Natalist Nudging Nearby?

Drums of War Kindles Interest in Our Youth

You may or may not have heard, there was a big, natalism conference last week.

“We are living through the greatest population bust in human history.
The future belongs to those who show up.” - Natalism.org homepage

The conference, in Austin, Texas, had a variety of “keynote speakers as well as a closed-door, facilitated unconference, where experts and VIP attendees will meet in groups to share insights and develop solutions.”

“By the end of this century, nearly every country on earth will have a shrinking population, and economic systems dependent on reliable growth will collapse. Thousands of unique cultures and populations will be snuffed out.

Governments have tried everything in the standard technocratic toolset – tax incentives, subsidized childcare, propaganda – and nothing has worked.” - Ibid

Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and a variety of Silicon Valley elites share the same concerns; A number of tech titans spoke at the Austin conference.

“Humanity is dying … it’s just not something we evolved to react to.” - Elon Musk, March 28, 2025

Malcom Collins, an outspoken proponent of pronatalism, told the New York Post, “even more moguls are quietly expressing their support behind the closed doors of private conferences and investor meetings.”

“Fertility is big business in the US. Venture capital and private equity poured into the space in the last five years. It hit a fever pitch in 2023, a record year for such VC deals, with $874 million in investments in fertility startups, according to Pitchbook.” - Bloomberg, August 6, 2024

POPULATION BUST EVEN BIGGER ISSUE WITH NEW MILITARY BUILDUPS

This is a recent cover from the German, weekly, news magazine, Stern (“Star”) for March 20, 2025. "Würden SIE für Deutschland kämpfen?", "Would YOU fight for Germany?", it reads, with the faces of two young Germans. Under that headline is the text, “None of us wants war, but we must prepare for it now.”

Reaction to the article was very negative, generating hundreds of negative comments. A common one was, “Never”.

But Germany intends to spend not only money…

…but also its youth.

The German government, known for its fiscal restraint, just voted to eliminate its debt brake, freeing up nearly $600 billion dollars for defense spending over the next ten years.

Deutsche Welle reports that the German military is not viewed as an attractive employer and that 28% of positions among the lower enlisted ranks were unfilled as of the end of 2024. The German soldier is older as well, 34 years old on average.

"Now is the time for young people to be asked what they can do for our country and for our society…" - Johann Wadephul, deputy leader of center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) parliamentary group

Something tells me the German youth will be less than enthusiastic, given their current prospects and the frayed social contract:

• The German economy, once the powerhouse of Europe, has flatlined: Access to cheap, Russian gas and nearby, low-cost labor is gone. Export markets are difficult.

• The population has grown older, not larger; Fertility is well below replacement, at a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 1.35 births per woman.

• Roughly 41% of Germans under 21 years of age have a “migrant background”. Germany has long been a favored destination for economic migrants, creating enormous tensions. Attitudes have changed as a result, from German Willkommenskultur, or Welcoming Culture, to Ausländer raus – “foreigners out”.

Will the “New Europeans” fight for Germany? Or England? Or France? Only time will tell, but it’s not likely. Instead, governments are going to lean on their “heritage” stock.

Young people are savvy consumers of media; they were quick to note the changes in magazine covers, like the two Germans above, and in military recruiting ads, as below, where soldier “Emma with two moms” is replaced by the “Strong people are harder to kill” beast. This is a strong “tell” of a change to a war footing.

FIGHTING FOR ONE’S COUNTRY IS ONLY ONE OF A NUMBER OF OBLIGATIONS THAT WEIGH MOST HEAVILY ON OUR YOUTH

A number of things in the “social contract” have a Ponzi-like vibe:

• Social Security, at its core, is pay-as-you-go. Today’s workers fund today’s retirees. If young people don’t pay in enough - - or aren’t BORN in sufficient numbers - - the system wobbles … or collapses.

• Conscription we mentioned above. It leans hard on men in their late teens to 20s. Our military relies on fresh cohorts.

• Healthcare is yet another example. Young, healthy workers subsidize older, sicker patients through both private insurance pools and public systems like Medicare.

• A final one is employment. Much of our economy, public and private, relies on the long hours and toil of our youth, generating wealth above what they are paid. This surplus is scooped up by more senior workers and the owners of enterprises.

Youth keep the machine humming. In each case a steady supply of youth - - their energies, their bodies, and their money - - sustains what the old cannot.

The term “tragedy of the commons” was coined by ecologist Garrett Hardin to describe a scarce resource, like a pasture, that is overused by all, and thereby destroyed. You might hear this concept expressed as “privatizing profits and socializing costs”, where the fattened cow is the private profit generated by the social cost of the ruined pasture.

MAKING BABIES, AND RAISING THEM TO PRODUCTIVE ADULTHOOD, IS A COSTLY, PRIVATE AFFAIR - - THE “PROFIT” FROM WHICH IS SOCIALIZED, A BENEFIT ENJOYED BY ALL SOCIETY

This idea, an inverse of the “tragedy of the commons” does not appear to be in the literature. I will name this, “The Fruits of the Called”. This reflects a mix of duty, sacrifice, and service to a higher purpose, quasi-religious in nature, to put something in the “commons” at private burden.

In my eyes, this is why the issue of low fertility rates is so intractable. There are many dimensions in the decision to have children, just as there are in the decision to die for one’s country. People are much more than fungible, economic units, much more than a simple commodity.

“In all of Europe there are fewer and fewer children, and the answer of the West to this is migration … They want as many migrants to enter as there are missing kids, so that the numbers will add up. We Hungarians have a different way of thinking. Instead of just numbers, we want Hungarian children.” - Hungary's Viktor Orban

Orban is criticized for saying this, and to this I say “rubbish”.

POODLES, LABRADOR RETRIEVERS, AND THE LABRADOODLE

We had a divine Standard Poodle as a family member. I have never had the experience of knowing a Labrador Retriever or a Labradoodle - - I’m sure they’re wonderful, but they’re not for me. Over the years, the lab remains near the top as the American Kennel Club’s most popular dog breed, and the poodle in the middle of the top ten. The Labradoodle, a “designer” mix of the two breeds, is not on the AKC ranking list, but, if it were, it would be near the top.

I’m sure, if we could ask the poodle, he would want to have more poodles and not just disappear, regardless of the popularity of the Labradoodle, the 1980s upstart design from Australia.

Orban’s sentiment is the correct one for Hungary [TFR = 1.5].

It’s also the sentiment that should be shared by the Koreans [0.9], the Chinese [1.2], the Spanish [1.3], the Italians [1.3], and the Japanese [1.3], who all populate the bottom of the Total Fertility Rate list.

One facet of the tragedy that is the Ukrainian / Russian conflict is that it occurs between two low TFR nations, Ukraine [1.3] and Russia [1.5]. Both nations are shrinking, due to below-replacement-rate births. [a 2.1 TFR is flat, sustaining.]

A second facet, even worse, is that the conflict is a “brother war”. Genetic distance can be expressed using a metric like Fst (fixation index) which ranges from 0 (identical) to 1 (completely distinct). Eastern Slavs - - Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians - - form a tight genetic cluster due to their common origins in the Kievan Rus’ population and centuries of intermixing. [Their Fst is 0.001-0.003.]

NATION-LEVEL STATISTICS MASK GROUP DIFFERENCES IN A NATION

Just as Hungarians (and Standard Poodles) don’t want to be replaced, Leftists don’t want to be replaced!

"Leftists should consider embracing natalism to ensure their ideological and demographic sustainability. In the short-term national scale, if left-leaning individuals and groups continue to have lower birth rates compared to their right-leaning counterparts, the political landscape could shift significantly over a few decades; higher birth rates on the right could lead to a future where conservative values and policies dominate simply due to numerical superiority and intra-familial transmission.” - Scott Mauldin, "Arguments for Natalism on the Left"

This is, in fact, happening. The right has, in word and in act, embraced natalism. Over time, this leads to a “boiling off”. If only group A values kids and has kids, over time group B goes extinct, and the surviving people are “A” and value and have kids. It’s air-tight.

This can happen quite quickly. Let’s make two groups, and for sake of discussion, make them “Red” and “Blue”. We’ll give Red a TFR of 4.0 kids per woman and Blue a TFR of 1.5.

After one generation, 100 Red women have 400 Red babies, Blue makes 150. In generation two, 200 Red women (assumed male:female = 1:1) make 800 babes while the 75 Blue make 113. If these are voters, 88% of the new voters are Red in two generations. Scott, the author of the quote above, confessed, that even if the policies of the left are more attractive and gain defections from the right, the defections are not large enough to offset the raw power of the TFR. He draws the comparison to the Amish who only “leak” about 10 percent of their youth to the outside world. [For reference, Amish TFR is estimated at 5.0-7.0 ! ]

Does this help you understand the immigration issue better? If you don’t have the voters you “breed”, there is tremendous incentive to invite them in. The math is clear.

AH, THE FUN PART - - WHAT TO DO?

My chief interest in this topic is the issue of incentives. How do you get the “Fruits of the Called”? How do you get young men and women to invest in creating and raising children, for the good of all? This is the key leadership question.

I’m going to don my flame suit 🔥 … What might one do, if they were really serious? Is Korea serious yet … with its 0.9 TFR?! How low do you have to go before you are …serious? The issue is a meteor strike to one’s civilization - - economically, militarily, existentially.

• Encourage / Reward Behaviors Positively-correlated with TFR
  - Early Marriage and Childbearing
  - Religious / Cultural Emphasis on Large Families
  - Limited Use of Contraception
  - Rural Living
  - Lower Female Workforce Participation
  - Traditional Gender Roles
  - Strong Community or Family Support Systems
  - Limited Urbanization and Modernization
  It’s pretty obvious that many of these are anti-modern and turn the clock back in time. But the question is, how could one synthesize some of these, to preserve some or most of our modern lifestyle while gaining the benefit of the idea? A case in point is the fifth point: The Collins family, quoted above, champions the idea of remote work for women - - a way to lower their in-office, in-person workforce participation.

• Crack Down on Anti-child Sentiment
  - “I want to travel”
  - “I’m not ready to settle down”
  - “I like my freedom”
  - “I’m too busy (with my …)”
  - “I want to sleep on the weekends”
  - “I don’t want to give up my hobbies (or social life)”
  - “World is to messed up to bring a kid into it”
  - “I’m not emotionally (or mentally) ready”
  These could all be counter-messaged. As an example, this March the Tennessee Senate passed a bill mandating that public schools teach about what they call a “success sequence” in life: Those who complete high school, get a job or higher education, get married, and then have children, have better life outcomes.

• Publicly Honor High Fertility
  - The French Médaille de la Famille française (Medal of the French Family) honored mothers of large families, as did the German Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter (Cross of Honour of the German Mother), and the Russian Орден «Материнская слава» (Order of Maternal Glory)
  - Each of the honors had classes based on the number of well-raised children
  - Recipients were treated like royalty, given the best of everything, never waiting in lines…best cuts of meat, etc.
  Easy peasy. Officials at all levels of station could begin this immediately. In the same vein, elevate “Mothers’ Day” [and “Fathers’ Day] to a major holiday. Oh, while we are at it: International Children’s Day is June 1st this year. Make all of these eclipse the Fourth of July, naysayers be damned.

• Create Mating Rituals
  This one is near and dear to my heart, as I feel it is the missing “magic”.
  - I wrote a post “Camo and Corn Dollies” in which I mentioned the fertility ritual of the corn dolly. “Group Rituals Are Group Prayers”, I stated. For what are you praying?
  - In another post, “Outside, It's Cold, Baby” I stated, “… a good detective looks at the means, motive, and opportunity of a suspect to solve a criminal caper. By the same token, a community that wants to encourage children strategically creates those same three conditions for its members.” and talked about Christmas and mistletoe.
  - A final thought. Did you know that it is now “typical” that Olympic Athletes are given condoms in the Olympic Village? At the 2024 Olympics in Paris, the COVID “intimacy ban” was lifted and athletes were given 300,000 condoms available for the 14,250 athletes - - the condom packaging featured the Olympic mascot, Phryge. That was a missed opportunity for some pretty fine babies!

The population bust requires a rethink of most of our current habits and institutions. As my population model easily illustrated, if we fail to “boil off” the anti-natalists among us, we will be replaced by some other people, likely people who don’t share our genes, history, or values. They will though, be natalists.