Frances Comically Bad Fertility Policy (Simone & Malcolm Debate)
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Summary
In this episode, Malcolm and Simone discuss France's recent policy proposals to combat declining fertility rates, fertility checks for young people, and why they think it might be a good idea. They discuss the benefits and drawbacks of these policies, and Malcolm gives his in-depth analysis.
Transcript
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hello this is malcolm and simone here and we are happy to be talking about some pronatalist
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statistics and policy today today's episode is going to be focused on france's recent policy
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proposals to combat demographic collapse however i have not seen them so simone is going to be
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presenting them to me and you are going to be getting my in real time reaction would you like
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to know more yeah so i recently came across this telegraph article it was published i think a
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little earlier this month but it's about policies that have been discussed for a while it's called
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france to offer young people fertility checks to combat falling fertility rates and it discusses
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a couple of policies which at best not going to do anything at worst are probably going to cause
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damage at least unless i'm crazy i want your take on this um so the gist is that um france's
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president emmanuel macron is laudable for recognizing demographic collapse as an issue and talking about
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it france's fertility rate relative to the rest of the eu is actually pretty good it but it had a
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massive collapse this last year it did but that means the senior year they're still above the eu
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average they're still above the uk they're still above germany and they're still above spain so
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like generally speaking france is the one that looks good maybe because it's a little more catholic
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who knows there's a lot no it's because it's less catholic oh really yeah if you contrast it with
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other countries it's actually more secular and again this is what we've seen across a lot of things
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is that the more catholic a country is in europe the lower its fertility rate was the average catholic
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majority country in europe having a fertility rate of only 1.3 yeah that that makes sense then but
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anyway they still recognize it's a problem i really appreciate that so they get points for that
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all right pity points for that but the latest thing that emmanuel macron france's president has proposed
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is fertility checks for young people he's trying to get people to test their fertility earlier but
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quite honestly doing so isn't going to boost fertility that sounds like an interesting idea well from the
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article i'll read what they say emmanuel macron is to offer fertility checks to all 18 to 25 year olds
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as part of a grand plan to combat declining fertility rates the french president first announced his
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ambition to enact french demographic rearmament which that's fun that's a fun term at a press conference
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on january 16th as part of a wide array of measures aimed at reviving his stuttering second term
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i don't think that's going to help and i can tell you why but i want to hear why you think that's
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interesting and worth trying so what age ranges 18 to 25 why wouldn't this is just a great idea
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actually so it's very similar to me to the policy where conservatives to fight abortion they made it
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so that women had to look at a picture of their ultrasound before getting an abortion which dramatically
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lowers the chance of abortion they are creating a policy which is encouraging people to recognize
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their short fertility windows which is one of the core issues in society today in terms of falling
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fertility rates is men do not realize they have fertility windows they think that because some men
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occasionally have kids when they're older that it is normal for the failed fertility window to extend
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well past 40 and it just is not you might occasionally get that but you're gonna have a really high rates
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of diseases and stuff like that and you're gonna have it's just not great so that's one huge thing
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that it hopefully it can help clear up that myth and force people to understand that myth and what
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macron recognizes and mentioned in a magazine interview is quote every woman should have access
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should have free access to her body but one figure stands out for me the fertility rate is 1.8
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and the rate of desire for a child is 2.3 now that's a good point right so there are more there are women
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in france who want to on average have more kids than they have so he recognizes that people are having
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fertility problems or that they're not starting when they should and maybe one one thing he can enact
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to change that is to inform them about their fertility again i just here's no it's not informing them about
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their fertility you're reading what's happening wrong okay it's forcing them to take a reality check
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on their fertility window through the most realistic mechanism available right through just hard data
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women often don't realize how short their fertility window is yeah um after 35 if a woman gets pregnant
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that's considered a geriatric pregnancy that is considered an extremely old age pregnancy and likely
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to lead to complications a lot of women don't know the window is 35 they're like oh maybe by the time
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i'm 40 and i'll start thinking about it in my mid 30s no if you start thinking about it in your mid 30s
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you are not going to have many kids you've already lost you need to be getting married and starting
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having kids in your late 20s not mid 30s okay so that's another thing but again here's why i don't
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think it's gonna work okay as much as everyone's we just should inform people we just need to let them
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know that their fertility window is short i don't honestly think that the problem is that people are
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being unrealistic about their short fertility windows i think that many people who want to
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have kids are aware so basically the people who already want to have kids and plan on having kids
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know that their fertility window is short and they're struggling to find partners and they're
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struggling to get their careers in orders and they're still going to wait to have kids because
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you have literally seen this even among fans of this show when we've talked about is males who are
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under the illusion that their fertility they're going to be like able to have kids it's one factor
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i don't think it's the factor i think it's one factor but definitely not the defining factor
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no it's not the defining factor but it is an inexpensive like if i was going to put the weight
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anywhere policy-wise this is one of the easiest areas to do this outside of changing education
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here's the problem with changing education you could try to do better education around people's
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fertility windows it's just that if you put that into schools or colleges it is going to be
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administered by bureaucrats who are usually anti-natalist because they're usually far left
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leaning or at least anti- french french national natalist and so i just i'm sorry like it's actually a
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fairly good policy for the cost i hold it as neutral i don't think it's going to help because i think
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that the really big factors are culture that people just don't want to have kids or they don't feel
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like they're ready to have kids yet and they're still gonna ultimately start trying or feel like
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they're finally ready when it's too late so okay what's the next one yeah so the next thing that
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bothers me is okay i'm gonna read from the article again mr mccron also outlined his future birth
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leave scheme which will quote come to force at the end of 2025 unquote the aim is to pay young
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parents who stop working or reduce their working hours to look after their offspring quote three
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months for mothers three months for fathers cumulative during the child's first year and
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compensated at 50 of salary up to the social security ceiling which is 1900 euros unquote he said
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now again i really think that this is damaging things that are like we'll just pay you to put your
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career on hold this is many places that have very permissive maternity leave policies are still
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seeing their birth rates plummet because women are realistic and they understand that basically
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you're damned if you do you're damned if you don't if there's no maternity leave it's hard to have kids
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and if there is maternity leave you can have kids and you can get support but there are going to then be
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more glass ceilings in your career because people know that you're more of a liability and there are
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also going to be major career costs because you're just going to disappear for a while and that's
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going to put your career on hold no matter what the nation may try to do to protect you so to clarify
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this is mandatory maternity leave it's not mandatory it's just basically ensuring that women are
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compensated both women and men are compensated when taking parental leave and it doesn't compensate
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both genders equally yes and it's something like 80 percent of their salary right for a year
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at 50 percent of salary and it's just for three months okay i is he this is three months for
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mothers three months for fathers so it's a total of six months like the father can take three months
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off the mother can take three months off so it's basically saying you can take time off the government
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will pay you half of your salary so that should make it easier for you again i don't think that's
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going to make a difference it's going to increase gender pay gap i mean anything around maternity
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i believe as a concept we're just against you need to build cultural practices around having
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children at work this is gender neutral so men can do it too it's just i don't think men are going to
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do it no but it's much more important to create laws that like you cannot have a woman not come to
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work with her newborn that that needs to just be a legal mandate something that is normal for women
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to be wearing their children all the time yeah yeah if we could just change the norms to
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bring your baby to the office we'll help to provide some support or at least have an inclusive
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environment where it's cool to do that and then you want to really help things would be an interesting
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policy take no bring your baby to the office 50 percent of your salary gets paid as a bonus to the
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company for every mother during her first few months like the company gets a subsidy for having a
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slightly less productive and more disruptive mother but like for supporting her so now the
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company is financially incentivized for its employees to get pregnant that's good i like that
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incentivized for its employees getting pregnant i like that and you create many downstream positive
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practices from that outside of maternity leave which i think builds up this false fear of having the
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kid is such a burden everything like that and then people can spiral around that when historically
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women worked and had kids at the same time you you have with all of our kids it yeah i just don't
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like that expectation but i wouldn't say it's a disastrous plan no again that's neutral there there
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are two things that i think are quite negative so let's get to the first one which isn't easy
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which is a very easy one to hate which is that he is strongly against surrogacy he says that it
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is quote not compatible with the dignity of women is a form of commodification of their bodies
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unquote he argued which is just it's very annoying because on the other hand he's argued that he
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doesn't want pronatalism in france to be about shaming or guilting people who don't want to have
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kids into having kids he's very much about supporting those who want to have kids and this is one of the
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top ways surrogacy is one of the top ways you can support people who want to have kids but can't
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i feel like getting over surrogacy is one of the most important things when it comes to
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encouraging a nation to be able to have more kids it's even a great way for people who don't want
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to have kids of their own to contribute to a nation's pronatalism while also making money
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because a lot of people don't mind commodifying their bodies which is shown by the rate of women who
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are on only fans now hello like yes you have something like only fans legal where women are literally
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and it's my understanding only fans is illegal in france and pornography is legal in france
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which means he's literally okay with women literally commodifying their bodies for base level human
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debasement right and actually for probably more antinatalist tendencies right because men are using
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only fans as a band-aid in place but creating a human life that another body is going to love
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and raise and take care of and that is you know just the perversion of that sentiment i think it's
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really good that he doesn't want to do something like he's trying to appease the this conservatives
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yeah who are it's not working his approval ratings are dropping he's he's not doing well at all i don't
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know just it really that bothers me but here's the really stupid thing and i actually i think it's
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stupid i want to get your take on this because of what you've said regarding child support required
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by men and its effect on fertility so here is a very interesting and i've not heard any other
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leader establish this as a pronatalist policy but i think that if he does really push for this it's
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going to backfire like crazy and this is very novel so get this i'm reading the article again
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mr macron also outlined his future birth leave scheme which will oh okay so i'm quoting from
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the article again in a video broadcast by l the magazine mr macron who has no children although his
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wife bridgette has three from her first marriage also suggested opening a debate on the introduction
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of a possible duty to visit for fathers in single parent families where women are the main carers
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quote we've allowed men to exonerate themselves from all parental duties he said while pointing
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out that 90 percent of youths involved in riots in france last july quote came from either child
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wherefore or single child welfare or single parent families mr macron added when there is a father
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he must exercise all his duties and the mother when she is in that situation must be able to demand
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regular visits he said fathers should for example take part in parent teacher meetings and be a
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quote stakeholder unquote in the child's education the president stressed it is a duty to be a parent
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and it's a duty that doesn't end with a divorce or separation and said parents must quote both
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exercise their responsibilities unquote he added even it is better a child who never sees his father
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is a child who feels abandoned unquote and whose quote emotional and educational development is not the
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same unquote now i agree children do better with two parents totally but actually i don't think
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evidence is as strong for that as people like to say it is um so i'll give you the fact that's here
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that people hold on so if you're looking gender blind children do better with two parents oh but when
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you look at single father households at single father households they do about the same they do in two
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parent households so what's unique about single father households right it's that most single
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father households are not single father households because a relationship failed so let me explain what
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i mean by that because people may not be familiar with the court system the court system hugely is
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favorable to women women can usually get the kids that they want so what that means is if you have a
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single father household it's usually because the wife died and so it is wildly incompetent and evil and
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messed up yeah and in that case a divorce was warranted so it's not the kids are better off in
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that case yeah yeah messed up if if so i don't think that is a condemnation of women as single
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parents i just think what it shows is that a lot of these single parent women are people who are
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fundamentally unfit to be parents or be in a long-term relationship with another human and the
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lesser evil like the husbands too are probably unfit but whatever no i wouldn't say necessarily i think
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if you created more equitable divorce laws and more equitable laws around child custody that would
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have a better impact in terms of getting more fathers involved in their children's lives than forcing
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but think about what you're forcing here so one you're forcing a father into a kid's life who
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not like he's forcing the fathers to care about the kids he's forcing fathers who don't care about the
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kids into kids lives that is not there is no evidence that is a helpful thing to do or that's going to
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fix some sort of emotional problems the kid have around being abandoned that the kids only had their
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father around because he was legally obligated to be around yeah i feel like it also adds baggage it's
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just another one of those liability things that affects the the male subconscious and deciding
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whether or whether it at all to engage with women so along with all these other laws around consent
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and post-talk deciding that someone didn't consent to some kind of liaison with a man this is just
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another one of those things that i think men would think about oh and then the government's gonna for
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for my entire life not only demand child support but also demand that i travel across the entire
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country just to show up at parent-teacher conferences if i move like this is gonna ruin my life even more
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than i thought it ever was so i'm just gonna get a vasectomy right now and never ever have kids that
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kind of thing i just that's what i worry about no it's obviously what's gonna happen i i see almost
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no positive outcome for this other than that it may give some men more leverage in getting access to
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their children yeah that could be a good thing but that's i think that there were probably this seemed
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like the kind of law that would have some exception clause where if the woman really hated the man
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or something that like she would still be able to cut him out somehow yes it seems like it's just
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giving the wives more control when you would achieve much more by creating more equitable divorces and
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getting kids to fathers more when the father is competent and i also think that this again goes to
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i think the myth of the two-parent household when you look at the data like the data i'm talking about
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i just think it shows that actually what you're seeing is the type of person who cannot maintain a
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stable relationship is the type of person who is a bad parent and at that point it's oh yeah no duh
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like anyone should know that and they have the type of kid who causes more social damage and more social
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harm um and i i think that that actually is a pretty chilling statistic about the riots and stuff right
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yeah that's and how do you even get that information i don't are they pulling everyone who shows up to a
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riot they're breaking a window they're like sir did you have a single parent i suspect that if you were
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to look into this data more is covering up something that is what's the word i'm looking for here
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inconvenient truth that the dominant cultural group doesn't want to admit that the urban monoculture
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doesn't want to admit which is that most of the rioters were from an ethnic or cultural group that has
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very low rates of fathers staying around um that is i think what he is actually stating there
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um not that they're just broadly so i think that's important to note is cultural groups which do not
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encourage fathers i think have worse outcomes and cultural groups that do encourage fathers more
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broadly because they're just you've got to look at all the things that that then gets elevated within
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those cultural groups if a person isn't rewarded for staying around their kids they're often not
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rewarded as much for treating women well and you're much more likely to get really high power distance
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between husband and wife which leads to abusive situations for the wife even when the husband
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does stay around you're also likely to have wives really heavily optimizing around just base masculinity
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instead of is this person going to be a good caregiver because they are not searching for biologically
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speaking they are not searching for a long-term partner they're searching for genes and so when women are
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doing that they cultural groups often end up um elevating within them traits that are like wealth
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physical strengths risk-taking behavior i.e crime right and a lot of just generally negative
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traits become high status within those cultural groups i and this is definitely something that
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needs to be fixed i just don't see this is fixing it i think with a lot of this it's something that
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comes from within the cultural group fixing it comes from within the cultural groups yeah members
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within the cultural groups which choose a different pathway but they're empowering those cultural groups
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to fix their own ways is pretty mean yeah which involves less school overreach school cultural
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overreach and stuff like that because the urban monoculture is interested in no kids like they
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don't want any kids at all just do whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it but that's again why
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i don't think this practice of informing people of their fertility window is really going to make
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that much of a difference because listen if i was informed of my fertility window in between the age of
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18 and 25 which is you know i met you at age 24 i'd be like great yep i never want to have kids so this
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doesn't matter i'm not going to get it tested i think it's something that comes at a certain point
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in your your life i think a more fun way to do this or something is all women when they graduate school
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and all men get a clock that's counting down their fertility window and they get to put it in their
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house wherever they want biological clock not thinking about it here's the thing many progressives
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as a joke would display this because they'd be like oh but it would still remind all of their guests
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and them every day because there's that moment in your life where it goes your fertility window goes
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from being a joke to an existential crisis and being reminded of it i think makes that day happen
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earlier um i don't know just when i think of progressive simone nah not at all really not at
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all not at all and that's the thing is again like i can model this so well because i was this and the
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only thing for me that changed my interest in fertility was meeting you was finding a guy who you
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respected that was it and if he invested if macron invested in dating in relationship formation in
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in creating a culture that elevates the family i feel like that would make so much more of a difference
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than telling people about their fertility window you know what i mean it just people don't give a
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shit the best of the policies he has i will say that the policies are honestly bizarre that he thinks
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this would have a positive impact it appears almost more like subsidies or trying to what's the word
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i'm looking for placate special interest groups or it was in society then actually trying to come up
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with a real solution and even i don't know if you saw in south korea they're considering giving a
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approximately 52 000 subsidy to parents for each kid wow which is that's unprecedented and this is along
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the lines of what robin hansen has suggested in terms of upfront payments right even that though
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when it comes to culture in korea being what it is and the amount of helplessness plus the animosity
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between men and women i don't think is going to solve the problem it's no one's listening to people
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when they're saying what's wrong no one's listening to women saying this isn't working for me no one's
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listening to men when they're like i can't find a woman like this everyone's talking about it was
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to joe when a man says i can't find a woman they're like when you must be an incel and when women are
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like the gender dynamics in this country are you know are toxic they're like you must be a toxic
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feminist right yeah and i think that it's because people like to elevate the extremists was in both of
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those movements instead of pointing out that both groups do have genuine grievances they do the thing
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is i just don't care because all of this can be fixed with culture yes but why are policymakers not
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doing that it's so obvious that culture is the answer because what i guess what i'm saying here is
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you're not getting incel ultra orthodox jews you you might have some fertility problems with this
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community you're not getting incel amish men okay you might on the fringes but not more than you
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would historically really and i think that and you're not getting people within these communities
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being like oh it's so toxic the masculinity or from whatever they may leave the movement and then
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complain about that because now they're in a completely different cultural club set where the
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urban monoculture really likes to elevate people's beef with their birth culture because that's how it
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prevents them from reconverting cults always do this so it tries to convince them that they hate their
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parents and their parents were abusive and their birth culture was abusive so it will reward them
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for going on rants about that so yeah when they leave the group but when they're in the group you're
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really not going to get as much complaining because it functionally works and i think that this is
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yeah i it's bizarre that he's doing this it's weird like token i'm gonna try to do something about
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this but not really it's sad to see but it's something that we've predicted that as people
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recognize fertility collapse is a real issue they will use it to push forward agendas that they had
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beforehand that are largely unconnected and do you think it could be the article did mention
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conspicuously that he is childless if you consider biologically speaking his choices in life
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do you think maybe also the problem is largely that the policymakers and the people who are
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attempting supposedly to address demographic collapse are largely childless themselves or
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parents of just one or two children so not really pronatalist themselves and not really aware of what
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makes people have a lot of kids or the mindset of someone who has a lot of kids
00:25:48.880
yeah um i think it's more of a thing that a person who's childless was able to become
00:25:55.480
a french prime minister in the u.s historically it would have been incredibly hard to be elected
00:26:00.360
president if you didn't have any kids no no weren't there a bunch of childless presidents
00:26:04.600
i don't think there were that many it was seen as a very weird or low status thing i'll look it up
00:26:12.020
and add it afterwards yep only five u.s presidents have had no kids so around 10 but yeah i think
00:26:18.860
that you we looked upon historically childless people with a lot of cultural suspicion and in
00:26:25.940
many countries like in israel where the fertility rate is still high they they're still looked upon
00:26:29.800
with a level of suspicion because it's seen as it's fundamentally um like one and a sign of their
00:26:36.780
a perversion of their personal value system that they valued cashing in all of the chips that previous
00:26:42.900
generations had paid forwards for personal worldly things whether it's speeded their career
00:26:50.120
or whatever like they paid forward the intergenerational sacrifice that every single
00:26:55.700
one of their ancestors has made and well i would also say that like having kids historically has
00:27:00.260
been normative so being childless would make you a slightly different or whatever yeah so while i am
00:27:06.700
okay like i say that we fight for a a future where people are allowed to have no kids i do but i do
00:27:13.960
not fight for a future where people are able to reach the highest levels of society if they didn't even
00:27:19.400
attempt to have kids i don't citizenship is earned through childbearing i actually yeah i we created a
00:27:27.100
model of government that we should probably go over in one of our episodes but yeah one of the ways
00:27:31.540
that like one of your votes is based off of how many kids you have how many people you contribute
00:27:36.160
to the nation yeah and there's different ways you can do that than just having kids but we don't want
00:27:40.840
to go into to all of that but the point being is that um i i think that's a totally reasonable thing
00:27:47.440
that you shouldn't be able to vote if you don't have kids if you don't have a vested stake in the
00:27:52.740
future of your country why are you voting but i do think this is a conspicuous generation this may be
00:27:58.040
a conspicuous issue behind the systematic failure and very consistent failure of governments to
00:28:03.300
successfully implement pronatalist policy which could be along the lines of tracy woodgreens article
00:28:11.160
sub stack article republicans are doomed in which he talks about the bureaucratic legal legislative
00:28:17.240
political ruling class that essentially gets shit done in government is largely progressive and
00:28:24.420
therefore lives progressive lifestyles that is to say low fertility lifestyles and doesn't really
00:28:28.340
get pronatalism and therefore really can't model or address demographic collapse and pronatalism because
00:28:35.360
they are too ingrained within the problem i think you need affirmative action for parents basically
00:28:41.100
or even just policies where you say you can't go about certain ranks within the government bureaucracy
00:28:46.620
if you don't have over x many kids but i think that this is where china is going right now
00:28:51.080
and i think it's one of the more positive policies what i'm more scared of is they move to forced
00:28:56.260
insemination which i think is also likely but uh barring government positions from people was under
00:29:01.480
certain fertility i think that's absolutely where they're going yeah and historically this was done
00:29:07.360
by default in many societies just because people without many kids were seen as deviants which
00:29:13.260
functionally if you're doing that by choice you are to an extent you are expecting other people
00:29:21.020
to have kids to support you in your old age you are putting the work on to us for us putting the
00:29:27.360
effort into raise our kids in the hopes that our kids taxes will one day go to support you when you
00:29:32.100
were living off the state and that is a genuine perversion and people can be like no i'm saving up
00:29:39.140
enough money for when i'm older honestly who do you think is caring for you who do you think is
00:29:43.100
you are still expecting and exploiting the labor of others and i'm okay with you continuing to exist
00:29:51.480
but i don't think the people should be elevated for this and i think we need a lot more shame in that
00:29:55.860
direction and this is something that people don't understand shame is not the same as not allowing
00:30:01.720
someone to do something and i am very okay with shame as a cultural tactic when an individual takes
00:30:09.160
makes selfish life decisions which are not about the betterment of society or making the next
00:30:16.580
generation better but purely for their own career development or personal satisfaction or validation
00:30:24.240
yeah okay so final question for you when it comes to these nations and they're in my opinion either
00:30:31.240
neutral or actively harmful policies when it comes to pernatalism do you think that most nations would be
00:30:38.100
better off just not doing anything just stop just stop spending money on this stop trying just don't
00:30:44.600
would you recommend that over them continuing to try stuff yeah almost right now it is just
00:30:50.480
just making things worse often yeah that's my thing as i was telling her i'm like france is digging its
00:30:54.940
own grave here like they they were doing relatively better i feel like they're just going to make things
00:30:58.640
worse maybe until what they need is groups like ours advising them and we've reached out to them we
00:31:06.300
reached out to the population division at the french government we're like oh we can help you guys but
00:31:09.940
never heard back from them and i think that's the thing better than the uk the uk was like no thanks
00:31:14.160
you're fine you're not fine uk yeah you're not fine guys but yeah uh i think what we need is
00:31:21.280
organizations like our non-profit doing more consulting with these governments and i hope that as things
00:31:26.500
get worse they'll begin to go to organizations like ours that are interested in real solutions
00:31:30.560
and not things that are just designed to appease special interest groups that said it's going to
00:31:37.460
be very hard to do because when in regards to pernatalism because you're not really rewarded in
00:31:42.880
any way for efficacious results there isn't a huge motivation politically speaking for this type of
00:31:49.580
delayed reward it's not like the economy or something like that yeah so i don't expect it to actually happen
00:31:56.200
yeah oh sorry for hiccups mcgee over here she's been she's getting better but yeah i love you though
00:32:05.100
and at least individual families are going to figure this out if not countries and nations so
00:32:12.740
it'll be okay have a great day someone i love you you too you got the kids