Cultural Impact on Fertility Rates

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm sit down with Daniel Hess, the man behind the popular Twitter account @MoreBirths, to discuss the critical role of culture in shaping fertility rates across the world. Daniel shares fascinating examples from France, Mongolia, North Korea, and Israel to illustrate how cultural attitudes, leadership, and historical events have influenced birth rates. The conversation also delves into the insidious influence of anti-natalist propaganda in American and Canadian schools, and the potential solutions to combat the demographic collapse.

Dan Hess: [00:00:00] this organization called Population Connection. Ooh, interesting. Okay. So this, okay, this is crazy. This is insane, but this is, you wouldn't believe it except that it's true. And

, they have these workshops where they train teachers and he has trained on the order of like a hundred thousand teachers in America over the years through this organization, which is active today. And it educates in American and Canadian schools, 3 million students a year. So, so, and, and what we see here is an example from their most popular video. So he, he has this, this thing that starts in the year one. So you can see the header on top shows, this is the world population in the year one, like as in the time of the Romans and, and like when Jesus walked the earth and stuff like that.

So this is 170 million. So that's the baseline that he's using to show overpopulation now, because this is like the [00:01:00] popular, this is less than. The current population of, so that's what

Malcolm Collins: we need to go back to. It's, is it Roman times pre industry?

Dan Hess: Of course. Yes. That's what we want. This video that he has, like, like it shows like an, a little exploding bomb.

Okay. In, in every, every time, like there, there's more population added. And so it literally looks like the world of today is like on fire with people. And this is the education that's, that's going out under the guise of environmentalism to like millions of students.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Hi everyone. I am so excited today to have a very, very special guest, Danielle, who we've always really known and who you might know already as more births on Twitter. This is our. Favorite demographic collapse account.

Daniel, you have the most thoughtful threads. You are very passionate about demographic collapse, but also very articulate and focused on the data. So we're super excited to have you on because you often look at elements of the data and elements of demographic collapse that [00:02:00] we're not talking about as much.

And I think we have a lot to dig into, so let's just do it. But as a big reminder to everyone, if you aren't already following MoreBirths on Twitter. Do it now because these

Malcolm Collins: are on Twitter while you're

Simone Collins: at it. I mean, yeah, we're there too at most.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: Because we haven't changed.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, let's dive into the data because that's what our fans are all about is data.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So let's, we first wanted to discuss And this is something that came from your very good suggestion, Daniel. So thank you. Culture and examples of countries that achieved a more prenatal culture, because we were really good on this podcast and talking about the failure cases, but maybe we can go through something a little more encouraging.

Dan Hess: Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to. And you know, that's, that's something I really, really try hard to do. Is to focus on, on, on the data because, because everybody has their own opinions on what the, what the cause of the fertility collapse are. And there's a lot of causes, but you know, [00:03:00] I, I try, I try to be minimalist as far as my own opinions and maximalist as, as, as far as the data.

So here's, I want to you know, go, go right into things. So the first thing I want to talk about is the cultural impact of fertility because culture is really the dominant factor. Much more, you know, and you've, you guys have talked about this a lot on this on base camp is, is that you know, the, the impact of incentives is, is, is not enough.

It's not enough that you need, you need culture. So here. So I want to go through different examples of, of how, of how culture makes a difference. And so here's, I'm going to try to share something. I'll bring it up. Yeah, let's. Okay. So what we're seeing here. So what this is, can we see this? Now we can.

So here we're talking about France. So this is the, this is one of my favorite examples of the power of culture. So what we see is fertility, basically fertility in the [00:04:00] 1800s in France versus fertility today. So France had a huge, culture change in the 1800s, you know, long before anybody else. So, so France ended up with like super low fertility in, you know, starting with the French revolution.

So

Malcolm Collins: clarify, because a lot of our audience listens only audio. So do keep that in mind when you're describing what's in the graph.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. Yeah. Go for like what we're, what we're looking at.

Dan Hess: So what we're seeing in this is two, two maps of Europe side by side with you know, fertility in the 1800s and fertility in 2019.

So very recently. So what we see in the 1800s is that. France has fertility, like a whole order of magnitude less than the rest of Europe. And that, that was the result of the French revolution and secularization. And you can know this from, [00:05:00] you can know that that's what was going on because you can look at like, You can look at the records that people left behind of, of wills and whether it was like a church will or a secular will.

And it went from like, it went from like, like 90 percent church type wills or religious type wills to like 90 percent secular. So it was an extreme secularization that happened in France after the French revolution. And they ended up with like the lowest fertility in Europe by a mile. Now

Malcolm Collins: I want to be clear to people who are looking at this.

What's interesting about the 1800s map is it doesn't. by county and not just by country. And yet you can see that by county, there is a very sort of tight line around France. So it's not like you get a cultural bleed or much of a cultural bleed in the border regions. Which is very interesting as it means that legalistic changes within France, likely.

We're precipitated this cultural change that he's [00:06:00] describing. And I've seen other compelling evidence that it really was the secularization. I don't know what piece I might be thinking of. You probably know the one I'm thinking of where somebody argued with a lot of data that it really was specifically the secularization that caused France early fertility collapse.

Dan Hess: Yeah, you can, you can you can find stuff like that. Actually, if you, if you. If you go to more births on Twitter and you do a search of at more births, and you know, for example, France you know, you're gonna, you know, you'll find stuff where I linked to that, that particular study from which this map is taken.

So then we can see in 2019. You can see the fertility rate in all the European countries. And France has the highest fertility rate in all of Europe. So, France went from the lowest to the highest. Now it's still below replacement, but this is a massive difference. So this

Malcolm Collins: you do you have a theory on this?

Because I,

Dan Hess: I can get by on it. Well, yeah, I, I mean, I think part of it is just talking about it. Like, recently Macron, [00:07:00] you know, saw France's birth rates were going down again and he, so he just gets on the mic on national TV and stuff and says, guys, we need to increase our birth rate. He just comes right out and says it now.

You can't imagine like a British prime minister or Canadian prime minister or us president, you know, coming out and saying, guys, we need to increase our birth rate. That has never happened. Trump has, but yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But, but, but no, but I mean, I think, you know, normally, yeah, I hear what you're saying.

Normal people don't. I would argue that something else is actually happening here, because you see this across populations, and it's a very interesting trend, and it has to do with cultural evolution. The very fact that France's fertility rate fell early, is what has caused it to be more robust today. And we actually see evidence for this elsewhere on the map.

If you look at other regions that had a falling early fertility rate for example, you can see this in I think that's Estonia, right? The bottom of the the, the [00:08:00] other red spot there. It's also a uniquely high fertility rate country today when contrasted with the rest of Europe.

Dan Hess: Well, I, I hear that.

Yeah. Well, so

Malcolm Collins: here's why I want to go into why this happens, because I think it's not just in France where this is the case, any population group, because in the U. S., for example, if you look at American born Catholics, like Catholics who have been in America and immigrated a long time ago, And the speed of their fertility fall, and you contrast that with recent Catholic immigrants from developing countries, their fertility collapses, the immigrants, much faster than the native born Catholics.

And so what I think is going on here is that Countries that have for a long time dealt with medically caused low fertility rates, cultural groups within those countries and regions have had longer to adapt intergenerational strategies that keep their fertility rates high in spite of the pandemic.

for joining me. factors that lead to low fertility [00:09:00] rates. I think that this in large part explains high Jewish fertility rates because Jewish populations have disproportionately for example, 98 percent of Jews in the U S live in an urban center, lived in urban centers, which are the lowest fertility regions.

And they've been doing that for a very long time. So they've had to adapt. To cultural techniques used within the urban monoculture to lower fertility rates in the groups around them and recruit people for much, much, much longer than other populations. And I suspect that that's what we're seeing within these maps.

Dan Hess: I hear that. I do want to add, you know, one thing, which is, and this is my next example that I, that I want to share. And maybe I can share that now I'll close this window and try to share something else. And then we can talk about that. I want to talk about Mongolia, the case of inner and outer Mongolia, because nobody ever talks about this.

And this is, this is, this is very spicy because, because, because we, this is new information for probably almost everybody. So here we go. Let me share. Let me see.[00:10:00]

I got to open

Simone Collins: the. Yeah. Don't worry about dead spots. Cause Malcolm edits them out. And thank you for your amazing editing Malcolm. Sure.

Dan Hess: Thank you.

Here we go. Can we see this? All right. Hold

Simone Collins: on. Yep. Now we're good.

Dan Hess: So what we have, so what we, this is the example of Mongolia. So there's what's called outer Mongolia, which is what we consider to be Mongolia proper. This is like the country of Mongolia. And then you've got inner Mongolia, which is, which is in China.

And so the fertility in outer Mongolia. is 0. 7, what is 2. 75 or so almost three births per woman. The fertility in inner Mongolia, by contrast is like 0. 75 or so it's, it's, it's, it's like almost like [00:11:00] a quarter as much. So you have this insane difference between outer Mongolia and inner Mongolia and they're right next to each other.

Malcolm Collins: So, outer Mongolia isn't under the CCP.

Dan Hess: Right, so here so I'll tell you what, what the difference is, is that Mongolia, the country of Mongolia was under the Soviet sphere and the Soviet sphere that, you know, so they were both, both outer and inner Mongolia were under communist influence for many, many decades.

But Mongolia, the country, which we call outer Mongolia, which is also called outer Mongolia was in the Soviet sphere and that was always pro natalist. Like they had pro natalists. Pro natalist message. They have something like, maybe you've heard of like former Soviet countries have like this, these things like called like the order of maternal glory metal that women would get.

Like if they had like a whole bunch of kids and they could get the, you know, if they had like eight kids, you get, The order of maternal glory. If you have like six kids, you get the order of maternal glory. Second [00:12:00] class,

Malcolm Collins: I'm going to, I'm going to push back on this thesis because most former Soviet states have unusually low fertility rates for their economic status.

I

Dan Hess: hear that. And that's, that's something. Well, what's interesting is that when they were under the Soviet rule. They, they had high fertility. And so when, when, when they kind of switched over to, to capitalism and switched, switched over to the Western mode that's when fertility dropped. You know, the, the thing, anyway, the thing that I want to talk about with inner Mongolia is that of course they were, they were under China, they're in China and, and, and so they got the antenatal message, it was the one, you know, China of course had the one child policy, but that's not the only thing.

Yeah. If you look at fertility, fertility plummeted in China before the one child policy, it plummeted from propaganda and it plummeted in Korea, it plummeted in, in like, Hong Kong, Taiwan, all the other places. And so, so my, my point is that actually messaging, whether it's pronatal or antenatal actually seems to have a very large impact.

Malcolm Collins: So [00:13:00] I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a different hypothesis on, on what's causing this one in Mongolia. And Simone, you can, you can decide which you find more compelling. So if I remember correctly the, the outer Mongolia is a different country. It's not under the

Dan Hess: CCP, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that outer Mongolia is what we, well, that's what we consider to be Mongolia, like as a country.

Right. Yes. What looks dark on this map here,

Malcolm Collins: but they're otherwise about equivalent in terms of their economic state right now.

Dan Hess: Right. Yeah, the GDP per capita is comparable in inner Mongolia and outer Mongolia. So the China part and the Mongolia part have, you know, within the same order of magnitude,

Malcolm Collins: certainly.

So then my hypothesis would be what's causing the difference is the level of hope, because we've seen this in other regions, like in Georgia, when you get a lot of hope, You, your fertility rate typically increases, or when you believe that there is hope for your people, your fertility rate increases and the CCP, I mean, across the board has unusually low fertility wherever it operates.

And my assumption is, is this because people born into the CCP just [00:14:00] have very little hope that their kids will be anything other than a disposable resource for the CCP and that they won't really have any chance to move up within society. Or capture any sort of like autonomy and that their culture will be erased more.

I mean, obviously China, China historically very famously attempts to erase the cultural uniqueness of its subject populations that are different from the Han outside of a few token holidays and stuff like that. So I suspect that that's probably what's happening. Well, there

Dan Hess: is, if we can, we can look at this same map.

There's another example on this map, actually. Hmm. Which which I wasn't gonna which just occurs to me now, which is North Korea. Yeah So you can see North Korea is is close to replacement fertility Yeah, and apart and this this kind of also goes to my thesis, you know that the simple fact of you know Leadership and the broader culture being [00:15:00] pronatal or antenatal like makes a big difference South korea had like and I and I have many examples of this on my twitter feed had You know, all this antinatal propaganda telling people to have one child, you know, they had, you can see all these, I put propaganda posters, you know, on my Twitter feed.

So you can see that they have this. Meanwhile, North Korea, like they have always been, you know, sort of pronatal, like, like actually there was a, there was a video. I think from early December that made the rounds in media where Kim Jong un, the leader of North Korea, was talking to a convocation of like mothers and women, and he was just crying and crying and crying because like you're not having enough babies, guys.

Oh my gosh.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's, it's interesting that you point this out because I mean, my take on North Korea, that's pretty clear. They, so, so, I think this is out of date because I remember the last I looked North Korea actually has a pretty abysmal fertility rate now.

Dan Hess: It is, it is at least two times what it is [00:16:00] in South Korea.

So, so I don't remember

Malcolm Collins: that being true anymore. I remember it being close to South Korea's rate. I can check this right now. Actually let's, let's check this.

Dan Hess: Well, we ought to remember South Korea now is at 0. 72. So yeah, I mean, it's pretty easy to beat. Yeah, it's a pretty low bar. We can, we can see what that is.

Simone Collins: Okay. Apparently FTR is an acronym they use elsewhere.

Malcolm Collins: North Korea's fertility rate is 1. 38, but way above South Korea.

Dan Hess: That is way above. That is almost, almost twice. So it's twice. And they're dealing with

Simone Collins: real hardship.

Malcolm Collins: But hold on. I was, what I was going to say is that North Korea's fertility rate to me Seems more indicative of a country in extreme poverty.

I mean, this is something you see across the board. It's like when people are talking to me about high fertility rates, we go, well, why don't we like copy whatever the countries in like Africa are doing? And I'm like, what the countries in Africa are doing is extreme poverty. Like we, we know this, the poorer a country is typically the higher [00:17:00] its fertility rate is, and the poorer somebody is was in a country, typically the higher their fertility rate is.

So I don't know if I would take anything away from the North

Dan Hess: Korea example. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, but I do, I do think and I, and I feel pretty confident on this is that a part of the difference between, you know, sort of inner and outer Mongolia is that, is that in one place, everybody, their whole lives have been hearing, you know, the children are good, have more children.

In, in, in, in inner Mongolia, as part of China for most of their lives until like very recently they were here hearing like have less children. If you have a, you have more children, we're going to do even forced abortions and all like this. So, so it was, they were, it was pretty, it was pretty antenatal and, and there, there seems to be a long shadow for that.

Simone Collins: I think that there's. This sounds terribly diplomatic, but I do think that there's a lot of weight to both of your arguments that you're kind of talking about the same thing, which is what's going through [00:18:00] prospective parents or would be parents minds when they're thinking about, should I keep this pregnancy or should I have this kid, or do I want kids in the first place and a combination of a lack of hope for the future or deep.

Concern about the future, whether or not that's realistic. And I do think that in South Korea, there can be,

Malcolm Collins: sorry, I'm going to push back here. It actually functionally matters. These, the difference between our perspectives because it's a different in policy and a big difference in policy.

Simone Collins: I disagree because you can have really bleak prospects and I think North Korea does, but you can still tell everyone that things are really great and that you should have kids.

And I do think

Dan Hess: that that could happen. We're talking about

Malcolm Collins: the Mongolia thing here, Simone. Yeah,

Dan Hess: well, yeah, I, well, I think in both cases, I, I, I actually, I actually think that. You know, what leaders say, you know, over the course of time and what kind of the cultural zeitgeist is, you know, does seems to make a, a significant difference.

And that's, [00:19:00] that's kind of the example that I was talking about with France, where I really think that, you know, In France, after World War Two, because France had had a stagnant population, Germany's population exploded, the UK's population exploded, and then France got their, their, their, their rear end handed to them in World War Two.

And that's, you know, that was such a shocking thing that, that leaders but, you know, start, started, they, they did, they had a lot of, you know, pronatal policies, but leaders also, Just started talking like have more children. They said it just outright all the time. And that seems to well,

Simone Collins: but someone's undergoing extreme hardship.

Losing family members can

Malcolm Collins: does increase fertility studies. But I wanted to, to focus on the difference in policy proposals that you would get from these two positions. Cause I think the Mongolia thing that you note. is really interesting and it's something I haven't dug deep on and I do want to dig deeper on this as a topic to find out what all the differences are between the two regions because it could be a key to some angle here that we haven't [00:20:00] taken yet.

However the two policy proposals I would take for this is from you, it would be more government propaganda Around normalizing large families and creating expectations around

Dan Hess: large doesn't have to be government. Even it could be, you know, one thing that Lyman stone, who's a, you know, he's, he's kind of an interesting guy, but he's a demographer.

Extraordinary. But, you know, he's given the example with South Korea. He said, if he could have a policy, he would like his policy would be that the K pop stars. You know, need to, you can't be a K right now. They have this, this weird thing where they want the, the, the contracting companies want all the K pop stars to be like childless and single.

So they're better heart. Exactly. Yeah. You can't say he would say that. His policy would be that you can't be a K pop star unless you have kids, you know,

Malcolm Collins: so that's a interesting It's not that I don't argue that this would work, but I think that you would see a larger fertility increase from policy positions that increase the Feeling of meritocracy in [00:21:00] a society than things that directly target fertility.

Dan Hess: That's possible. I have another example that I want to move on to. Let's do that. Let me see, here we go.

Simone Collins: I mean, so Malcolm, what you're saying though is that you think that people will feel

Malcolm Collins: like no matter what China does, no matter CCP pushes three kids as glorious, they're not going to increase the fertility until they really Start caring about their citizens or they start dramatically removing their rights I think those are the only two paths that they can go, you know, like forced insemination and stuff like that

Dan Hess: Yeah, I I have a lot to talk about with china as well.

We can we can go into that soon, but this is This is another one I want to talk about. So, so this is something that very few people know about. So maybe you can consider this a spicy take too, but this is Israel. This is Jew, this is Jewish people in Europe before world war two, they have extremely low fertility.

So this is looking at crude birth rates, but, [00:22:00] but, but, you know, before world war two, the, the birth rate of Jewish people in, in Bohemia and places like this is like, Five which is so so you so the jewish people already before world war ii had like far lower like birth rates than in the in their surrounding Which follows my first thesis

Malcolm Collins: the longer you are in a low fertility environment The longer you have to evolve protections against

Dan Hess: it.

Well, I yeah, I would say that's part of it you know, I have a huge number of jewish friends and I I actually I I think I think that the part of the explanation is, is, you know, because Jewish fertility went from like super low to like Israeli fertility, you know, jumped to like extremely high, like right away after World War Two, because you had, because of the, the, the, the horrible tragedy you had this this jump to [00:23:00] Extreme explicit pronatalism.

And, and, you know, I've had Jewish friends tell me I, you know, I just asked you just, you know, what to see what they'd say. Why, why do people in Israel, you know, have so many children? And they said, we tell you how many, however many you're going to have, you know, have one more for those that were lost. And I was like, Oh my God, you know, but, but it just, it's just.

It just shows that, you know, because I can show you another chart next which is let me stop sharing this one and share another one here so we can see this is just looking at Israel today. But,

Malcolm Collins: I would argue that that's a cultural innovation that could have evolved to adapt to the low fertility environments they found themselves in.

True story.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it could have. Response to tragedy is huge.

Dan Hess: You

Malcolm Collins: are, you are describing a cultural technique, which is to act as if you are always in a state of recent tragedy.

Dan Hess: Which they actually were in a, so I'm just saying that there was this dramatic shift from, [00:24:00] from the lowest, like far lower than the European average to here.

We can see now, right. But I think

Malcolm Collins: what you're, you're missing here. And I would argue that the, the. Even a hundred years from now, this strategy is still going to be implemented within Jewish communities because it's a successful strategy at motivating fertility rates, and therefore I'll compete the groups that don't do it.

As Simone was mentioning in the tsunami study when a region's hit by a tsunami, like, one thing that does seem to increase fertility rates is an immediate, like, shock or a lot of death. This is likely what caused the baby boom. A bunch of people in this environment then coming back to their countries, of course, you'd have a lot of kids after that.

Simone Collins: And just to clarify on what the tsunami study found, it looked at regions that were hit super hard by a tsunami and very close to each other. very much. There were areas where a lot of people died and where a lot of people experienced the tsunami, but fewer people died. And they found that the birth rates were higher in those areas with literal higher death counts, more people who lost their children in genuine tragedy, which to me seemed quite counterintuitive.

So this [00:25:00] seems to track with that. I do think it's important to highlight though, that they, I mean, if you just think through when a population crashes in the end, the only people left are going to be those who somehow innovate. A motivation to have more kids. Those are the only ones who are left. So it does make sense.

Malcolm's point to that over time, you know, the longer that a group has had a lower fertility rate, the more likely that the only ones left are the ones who have already worked out how to continue having kids in the face of whatever it is that eliminated desire to have

Dan Hess: kids. Well, yeah, I had an interesting experience.

This was actually on a new year's Eve. I was a family here in Maryland was gracious enough to invite me into their home. Now, this was the home of a, of a recently passed rabbi who, who had, he was a renowned rabbi in Silver Spring, Maryland. I'm not going to mention his name, but people who, who, who know, we'll know who that is, but he, he, he left 150 descendants So that's, you [00:26:00] know, so, and I got to meet and, and, and have, have great conversations with a couple of his grandchildren.

So I, you know, it was because this was kind of a, a memoria celebration, you know, you know, of his life and so forth and, and kind of a, a Jewish worshiper. And I, and I, I was, I was lucky enough to be there. And, and one, one thing that just absolutely struck me was that you know, weather.

Whatever walks of life, his grandchildren, what, what, you know, they, they all had this hardcore pronatal belief, you know, just the, just the having children is like super important in the, and his, his granddaughter had like several children. And she was also active in creating an organization to help young mothers who, who, who were just experiencing the transition for the, from to motherhood for the first time and to, to, to create a support network.

So, so that she was pronatal. not only for herself, but actually building like support pronatal networks. So, so that

Malcolm Collins: that's this. No, [00:27:00] and this is definitely something that is unique to Jewish communities is the elevation of the high status members to being especially pronatalist. Where if you contrast this with, you know, one of the groups has been hit hardest by fertility rates.

We always talk about as Catholic groups have just been destroyed by falling fertility rates. They are. Some of the most susceptible groups outside of East Asians and actually Orthodox Christians as well, typically are destroyed by falling fertility rates. And, and, and we think with Catholics, one of the reasons is, is the, the high status, like the priest caste doesn't have kids or, or family at all.

And when you look at the traditional Protestant families, which have done okay, but not as well, there's the tradition of like, you know, the preacher's daughter and everything like that. But it's typically, like prestigious preachers have two to three kids, but not large amounts of kids, which is really interesting that you point this out, that it is common for rabbis to have

large

Dan Hess: amounts of kids.

Okay. So yeah, yeah, that's a, that is a, a great and remarkable thing. And I, I was just blown away and I felt really lucky to, to kind of be a, [00:28:00] I guess, and kind of a fly on the wall or to just to kind of observe. Cause that was so interesting to me. So I want to talk about something completely different now, which is related to culture, but, but this is kind of something that I think very few people are aware of.

So, so this okay, here, I'm going to share the next thing.

So I did an expose on Twitter. It got more than 100, 000 views. So I'm glad it got some reach. But there's this organization called Population Connection. Ooh, interesting. Okay. So this, okay, this is crazy. This is insane, but this is, you wouldn't believe it except that it's true. And so Paul, so population connection is the new name for an organization called zero population growth.

Now, have you heard of that? Yes. That is called Ehrlich's organization. Okay. So the Paul Ehrlich, he's the one who, who, who started off, who like kicked off the Yeah, [00:29:00] the OG antinatalist. The OG antinatalist, right. So he has this organization formerly Zero Population Growth, now Population Connection Which sounds so much more diplomatic.

It does. It does. And, and he has, they, they have these workshops where they train teachers and he has trained on the order of like a hundred thousand teachers in America over the years through this organization, which is active today. And so the, so it's on the surface, it's a, it's an environmental organization, but it's literally Paul Ehrlich's own organization, That, that, you know, the, the president of that organization recently bragged that he, that his material, his education material through population connection.

And it's, it's the art, his education arm, which is called population education. It educates in American and Canadian schools, 3 million students a year. So, so, and, and what we [00:30:00] see here is an example from their most popular video. So he, he has this, this thing that starts in the year one. So you can see the header on top shows, this is the world population in the year one, like as in the time of the Romans and, and like when Jesus walked the earth and stuff like that.

So this is 170 million. So that's the baseline that he's using to show overpopulation now, because this is like the popular, this is less than. The current population of, so that's what

Malcolm Collins: we need to go back to. It's, is it Roman times pre industry?

Dan Hess: Of course. Yes. That's what we want. This video that he has, like, like it shows like an, a little exploding bomb.

Okay. In, in every, every time, like there, there's more population added. And so it literally looks like the world of today is like on fire with people. And this is the education that's, that's going out under the guise of environmentalism to like millions of students. I think

Malcolm Collins: we all know, I mean, if you don't realize that your kids are in brainwashing [00:31:00] factories, you are foolish in the extreme.

Like the, that is the school system today. Even when we were in the school system, I remember like the zero population brainwashing stuff. Like kids are bad. Don't have kids don't really start thinking about kids until after college. You know, it's incredibly hard. Yeah, so, so to, I do agree that it is difficult to fight against large scale and systemic brainwashing, especially when we have no cultural tools to backpedal in the ways that China and countries like that do.

So yeah, a hundred percent.

Dan Hess: Yeah, I mean, and so this, I really do think that there is some real low hanging fruit there. Like, like, you know, one thing that, that I think we, we have to sort of realize is that like normies. Like, don't even know

Malcolm Collins: kind of the low hanging fruit at all. I think this is a high hanging fruit.

The reason it's a high hanging fruit is I could clear out an organization like this, but these beliefs are deeply [00:32:00] held within the teaching class. The type of person who becomes an American middle school and high school teacher at a very high level. And even if we got rid of the, the people who planted these seeds, I think it'd be very hard to, you To, because this is different, like in China or in a lot of other cultures, when they're like, Oh, our civilization could collapse.

Like a normal sane culture is like, Oh, that's a bad thing. Let's stop that. But there is this mimetic virus in America and in the West, where when you say our civilization could collapse, they're like, Oh, that's fantastic. We're evil. Let's, let's hasten that degrowth, you know?

Dan Hess: Yeah, you're, you're right.

It's, it's yeah, there, there is a hard line. Yeah. element of people that are, that are like cheering this on. I would also, but I also think that there, when I say low hanging fruit, I mean, at least among a lot of normies, like you, you go to survey people on the street. And like, I think a majority of people on the street, if you, are like, is [00:33:00] there overpopulation?

Are people having more, too more, too many or too few children in America? Like they will still think that we're facing overpopulation and that's just like, they just don't know, you know, so

Malcolm Collins: I don't think there's any logic to their opinions. I think they're, they're completely aesthetically driven. Yeah,

Dan Hess: I don't know.

I think that a lot of people, and maybe I'm more optimistic than you in a certain sense, But I, I think that there's a lot of people that just, you know, aren't even aware that population is not like totally like exploding. Like they think they, a lot of people still think that it's like, it's like 1968 when, when the population bomb was published.

They think, they think it's like 1968 still, but they just don't know the new data.

Malcolm Collins: that are threatening to the urban monoculture. You know, I, I point out things like IQ is dropping and they're like, no, the Flynn effect. And I'm like, bro, the Flynn effect hasn't been active since like the 1970s. Like, what are you on?

You know? But yeah, no, I hear [00:34:00] what you're saying. Well, this has been fantastic. I love let's, let's put a target on these organizations. Let's find a way. To take them down so that they stop at least proliferating this

Simone Collins: message. Oh, I think raising awareness about this does make a difference because parents feeling outraged about their children being effectively mimetically sterilized at school will cause some backlash because a lot of parents want grandchildren.

You know,

Malcolm Collins: it's been great to have you on. Yeah. We would absolutely love to have you back. And thanks for your time. Yeah. Thanks

Simone Collins: so much. Check out more births on Twitter.

Dan Hess: Yes. Yeah. You're going to find a lot of good charts, good data. And if you're, if you're the kind of person who loves visuals, you will love more births Twitter slash X.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, and another, you can check out if you're interested, cause I was just shocked to look at this. This is like day three after we started what, what is that thing called? Our discord server, right? Like, it has 56 active members right now and 165 people. And we only [00:35:00] first. Mentioned it yesterday.

Simone Collins: So also check out our discord, but how do people find it?

Malcolm Collins: Oh i'll put like a link, on the screen and then in the comments that they can check out Anyway,

Simone Collins: great to have you. Yeah, daniel. You rock.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe