Based Camp - The Mysterious Fertility Strip Running Down the Center of the USA

00:00:00.000 Hello, Simone! I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing a

00:00:06.120 bizarre phenomenon where there is, if you look at the county level total fertility rate in the

00:00:15.900 United States, there is an extremely high fertility. I mean extremely high fertility

00:00:20.920 when you look at the rest of the map. Nothing comes close to the strip's fertility rate.

00:00:24.840 This strip down basically like where the west side of Texas is, all the way up to the top of the

00:00:34.960 United States. Yeah, like from the Texas panhandle up basically directly up from there is this weird

00:00:41.760 blue strip. And so like obviously I'm gonna have a map on screen here that you guys can look at and

00:00:47.540 be like what is going on here. One of the people who dug into it was friend of the show Robin Hanson

00:00:52.500 because of course like if somebody's looking at interesting questions it's like always going to

00:00:56.020 be one of our like small friend groups. I sometimes wondered it's like not everyone else programmed in

00:00:59.880 this simulation? Like is it like 20 people who are fully programmed and they're all guests of the

00:01:04.780 show? You gotta save processing power. This stuff's expensive. I mean so yeah I'm very so if okay what

00:01:13.580 before we go into what he thinks is going on what are you going to guess? Is it that like these are

00:01:19.100 very low population rural states? I mean we're looking at North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska,

00:01:27.800 Kansas, a little bit. There's lots of low population rural states that would not explain this at all.

00:01:33.020 Okay, okay. So I'm gonna guess it's either one of two things. Okay. Thing number one that it could be

00:01:41.340 is it could be actually a mistake in the data. Okay. It could be something about how these are like

00:01:48.760 near a date line or how these are near some line. Some time zone where it's measured twice because of

00:01:54.580 like. Is causing things to be measured twice. That's hypothesis number one. Because it just doesn't seem

00:02:00.680 realistic when I look at other things here. But then I think okay like I'm from Texas right? Yeah.

00:02:05.020 These districts do not not make sense as to why they would be higher fertility. They are incredibly

00:02:11.300 rural districts. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Rural. And that's where you get those. I mean

00:02:15.520 it's it's there's a selection bias there, right? You're getting people who want big families who are

00:02:20.760 probably more likely to be religious conservative who have this space. And of course there's all these

00:02:25.260 religious advocates. But here's the problem with this explanation. Okay. The districts actually

00:02:31.040 remind me most of places like Arizona or Western California, which is way below these districts in

00:02:39.340 terms of fertility rate. That's true. Yeah. Why would those not also show up? Yeah. Why would those

00:02:43.920 they're just as conservative? They're just as so the other thing that it could be is immigration

00:02:49.680 patterns is the other thing I'd hypothesize here. Interesting. It could be that if you look at

00:02:55.760 this, this is if you're looking at immigration waves moving west, this is where pretty much everyone

00:03:00.840 would stop when hitting the Rockies. So if you're just going to continue to move west until you hit the

00:03:08.940 Rockies immigration wise, that's what would lead to this line. This is the most I wanted to get away 1.00

00:03:16.060 from other people and live my own way of all people in the United States make up this line.

00:03:23.020 That could be what we're seeing. And then people could be like, well, what about that? Like edge

00:03:27.420 of Texas saying like, that's not the Rockies. And I'd say, well, that's the desert.

00:03:33.260 Yeah. So let's, let's have a look here. What is, what is the first thing that he notes here?

00:03:37.700 He says, it's really weirdly along the mountain time and central time time zone divider.

00:03:45.400 Yeah. What is up with that? If you overlaid them, it looks so suspicious.

00:03:51.160 That's why I think it could be a statistical error because, okay, that divider, if you look,

00:03:56.320 and I'm comparing them on screen here, goes through the center of South Dakota there. And the line

00:04:01.500 moves from where it is on this map towards the center of South Dakota, which is weird. Why is it

00:04:09.560 doing that? Yeah. This to me indicates that it might be some sort of statistical error.

00:04:16.140 Yes. But then when we scroll down a little bit more, Wyvert, who's so prolific on X,

00:04:22.400 suggests that it's a combination of being rural and high income showing an American community survey

00:04:27.560 of five-year estimates showing medium household, median household income for counties that are

00:04:33.540 completely rural from 2013 to 2017. And there's also exactly where the fertility strip is

00:04:40.480 a concentration above $75,000. I think that this graph is entirely, hugely misleading.

00:04:51.000 So let's talk about why it's misleading because there's something you might not be noticing about

00:04:55.020 it because it draws your eyes in and you're like, oh, okay, this could explain it. But what you're

00:05:01.440 not counting is really almost all of the colored in places on the map at all are in this strip.

00:05:10.200 That's why it looks so green because it's not looking at the whole of the US. It's only looking

00:05:14.980 at rural counties. And so what we're actually seeing here is for whatever reason, this strip in the

00:05:21.120 United States has far more consistent rural counties than any other strip in the United States.

00:05:27.980 But then the question is, how are rural counties being counted here? Because I know for a fact that

00:05:34.060 these places aren't particularly more rural than places in Arizona, for example, which is shown as not

00:05:41.560 having a single rural county. Or Eastern California, not shown as having a single rural county.

00:05:48.120 Or New Mexico, shown as having almost no rural counties. I'm sorry, I don't buy that. There's

00:05:54.780 something about the way this map is structured that I think is trying to prove a point. And I don't know

00:06:00.300 how they fudge the data, but I can tell you there are rural counties in Arizona. Arizona is not a

00:06:06.960 populated place. There's like a few like medium sized cities in it. But like if I was trying to date in

00:06:12.440 Arizona, I'd be like, but nobody lives in Arizona. Yeah. So something's off. Something's off about

00:06:19.600 that. Yeah. Okay. Now, now Cremieux comes in, by the way, which I love. We're getting all the all

00:06:25.260 the art stars here, Simone. How did you not hear about that? Yeah, this is well, because I'm not on

00:06:29.600 X. We're so bad at doing but we have things to do. I don't know how these people can be so productive

00:06:34.340 and yet spend so much time on X. I don't understand. But anyway, yes, Cremieux's graph is quite

00:06:39.540 interesting. I want to be clear, Simone. They are not an ounce as productive as you and I.

00:06:45.120 None of these people have a daily podcast. None of these people are running multiple companies at

00:06:50.180 the same time. None of them are running multiple major efforts to... Or they don't have... Like

00:06:55.480 Robin Hanson has grown kids. Cremieux has no kids yet, to my knowledge. You're pregnant with kid number

00:07:02.940 five. Yeah. We also are regularly in the media. I mean, we were just before this recording in a phone

00:07:07.780 call was... What was it? ABC? USA Today. USA Today. And then I had another interview this morning and

00:07:13.280 then yesterday we had a reporter team come over to our house. So our days are being constantly

00:07:17.420 disrupted in spite of all this. No, these people really are shredding their potentiality through

00:07:22.580 their engagement with X and I think it's bad. Yeah. So Cremieux says you get a somewhat similar

00:07:29.600 the Bible belt it's gone or has shifted picture was data from the US religious census. And here he's

00:07:36.460 looking to adherence of US religious bodies, adherence as a percentage of the population,

00:07:42.080 very heavy overlap with that line. Yeah. This again makes me think it's immigration patterns

00:07:47.180 stopping at the natural barriers to Western immigration. That is what we're actually seeing

00:07:52.200 here. Is it the Americans who had the most fire in their heart to keep moving or to take action? And

00:07:58.640 here you see another thing about these districts, right? I actually really like this one, right?

00:08:03.420 Jeremy Paccio, where he showed that this is the line in America with by far the lowest suicide rate.

00:08:12.620 Oh, that's so interesting. Wow. And it's such a fascinating map of suicides. Okay. Where is it

00:08:18.320 really bad? Nevada. They just, they just want to die. Northern California. What's wrong with you?

00:08:25.320 So this really divides like the Arizona or Eastern California thing I keep talking about

00:08:30.380 because both of them have a really high suicide rates. Maine, why would you ever want to die if

00:08:35.660 you're in Maine? And this whole Pacific Northwest is not looking good there. I don't get it.

00:08:40.580 Because it's a lack of vitalism. A lot of these places are traditional. And I think that this is

00:08:45.080 the thing that people don't get. It's the different American cultural groups, which have a different

00:08:48.620 reason to live. This line is a lot of backwoods Americans and a lot of people with faith,

00:08:55.660 people with faith, which is really important. No, no, no, no. There's people with faith in Maine.

00:08:59.800 There's people, there's a, you overlap this with a map of like faith of the United States,

00:09:03.620 which I can do here. Going back to the religious Bible Belt. No, Maine is pretty freaking light. And 0.89

00:09:09.400 also the Pacific Northwest is actually, yeah. If you look at these graphs, no, actually. So the,

00:09:15.380 the, so what's interesting is that religiosity is, is pretty still high in the South.

00:09:20.260 And yet this suicide rate, you only really see this no, no kill rate in, in that, in that fertility 0.93

00:09:28.660 strip and not in the religious South. Well, that's because the religious South is descendant 0.99

00:09:33.240 of cavalier culture. Like, of course it wouldn't be as vitalistic. That's really, yeah. Yeah. I guess.

00:09:38.480 So you can't say religiosity predicts lower nihilism or desire to end your life. It is,

00:09:46.380 it is religious vitalism specifically. Like you keep going on how, like so many Orthodox Christians 1.00

00:09:52.520 just see, so seem so depressed. And I note here, what isn't in this for people who aren't looking

00:09:57.500 is Utah. Like, if you want to say this is Mormons, no, Utah is actually like super not in this.

00:10:03.000 Yeah, man. That's not, not only is it not high in fertility rates, particularly it's, is it,

00:10:09.440 you know, at the County level, at least it's not in this rural thing. It is in the high religiosity

00:10:15.600 thing, but here's, what's really interesting. You go down to suicide rates, super high across

00:10:19.400 Utah. It's crazy. That's crazy. I would, I've actually noted this suicide rate thing. Like

00:10:27.220 if you look at other places with like really low fertility rates, they typically have high

00:10:30.400 suicide rates, like South Korea. Yeah. So yeah, this is, this is a bigger story about is humanity

00:10:37.380 good? Is the future bright? Is life good? Or are we intensely focused on suffering humanity,

00:10:43.920 really bad future dark? And then those people both don't have children and, and their lives at

00:10:50.740 disproportionate rates. Apparently. That's really fascinating. That is fascinating. All right. You

00:10:57.020 want to go to the next map? This is my board. Okay. This is also, this mystery strip, the mystery

00:11:04.440 strip, the mystery strip. Aren't you loving the mystery strip? I'm loving the mystery strip. Oh my

00:11:08.800 goodness. What can we call this catchier than mystery strip? America's, what is it? They call

00:11:13.640 it like the whatever trail on, on humans? The trail of tears? The Western trail? On humans? On

00:11:20.100 like the human body? Like I, the. The linea negra? I want to say like that. That's it. That's a line

00:11:26.040 that sometimes shows up on a pregnant woman's belly from her belly button downward. Oh. So we

00:11:31.980 can call it the linea negra. Linea negra. That's, that's fine. And then people will be like, that's

00:11:37.560 racist. You said negra. And I'm like, what is wrong with your people? You've never encountered a

00:11:42.480 pregnant belly before, apparently. Oh, goodness. I don't think I get them though. I haven't seen one,

00:11:48.460 but I also just don't spend a lot of time looking at my body. So I wouldn't know. You don't get them.

00:11:52.980 I, I wouldn't. I don't, I don't think that they're unattractive. Like I, I've seen them before. You've seen them,

00:11:58.940 right? Yeah. Yeah. I haven't been like, that's unattractive looking. It looks like a type of

00:12:04.740 pregnant belly. So yeah. I was thinking, by the way, if I, if I get a tattoo, I probably shouldn't,

00:12:11.100 like, I wouldn't do that for surgeries, but like a zipper on my C-section line would be hilarious.

00:12:17.360 You can get that after you have your surgery. After all the C-section. I actually think that'd be

00:12:23.220 really fun for reporters. It would make me so sad though. If it was after I lost my uterus. No,

00:12:28.000 I'll be so traumatized and devastated by that, that I can't do something else.

00:12:34.640 Sorry. She has to have a C-section with every pregnancy. So maybe we can put something else 1.00

00:12:38.680 interesting where the uterus used to be, you know, like, I don't know, an AI 0.99

00:12:44.460 muffled speech within my belly. I really don't know.

00:12:49.200 Yell at people. Like you have a baby inside you that talks to me.

00:12:52.260 Get me out of here. Get me out of here. 0.98

00:12:56.660 Oh my God. Something, something like, uh, I don't know.

00:13:02.080 We'll say is Simone, I have faith that it's not going to happen anytime soon. I believe that,

00:13:06.840 that, you know, God's looking out for us. It's going to work out as long as we keep

00:13:11.820 deading ourselves fully to this, this cause. I hope so. I really, really hope so.

00:13:18.540 Anyway, so Borg here did one, the title, the 2024 presidential party heat map by county.

00:13:25.640 The most dark red goes through the same line.

00:13:28.660 Yep. There you go. You got the MAGA pronatalists.

00:13:31.660 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:13:32.820 You're right. MAGA is vitalism. MAGA is the future is bright. MAGA is family is good. MAGA is children

00:13:40.260 are awesome. That's huge. But I also think that this is where the most vitalistic people from the

00:13:46.860 Backwoods Cultural Group eventually immigrated out to. This is the wild west of the wild west. This

00:13:52.260 is the wild west strip. Yeah, no, that's, that's really interesting. Like every western you've seen

00:14:00.160 takes place in this strip. I guess, yeah. Yeah. Now, now here's an interesting take on this.

00:14:08.140 The agriculture? I don't, I don't see this one. Most crops by county. So this county, this line

00:14:15.060 isn't exact, but it's where most wheat in the U.S. is grown and, and a bit where corn in the U.S. is

00:14:21.020 grown. The problem is, is where the line like sort of splits apart the most and is the most large is

00:14:27.760 in South Dakota. In South Dakota, you don't see a lot of this. And then you also see the lines sort

00:14:32.820 of expand in, what state is that? Nebraska. And it doesn't look like, well, yeah, you get corn farming

00:14:40.940 there. Yeah. So it could be wheat farming. Well, I just think of this, that gladiator scene.

00:14:49.940 His hand. The reason why he's got his hands on the wheat? That's my life already. Yeah.

00:14:55.480 You can't do that as easily with corn. So you have children of the corn. They're creepy,

00:15:17.840 but you've got the sentimental dad of gladiator running his hand over the wheat, but this is

00:15:25.400 too tenuous. I want to go to the next graph. Oh, oh. Wind speeds. This is where it just gets like,

00:15:33.420 let's play the ridiculous data matches game. And this is why so much research is just bonkers.

00:15:37.800 No, I actually think wind speeds are at play here. Are you kidding me? Right. So what we're looking at

00:15:42.860 now, for those who are just listening, is a map of wind speeds in the United States, showing zones with

00:15:49.240 the highest versus the lowest wind speeds in miles per hour. And in this fertility line, weirdly,

00:15:57.240 you see much lower wind speed. So what you're actually seeing here is what creates high wind speed.

00:16:04.840 It is the last part of flat land before you get to the mountainous or desert regions. And so it's large

00:16:12.700 areas of flat land before you get to mountainous or desert regions, which is leading to these wind

00:16:16.600 speeds. So it could be caused by the same things that taught the migrants to stop. 0.90

00:16:23.760 Interesting. Flatlands. Why would flatlands promote higher birth rates?

00:16:29.500 It's not that they promote higher birth rates. It's that these are the migrants who kept moving and 1.00

00:16:34.400 moving and moving. They were more vitalistic people. They were more flatland. So vitalistic people just

00:16:40.760 love flatland. No, it's that they kept moving as far as they could, where there was good land.

00:16:48.400 You stop moving. Why would non-vitalistic people not give up? That sounds, it sounds like the place

00:16:54.980 where the lazy, easy people give up then. That doesn't change. No, the hungriest people settle in the

00:17:00.960 richest possible soil. It is the, the, there, I think what you're confusing is people who just

00:17:08.320 want to like huckster their way through lives and live on the fringes of civilization and not actually

00:17:14.200 thrive. Who are the ones who are squeaking by and like the Arizona deserts and stuff like that,

00:17:20.300 or in the mountains of the Rockies. This is quite different than that. These are the individuals

00:17:25.260 who were always looking for something better. Maybe, maybe I'm what, what so far has convinced

00:17:34.360 me the most is the, the line of religiosity and the line of MAGA. So I think that's, that's what so

00:17:43.380 far has got me. Wind speeds. I don't know. Here's the next graph here. U S home affordability.

00:17:49.400 That's, I mean, it's not a strong correlation, but there's definitely, when you keep in mind the

00:17:56.160 income of these regions, which is quite high, you know, around 70 K and this, this, this home.

00:18:01.400 Oh yes. Yes. Right. Because there was an other graph that showed that there's this line of relatively

00:18:05.500 higher wealth in that area. So when you combine higher wealth with affordability, you get people

00:18:10.520 who feel like they're millionaires, which would produce this feeling of abundance. And of course the

00:18:15.580 future is going to be bright because I can buy a giant house. Okay. Sorry. Nevermind. Change my

00:18:21.820 mind. Delta. That is compelling and interesting. Yes. But it's not that strong a connection. Now

00:18:26.980 here's one aligns with. No, no, no. But like when you combine the two, because the houses are here

00:18:32.020 more broadly affordable than they are in like the coasts, certainly in California. And when you combine

00:18:38.600 that with, especially, I think when you have, when you feel really wealthy, like remember how we felt

00:18:45.020 when we were in Peru and we're like, I can just go to a restaurant. Ha. Look at me. I'm a king.

00:18:51.560 I literally would like eat at restaurants every day there because I could at the same cost as like

00:18:56.220 cooking at home in the U S. Yeah. But now I'm cooking from home. You're better than the Peruvian 1.00

00:19:00.620 restaurant. So like, it doesn't even matter. You're so sweet. But like, I think that feeling

00:19:04.820 of abundance can create this. So, cause you, you've also pointed out in other podcasts and research

00:19:10.920 that there's this, this fertility, you curve where obviously very low levels of income and poverty.

00:19:16.700 People have more, more kids. And then also when you see people starting to make more than $500,000,

00:19:23.020 they start having more kids. And I think what might be going on here is people feel like they're making

00:19:29.680 more than $500,000. Cause they're able to literally get everything they want.

00:19:33.580 Yeah. And then they're like, well, if I can get everything I want, then I don't have to worry.

00:19:39.040 $70,000 to a family in rural America is quite a lot of money. And in terms of like housing the

00:19:44.760 kids and everything like that, you're going to have space and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Childcare,

00:19:48.220 especially if you're in a religious community where maybe theoretically there's a bunch of like

00:19:51.320 girls in your church community who babysit kids for like $12 an hour. 1.00

00:19:56.080 No, here's another interesting graph here that I quite like. This one is from slut dragon. 0.99

00:20:01.120 Something strange to do is a hundredth meridian and rainfall. So what they're showing here is the 0.53

00:20:07.220 hundreds versus the 98th meridian, which is around this area. And you'll notice at each of these two

00:20:12.360 lines, the rainfall changes pretty dramatically. Then it's really where that strip is on the,

00:20:18.280 on the left side of Texas. Yes. It was actually a bit past the hundredth meridian. Remember I said

00:20:24.960 it's like right at the end of where you would stop when you're hitting like the issues that have to do

00:20:30.500 is moving into mountainous regions. Yeah. So it's, it's past the hundredth meridian. They're sort

00:20:35.400 of acting like it's between the 98th and the hundredth, but it's really not. It's past the

00:20:38.220 hundredth meridian. Rainfall has already started to decline a bit. So again, this is the furthest

00:20:43.820 you can go and still claim to be hitting better, good land. That's what we're seeing here. I think

00:20:49.920 now this one is a very interesting map from Chad Sanger. This map shows how far you have to drive to get

00:20:57.380 an abortion and it lines up exactly with this line. Wow. So these are all districts that I guess post

00:21:07.640 Dobbs, which was the Supreme court ruling in the United States that, that basically gave decisions

00:21:15.240 about abortion legality back to States. This is showing this strip of, of apparently, because it's

00:21:21.440 not on a statewide basis, but districts that have made it very difficult to get an abortion.

00:21:26.760 How far do you have to drive to get out of a state or district? Oh, okay. Fair enough. That's

00:21:31.380 why the edges look like they do. Okay. But the point, the point here being is that what I think

00:21:35.780 we're actually seeing here, isn't that the abortions, because we know from other studies and from like

00:21:40.320 Europe, like typically the stricter a country is on abortions, the lower its fertility rate is.

00:21:44.540 Now this could be a false correlation created with Catholic countries being stricter on abortions and 0.97

00:21:49.120 Catholics having like garbage fertility rates, which, okay, maybe that's what we're seeing in 1.00

00:21:54.480 Europe. But I actually think what we're seeing here is it's not the legality of abortions. It's 0.99

00:22:00.020 the public sentiment around abortions. If you get pregnant is your first thought, I'm going to have 1.00

00:22:05.840 an abortion or is it, well, no one I know to would ever talk to me again. Like this is a really horrible

00:22:11.400 thing to do. Like voting happens in these districts this way because people have this sentiment.

00:22:19.120 Yeah. And I think that's what's leading to higher fertility rates. I think it's the same thing

00:22:23.060 that leads to the religiosity. I think it's the same thing that leads to the Trumpism.

00:22:26.120 I think all these things are connected. That makes sense. Very interesting.

00:22:31.700 And remember I was talking about good land before, right? Yeah. Look at this post by Matt Popovich,

00:22:39.520 which looks at acres of land in farms as a percentage of land in acres in 2007

00:22:46.080 by county. And what you'll see is this district up and down is straight up farmland compared to other

00:22:54.880 Do you think this may also have to do more with the corporate family? If you have a family growing up

00:22:59.640 and they're more likely to own a farm, you have probably a mother and a father and extended family

00:23:06.080 living together, working on the farm together, and then the kids helping out too. And suddenly

00:23:09.960 this is the corporate family is an inherently pronatal environment. You know, you're all leaning in

00:23:15.540 together. You're spending time together. The corporate family is the much like the truly

00:23:21.540 trad family, which is a family where the mother, the father, children, and often extended family plus

00:23:28.600 additional workers in some cases all live together and work together in a household, not necessarily on a

00:23:35.380 farm. It could be a brewer. It could be a blacksmith. It could be any number of things. But this is what

00:23:40.420 the norm was before the industrial revolution. And we argue that it really is when the men left the house

00:23:46.560 to go work in factories that we started to see the beginnings, the wheels started turning that set up

00:23:53.020 demographic lapse. It wasn't women getting empowered. It wasn't the birth control pill. By that point, the

00:23:58.200 momentum was already there. We were already headed straight to the Titanic without an ability to turn

00:24:04.120 away. It's just that that was when they saw the iceberg and were like, oh no, that doesn't mean

00:24:08.660 that it wasn't going to happen anyway. And so yes, this is a region clearly from the various graphs that

00:24:15.180 we're seeing that if there isn't going to be a place in the United States where we will see more

00:24:20.320 corporate families, more husbands and wives living and working together very closely, it's going to be

00:24:26.660 here. That's so interesting. Oh, hold on. I got another one for you. And this aligns with my original

00:24:31.800 seasons. If you scroll down a while, you're going to run into a light map of the US, a picture from

00:24:36.580 space of the United States to see where light density is. And what you'll see is this region

00:24:42.180 is right past the end of sort of civilizational expansion in the United States. Yes, it's where

00:24:48.360 the darkness comes. Oh, and meaning romantically, they get to see like the Milky Way at night. They

00:24:53.380 actually see a real night sky more likely. Right. But it's not just that. Remember how I said,

00:24:57.320 like a lot of people think like, oh, Americans just kept immigrating forever. Like the frontier.

00:25:02.380 No, there is still a frontier in the US and it is this line. Like the frontier gets pushed westwards

00:25:08.600 every decade, every year. And in the US, yes, you had people like rush to the coast, for example,

00:25:15.660 but this is still where the American frontier is. Gosh. And still this feeling of manifest destiny,

00:25:23.800 growth, space. Right. So these are the people who went just past the last major populated area,

00:25:30.260 but didn't go out seeking further unpopulated areas for the sake of further unpopulated areas.

00:25:36.140 Hmm. Very interesting.

00:25:42.480 Here is the last graph that might explain it for you if you go a bit further down than that.

00:25:46.580 Okay. It's mostly, this is rational renaissance. It's mostly population density. Don't overcomplicate

00:25:52.260 this. People in less densely populated places have more kids. Dan Hess is just chiming in to be like,

00:25:58.580 I told you so. Well, I would disagree because it doesn't actually map exactly.

00:26:05.680 This is the first line in the US where you get a low population density, which aligns with my 1.00

00:26:10.580 theory that it's about immigration patterns. It is not the last line in the US where you get low

00:26:15.140 population density. Look at like Nevada, for example, or north of that, or like there's all

00:26:21.200 sorts of places here. Utah is low population density where you don't have the high fertility rate. 0.95

00:26:25.100 Yeah. So it is not about population density. It is about the first strip of migration where you

00:26:32.440 get low population density. The first strip. So just the edges of humanity, you're trying to say,

00:26:41.760 just the, the fringes. Is that what you're saying? Okay.

00:26:48.700 Yeah. I think it's what, what's really getting me is this, this zone in the United States where there's

00:26:55.040 this feeling of abundance and more corporate families. So one, you feel like your dollar goes

00:27:01.840 farther and you're making more, like you're making enough to feel like you really have everything you

00:27:07.020 need and you can get everything you need. And it's totally okay to have a family plus you're religious

00:27:11.360 plus you're MAGA and you think the future is bright. And then plus you're more likely to be

00:27:17.160 surrounded by, or even be a corporate family. Maybe here's another couple of maps that is

00:27:24.540 interesting where you get a line that overlaps with this a lot. It's minerals. So here you have

00:27:31.660 critical minerals by region. And here you have a lot of, it's the first line, not the last line

00:27:38.540 of expensive minerals in the United States. Um, and, and it also explanation of hardness in

00:27:46.620 milligrams per liter. You get a line of valuable minerals around this area. It's not a perfect

00:27:54.540 match, but it's, it's, it's something else to think about. I don't know. I mean, stranger things

00:28:00.060 have caused other strange things to happen, but I ain't seeing it here. You ain't seeing it. Well,

00:28:07.320 let's see this farming dependent counties, heavy overlap, non-metro farming, depending counties,

00:28:14.280 more points to the corporate family theory. I'd say more points to the corporate family theory. Yes.

00:28:19.760 Well, what did you think of that interesting deep dive? That is truly fascinating. When you

00:28:26.420 mentioned to me that there was a mysterious fertility strip, the linea negra, as we're calling it. I,

00:28:33.060 I don't know. I just, I figured it would be where the Bible belt was. And I thought it was just going 0.97

00:28:39.040 to be this open shut case of, oh, I guess religious people are still having kids.

00:28:42.860 I think what we see is that cavalier culture in the United States, the aristocratic Southern culture 0.72

00:28:48.560 is not conducive to high fertility.

00:28:50.780 Well, that's because it's performative. I mean, by our definitions, I don't think we would even call

00:28:54.960 it religious. Yeah, I wouldn't either. I think it's a performative form of social conformity

00:29:00.420 that is antithetical to, I think, what we would think of as real internal religion. But keep in

00:29:08.260 mind, you know, we're the type of people who, you know, who were traditional Christians, we'd be some

00:29:11.260 form of like Calvinist Baptist or Reformed Baptist, right? Like, I don't know if I, yeah, I agree. 1.00

00:29:18.620 Like, if religiosity is about conformity to you, and it's about fitting social norms. And this is

00:29:24.840 why I think the iterations of conservatism in America that are being replaced by the sort of

00:29:28.920 new right are dying so much where they're like, you're acting weird, you're doing weird, extreme

00:29:34.200 things, you're doing whatever, like just fit in, you know, those are the ones that are going to go

00:29:39.860 extinct. Because it is that mindset that is so toxic to fertility rates. I actually think that this is

00:29:45.760 part of what's led to a lot of Catholic fertility crash is a lot of Catholic culture historically was

00:29:51.440 like, don't be weird, fit in, etc. And it had a very similar cultural framework to the, the, the

00:29:58.380 cavalier culture, which is like, would just structure yourself, you know, hierarchically, you know, don't

00:30:04.420 be weird. Social hierarchy is not based on like personal vitality, right. But it's based on, you know,

00:30:11.440 like specific metrics of like, this is how you act like you have manners. These are the special things

00:30:17.120 you buy. This is the country club you're a member of. These are the people who approve of you. This is how

00:30:22.320 you dress.

00:30:23.640 Yes, yes. Whereas this other cultural group has always much more focused, instead of having religion come

00:30:31.240 from above, have religion come from within. And when I say above, I mean above culturally and socially

00:30:37.040 speaking, like your betters tell you what's true about religion. Instead, if you tell yourself what's

00:30:41.280 true about religion, F your betters, they don't know what they're talking about. Right. And so that is

00:30:46.000 really, really fascinating to me.

00:30:48.720 That is, yeah. I'm, I'm shocked. I really would have thought that the Bible belt would have more. 0.99

00:30:56.640 Also, because I expected to see regions that had higher immigrant populations, which, which I associate

00:31:03.600 with a lot of coastal cities and also the South, I think they have fairly high. I wonder if I can

00:31:11.420 look up a map of immigrant USA recent. Oh yeah. It could be migrant workers. That'd be really

00:31:17.680 interesting. Population. No, I don't think it's migrants. I, but I just thought that where there would 1.00

00:31:23.380 be more immigrants. No, but it's not. Okay. So if you look up maps of U S recent immigrant population 0.84

00:31:33.440 density, there's basically no overlap with this strip. So it's also not that we're talking about

00:31:41.680 immigrant populations. It's just haven't yet been. That's, that's not true. There is high

00:31:46.880 overlap in the Southern parts of Texas. Yeah. Yeah. And the Southern parts of, yeah, but the,

00:31:51.260 but there's the, the whole strip is the whole point is it's the strip. It goes all the way

00:31:55.120 because when you look at the immigrant population density maps, it's, it's from the, the, I mean, 0.99

00:32:02.100 Florida is drenched. It's like, it's dipped in it. And then the base of Texas is drenched. And then

00:32:06.640 of course, all in line, the Mac all along the Mexican border through California, you see, it's

00:32:12.580 like, like a cookie, like the cookie of the United States was dipped in the milk of immigration.

00:32:17.180 And it's, it's just soaked in a little bit there, but it just stays soaked in around the borders.

00:32:22.020 It doesn't go all the way up the strip. And so I'm just writing that off. I'm saying it's not an

00:32:26.520 immigrant thing because it would have gone all the way up the strip. You're looking for matching 1.00

00:32:29.520 patterns. That's what everyone else. I found this map after we filmed this episode, but this is a

00:32:37.100 map looking at immigrant versus native born fertility rates. And you can see here, this dark green and

00:32:44.620 green area with dark green, meaning foreign born growth overcame native loss and light green meaning

00:32:50.320 foreign born growth slowed overall population loss. And it aligns almost perfectly with the strip.

00:32:55.440 So what this could mean is what we are actually looking at here is immigrant farm laborers making 0.96

00:33:02.340 up the fertility rate of the native population by county religion. And you see an overlap with

00:33:11.400 the Eastern part of the Baptist group. That's like, I guess, Baptist, but not under the, you know,

00:33:17.020 Cavalier cultural group does very well here. And then the, a lot of Lutherans.

00:33:21.280 It's not a perfect overlap, but, and it's some Catholics, if you're talking about the immigrant

00:33:27.700 heavy areas. I mean, that's interesting. The Mormon areas seem to be doing really bad. 1.00

00:33:33.920 That's what's crazy, especially when it came to suicidality in Utah.

00:33:39.960 Even where they expand outside of Utah. Like I was just surprised like Mormons are not doing that good. 1.00

00:33:44.960 Yeah. It's saddening. It's saddening. But also I personally find the landscape of Utah to be

00:33:53.400 fairly oppressive, but I don't know if I would feel that differently about these flatlands

00:33:57.420 across the mysterious fertility strips. Well, we live in heaven out here, so that's the problem, 0.63

00:34:03.760 right? Oh my gosh. It's so amazing. But yeah, apparently people aren't having big families out

00:34:09.420 here. There's too much light. I mean, they're not doing that bad. If you're, if you're looking

00:34:15.180 at like the Northeast, like it's. Well, I'm sure if you went and looked at Lancaster County,

00:34:19.180 where there's a bunch of, a bunch of Amish, you see, again, I think the same characteristics that

00:34:24.460 we're highlighting here and, and theorizing are the driving factors of the fertility strip, which is

00:34:30.240 farming families, the corporate family, religious dedication, and relatively low levels of

00:34:38.400 development. I mean, if you actually look at our County, Simone, in the County next to us,

00:34:42.120 you're looking at an around two fertility rate. That's pretty impressive. All things considered, 1.00

00:34:47.140 but the fertility strip was getting close to three, which is very impressive. I'm just pointing out

00:34:53.820 that we're not like in a bad area fertility wise. Yeah. I hear you. And especially for the wealth of

00:34:59.900 our, of our district, which is quite high. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You're quite right. You would expect

00:35:05.540 us to, but is it just the Amish that are holding us up? No, not our County. Monco. There's almost. 1.00

00:35:13.280 Oh yeah. Right, right, right. Montgomery County doesn't really have. Yes. Okay. Two counties I'm

00:35:17.140 looking at here. The one where we bought a house Chester County, which is actually really high

00:35:20.100 fertility. I don't think they have many Amish at all in Monco. Okay. Wow. Good for us. 1.00

00:35:27.720 We moved to a good place. You should move to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Cause it is

00:35:34.560 really awesome. It really is. It really is. It's like a spectacular place to live. Anyway,

00:35:41.160 love you to Des Simone. You are amazing. You are beautiful. And I am so happy to be married to you.

00:35:48.340 I love you so much. And I am excited for dinner and going to sleep. It's been a week, hasn't it?

00:35:57.640 Since we slept. Yeah, it has. Sorry. We've gotten like super viral this. I don't know when this

00:36:02.960 episode is going to go live, but like, this has been crazy. Nothing like this has ever happened.

00:36:07.080 I think we're just tired. I can't stop yawning, but we'll just, we'll just get rest and it's

00:36:15.200 going to be amazing. But thank you for being you. And thanks to everyone for listening. Oh,

00:36:20.940 and by the way, if you do listen, if you could, if you have an iPhone and you can give us a five

00:36:25.460 star review on Apple podcasts, let's see what our Apple podcast rating is now. Do you know?

00:36:31.340 I don't, but I have a Mac. So while I can't leave us a rating, cause I guess you need an iPhone to do

00:36:37.600 that. I can. Reviews now on Apple. My God, you guys, thank you. If this is one of you,

00:36:45.200 who did this, who contributed one of these. Thank you.

00:36:50.080 4.5.

00:36:52.120 Okay. Well, that's, hold on. I need to see this for myself.

00:36:59.840 Oh my gosh. 95. Thank you.

00:37:02.460 You're getting close to the a hundred mark. A hundred reviews on Apple is quite big. Cause you

00:37:07.360 know, you can only do it if you have like an iPhone or something.

00:37:09.800 That's true. Yeah. Well, that's, that is really wonderful. There's still that picture of you and

00:37:13.780 toasty with dry ice. I think that's a good image for the podcast to be honest.

00:37:18.880 A mixing bowl. Yeah. Toasty with this giant head. Everything else is so tiny. This giant head,

00:37:25.340 this little noggin. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I love you. And I am capable of getting out of this chair 0.98

00:37:32.620 and moving on with the day. I bet you are. I'm definitely. You're going to go to bed soon.

00:37:39.220 You're going to get to make dinner soon. I know, but like the, the things that have to happen

00:37:43.940 between dinner and bed, like hauling the children up the stairs, bathing them, cleaning up after

00:37:49.920 dinner. You don't have to bathe them. I do to check for ticks these days. I want to make, like,

00:37:56.100 I just want to check every inch of their bodies. Cause they're playing outside now, which is as they

00:38:00.260 should, cause it's finally warm and you just got a tick. So I'm not taking any chances. Like the

00:38:06.600 shower, the shower period I do with each of them is like my chance to check for rashes, ticks,

00:38:13.200 mosquito bites, scratches, wounds, anything else. Sand in the hair. You got, you got this

00:38:18.700 tight, dumped a bunch of sand in her hair or whatever again. It'll still be there. I

00:38:23.220 rinsed so many times, no matter what I did, just kept like, how did, how can you get that

00:38:31.920 much sand in your hair? Like, I don't even know. Like it should, anyway, I love our children

00:38:38.980 and I have found this energy.

00:38:41.780 Bye.

00:38:45.420 I'm hitting, I'm hitting, I'm hitting, I'm hitting.

00:38:49.540 That smile all about.

00:38:51.040 Did you see the song I sing you?

00:38:52.940 Yeah.

00:38:53.940 I wanted to do more like the, the, the bio diesel song.

00:38:58.420 Yeah.

00:38:59.020 You need that Broadway flair for sure. 1.00

00:39:02.620 That Broadway villain.

00:39:05.620 Broadway villain energy. Very necessary.

00:39:08.240 I slink through the night with a sneer and a plan.

00:39:21.500 My lineage will bury the woke's shallow clan. 0.99

00:39:28.740 Their cities of glass built on ego and lies will crack

00:39:36.000 Neath the weight of my heirs' battle cries.

00:39:41.260 Hail to my triumph, my vitalist throne.

00:39:47.460 I'll see the new world with my blood and my bone.

00:39:54.200 The woke's brittle culture will crumble and wane.

00:40:00.560 While my primal vigor ignites the new rain.

00:40:11.020 The past fuels my fire.

00:40:15.020 Its debts I'll repay with children who carve out a glorious new day.

00:40:25.020 The urban ice cream in their mirror disguise.

00:40:31.480 But I'll torch their vain spark with the truth in my eyes.

00:40:38.480 Hail to my triumph, my vitalist throne.

00:40:44.280 I'll see the new world with my blood and my bone.

00:40:50.740 The woke's brittle culture will crumble and wane.

00:40:56.740 While my primal vigor ignites the new rain.

00:41:03.740 My offspring will surge like a flood through their streets.

00:41:24.200 Their strength will unravel the woke's frail defeats.

00:41:31.660 Their bonfire of selfies, so feeble, so thin.

00:41:37.660 Will choke in the smoke of my ultimate wound.

00:41:44.660 Hail to my triumph, my vitalist throne.

00:41:50.660 I'll see the new world with my blood and my bone.

00:41:58.120 The woke's brittle culture will crumble and wane.

00:42:04.120 While my primal vigor ignites the new rain. 1.00

00:42:12.120 So cower, you fools, as my dynasty looms. 1.00

00:42:18.580 Your trivial fads will be swept to their tombs. 0.99

00:42:25.580 My vitalist glory, unstoppable grand.

00:42:31.580 We'll forge a new era with life's iron hand.

00:42:38.580 I'll see you next time.

00:42:46.040 I'll see you next time.

Based Camp - May 06, 2025

The Mysterious Fertility Strip Running Down the Center of the USA

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