Based Camp - December 26, 2025


Giving Poor Populations Money Lowers Their Birth Rate?


Episode Stats

Length

37 minutes

Words per Minute

182.45552

Word Count

6,836

Sentence Count

455

Misogynist Sentences

13

Hate Speech Sentences

12


Summary

In this episode, we talk about the growing gap between rich and poor families, and why poor people are more likely to have more kids than their wealthier counterparts. Why is it that rich people are having more kids, but poor people aren t? And why is this happening?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, Malcolm. I'm excited to be speaking with you today because there's this thing I've really
00:00:04.740 been stuck on recently. And I think I'm realizing that what it means to be rich and what we thought
00:00:11.800 it means to be poor is, is fundamentally changing and actually inverting and not the way you'd
00:00:17.940 think. So, so specifically rich people are starting to live like poor people used to live and poor
00:00:25.120 people are increasingly living like rich people used to live. You know, you just say this up front
00:00:30.140 and I'm like, oh my God, this actually checks out when I look like our poor friends. Yeah. And you
00:00:35.400 can see this coming in all sorts of places, which we'll talk about, but most notably, and I want to
00:00:40.200 couch this in, in this larger context, you can see this most notably in recent shifts in fertility.
00:00:45.800 And this, this is actually, it's a big deal. It has pretty significant implications and I want us
00:00:50.140 to explore it. So let's just dive right in. And I'll start with it on the fertility front is sort
00:00:54.620 of like premise setting thing to sort of get us into this thought experiment and like, whoa,
00:00:58.900 what's going on here? This doesn't make sense. In September, New Mexico's governor announced that
00:01:03.680 New Mexico will be the first U S state to offer universal free childcare, regardless of income,
00:01:09.340 which is, it's huge. Average household savings are estimated to be around $12,000 per child,
00:01:15.660 which checks out per year. And I actually think that's a major understatement because when we had
00:01:20.540 just three kids, we were spending around 4,000 a month. So around 50,000 a year,
00:01:25.960 we had to obviously stop because it burned through our savings. And that was for the daycare with a
00:01:31.020 terrible reputation, the daycare that a bunch of kids died at. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not the location
00:01:37.600 our kids were at, but you know, in New York, a very close location. Yeah. And this, this comes at a time
00:01:43.560 also, and we've reported on this separately when polling indicates that Americans want the U S to focus
00:01:49.820 on measures like this to calm black declining fertility rates and not other things. They're
00:01:54.640 just like, Oh, just pay for my childcare, like stay out of my life, but like make it easier.
00:01:59.020 So what you would expect from things like free childcare is, I mean, this is what I would
00:02:04.460 intuitively expect is if the state covers major basic costs of having kids, then rich people
00:02:11.340 are going to have fewer kids as their standards for raising kids are higher. And then, and, and poor
00:02:16.660 people, people have modest means for who this daycare expensive is. It's, it's huge, right?
00:02:21.300 Like it's devastating. They would have more kids. So like middle class and lower class people would
00:02:26.260 have more kids and rich, rich people would have still fewer kids. Like it wouldn't affect them
00:02:31.260 because do you remember what your mom said about how much money we needed? Like per kid.
00:02:36.260 It was a million dollars per kid, right?
00:02:38.120 Yeah. She's like, well, you need a million dollars in income per year.
00:02:40.820 Per, per kid. Cause she's unhinged, but that, that is a rich person norm around kids, right?
00:02:49.200 Yeah. You just think that like, well, but rich people have really unsustainable standards around
00:02:53.240 how much kids cost. You know, they have all these nannies and all the clothes and all the activities
00:02:57.020 and like, they want to fly around the world with them. And so they're too expensive. They wouldn't
00:03:00.980 have more kids just because childcare is paid for, but no, no. And this is what's so crazy.
00:03:07.040 Starting in 2017, we've seen a shift in wealthy countries that largely cover things like childcare
00:03:14.240 and education and healthcare in which wealthier and more educated families are having more children
00:03:23.480 than poorer and less educated families. I don't believe it. No, it's true. It's true. I don't believe
00:03:29.960 it. I will show you the data. No, man, this is insane. So the key question is why does giving
00:03:35.620 resources to poor people not increase their fertility proportionally to rich people? Because
00:03:41.360 that is a, that is a, like, this is so perplexing and what people are arguing. So it, when you go
00:03:46.720 into this, and even when you go into like the academic research covering this inversion and this strange
00:03:52.500 trend, they're like, Oh, well, when, when, when the state doesn't offer generous social services,
00:03:59.460 wealthy families aren't willing to pay for having kids, but somehow poor families are there. Like,
00:04:04.860 they're literally arguing this and, and they're basically arguing that basically having to work
00:04:09.860 at all as poor people do competes with family demands. But I, I hesitate to buy that at all
00:04:18.540 because wealthy people still work and have aggressive schedules. Like we know this, we have a lot of
00:04:23.560 wealthy friends and they are extremely busy. And they're also, well, no, that's, we're going to get
00:04:29.120 to that. That is true. Cause maybe that's not so true. Also though, why are they giving money to poor
00:04:35.780 people? These are also legit questions, but also like wealthy people have kids in more expensive
00:04:42.320 ways, not just in that, like, they want to get them the nannies and the fancy clothes and the fancy
00:04:45.960 toys, and they want to fly them everywhere and do things like that. But like, they're, they're typically
00:04:50.080 waiting to have kids and then until they're older and more infertile. So they're more likely to need
00:04:54.620 fertility treatments and need IVF and have more complicated pregnancies or even use surrogates,
00:04:58.720 you know, that's really common. Right. So like, that would also make me think that they're going
00:05:02.100 to have fewer kids. In fact, IVF is so expensive. People are increasingly traveling abroad to get it.
00:05:07.800 And to, to the extent that we're seeing major mainstream news outlets covering it recently.
00:05:13.300 IVF clinic is going to open the Philippines and do like embryo testing. Is that happening still?
00:05:17.060 It's still happening. Yeah.
00:05:18.580 Do you have a memory on that for like our fans?
00:05:20.080 We're under an NDA, so I can't say anything, but once, once we have an update, we can share
00:05:23.960 information, but like CBS news recently did an article about it. They talked about one couple
00:05:28.880 that found a clinic in Bogota that they were going to, that offered a package of four IVF rounds for
00:05:35.700 $11,000, which, you know, compared to like the $60,000 it would cost to do four rounds. Then that's
00:05:42.380 on the lower end in the United States. That's like really good. So my hypothesis here is that the
00:05:49.880 issue is more that governments and societies are turning poor people into wealthy people,
00:05:55.000 or at least people who live like wealthy people historically lived and turning wealthy people
00:06:01.020 into poor people, or at least the way that poor people used to live. And, and, and we'll, we'll
00:06:06.560 explore that in greater detail, but first I just want to give a caveat. And, and this can be really
00:06:11.120 summed up well by a thread that, that more births did when covering this, this research.
00:06:17.200 You know, he's going to love this data, right? Is Lyman stone.
00:06:20.620 Actually, I'm also going to cover Lyman stone had actually, he didn't chime in about this just as
00:06:26.440 it came out because this was a 2025 thing. I'm going to, I'm going to look at Lyman stone as a
00:06:31.660 take on this. He published in April of last year though, or like spring of last year, but in this
00:06:36.740 thread, more births explains a lower income has been associated with higher fertility, but now that
00:06:43.800 the relationship is completely flipped. He writes in many developed countries, higher incomes are
00:06:48.300 now associated with higher fertility, almost everywhere in Europe, both for men and women
00:06:52.280 at 2025 paper shows. And we're going to look at that paper, his second tweet though. And this is
00:06:56.680 important, but this is only within countries across countries. The correlation between income and
00:07:03.000 fertility remains very negative. Wealthy countries continue to have far lower birth rates than poor
00:07:08.920 countries. Also fertility tends to go down for countries as a whole, as they get richer. Also,
00:07:15.660 I kind of just wanted to, to show you this thread just because one of the animations that shows
00:07:20.200 basically the fertility of countries going down as they get wealthier literally looks like sperm.
00:07:25.340 Look at, look at, look at the link I just said.
00:07:28.160 What is wrong with you? Come on, look at juvenile.
00:07:31.140 It's thematic. It's thematic. Okay. I just find that extremely amusing.
00:07:35.140 It's swimming downhill. Yeah.
00:07:36.260 Yeah. There's, there's little sperm swimming down hills. They get wealthier. Their fertility
00:07:39.700 goes down along with their sperm motility as their testosterone levels plummet. But obviously
00:07:44.640 wealthy countries, fertility rates being low, it is important to be looking at what we can do to
00:07:51.220 increase fertility in these countries. And it's pretty wild that now the wealthier people,
00:07:55.000 yeah, outside of, yeah, outside of that. So let's, let's look at this wealthy country shift
00:08:00.720 that we need to investigate. So for most of the 20th century, there was a negative relationship
00:08:06.020 between wealth and fertility in Europe. Wealthier individuals typically had fewer children while
00:08:10.860 poorer families had more. Everyone knows this. We talk about this a lot. However, starting around
00:08:15.140 2017, this pattern weakened, and it's been even reversed in several prosperous, and this is the
00:08:21.660 important thing, prosperous European countries by 2021. In some places, the association is now neutral,
00:08:27.320 even slightly positive. And similar patterns hold when using education as a proxy for income. So low
00:08:33.260 educated Nordic women and men now have the lowest fertility and highest childlessness, 15 to 36% in
00:08:40.880 recent cohorts, while higher educated groups have stabilized near replacement levels around 1.8 to
00:08:46.680 2.0 children. What countries is this in? The Nordic countries. The Nordic countries. So the Nordic
00:08:52.120 countries is now the lower income and lower education you are as a man, the lower your fertility
00:08:57.160 rate. And woman. And woman. And woman. And woman. But here's, no, there are different,
00:09:01.940 there are different regional and gender variations that I'm glad you're pointing to this. So in Nordic
00:09:07.700 countries, such as Sweden, studies show a clear positive connection between high lifetime earnings and
00:09:13.960 having more children, especially among men. But for women, the relationship shifted from women having
00:09:19.940 more kids up to women born around the 1940s to positive or flat in the 70s cohorts, with the poorest
00:09:28.600 women now having the fewest children due to higher childlessness rates. In Southern Europe, however,
00:09:34.720 prenatal wealth, or sorry, parental wealth is still related to lower fertility.
00:09:41.520 So in poorer countries, the poorer you are, the higher your fertility rate is.
00:09:46.200 But in wealthier countries, the poorer you are, the lower their fertility rate is. And it seems to be
00:09:52.320 correlated with the amount of social services that poor people are getting. So the aim to sterilize the
00:09:57.620 poor is to give them money. So that's why we're giving poor people money.
00:10:02.540 Yeah, they're trying to steal. No, but seriously, in European countries with limited social welfare
00:10:07.220 support, like if they don't have free childcare, if they don't have universal healthcare, fertility rates
00:10:12.280 among wealthier citizens generally show only a weak positive association or sometimes remain lower,
00:10:17.940 especially in Southern and Eastern Europe. So in Southern Europe, and some conservative welfare
00:10:22.180 states like Greece and Italy, with weak higher parental wealth does not strongly correlate or compensate for
00:10:29.240 limited public support. In contrast, Nordic countries and regions with extensive social support show a
00:10:34.540 clearer trend. High income individuals, especially men, tend to have more children. And so what spurred this
00:10:41.220 discourse about this and the paper that Marberth cited that just came out this year? Oh my god,
00:10:46.520 can you hear a text snoring? No. Oh my god. You can put the microphone up there for all of the ladies
00:10:53.920 watching.
00:11:00.460 I think I've woken him up. Oh dear. Oh, you woke him up.
00:11:04.780 Crumbs. Oh god, I just, when he snores, it's the cutest sound ever, but whatever. I, the moment is past, I ruined it.
00:11:14.980 But so, right, so there was a paper that came out that discussed this trend that is, that is the whole spark of all this.
00:11:24.480 And it's called, let's see, it is the, it is the sexiest and most catchy title of all research papers.
00:11:33.480 A research note on the increasing income, pre-reported parenthood, country-specific or universal in Western Europe?
00:11:41.520 That is, that is the title. Not exactly the best. But the TLDR is, they're trying to argue that wealth is beginning to correlate with having more kids,
00:11:50.920 because having kids is so expensive. They're, they're, they're trying to say we need to give people more money for kids.
00:11:57.180 Like, that, that is literally their takeaway in this whole thing.
00:12:00.680 Which is insane. But here's just, like, the key question they wanted to ask is,
00:12:05.660 has the role of income in enabling parenthood strengthened in Western Europe from 2006 to 2020,
00:12:11.040 and are increasing fertility inequalities present between higher and lower income groups for both men and women?
00:12:16.260 And their main findings were that higher individual income strongly increases the likelihood of having a first child,
00:12:22.940 both for men and women across 16 Western European countries that they studied.
00:12:27.520 The effect is stronger and more widespread in women, especially in countries with robust welfare systems.
00:12:33.940 The role of income as a prerequisite for parenthood has increased over time.
00:12:38.120 Income-based fertility gaps have widened, primarily due to declining birth rates among low-income men and women,
00:12:43.680 not just rising births among higher-income groups.
00:12:47.000 So this is important, as you said, right?
00:12:48.980 The way to sterilize poor people is to give them resources.
00:12:52.540 UBI would do so much harm to fertility rates from what we've seen in the data.
00:12:56.940 Well, but especially among poor people, and that's the really crazy thing.
00:13:00.140 Because you'd think, like, oh, well, this is all, and that, that is what is constantly being argued, right?
00:13:04.420 It's like, well, we're, we're not the rich people in this country.
00:13:07.400 We can't afford to have kids, but what's clearly shown in this data is, that's totally the opposite.
00:13:14.860 Like, that is not at all how this is going to work, which is, it just so surprises me.
00:13:20.200 And, but what, what also really surprises me is that the researchers are trying to argue
00:13:27.840 that this is just because it's so expensive to have kids.
00:13:32.780 Well, that actually isn't a terrible argument.
00:13:36.640 So if you're thinking about the amount of aid in the United States that poor people get around kids,
00:13:42.300 it's just comical compared to middle-class people.
00:13:44.600 That's true. That's true.
00:13:46.040 And middle-class people can actually be priced out of having kids,
00:13:49.420 whereas it's very hard to price a poor person out of having kids in the United States.
00:13:52.580 That's true. And for context, in the United States,
00:13:54.400 because we did really extensive research on this to try to create, like,
00:13:57.740 sort of an index of resources for parents,
00:13:59.640 because we thought there would be more for just, like, your average normal parent.
00:14:02.780 But basically, if you're at or below the poverty line,
00:14:05.660 health care is taken care of for, for kids and typically their parents too,
00:14:10.540 or at least their mothers, food assistance, child care assistance,
00:14:14.440 often housing assistance, often heat and electricity assistance.
00:14:17.840 So you really get levels of subsidies that you,
00:14:20.500 you would otherwise just expect in, like, the wealthy Gulf states for all citizens,
00:14:26.280 which is insane.
00:14:27.080 Like, just be impoverished.
00:14:28.880 And there are many families in the United States who actively game the system to create the appearance of poverty,
00:14:36.000 just to get access to these resources, because they're so compelling,
00:14:41.060 which is not the best.
00:14:43.600 But go on.
00:14:45.340 No, I mean, you're right.
00:14:47.480 I was also telling you about this earlier today, which I didn't know about.
00:14:49.960 But, like, true poverty doesn't really exist in the United States.
00:14:54.880 And I know that this is an offensive thing to say.
00:14:56.960 I was pointing out to you that, for example, starvation in the United States,
00:14:59.360 it virtually just doesn't happen.
00:15:00.920 It happens to, like, 150 people a year or something.
00:15:03.080 And almost all of them are elderly people or people who can't move in some way.
00:15:07.260 Right.
00:15:07.500 Like, if it wasn't the starvation, it would be bed sores or, like,
00:15:11.320 literally their dogs eating them alive or something because they can't move.
00:15:14.920 Yeah, yeah.
00:15:15.520 Because they're stuck at home and nobody's bringing them food.
00:15:17.440 Like, if you can go out and get food, you're going to be okay in the United States.
00:15:21.600 Well, I want to show you, actually.
00:15:22.960 So the research study that did these graphs and correlations between, like,
00:15:28.100 being more wealthy and having more kids, I was like,
00:15:30.580 just how generous are all these countries that we're looking at?
00:15:33.480 So first I just looked at all the graphs.
00:15:35.260 And then I sorted the European countries that they looked at in this research
00:15:39.640 by just how generous they were in terms of their social services.
00:15:43.520 And I color-coded them.
00:15:46.320 So red is most generous.
00:15:48.900 And orange is slightly middle, like, mid-tier generous.
00:15:52.460 Like, they don't support as much of health care and education and child care.
00:15:58.540 And then yellow is least generous.
00:16:00.680 And pretty much the vast majority of the countries that they looked at here
00:16:03.600 were all extremely generous countries.
00:16:06.320 Even in the ones that are yellow-circled, like the UK,
00:16:08.960 I circled in yellow because it is generally considered to be a little bit weaker.
00:16:13.000 On social services.
00:16:14.540 Keep in mind, the UK still has the NHS.
00:16:16.960 It has nationalized health care.
00:16:19.020 And the caveat with the UK, too, is that the social services in the UK
00:16:22.380 skew toward children really heavily.
00:16:25.820 So the emphasis is more on, like, giving people, citizens, a really strong start.
00:16:30.340 So yellow means a lot of social services?
00:16:32.620 Is the weakest social services.
00:16:34.300 Red is the strongest.
00:16:35.000 The vast majority of the countries that this study looked at are extremely generous
00:16:40.580 in their services, meaning that this really does, this is about countries providing
00:16:46.460 very, very, very generous social services, basically just like free child care,
00:16:52.540 free good health care, and free education, among other things.
00:16:56.300 So that's, that's, that's, it just, it needs to be emphasized that the countries investigated
00:17:02.560 in this academic paper already do a lot to support parents.
00:17:07.400 And I can go into it, like some, some examples, Luxembourg has the highest per capita spending
00:17:13.800 on family benefits.
00:17:14.600 It has extensive free education and health care, substantial child care support.
00:17:19.300 The Nordic countries like Norway and Denmark and Iceland and Switzerland and Finland, they have
00:17:24.040 a really, really high expenditure per person, universal health care, free or highly subsidized
00:17:29.220 education and robust child care systems.
00:17:32.060 Denmark, for example, is noted for the most generous overall welfare package.
00:17:36.100 France leads in overall social spending.
00:17:38.320 Nearly a third of their GDP is devoted to social services, including free health care, subsidized
00:17:43.640 child care and free, free higher education in Germany and Austria and Switzerland and Ireland
00:17:48.660 all spend above 1,000 euros per person yearly on family benefits, maintain
00:17:53.720 generous health care and education systems and support families and have very substantial
00:17:58.360 social programs.
00:17:59.840 So again, like this is, we're talking very generous.
00:18:02.980 This is, this is an American's dream in terms of what we keep asking for.
00:18:07.280 I just want to emphasize again, that this is just, it's just ridiculous.
00:18:11.840 Are you saying we need to be socialists now?
00:18:14.060 I'm not.
00:18:14.540 And speaking of socialists, did someone say socialists?
00:18:17.660 I want to bring Lyman Stone to the chat.
00:18:19.520 So Lyman Stone actually, so one thing that we've, we've talked about in the past and
00:18:25.500 that anyone who discusses fertility talks about is this U-shaped curve in fertility.
00:18:29.900 That's very often discussed, right?
00:18:31.620 Which has to do with income.
00:18:33.200 And it's this, the famous U-shaped graph that, that shows fertility levels being really
00:18:38.980 high among those who are impoverished.
00:18:41.200 And then for the middle class, it just plummets.
00:18:43.700 And then when you see incomes above $500,000 per household or whatever, then it goes up
00:18:50.560 again.
00:18:50.940 And so like, oh, well, having a big family is just a super rich person thing and a super
00:18:54.740 poor person thing.
00:18:56.300 And Lyman Stone in an article that he published in April 24 called fertility income, some notes.
00:19:03.880 He argues that income reporting in surveys is unreliable for very small subgroups, but that
00:19:10.840 is to say like 1 million plus households.
00:19:13.460 And so he wants to say that, that the findings about ultra high earners can be artifacts and
00:19:19.420 not robust trends.
00:19:21.320 Oh, so he doesn't think that high earners actually have a very good fertility.
00:19:24.100 Yeah.
00:19:24.360 He thinks that like, because so few people are in that income bracket and also responding
00:19:29.500 to surveys that like, probably what we're seeing is like someone accidentally filling
00:19:34.660 in the wrong, like thing on a survey, like just the error.
00:19:38.060 And that's, it's, it's, it is a legitimate concern, but he nevertheless does make some
00:19:44.400 concessions.
00:19:45.300 He, he says there's some evidence on, on causal ties between income and fertility.
00:19:50.280 At least one study shows exogenous positive shocks to, to male income boost fertility.
00:19:56.080 And there are many others using quasi experimental variation from sectoral or occupational exposures,
00:20:03.360 but he also argues male income is an income, the, the figure, the U-shape advocates, essentially
00:20:11.140 he says, rely on for, is for family household income.
00:20:15.280 It includes male income and female income so that he thinks that's not the thing.
00:20:19.920 Like really the thing he would encourage people to look at, and I don't think he's wrong is
00:20:24.540 relative, relative male income that meant men doing disproportionately better seems to correlate
00:20:32.200 more.
00:20:32.580 And that even shows up in a lot of this more recent research that I can't remember who it
00:20:38.460 was when I was going into some more of the, the ephemera of this discourse, people were
00:20:44.300 pointing out that when you look at, when you break out female fertility in these countries,
00:20:52.760 women with higher wealth had higher fertility, but if they had just higher income, they didn't,
00:21:00.080 it was sort of like a neutral thing.
00:21:01.740 So essentially like if you're working, your, your, your fertility is not going to be higher
00:21:08.080 if you're a woman.
00:21:08.740 And that makes sense because if you're working and you're a woman, it's, it's kind of harder
00:21:14.640 to have a ton of kids and, and we're going to get to that.
00:21:17.800 So, so the, what the public is arguing in terms of what's going on here, because that's what
00:21:22.340 we really want to talk about here.
00:21:23.780 They, the public argues that poorer families are less healthy, poorer families are too busy
00:21:29.380 to trying to make ends meet to start new families and the poorer families have less flexible
00:21:34.380 schedules and they have less work-life balance.
00:21:36.540 And so it's harder to have kids or more kids, poorer families have less stable marriages
00:21:41.760 and partnerships.
00:21:42.880 So they're, they're maybe less likely to even have a partner with them.
00:21:45.720 They can have kids consistently and that wealthier families have stronger social networks.
00:21:50.440 So they have, you know, maybe, you know, grandparents that are wealthy and available.
00:21:54.980 They can take care of kids.
00:21:56.300 They're more comfortable having more kids.
00:21:57.720 And they also frame children as luxury goods and society has largely framed children as luxury
00:22:04.560 There's been a cultural shift among some wealthy groups, like, especially when you're talking
00:22:08.480 about ultra wealthy groups, which we hang out with having a lot of the kids has become
00:22:11.940 quite the flex.
00:22:13.020 No, but even, I would say among all levels of society, except for like some religious
00:22:18.420 communities, kids are kind of seen as this thing that you do if you can afford them and
00:22:22.540 they're a luxury product, but they're not something there's something you don't have them
00:22:26.080 unless you can afford them.
00:22:27.080 You don't have them unless you have your stable career.
00:22:28.900 Yeah, I think, you know, walking through a grocery store with five kids, I feel like
00:22:32.600 Prince Ali, like, like, and they're all dressed the same as me and they're marching in line
00:22:39.660 and I'm like, you know, it feels like that.
00:22:44.740 It really does.
00:22:46.000 No, there's, you know, everybody tries to look at us and you're like, yeah, I got, I got
00:22:50.540 five kids money.
00:22:52.140 Yeah.
00:22:52.580 No, it really, it really does feel that way, but, but I mean, so I think those are legitimate
00:22:59.460 things, but what I think is much more interesting here is that poor people are becoming like
00:23:06.140 wealthy people in, in these countries used to live.
00:23:10.280 Kids are being cared for by staff.
00:23:14.000 They're being cared for by, by, by these childcare facilities.
00:23:18.380 They're being cared for by paid people and, and, and, and there, there's more work outside
00:23:25.100 the home.
00:23:25.600 People are leaving the home to go do things just like Lords used to go to parliament or
00:23:31.080 like go out on their trading ships or something.
00:23:33.640 And there's more, there's more focus on material wealth on conspicuous consumption on, on, on,
00:23:41.540 on showing other people how fancy you are.
00:23:44.900 Whereas the wealthy people we know are really starting to behave a lot more like serfs did
00:23:51.280 in the past.
00:23:51.880 We're like, there's less focus on work and there's more focus on really like focusing
00:23:59.520 in on industry of the home.
00:24:01.860 There's more work from home and within the home.
00:24:04.720 And there's less focus on material wealth and conspicuous material consumption and more
00:24:10.880 stealth wealth.
00:24:11.600 Like, look at, look at the rise of stealth wealth, look at the rise of, of, of influencers
00:24:15.260 like ballerina farms where like, they're very, very wealthy, but they, they're living on
00:24:21.080 their like homesteading farm and they're living like a corporate family and the kids are shoveling
00:24:25.920 manure and you know, they're, they're, they're harvesting their own food and pumpkins and making
00:24:31.020 meals from scratch.
00:24:32.580 They're living life like serfs and then like the whole Maha movement is like that too.
00:24:36.880 You know, it's, it's very much like back to the land, back to the homestead, you know,
00:24:40.820 very, very crunchy, very like no brand names on anything.
00:24:44.620 And there's a lot more focus on autonomy and separation from society.
00:24:49.540 There's this retreat from society.
00:24:51.100 We're not, there's no balls.
00:24:52.560 There are no galas.
00:24:53.600 There's no like, you know, going out and fronting to people.
00:24:56.780 It's very, it's very isolationist.
00:25:00.500 There are balls and galas.
00:25:02.260 It's like when we go to Austin, we often go to like a, a gala or something.
00:25:05.720 Sometimes.
00:25:06.260 Yeah.
00:25:06.540 But it's, I would say it's, it's pretty unusual.
00:25:08.580 It's mostly people retreating to their, if they're really wealthy, I mean, sure.
00:25:12.800 Like Peter Thiel may show up at Hereticon, but then he goes off to his like New Zealand
00:25:17.420 compound or, you know, like these other people and then they disappear to some, you know,
00:25:20.900 to Prospera, to their charter city or to their like homesteading permaculture farm thing.
00:25:26.840 You know, like in short, I, I think in the end that so much of fertility, again, as you've
00:25:34.440 always said, it's about how your household is composed and where you get your services.
00:25:41.160 You keep saying fertility started to drop with the industrial revolution first when men left
00:25:46.840 the home.
00:25:47.200 And then when women left the home and children left the home and every, all the services
00:25:50.320 left the home.
00:25:50.980 And because now what being wealthy is, is it's more about everything is coming back
00:25:58.080 into the home.
00:25:59.440 You are able to see this rise of fertility again within the home because there's, there's
00:26:04.560 value in it and there's the time for it and the resources for it.
00:26:08.500 Whereas for the, for those who are poor now, who are now living more like wealthy people
00:26:13.780 are getting door dashed and delivery.
00:26:15.320 And they, you basically have your servants and your livery and, and your conspicuous consumption
00:26:19.860 and, and, you know, the, all this staff that serves you much of it, government subsidized.
00:26:25.580 Now it doesn't matter though.
00:26:26.580 It doesn't matter if it's your own wealth or the government's wealth.
00:26:29.540 When you have the staff, when things are provided from without the home, when, when there isn't
00:26:34.180 this beating heart of your hearth and your family, your fertility drops.
00:26:41.220 And because we're seeing this inversion, I think that's what I know.
00:26:44.040 The best way to stabilize the core is to give them money.
00:26:46.440 That works for both parties.
00:26:48.700 Everyone wins.
00:26:49.500 I mean, this, I think this, this does have interesting implications when it comes to fertility
00:26:53.380 ratio cascades, because as we point out, this is not a warm bodies problem.
00:26:57.380 This is a taxpayer problem.
00:26:59.500 And, and so what you really want, if you're a country that's really concerned about not
00:27:03.340 being able to pay for really essential social services for all these life-saving food programs
00:27:09.780 and, and even the childcare and the healthcare and all this, you need people who are going to
00:27:14.100 generate a lot of tax revenue to pay for it.
00:27:16.020 And the fact that the people who generate a lot of tax revenue are now the ones having
00:27:19.680 more kids power to the people, literally power to like money to the people.
00:27:24.120 Like that, that is a good thing.
00:27:25.900 So could this be the solution?
00:27:27.400 Like, are we already seeing like, because I don't think we expected this, right?
00:27:33.300 We didn't expect that like paying for people's lives would, would actually solve fertility
00:27:43.380 cascade problems.
00:27:44.360 Is this kind of like, I mean, on one hand, it doesn't solve the problem because poor people
00:27:49.140 aren't having more kids, but does it solve the problem because rich people are having
00:27:52.960 more kids?
00:27:53.840 I mean, it kind of, you're doing two things, right?
00:27:56.040 Like you're, you're, you're, you're reducing the population that is most dependent on these
00:28:00.500 services, thereby maybe reducing the financial load while increasing the population that subsidizes
00:28:06.620 these services, therefore increasing revenue.
00:28:08.420 Like, is this actually a subversion of trends that means the problem is going to be potentially
00:28:14.240 solved?
00:28:18.240 You don't know.
00:28:19.160 So my question for you is, does this make you more socialist in your politics?
00:28:25.440 You know, my views are evolving on this actually, because I, what we found, and this, this has
00:28:33.800 been confirmed also, like Scott Alexander, I think mentioned this recently too.
00:28:39.220 So I'm like, okay, this isn't just us.
00:28:41.060 Basically, while cash transfers seem to do a lot of good and really impoverished countries,
00:28:46.020 it's pretty clear that things like universal basic income and cash transfers cause harm in
00:28:50.700 developed countries, right?
00:28:51.720 They're not good.
00:28:52.700 However, it does appear to be that providing in-kind services like free childcare, education,
00:28:59.220 sometimes housing can actually cause pretty beneficial effects or at least neutral effects
00:29:05.540 in developed countries.
00:29:06.980 We looked at this in the Gulf States, like, well, it didn't seem to necessarily, it didn't,
00:29:11.120 it didn't create thriving societies.
00:29:13.220 Like the Gulf States aren't exactly known for their innovation and their, you know, thriving
00:29:19.060 whatever, like they're doing all right.
00:29:21.260 Like, right.
00:29:21.700 Like there's some base school people, their fertility rates are decent in some cases, not, not at all,
00:29:26.880 but like, it could be worse.
00:29:28.920 Right.
00:29:29.340 But like, it's not terrible.
00:29:31.480 So I'm kind of warming up to the idea of providing in-kind services, not money.
00:29:39.000 People don't get to choose.
00:29:40.440 Like, you don't just get your cash transfer, but in-kind services.
00:29:44.700 And this is also saying, I was just talking with you about this today because right now
00:29:47.740 snap is being discussed a lot.
00:29:49.280 It's, it's a form of food assistance in the United States where you get basically a debit
00:29:53.000 card, like money is loaded to your card and you get to use that on a bunch.
00:29:56.820 And a lot of people are just spending it on junk food.
00:29:59.360 There's this other program in at least a lot of States called WIC women, infant and infants
00:30:05.280 and children.
00:30:05.980 It's for pregnant women, infants, and children under five years old that meet certain requirements.
00:30:10.260 And instead of providing money, it will cover very specific, healthy foods.
00:30:15.480 It's like, it will buy you a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs and a whole grain and $26 worth
00:30:21.880 of vegetables per child and like some cheese, like, like the whole foods.
00:30:26.860 This has also made me realize there's another solution to fertility collapse that I had never
00:30:32.100 considered before.
00:30:33.280 What's that?
00:30:33.760 Which is, you can fix the problem of a dependency ratio cascade, uh, within a country.
00:30:40.980 So obviously you can do it by keeping the population stable as it exists right now.
00:30:47.180 Yeah.
00:30:47.520 But you could also do it just by stopping poor people from having kids.
00:30:51.220 Well, and, but these do that, but in like a very kind way.
00:30:56.560 Oh God.
00:30:57.460 No, we're not talking about sterilizing.
00:30:58.960 No, no, no, no, this is getting way too close to eugenics.
00:31:02.680 And I don't like, I didn't say this is a good, I'm not saying it's a good idea.
00:31:05.480 I'm just saying it would solve the problem because what you're dealing with in a society
00:31:10.300 is, you know, the, the, the elderly are almost always on the government dole, right?
00:31:15.360 You know, so that's why you get the fertility ratio cascade because too big a portion of society
00:31:20.580 is elderly, but you have poor people who are also on the government dole.
00:31:25.300 And if you could remove them as a segment of the population, then pretty much no matter
00:31:30.920 how many elderly people you got, it would be a lot more to tip the scales of the system.
00:31:36.840 Yeah.
00:31:37.560 No.
00:31:38.080 I mean, anyway, this has just been very thought provoking for me and text now needs to eat.
00:31:42.200 So I got to go around, but like, I love you.
00:31:44.560 Thank you for humoring me on this.
00:31:46.220 I'm very excited for my God prowl or whatever it's called.
00:31:50.200 The capown.
00:31:52.660 Whatever.
00:31:52.960 I don't know, man.
00:31:54.420 It's tasty and it's Thai.
00:31:55.220 Cook it in oil again.
00:31:56.160 That was really good.
00:31:57.100 I might use a little bit more oil and then scoop some chili flakes in when you cook it
00:32:02.560 as well.
00:32:03.060 Oh yeah.
00:32:03.420 Chili flakes.
00:32:04.080 Yeah, absolutely.
00:32:05.020 Yeah.
00:32:05.200 I think it could be some chili flakes.
00:32:07.420 And then no other note, the egg was really good.
00:32:10.140 I might do two eggs today.
00:32:11.260 Actually.
00:32:11.940 I asked you about two eggs.
00:32:13.080 You said the serving was fine, but two eggs?
00:32:15.340 Yeah.
00:32:17.080 I'd be more greedy with the eggs if I had two of them.
00:32:20.380 And they were so good.
00:32:21.040 Let's just try two eggs.
00:32:21.940 It's from our coop, man.
00:32:23.320 I'm so glad you're like actually enjoying some of our coop eggs.
00:32:25.660 Okay.
00:32:26.020 I love you.
00:32:27.280 And I'll see you in the dinner.
00:32:28.300 I love you too.
00:32:28.820 You're amazing.
00:32:30.000 Bye.
00:32:30.200 You're amazing.
00:32:30.920 Gorgeous and so pretty.
00:32:32.520 Great.
00:32:32.780 I know what you're doing.
00:32:33.740 You're just going to set up your Korean romance manga right to the side of the screen.
00:32:38.580 I actually don't even have my, I need to get my phone.
00:32:41.280 You nerd.
00:32:42.400 But hurry up.
00:32:43.760 Simone, I have to know what happens.
00:32:45.180 Pull it up.
00:32:45.760 Pull up webtoons.
00:32:46.840 Don't worry about it.
00:32:47.840 I have to know what happens to the empress.
00:32:51.200 Yes.
00:32:51.960 Simone, I have to know.
00:32:53.620 We really need to cover this on like, for framing them Patreon and Substack, but your
00:32:59.600 secret list of amazing romance manga.
00:33:02.380 We are the biggest nerds in the world.
00:33:04.740 And I think that when people first came to our podcast, they were like, wait, you guys
00:33:09.680 can't be like, at first they were confused.
00:33:12.340 Cause they're like, you look too nerdy to be Republican.
00:33:15.580 Like, and, and then it was like, you got to fashion yourself as like a non-nerd, like
00:33:20.380 get buff and like look a lot nerdy.
00:33:22.760 You got a lift, bro.
00:33:24.620 And it's like, this is, this is, I am nerd from front to back.
00:33:29.300 This is base camp.
00:33:31.120 Like, do you guys understand what camp is?
00:33:33.560 Is this an old person thing?
00:33:35.200 Like, is everyone too young to understand what camp is?
00:33:38.540 No, but imagine I come on and I'm like really trying to look like, like, like cool and stuff.
00:33:45.140 It would be so cringe.
00:33:46.620 I'd be so cringe.
00:33:47.600 It'd be like Asmogold doing that or something.
00:33:49.500 Yeah.
00:33:50.100 Asmogold recently went viral.
00:33:51.640 I don't know if you saw for showing that he eats just junk food all day and like, so
00:33:55.180 he's always shown that he eats just junk food all day.
00:33:57.600 I think the secret is that he walks to the 7-Eleven to buy the junk food.
00:34:02.200 And as long as he eats it in moderation and, and that's the thing you can eat whatever
00:34:06.660 you want, you know.
00:34:07.980 Yeah.
00:34:08.080 Like that famous Twinkie diet guy.
00:34:11.040 Well, the professor who showed that like on like pure junk food, you could lose a ton
00:34:15.840 of weight.
00:34:16.360 I think actually multiple people did.
00:34:17.900 Cause after also super size me came out, I think a high school teacher demonstrated that
00:34:22.960 you can lose a lot of weight eating while they McDonald's, something like that.
00:34:25.720 Like I can't, I can't.
00:34:26.800 If you are struggling with weight loss, my suggestion would be, as is my suggestion for
00:34:30.940 everything is get naltrexone, look up the Sinclair method.
00:34:35.740 It's yeah.
00:34:36.160 It's less expensive than GLPs.
00:34:38.760 So yeah, it's less expensive than the other things.
00:34:40.600 And it's way healthier for you than like, Oh yeah, that's true.
00:34:43.820 I mean, like as, as much as it can be naltrexone and we're not giving medical advice, by the
00:34:48.360 way, as much as naltrexone can be hard on the kidneys, GLP-1 inhibitors are, which is
00:34:54.260 what they are, right?
00:34:54.880 Is that they are very hard on your digestive system.
00:34:58.240 The side effects are really intense for people.
00:34:59.960 Yeah, naltrexone is a little bad on the liver, but every, all the other things that
00:35:05.360 it cures, like alcoholism and obesity.
00:35:07.980 Yeah, dude, even gambling, gambling's hard on everything, man.
00:35:12.120 And gambling's a really big problem.
00:35:13.400 Well, and, and if you, if you have a problem with, with being too sexual, like you're-
00:35:17.460 Yeah, sex addiction, food addiction, gambling, porn addiction, like all these things.
00:35:22.800 Incredibly effective, and I just hate that it's not more known about.
00:35:25.900 Yeah, seriously.
00:35:27.160 It's, it's, it's one of the biggest-
00:35:28.460 Well, y'all can read Katie Herzog's book.
00:35:29.920 I think it's called Drink Yourself Sober.
00:35:31.380 No, that's not what it is.
00:35:32.420 I can't remember what it is, but check out Katie Herzog's book.
00:35:34.900 She wrote about it in depth.
00:35:36.640 And she's really unhappy with the amount of book sales.
00:35:40.300 Yeah, it's really sad.
00:35:41.040 Well, she had like 12,000 sales or something.
00:35:42.820 Yeah, like just, yeah, abysmal, and she put a lot of work into the launch, and interviewed
00:35:47.840 with all the best platforms.
00:35:50.060 Yeah, I mean, but on, on background, and she didn't want to name you because you're too
00:35:53.440 polarizing.
00:35:55.300 Oh, but whatever.
00:35:56.740 Buy, buy Katie Herzog's book.
00:35:58.360 We like it.
00:35:58.960 We like blocked and reported.
00:36:00.600 I bet Katie Herzog, and well, I think, I think Justy Single just really doesn't like us
00:36:05.220 now.
00:36:05.400 He stopped responding.
00:36:05.660 He used to come to our parties, and now he's like-
00:36:07.540 I know, but also I think he's, he's a little, a little Trump derangement.
00:36:11.700 And yeah, I mean, Katie Herzog is too, but she responded to us at least.
00:36:15.300 I think she cares less.
00:36:17.040 Anyway, we'll get into it.
00:36:18.800 I love you.
00:36:19.380 Here we go.
00:36:19.960 Ready?
00:36:21.220 Okay.
00:36:21.440 Wait, did you think this was the best Christmas ever?
00:36:29.120 Yeah.
00:36:29.800 Do you think so?
00:36:30.420 I want to go in my bed and put this in my bedroom.
00:36:33.300 I want to put this in my bed.
00:36:35.420 It would be like one, two.
00:36:36.960 Well, we'll go up and put them in your bed for future day decorations.
00:36:42.340 You like them, guys?
00:36:43.640 Yeah.
00:36:44.220 Let's go.
00:36:44.840 Let's go, Mommy.
00:36:45.720 Let's go.
00:36:46.640 Yeah, you're super set.
00:36:47.940 You want to install it right now?
00:36:49.360 Yeah.
00:36:50.800 Let's open up your presents so you can play with those, and then tonight we'll put them
00:36:54.040 in to start future day, okay?
00:36:56.020 Yeah.
00:36:56.540 Does that sound good?
00:36:57.940 Yeah.
00:36:58.560 Okay, keep it safe right here for now.
00:37:00.620 My T-Rex is honey.
00:37:01.880 Here, Octavian.
00:37:02.480 You have it to me, and I'll make sure it goes to your bed.
00:37:04.920 My T-Rex is honey.
00:37:07.480 Honey?
00:37:08.300 Your T-Rex's name is honey?
00:37:09.900 It's going to be the best place.
00:37:11.860 No?
00:37:13.120 What are the colors for future day?
00:37:16.620 Oh, do you want milk and children, Stinson?
00:37:17.800 What are the colors for future day?
00:37:20.000 No.
00:37:20.500 No?
00:37:21.080 What does T-Rex want to be?
00:37:21.900 What are the colors for future day?
00:37:24.040 T-Rex wants to eat sandwiches.
00:37:25.840 He wants to eat sandwiches?
00:37:27.560 Yeah.