In Part 2 of the "You're Wrong About Birth Rates and Aging Populations" series, Philosophy Tube's Abigail Thorne presents a two-parter on "Demographic Collapse and Having Kids" in which she argues that having kids is a social contagion, and that it's better than not having them at all.
00:03:38.360So anyway, let's dive right in, because I'm so excited.
00:03:42.980So this video essay, part two of the whole pronatalism series, the dramatic bit of the video, because this is philosophy too.
00:03:53.160A lot of people on our first video on this, when we talked about her first part, were like, oh, Abigail Thorne just wishes to be like ContraPoints.
00:04:02.160And both of them have these very dramatically lit, long philosophical video essays with great costumes, fantastic makeup.
00:04:12.260The dramatic bit to this particular philosophy too essay involves Abigail Thorne dressing up as a mermaid, being, you know, analogous to being trans, as Abigail pontificates from a giant seashell or clamshell about sort of the trans approach to having children while using a lot of fish puns.
00:04:33.820And I love puns, so I don't necessarily mind any of that.
00:04:38.400Do you know what's interesting about this analogy that you probably aren't thinking about?
00:04:43.020It's that fish do, like, Inception was in fish happens external to the body, like they don't-
00:04:47.960I know, well no, it's very apt, it's very apt.
00:04:50.280As it would, yeah, happen for a trans woman.
00:04:52.200Well, Thorne even, like, talks about the fact that, you know, as a mermaid, Thorne doesn't reproduce like normal people.
00:04:59.480No, it is very apt, like, it's a fantastic-
00:05:01.580Like, I think that that's well executed.
00:05:02.900You gotta give credit where credit's due.
00:05:04.600But to put it diplomatically, the video ultimately legitimizes choosing not to have children while also critiquing the systems that make parenthood feel terrifying or impossible for many who might otherwise-
00:05:16.060You told me the first thing she says was because of Gaza.
00:05:21.680I mean, right off the bat, the focus is on philosophy, which is fair because this is philosophy too.
00:05:25.920But actually, the first thing she mentions is a reference to Why Have Children? The Ethical Debate, a book by Christine Overall.
00:05:32.920And then immediately she points people to David Benatar, and is like, I'm not going to get into it, but watch this video about him.
00:05:38.120So, like, immediately, you know, it's philosophy, so it's very abstracted from, like, brass tacks in reality.
00:05:44.280And it's, by the way, antinatalism, check it out, yo.
00:05:46.820She also leans heavily on a UN report that explores people's reasons for not having babies.
00:05:53.420But, yeah, the first sort of big theme that is explored philosophically in the video is global crises and concerns about the future being a major reason why people don't have children.
00:06:05.920Whereas, I mean, from our research, it's really why people say they don't have children when they don't have children yet.
00:06:10.420But, really, it's not an actual reason why people don't have children.
00:06:13.140But, yes, she absolutely connects fears about having kids to global crises such as war, especially Gaza, and the targeting or dehumanization of marginalized groups, including trans and autistic people.
00:06:53.280This is where I was like, oh, this is where I feel like Philosophy Tube is giving us a greater argument as to why being trans is a social contagion than, like, a lot of the research on detransitioning.
00:07:06.280Because I just feel like this shows the extent to which the major life choices and the way that Abigail Thorne relates to the world is so divorced from reality and so tied to, like, political aesthetics and philosophical aesthetics and concepts that, you know, this isn't about reality anymore.
00:07:32.360It's about signaling and affiliation and that that that's what's going on.
00:07:38.280It's not some, like, deep, inherent thing.
00:07:49.100Bad things are happening somewhere else.
00:07:52.040Therefore, I won't have kids here is a genuinely perplexing argument.
00:07:57.680Well, what makes it even worse is a big thing that Thorne points out, too, is I don't like that my country is contributing to this violence, as in, like, the UK is contributing to the world.
00:08:09.780Oh, so she sees it as, like, punishing her country.
00:08:11.780If you if if Thorne chooses to not have children and then those children don't, you know, adopt Thorne's philosophy and change society for the better, then theoretically this continued violence against children elsewhere that that Thorne is concerned about will continue.
00:08:32.040So that's another problem I have is, like, OK, well, if you have an issue with it, then you also need to contribute toward something different.
00:08:41.820So you're going to see a lot of that in this where Thorne will present an argument.
00:08:46.920And I feel like if you use the same the very same evidence or calculus that Thorne is using, you can neutralize the argument made.
00:08:57.000Like, no, actually, if bad things are happening in the world, as you've cited, the argument should be for having kids, because by having kids that create a better world, you can stop the bad thing like this is.
00:09:09.740Yeah, the thing is, is that kids are likely, as we point out, a 80 percent of Republican parents have Republican kids.
00:09:17.00090 percent of Democratic parents have Democratic kids and kids move sometimes more conservative to the age.
00:09:22.340It just changes based on the generation.
00:09:23.980The point being is she is denying the generation somebody who is more likely to be anti-Gaza, whereas people who do not care are having the same amount of kids that they did historically on it.
00:09:36.960Yeah, but again, we need to, a better argument is to do this on the terms that Thorne is using.
00:09:42.660Thorne is arguing based on like these philosophical approaches.
00:09:45.420And I think the more important thing is, okay, well, the philosophical approach here is world bad.
00:09:51.420I don't want to bring a kid into a bad world, especially a world that is contributing to the badness.
00:09:57.800Whereas using that very same line of reasoning, that is exactly why we should be wanting to have kids, is if world bad, we need to have kids that make the world better.
00:10:06.400But another big thing that Thorne points to is misinformation.
00:10:11.880Thorne argues that people are being misinformed about birth control and becoming pregnant by mistake after being scared off taking birth control.
00:10:20.720And Thorne also decries anti-vaccine rhetoric coming out of the Trump administration.
00:10:25.600I think that this was brought up in the video because of some like, like we shouldn't have kids because when we do get pregnant, it's by mistake or because of misinformation.
00:10:38.880Well, I think this is a really interesting point.
00:10:41.140And I think it shows you their wider world perspective.
00:30:53.400And that is so the core of the urban monoculture and how it works.
00:30:56.500When you meet somebody, you ask, what's your job?
00:30:59.880And you present with, what's your gender?
00:31:02.760And the other things that many people would consider more core to who they are, their philosophy, why they live, you know, what they're fighting for, their culture, their etc.
00:31:12.280None of this stuff is actually important to her, right?
00:31:23.360Which is, I think, a deeply sad thing.
00:31:26.740But it shows that I think that this spreads beyond just talking about like a trans individual, like the trans community, to the wider urban monoculture, to many young people who are raised in it.
00:31:42.920And I think that this is because the way she has chosen to engage with this debate, to make a video and solidify her stance, to add her stance to the blockchain.
00:32:09.180The blockchain of online social discourse in this very methodical and dramatic way is because there is this cognitive dissonance that Thorne is now trying to resolve officially by being like,
00:32:22.860And here are all the reasons why I'm not doing it and I'm right to make this decision.
00:32:26.280And I say this because I grew up and spent my young adult life, at least, being fully and extremely happy to live alone, never get married, never have kids.
00:32:39.980And I never, ever felt the need to defend my stance on this or even to debate it.
00:33:06.840And there are people who will talk about, like, their entire channels devoted to this, TV channels and, and like, and publications and all this, right?
00:33:14.100There's constant streaming of sports and I have nothing to do with it.
00:33:17.700And it is many people's lives and careers and everything.
00:34:11.100And, like, I do think then that there are some people who talk at least about just, like, dink or childless discourse about just how great it is.
00:34:20.580But what Thorne is talking about here is, like, all the reasons why people are trying to argue you should have kids, like, legacy and all these other things and trying to tear it down, but unsuccessfully so, in my opinion, at least.
00:34:31.040And I also know of other YouTubers who regularly talk about their choice to be child-free from this very defensive standpoint of, like, I feel so much, like, people are always asking me, like, when am I going to have kids?
00:34:44.080And, like, I feel so criticized and so looked down upon for this.
00:34:49.060And you get this feeling, too, from Thorne in this essay of, like, that there's this feeling of defensiveness, like, society thinks that I'm letting it down.
00:35:16.580No, no, but it is, it is, it is interesting that people talk on this subject, because I want to be, like, what's the, what's the state of the public conversation?
00:36:17.960I am for weird approaches to pronatalism.
00:36:21.120And I'm for a critical approach to everything related to fertility and society and all that.
00:36:25.860And, and while you and I have our concerns about trans culture in general and, like, the way it exists now, I don't think you and I inherently or, like, deeply philosophically have anything against, like, being gender weird.
00:36:39.560Like, like, whatever, you know, like, just, like, maybe don't, don't build your life, as you've been pointing out repeatedly, like, around an identity.
00:37:01.880Yeah, see, that's another example is it just really bothers me that, like, every time she argues, like, well, like, she makes a philosophical argument, we could use the same argument against her.
00:37:19.980But what's interesting is, and this is what's so fascinating, you could attempt to pass on a culture that accepted trans people, like, a culture in which trans people are part of how you relate to gender, how you relate to sexuality.
00:37:36.960Yeah, well, and also a culture in which you, you know, include in your nationalized healthcare gender-affirming care.
00:37:42.480Like, if Thorne feels like she deserves reparations for having the state not pay for that, then create a generation of people who will pay for gender-affirming care.
00:37:52.720Right, but the point here being is she could have passed on the culture in which trans as a concept exists.
00:38:03.040But, and I think that this sort of proves that it's a cultural contagion, that is meaningless to her.
00:38:09.220You do not accept that culture in a meaningful way to her unless you are yourself trans.
00:38:17.020The culture in which the trans framework exists is not meaningfully passed on unless it is passed on alongside a trans identity from her perspective, which I think lets the cat out of the bat.
00:39:10.540And these, specifically here, I'm talking about the parents who hate their kids for being gay, not for, like, religious reasons or whatever, but just because they see it as, like, effeminate and not like them, right?
00:39:28.340I mean, I honestly wish that I could meet Thorne in person and just talk and, like, better understand the approach taken.
00:39:37.820Like, this episode, there's so many mysteries in it.
00:39:39.840Like, I didn't even talk about this huge diversion in the episode that is dedicated toward discussion of a small independent film called Castration Movie, which is about basically horrible trans people in which the protagonist, called Traps, struggles with the knowledge that kids will no longer be possible due to their gender transition-driven infertility.
00:40:15.000That's the protagonist of the independent film Castration Movie, which Philosophy Tube uses in this essay to, I think, primarily just be supportive of other transgender media efforts, but also, like, emphasize a major through line about how gender norms shape expectations around motherhood and fatherhood,
00:40:34.720and how, like, trans and queer people can feel, especially conflicted about these roles, but it just, it's, it's very distracting.
00:40:43.760It's, it's a weird diversion, and it doesn't, I don't think she quite brings it home in her video essay the way that maybe she would want to, but I don't know.
00:40:51.760I mean, at least, I feel like I, I was able to grok more of this particular video essay of Philosophy Tubes than most of the ones that I watch, because typically I just get totally lost, whereas, like, maybe because I feel so much ownership of this particular
00:41:06.980philosophical domain, not ownership, but at least I've spent so much time sitting in it that, like, I was able to engage with it better than, like, some other things that have been discussed on the channel.
00:41:30.860No, none of us can be ContraPoints, and I know you don't want me to say that, because, like, our audience probably hates ContraPoints, too.
00:41:38.180No, I remember, apparently there's, like, a bunch of rumors that, like, early on, when she transitioned Philosophy Tube, she tried to, like, look and act and sound exactly like ContraPoints.
00:41:47.100I don't want to look and act and sound like ContraPoints.
00:42:07.160She invested so much in trying to get me to learn how to use makeup.
00:42:09.980No, my mom would say you use makeup like I found you in, like, a country barrel or something, you know, like...
00:42:15.220She kept taking me to, like, all the makeup counters and having me, like, go through, like, makeup put on sessions and be like, now, Simone, practice, practice.
00:42:43.400But no, genuinely, though, like, all female, like, plastic surgery and makeup is gender-affirming care.
00:42:51.560And I think that we need to have more open conversations in society about the fact that things like Botox or facelifts, or especially, like, female youth-inducing procedures that women undergo are just forms of gender-affirming care.
00:48:44.680You don't dress up in a mermaid costume like that and not have fun.
00:48:47.580Yeah, no, you do it if you're trying to convince the world that you're happy with the role you have chosen of lifelong theater kid.
00:48:54.120But if you live your life to live a role, you almost definitionally will never be satisfied because, especially when most people don't see you as genuinely embodying that role.