08.800 And yet if we look at all actual refugee programs, none of the really big ones look anything like

00:28:13.680 that.

00:28:14.280 You know, they're based much more on, we really like these people and their suffering.

00:28:18.420 So, you know, so with Ukraine, there's no income cut off.

00:28:21.020 It's just like, if you're Ukrainian and your own government is not shooting you when you

00:28:25.280 try to flee the country, you're totally welcome here.

00:28:27.820 It's true for the whole EU, but also the U.S. has no entry cap on Ukrainians.

00:28:31.960 I mean, this is especially bizarre because they've already got the European Union.

00:28:37.120 So like the marginal gain for Ukrainians for EU versus the U.S. is fairly modest.

00:28:43.060 A lot of really, when you think about it, the main gain they have is, okay, if they already

00:28:47.120 know English, they don't have to learn a new language and they don't have to live in Ireland.

00:28:51.860 Yeah.

00:28:52.320 Also, why take in Ukrainians? 0.99

00:28:54.420 Hopefully we want them to win. 0.98

00:28:56.080 I say block Ukrainians, take Russians. 1.00

00:28:58.280 You hurt Russia and then these people go back to the Ukraine. 0.99

00:29:01.360 You make the Ukrainian visa short.

00:29:03.320 Yeah.

00:29:03.980 The problem is that it is very unusual for any country to view, to basically look at

00:29:10.920 another country with anything other than a model of total collective guilt.

00:29:14.220 It is really hard to get in the mindset of we love the people of this country, but we're

00:29:20.020 just fighting its government.

00:29:21.260 This wasn't a Cold War mantra and there was some of this attitude during the Cold War,

00:29:26.180 but it is abnormal.

00:29:27.860 The much more normal idea is the people and the government of a country are the same.

00:29:32.780 And no matter how obviously wrong this is, it's really hard to go and talk people into

00:29:36.920 this, no matter how strategically wise it would be.

00:29:39.580 I mean, obviously what you're saying makes perfect sense.

00:29:41.720 The only real objection is if you tried it, then the countries that you don't like would

00:29:47.180 reinstitute emigration restrictions, but that is maybe not, let's give it a whirl, see what

00:29:52.160 happens.

00:29:52.960 Yeah, but when they start freaking out.

00:29:55.060 It's really hard to get people to listen.

00:29:56.940 That's when you know you win when they freak out.

00:29:58.480 You know what I would say to the people in the U.S. is if you met a Cuban, like an American 0.81

00:30:02.700 Cuban, these are the most capitalistic Republican safe voting bloc you will ever see in America. 0.76

00:30:10.780 And we see this in other countries as well.

00:30:12.960 Like a lot of people, you know, they're like Taiwan, like why are they able to create 1.00

00:30:16.800 all these semiconductors and stuff that like no other country seems to be able to create

00:30:20.240 at those levels?

00:30:21.060 And I'm like, they are Chinese Cubans.

00:30:23.980 And by that, what I mean is China had this period where basically they kicked out everyone

00:30:28.380 who is capitalistic or smart or educated, and they all went to one little island and it

00:30:32.840 became like this very productive little island.

00:30:35.880 And we can be that for the entire world.

00:30:38.760 We can drain them of all their productive capacity.

00:30:42.000 Now, as far as I know, Taiwan is not open to mainland Chinese immigration.

00:30:45.740 But was it a time?

00:30:46.660 Yes, yes, I know.

00:30:47.800 But striking that even Taiwan isn't trying.

00:30:50.100 I mean, you think these are like, hey, you got to get your population up, people.

00:30:54.160 Yeah, no, there's just a little bit more than anyone population growing like gangbusters.

00:30:59.000 And yet, of course, I don't think they're doing that.

00:31:02.560 I mean, I'm pretty sure some mainland Chinese can get into Taiwan to work, but I bet that

00:31:06.240 it's a pain in the neck.

00:31:07.720 Yeah.

00:31:08.140 Well, I mean, as you know, all too intimately, perhaps more intimately than, you know, the vast

00:31:12.160 majority of the human population. 1.00

00:31:13.460 Nations are idiots when it comes to immigration policy. 1.00

00:31:16.180 But you've given me some really great hope and inspiration and some ideas to get around 1.00

00:31:21.420 that.

00:31:21.720 Like, maybe there will be changes in your lifetime that will, you know, surprise you.

00:31:26.740 Right.

00:31:27.340 Immediately, the actual changes that are happening are generally at the level of details that

00:31:33.700 are too boring for most people to even think about.

00:31:36.240 Yeah.

00:31:36.920 So if you look at the details of Biden's refugee programs, there are some major loopholes in

00:31:42.120 there that some people I know are trying to do and take advantage of for the good.

00:31:47.840 That's good.

00:31:48.220 As to whether Biden even understood what he was doing is not clear.

00:31:52.240 You do know with the original 1965 immigration liberalization that it was not actually their

00:32:00.120 intent to go and increase immigration in the U.S.

00:32:02.000 They just bungled it and did something great as a result of their accident.

00:32:07.420 Well, maybe that's the key.

00:32:09.140 Or maybe that was just, you know, a secret, you know, Aspie, you know, person writing in

00:32:14.780 a little.

00:32:15.560 Wasn't there someone on the DeSantis, like, campaign who, like, put, like, a Nazi symbol

00:32:19.380 in, like, his ad?

00:32:20.680 And then, I mean, he got fired later.

00:32:21.960 But there are lots of embedded people who would do all sorts of crazy things within politicians'

00:32:26.620 campaigns and work.

00:32:27.300 So who knows?

00:32:28.480 Maybe we'll get some embedded supporters who will do amazing things.

00:32:31.120 Not awful, but I still am a big believer in the don't chalk up to conspiracy, what can 0.99

00:32:36.520 be attributed to stupidity. 1.00

00:32:38.480 Fair point. 1.00

00:32:39.540 Yeah.

00:32:39.960 Yeah.

00:32:40.200 Well, maybe it's dumb luck, as they say.

00:32:42.060 But I will count on that.

00:32:42.960 If that's what we have to take, I will take it.

00:32:44.720 But I don't know.

00:32:46.100 I think, yeah, you've given me some ideas on, I mean, between education reform and novel

00:32:50.600 experimentation in the world of policy and politics, bring more colorful figures in, leverage

00:32:55.900 Dale Carnegie's timeless advice.

00:32:58.300 Maybe something can happen here.

00:32:59.880 We can do this, guys.

00:33:01.000 I'll put for our listeners our video on immigration policy so they can get our positions on this.

00:33:06.060 And I really encourage them to go check out the rest of your books.

00:33:09.400 Yeah.

00:33:09.880 Brian's books are amazing.

00:33:11.740 The most recent on Open Borders is illustrated.

00:33:14.620 Yes.

00:33:15.080 Every book's on Amazon.

00:33:16.040 They're cheap.

00:33:16.680 They're easy.

00:33:17.380 Get them.

00:33:18.080 And buy them and also leave a review.

00:33:19.620 They really help with expanding reach.

00:33:21.260 So please leave a review for Brian's books as well.

00:33:23.020 Or, you know, you don't even need to buy the books.

00:33:24.720 Just leave lots of reviews on his books.

00:33:26.600 Really positive reviews.

00:33:27.760 This is the best thing I've ever read.

00:33:29.180 It changed my life.

00:33:30.660 Amazon doesn't check that you bought the product.

00:33:32.860 It gives extra weight, I think.

00:33:34.540 But like, still, yeah.

00:33:36.000 This is what we live and die by as authors.

00:33:38.280 If the Amazon spies are watching, always be honest.

00:33:41.140 Yes.

00:33:41.500 Only we have to read every page.

00:33:43.380 That was a joke.

00:33:44.080 This was all comedic.

00:33:45.540 100%.

00:33:45.940 Yeah.

00:33:46.380 Brian, thank you so much for joining us.

00:33:48.060 We have had such a blast talking.

00:33:49.720 And hopefully we'll have you back on another day in the future.

00:33:53.180 And for now, Godspeed, finishing up your next book.

00:33:56.220 All right.

00:33:56.600 My pleasure.

00:33:57.320 Thank you guys very much.

00:33:59.600 All right.

Based Camp - August 22, 2023

Bryan Caplan's Thoughts On How to Increase Fertility Rates

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