They want America to have more babies. Is this their moment?
Consider This from NPR
Tech Meets Tradition in the Pronatalist Debate
This chapter explores the relationship between technology and pro-family movements, contrasting modern advocates like Musk with traditionalists. It delves into the implications of declining birth rates and the impact of feminism and civil rights on family structures.
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Speaker 2
It's like, I want to... Like, to an extreme degree, it's like, I want to try this guitar. I want to put the... Where's the defender Jaguar on this track? Ah, but I'm missing a string. So I need to re-string it. I haven't got one. So I'll go out to get the thing. And then it's like... And now you sort of need to wake up and you're sort of in a guitar shopping. Like, wait... I... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I was... I didn't
Speaker 1
even...
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, that was just one idea that, sort of, one tangent, I went down. Maybe the track didn't even need it. But now I'm sort of, like, out here looking for... You know, looking for guitar strings, whatever it is.
Speaker 1
Yeah, no, totally meant... Although... I'm imagining some romantic flip side to that. We're going down a guitar centre, like, we're like, is... For some reason... Nothing has been... Nothing romantic about guitar centre. I know. I guess maybe that's the only thing that can come out of it. This is, sort of, note to self, like, maybe just order this online from now on. Yeah. Have spare
Speaker 2
strings. Have spare strings. Yeah, or just try something else. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1
No, exactly. So if that's going to be a roadblock, just screw it. Just kind of avoid it. And I just love that. I think maybe if anything's... If the modern studio, sort of, aesthetic is anything, it's about... I mean, I think Ableton is so amazing for that. You don't have to stop, do you? You make it out of the track. You don't have to... You don't have to hit stop. Yeah. So you can just literally be chasing it and chasing it. I've tried to say, Ableton, I think, an amazing addition to the programme would be, when you're doing the finder and you're looking for the sounds, and you press the right arrow, you can play it over the top. And I'm like, you should just make it so that if you press another button, it will just hit record with the sound you're doing. And when you tap that arrow, it records that pattern, and it makes a track with it, and it puts it in the session. Right. So you're just kind of going, I want this snare going, and then that and it goes, yep, it's in. You don't have to build a track, you don't have to put a sampler in, you just... Just from the selection button. Just from the selection button. Yeah.
Speaker 2
That'd be crazy. That'd be good, man.
Speaker 1
Was I scrolling through snares? Yeah, just like scrolling through, and then when you hit right, and you go, I like this record. Yeah. That is kind of how I see it going. So it's just even less... Like, there's less steps. Because I was thinking I was writing yesterday with some guys, and they were making a beat in Pro Tools. The guy was really good at it, actually. I wish I'd seen him do it, because I was like, he's going to have to drag these sounds from the finder or the works, but our Pro Tools is just so clunky, and we'll have to use them too. Yeah, I thought the Pro Tools. And you're going to have to drag this shit in from the fucking desktop, onto the timeline, and pop it or what. I mean, fair enough, it's not that much slower, but it just to me, this feels really old school now. Yeah. It's just like, I want to be able to search for my sound, go, yep, throw out a sampler brilliant. Do you use drum racks and shit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't use drum racks. I should use drum racks. I don't use the arranged to put it. Yeah, I just write an arrange. I don't write on the other page. I find with drums, I definitely do.
Billionaire Elon Musk told Fox News recently that falling birth rates keep him up at night. It's a drum he's been beating for years.
Musk is one of the world's most visible individuals to elevate this point of view. Vice President JD Vance also talks about wanting to increase birthrates in the U-S.
But it's not just them. There are discussions across the political spectrum about birth rate decline and what it means for the economy.
One response to this decline is a cause that's been taken up by the right, and it has a name – Pronatalism. Many of its advocates met up recently in Austin, Texas, at "Natal Con."
Pronatalists think they have a friendly audience in the White House. How do they want to use it?
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Email us at considerthis@npr.org.
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Musk is one of the world's most visible individuals to elevate this point of view. Vice President JD Vance also talks about wanting to increase birthrates in the U-S.
But it's not just them. There are discussions across the political spectrum about birth rate decline and what it means for the economy.
One response to this decline is a cause that's been taken up by the right, and it has a name – Pronatalism. Many of its advocates met up recently in Austin, Texas, at "Natal Con."
Pronatalists think they have a friendly audience in the White House. How do they want to use it?
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Email us at considerthis@npr.org.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
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