France's Fertility Puzzle

In this deep dive episode, we explore Jacob Hornstein's controversial article that suggests JD Vance and Elon Musk misunderstand the genetics behind falling birth rates. Our hosts examine the evidence from Fisher's 1930s research on fertility heritability to contemporary studies across the US, Britain, Denmark, and Sweden, assessing the role of genetic predispositions in fertility rates. They discuss the rapidly evolving environmental pressures impacting reproductive strategies, the socio-economic factors at play, and the implications for future demographics. The hosts also share personal insights into how cultural and personal contexts shape fertility behavior, offering a nuanced perspective on genetic determinism vs. environmental influence. This episode aims to provide a balanced understanding of the genetics of fertility in the context of modern societal changes.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. I'm so excited to be speaking with you today because I came across a, an article in the Hill by Wunderkin Jacob Hornstein, who's actually in the class of 2028 at UATX, the new Renegade University. And he made this really key argument that I think is underrated in the world of prenatalism.

He, the title of the article, JD Vance, Elon Musk are right about falling birth rates. But here's where they get it all wrong. What do you think is his point? Well,

Malcolm Collins: you've told me about this already. He thinks it's genetics and that it will be washed out and he's just super wrong and not good at math. But continue, Simone.

Simone Collins: I think it's an important conversation to be had because it is, he makes some valid points and he points to some valid information But he is missing some very important details. So he starts the article with their efforts are notable, but fans and Musk both underappreciate the role of genetics in determining fertility without a proper understanding their efforts were fail will fail.

Now I think both [00:01:00] fans and Musk are really up to date on genetics.

First he points to the research of Ronald Fisher and this is where I learned something new because I didn't realize that this concept that fertility is heritable.

goes back to as early of the 1930s. So in 1930, this guy named Ronald Fisher wrote a book called The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. And I love genetical as a word. Can we bring that

back? Yes.

In which he talks about the correlation between genetics and fertility

from the article, Jacob writes, Fisher noted that the granddaughters of large families tended to have more children than those from small families. Fisher concluded that, quote, about 40 percent of the total variance, end quote, in fertility was attributable to genetics. He continues, Importantly, Fisher didn't just conclude that fertility varied between individuals because of different genetic abilities to have children.

Instead, Fisher argued that the most important cause of variation was different genetic desire to have [00:02:00] children. Fisher theorized that more fertile strains with a greater desire for children could become more common within a span of 10 generations or approximately 250 years. So immediately, this is where The argument both is legitimate but incredibly flawed and you see where the flaw is, right?

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, the flaw is not where you think it is. Okay. You think the flaw is, let me see if I'm getting you right here, you think the flaw is around timelines for impact.

Simone Collins: Sort of.

Malcolm Collins: What do you think the flaw is?

Simone Collins: Well, we don't have 250 years to bounce back from the vertiginous drop

Malcolm Collins: in fertility. That's not sort of, I was exactly right.

Simone Collins: Oh, I thought you meant like, that it was going to take a long time.

Malcolm Collins: Here's what it gets wrong. It literally doesn't understand evolution at the most base level.

Simone Collins: Okay.

All right, let's see if I can condense the point I tried to make while talking but ended up being very long.

Pointing out that [00:03:00] fertility is heritable in humans, or that people who have higher rates of fertility end up having kids who have more kids, is not the same as pointing out something like blue eyes are heritable, and people with blue eyes end up having more kids, because fertility is a near direct correlate or marker for fitness within modern human populations, where people aren't dying of diseases, , or from lack of food.

Now the very fact that we're seeing Significant genetic variation and fertility related behaviors within a population isn't evidence that one variant is strictly quote unquote better in evolutionary terms. If it were consistently advantageous across environments, it would have been optimized through selection.

Instead, this variation signals that the environmental pressures are changing, creating different selection conditions that temporarily favor certain genetic predispositions before changing again as society evolves. E. g. the very fact that in this [00:04:00] initial study he found that some women had these genetic Precursors to predilections for having lots of kids and other women didn't have that meant that there must not have been this strong selective pressure that he was observing in his own time if you went back ,, 250 years before his own time or that one behavior pattern would have already been selected for.

So, an example, we can look at here is, if you look at the distant past. And food was scarce and there wasn't modern medicine, there would have been an evolutionary benefit

for a woman not being overly impulsive in who she was sleeping with, and ending up having too many kids. Whereas there would have been pretty much a strict evolutionary benefit during a period where, you know, , you have modern medicine and modern food. To this level of impulsivity, , that might lead to tons of kids.

But then this benefit may disappear [00:05:00] when contraception comes onto the scene. , and evolutionary strategies that relied on impulsivity suddenly stop working. So you can see as the environment changes, the psychological.

Correlates to high fertility also change, and right now we're dealing in a time where the evolutionary environment is completely doing somersaults every few years, if not at least every couple decades.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, Evolution has been acting throughout this entire period. It didn't start in the 1930s, right? And so what he's noticing here is in the 1930s, certain genetic predilections or, or I'd say certain personality predilections that had genetic correlates led to a higher fertility rate then, then they would have in the past and are now being strongly selected for but here's the problem with all of that, the personality profile or predilections that [00:06:00] differentially led to a high fertility rate in the 1930s versus, let's say, just 100 years before that are radically different than the ones that lead to a high number of children today.

Simone Collins: That's a really good point. I hadn't even thought about that because we live in such a different landscape with so many different pressures. Right. And if it was conformist and cool to have kids back then, then you're the last person to have kids now.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. As, as we've pointed out, actually society was in this generation.

And this is the primary thing I would argue that's leading to fertility collapse. Because if you look in Latin America, you look at the United States, it's mostly. Women under 24 who are not having kids within all the other demographics fertility rates are going up or staying even which implies that it's the accidental children that were being had due to People who had a personality profile for maybe more reckless decisions Maybe higher amounts of arousal or lust maybe higher amounts [00:07:00] of not thinking through things or impulsivity and that strategy for motivating reproduction in, in the world, both in Latin America, because that's also where we see it disappearing and in the United States is no longer successful.

And this transformation has only happened in about the past six years or so. So I think the problem is, is it, well, I mean,

Simone Collins: so many things are happening. Right. I mean, we've seen various. Demographic transitions take place and I think they're in response to really complicated things. And this is why Dan has is Simone

Malcolm Collins: the primary cause of Demographic collapse right now.

That's that's happened. Very recently. This led to this recent collapse Isn't complicated. It's not a bunch of things. It's one thing that is disappeared that used to exist was in the population. And it is entirely a genetically coded personality profile strategy for motivating fertility rate, which stopped [00:08:00] being functional.

This is incredibly important. If you're trying to chart out long term, what's going to be selected for when we consider How quickly the genetically correlated personality profiles that are evolutionarily successful change with the change in technology.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: Sorry, to answer her what question, because I didn't hear it while this was recording. , the thing that has disappeared from the population are the children who were born by accident. That's the vast majority, i. e., the parents were horny and made an impulsive decision, , and ended up getting pregnant without intending to end up getting pregnant.

That is the category of birth that has dropped most precipitously if we assume that this category made up most of the births in the United States under the age of 24 and even more under the age of 18, , which I think is a pretty safe assumption, , because those are the two categories where fertility [00:09:00] rates have actually dropped and yet we see, , stable or rising fertility rates for women of all other age brackets.

And this was the strategy that was both, , cultural and culturally evolutionarily selected for historically and, , biologically evolutionarily selected for where, , if you paired an impulsive, high arousal person, , with a cultural group that banned access to things like pornography and contraception, , that individual is going to have more kids.

The strategy just doesn't appear to be very effective anymore. With most kids being born because parents intentionally chose to have those kids, even when they're from cultures that historically leaned on, , accidental pregnancies to pad their populations.

Malcolm Collins: By that, what I mean, Simone is if we've already seen this radical shift just over the past 10 years or so, we are going to potentially see a.

Completely different personality profile relevant in the next 20 years. And then 20 years after that, it'll be a completely different profile, which doesn't give evolution enough [00:10:00] time to optimize around that.

Simone Collins: So you're kind of saying that given the rapidly shifting environment, any sort of genetic predisposition to have kids is irrelevant because whatever works today isn't going to work in 20 years and isn't going to work in 40.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, because it's very important to note that it is not a genetic predisposition to have kids. Okay, what it is, is things like a genetic predisposition for impulsive decisions, or a genetic predisposition to act on lust in the past, and for our generation, it is likely a genetic predisposition to be very goal directed, to be a long term thinker, to be, in fact, all of us, less

Simone Collins: hedonic, more conscientious, More long-term onic.

More

Malcolm Collins: conscientious? Yeah, more I, I'd say very like if you look at why are we high fertility, why is everyone from my family high fertility, like across my family mm-hmm . Very from a very [00:11:00] high fertility family. None of these are kids that were had accidentally. Not a single person in my family that I'm ever aware of had gotten pregnant accidentally.

Everyone in my family is very dedicated to, like, these are kids that exist because they got married and they wanted kids. But then secondarily, if you look at, like, my personality profile, The genetically coded trait I have within my personality profile that I think is most linked to me having a lot of kids is the trait that caused me when I knew that my college degree was about to end, I already like couldn't focus on it.

I was already focused on moving into the next city, getting a job, starting that job early. This was true. Like when I went to college, I arrived a week early and I took a map and I made a map of every important location in the city so I could be as a. in that first week. When I you know, when we first got married, I was like, okay, Simone, we need to start thinking about having kids.

Like, when is that going to happen? Like, we need to start looking at this, this, and this. When I met you, I was like, Simone, I am so late to get married. I should have gotten married in college. I think [00:12:00] it's two things overlapping one, this intense. Initiative drive that I have which isn't like a regular initiative.

It's like a plan out, get to the next stage sort of initiative. And then the second is, and this is why we're always like starting new companies or new projects or anything like that, like it can have. deleterious effects as well, but we mostly complete those as well. So I guess that's not terrible.

Like, but honestly, but the, the, the the second trait that I have is an obsession with planning. Not just a, I need to do this right now, but the other is, and I need to collect all of the data on this thing. Like she knows, like, that

Simone Collins: also is like the famous. This trait highlighted at the very beginning of the movie Idiocracy implying this is why people stopped having kids because they were planning and in fact that is one of the same factors that is associated with the steepest drop in fertility.

It's that people do now want to plan their children and not have mistake babies and so [00:13:00] now they're using birth control diligently and now they're planning to have kids later.

Malcolm Collins: Psychologically, an interesting question there is obviously, and you know what I mean when I'm talking about the way that I plan things, a psychological difference between me and like the planning procrastinator.

What do you think that actually, I would say

Simone Collins: that you're not a planner. You are a figure out what's wrong and fix it while you're doing it person. You're not actually a plan. No, no, no. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Actually, hold on. I'll, I'll, I'll word this differently because I am a planner, but it's a different. So these people are about to make a major life decision.

And so they go into that major life decision and they say okay, what's everything I need to know about this major life decision, whereas the type of planning that I do is. I have X goal for myself, have a lot of kids. Okay. While I'm 17, I need to look up all of the biological things that could get in the way of that.

I need to look up all of the things that could get in the way of that. I need to I think it's that I have a compulsion to plan out super long [00:14:00] term things. I mean, is that not what my interest in the pronatalist movement is? Right. That I work back from a end desire with a lot of meticulousness.

Simone Collins: Well, and I think that Big characteristic is long termism of of people having kids now and also Comfort with delayed gratification. That is crucial, but yeah, planning. I would just reword that, you know,

Malcolm Collins: the point being is that these things may continue to be high fertility in the age of AI, but we don't know, like AI might be able to augment some of these things, like a person not thinking through that they're not going to be fertile if they wait until they're late twenties to find a husband or wife.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or it could just. You know, seamlessly help them make. You know, it, it, it can enable viable in vitro gametogenesis, so

Malcolm Collins: you don't

Simone Collins: need to plan.

Malcolm Collins: A really good point you just made there is just consider if medical [00:15:00] technology increases the window, which it likely will, that a woman can get pregnant so that she can get pregnant significantly later.

You have entirely changed the personality profile, the genetically linked personality profile that's optimal for having lots of kids. But anyway, back to the article.

Simone Collins: Yeah, so I'm, I'm assuming so after he talks about Fisher in the 1930s, and it's still wild to me that people thought that my birth rate was genetical so early he talks about how quote twin studies from the US and Britain, Denmark and Sweden have shown that as much as 50 percent of variation and fertility is genetically derived.

Supporting Fisher's earlier estimate, DNA sequencing has supported this highlighting individual genes that are strongly associated with fertility. He continues that similarly, studies from Denmark and Quebec have shown that the role of genetics in determining fertility has increased in Western populations, supporting the idea of ongoing selection for the desire to have children.

Genes have been identified that correlate with [00:16:00] earlier age at first birth, later age at last birth, and total children ever born and later menopause. So you think none of those matter? I mean, I imagine that

Malcolm Collins: menopause, no, it's, it's the question here is not, are certain things being selected for within this generation, but Could those things reach an optimum level and then lead to fertility rates increasing again society wide?

These are two very different questions. Do I doubt? No, not at all that things are being selected for within this generation. I am also not somebody who doubts incredibly fast changes in human profiles whether it is biology or psychology. Someone

Simone Collins: at no point. Yeah can really. So for example

Malcolm Collins: If, if it turned out that there was something within our generation that basically ensured that nobody who had a high degree of impulsivity was having kids you would see a rapid and profound shift [00:17:00] in the amount of impulsivity in just one generation.

The problem being is the technological shifts. So around things like menopause, you could say, okay, well, like later menopause is going to be selected for it. Right? Yeah. But. That'll likely take, because it's not being selected for it that strongly within this generation, at least four generations to really be felt.

With that being the case, in four generations, do I expect most babies, like, do I expect them to be able to medically increase the lengths of menopause? Do I expect Well, and keep in mind,

Simone Collins: Fisher's theory was 250 years, so Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: so the point I'm making is this stuff is going to be relevant in the developing world.

But I do not think it'll be as relevant to the developed world or the portion of humanity that's like aiming for the stars and everything like that. And I would note that what you're actually seeing here and what's really being sort of [00:18:00] missed in the way this is being framed is it was in different social and economic.

context. Different genes are going to be high fertility because they are associated with different fertility strategies. So, for example, in the developing world, we might see more of a selection for impulsivity again, especially in areas of extreme poverty. You might see an increase in the rate of twin carrying.

You might see an increase In the rate of extended menopause, for example, one of the genetic changes in the, in the game that I'm writing that takes place in a post fertility apocalypse world, a faction of humanity, it went for this dysgenic strategy, this strategy of control, low education, everything like that.

And in that community, because they're not going to be as augmented by technology as much, you're going to see the most genetic change. And one of the genetic changes that I presume will happen within this community is they'll begin to give birth to litters with smaller brain cases. [00:19:00] Yeah. The primary thing that prevents us in humans and why you don't have twins that much in humans is that lowers the IQ of each of them.

And then you've got the risk to the female of the giant brain case which right now it's just like a huge problem for any population that isn't wealthy and has access to technology because women die from that all the time. Baby's heads getting stuck. Yes. Well, you couldn't give birth to kids. It's not just IVF.

You also, our kids heads are too big for you to give birth naturally. Like we need to maintain technology for our gene line to survive. And that's a completely different evolutionary strategy. And I think that we haven't seen a split in humans for a long time with these very, very differentiated selected strategies.

Simone Collins: Fair point.

So I'm curious to see then what you think of his reference to France as a real world example. Jacob writes, in Europe, France was the first nation to [00:20:00] experience significant modern birth rate declines. Yet today, France has the highest birth rate in all of Europe. to confirm. Yes, it does. France's total fertility rate is now 1.

Simone Collins: 79 live births per woman at least as of 2022. This places it ahead of other European Union countries followed by Romania 1. 71 and Bulgaria at 1. 65. So correct. He, he writes France's high fertility can't be explained by immigration. Regions with few immigrants lead the country in fertility. Culture, French speaking areas of neighboring Belgium and Switzerland, don't have elevated fertility.

Or policy, France is below the OECD average for family A. But it may be explainable through genetics. France's fertility transition occurred in the 1750s, matching Fisher's calculation that it would take approximately 10 generations. For genetic shifts to substantially increase birth rates now, you know, I'm a very credulous person So I read something like that and I'm like, oh, I [00:21:00] mean like I guess it's the genetics

Malcolm Collins: I mean, so he is actually right about this but not in a way that helps his overall argument So, the timelines line up.

If you're familiar with the history of the region, France had a fertility crash before most of the other regions in Europe because it's secularized before most of the other regions in Europe, the fertility crash in France aligned with the secularization. So what do we have here in France in the 1700s when we're talking about this initial fertility class, what you had was, remember how I said.

It is not that you have high birth rate genes or high fertility genes is that you have high fertility genes within a specific social context. What happened to France is they went from a social context where the genes needed to motivate high fertility in a very religious society to genes that needed to motivate high fertility in an Irreligious society.

And those [00:22:00] two genes were different, which led to a fertility crash. Since then the genes that lead to or protect fertility rates, despite a religiosity have been selected for in France. Now we can ask, what are those genes? It could be interesting to study. I mean, clearly there's a strategy here. Is it that they are really focused on long term planning?

Like the thing that causes my family to be high fertility, or is it that they are really. Focus on like, high impulsivity and my family is high on impulsivity as well, I guess I'd say it's like a long term planning plus impulsivity. Do, do, like, what collection is it that works? And then we have to ask the second question.

Hold on,

Simone Collins: you answered that first question. Remember the first thing that you chose to look at? When our foundation started looking at demographic collapse of like, should we be concerned about this? Was you took data collected by Spencer Greenberg, which he collected after the [00:23:00] 2016 presidential election in the United States, which also happened to collect information on how many kids participants had.

And you looked for with the help of someone from, I think the Mayo Clinic or something that we hired for, Correlations in in behavioral traits or beliefs or, you know, general characteristics between high fertility and these people. So what did you find, Malcolm?

Malcolm Collins: Well, high degrees of xenophobia lead to higher fertility rates.

High degrees of authoritarian thinking lead to higher fertility rates. Those are the two core things. Religiosity was much lower than I expected. It

Simone Collins: was meh. It was religiosity, and it turned out, No, no, no, it's about outgroup hatred and xenophobia. Oh, and very, like, sensitivity to hierarchy.

Malcolm Collins: But, but keep in mind, this is one particular genetic strategy.

Yeah. And so But I'm just

Simone Collins: saying, like, that's the one that appears to be doing well.

Malcolm Collins: But we don't know what It was that was selected for between 1700s France and modern day [00:24:00] France. But what I can say is that whatever the change in the genetic profile between pre 1700s France, you know, religious France and secular France, yes, it may have adopted to a secular society.

Now the problem is, is that the new things that are impacting fertility rate in Impacting it incrementally more each generation. Now specifically here, we're looking at like AI boyfriends and girlfriends, really difficult dating markets. Like these are two, like when I'm looking at like actually, what are the biggest fertility challenges our kids need to overcome for you and me was in our generation, it was overcoming the hedonism that was all around us in a society.

Simone Collins: Even more. I think it was having the discipline to date, find and marry a partner. No,

Malcolm Collins: no, no. It was, well, yeah, it was, it was about having discipline, but also the will to go against what society was telling us. Now for our kids, the key hurdles are actually quite different. Winning was in the modern dating market requires a completely different set of [00:25:00] sociological profiles than was necessary to win in our generation.

Simone Collins: Not, I think less so for me, I think that women. Can still have a huge advantage by being a first mover by like act actively and proactively reaching out to men and engaging with them because women still just don't do that.

Malcolm Collins: So women, okay, this is a, this is a great point. I do not think that women being first movers is what was selected for between religious friends.

Simone Collins: That's a really good point.

Malcolm Collins: That's a really good point. This is a, this is an entirely new genetic strategy that became relevant. And I think it is super relevant for this generation. I think women young women born in this generation who are sexually aggressive first movers are going to be dramatically more reproductively successful than their counterparts.

Yet, I do not think that this is like a long term Well, sexually aggressive

Simone Collins: first movers and closers. Let's be clear about that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, not like sleep around with a lot of people, but like they [00:26:00] choose their target and they, they they're on it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I. Yeah, that's my thought. And I think he's pointing to a real phenomenon here that there was actually a genetic selection, a genetic change in France after this period, but it was a one off thing that was really only allowed by a fairly stable change in society that lasted for like 100 years, which is not what we're dealing with now.

I'd also point out that we can see, you know, we're talking about, remember I said it's about having a genetic optimum for a specific society instead of social rules and norms. This is not. is as we have mentioned many times, why I think that previously Catholic populations now France doesn't really count here because again, they secularize really early, but if you're talking about your average, I mean, I

Simone Collins: think what he's describing yours is rural French speaking genetically, like historically French,

Malcolm Collins: but with France, the thing that led to the population collapse was [00:27:00] secularization.

So we can ignore France in this part of the conversation, Simone. So. Specifically here, if you're looking at Catholic populations, I always point out they have a much lower, like historically, genetically. Catholic populations, i. e. populations where you had a a strongly held Catholic belief system alongside genes and, and different genes are going to be successful in this environment, right?

Because a, a, a population that bans things like pornography and contraception and, and stuff like that. Is going to cause specific genes to be more successful, specifically genes around like low impulsivity control, high arousal, everything like that.

This is particularly, , compounded in something like Catholic culture, where you have that line, you know,

Matthew 19 6, which states what therefore God has joined together. Let not man separate.

Basically, it means that if you as a young person sleep around and get knocked up, it's shotgun wedding time, that's who you're gonna [00:28:00] marry. , so that impulsivity doesn't leave you out of the sex market.

In other cultures, a woman who sleeps around and gets knocked up while she's young, , basically becomes unmarriable for the rest of her life and is stuck in poverty with that one kid, , which makes impulsivity a very bad evolutionary strategy for that population.

As an aside here, I denote that the stereotype of the Catholic schoolgirl being extra horny and sleeping around a lot and the takeaway lesson from this, that this is because if you repress someone or you don't give them access to sexual outlets, they end up acting in this way. May actually be wrong. It may just be that Catholics have been intergenerationally selected for high horniness when contrasted with other religious groups because that had a higher impact on their fertility than other religious groups.

And as somebody who's slept around a lot, I can say anecdotally. And I've mentioned this before, Catholic girls are just way hornier [00:29:00] than any other group of girls who I slept with, , and way more engaged in bed than any other group that I slept with. and this would make sense because those traits would have led to differential higher fertility given Catholic culture within Catholic populations and thus been selected for.

Speaker: F**k me. I like your shiny hair.

Speaker 2: Hello, children.

Speaker: HeLlo, Father.

Speaker 2: Please, call me Peter. Christ. Think of me as a friend.

Look. Just like you now. Dos.

Malcolm Collins: And that now that this strategy no longer works or is no longer like socially enforced enough to be successful we are seeing populations that leaned on it have a unique crash in fertility rates.

Specifically the Latin American fertility crash and the [00:30:00] Catholic majority European country fertility crash, which is much lower than the rest of Europe.

Simone Collins: Fair. I want to hear what you think of Jacob's recommendations because I, I agree with half of what he says and the other half, I'm like, you're totally misreading things.

He writes first one size fits all proposals to raise birth rates while ignoring genetics won't work. Mark Vance has argued for increasing the child tax credit while Musk has called for giving. metals to increase the social status of motherhood. But as we've seen in Hungary and Norway, which both generously subsidized birth solutions that focus on extrinsic motivations are ineffective at raising fertility.

Instead, policies to counter population decline will be most effective if they consider genetics by subsidizing those with demonstrated fertility desires. For example, governments should offer increased tax credits to larger families rather than by evenly distributing incentives for child. He also argues that we'll just naturally rebound, which I would totally [00:31:00] disagree with.

Malcolm Collins: That's actually like, okay, so this person sounds like an otherwise smart person. This natural rebound idea is just so preposterous. We are looking at the timelines we're looking at here and the crash. It is, it is, it, this is somebody who'd like.

Simone Collins: Well, I think we never, we never argued there wasn't going to be a rebound.

We just knew that the rebound would be into a post apocalyptic post civil war. Yeah, the

Malcolm Collins: rebounds happens post apocalyptic, post speciation, post a lot of other really big things. Like, yeah, you get a rebound, but after, like, and you don't just be like, ah, it's, this is, this is like saying Oh yeah, our car is heading towards a cliff.

But don't worry. Eventually, you know. It'll be made into a new car and you're like, wait, wait, what, what do you mean? It'll be made into a new car. It's like, you know, a lot of cars after they get wrecked, they get sent to the impound and they get crushed like in brave little toaster

Speaker 6: There ain't nothing you can do about it. Hurt me while I panic.[00:32:00]

Speaker 5: I

Don't have the heart to live in the fast lane. All that is past and gone.

Malcolm Collins: and it's like, whoa, whoa, So you're basically saying.

I have a car now, there will be a car at some point in the future, and you are ignoring that entire musical scene in Brave Little Toaster, which is happening in between those two scenes.

Speaker 8: I took the kids on the skids with a hope he was happy till I heard him say, You're

worthless!

Simone Collins: No, it's just like those, those evil person, that evil person trope in a movie when he's like, yes, tell me the secret and I will set you free.

And then, you know, they said, they say whatever it is, and then they shoot them in the head and they're like, from [00:33:00] your mortal coil. It's like, yeah, well. We'll get through this.

Malcolm Collins: After society has completely collapsed, sure.

Simone Collins: There will be nothing left, but whatever. But what I do appreciate, where he does get it right though, is he, he basically roughly says that the important thing is to protect Already high fertility population.

And that is 100 percent the most important thing to do. No,

Malcolm Collins: he's taking into account the different genetics of populations that are having lots of kids. And here, I would argue, he is absolutely right, but he's not being specific. And he needs to be specific here, because he, when you get specific, it gets offensive, but it's important.

Okay? Okay, so you have to say, what are the offensive parts of this? Well, some genetically selected reproductive strategies are based around parasitizing the state. For [00:34:00] example there are certain like, personality profiles that have some genetic correlates to them which would lead to one, choosing to live off the state at a higher rate, and two Using that to have lots of kids.

If we as a state lean into solutions that target this genetic strategy that's going to make everything worse for everyone. If we alternatively look around and say, okay, what other strategies are there right now? Okay. Let's look at the quiver full strategy, right? The quiver full strategy is very different from your in mind strategy.

Okay. This is a religious family. Who has a stay at home mom and who is biologically with natural sex, just having sex a lot and hoping that she gets pregnant a bunch of times. So what's going to be selected for in a family that's doing that?

Simone Collins: It's letting Jesus take the wheel.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, letting Jesus take the wheel.

So a family that's doing that intergenerationally, [00:35:00] okay, what is going to lead to a higher number of kids? You're likely going to get this is where I think authoritarianism is being selected for because families will stay together longer if there is a tendency to trust like the authority of the family even when he might be going against things and also trusting God.

I think that that's part of what we're seeing. They're not religiosity, but just like, I obey the authority. And then secondarily, I think that they're going to do better if they have, higher degrees of female submissiveness and, and preference for traditional feminine roles as we've seen that those do have a genetic link that, that those preferences.

Simone Collins: I love the slip there because both traditional feminine roles and traditional feminine roles both work here.

Malcolm Collins: Feminine roles, yes. Also you're gonna, you're gonna get later menopause selection. You're going to get a higher degree of Ability to get pregnant like fecundity, like actual biological fecundity, which is just completely irrelevant for Simone and I because we use like IDF and, and people are like, Oh, human [00:36:00]

Simone Collins: factors like health span broadly like health, health do I think matter because that that influences.

Well, actually, kind of, but

Malcolm Collins: people who are like, Oh, with you guys, you cannot intergenerationally use the technology like IVF so much that it affects your genes so that you're reliant on the technology to which I would point them to C sections. Where this has already happened to a huge portion of the developed world where they now have kids whose craniums are so large on average that they would just die.

Like, if we lost the technology for C sections as a society, and we attempted to just survive naturally, and this is something that's like not described in like post apocalyptic novels or stuff like that. We probably have, I think about 25 to 30 percent of women die before they got to three kids.

Like we have Well, isn't that more or less what happened in the past? [00:37:00] No, you, you couldn't possibly survive as a species if you couldn't get to three kids on average biologically. No, biologically, if you could not get to three kids because not everyone is reproductively successful. Yeah, that's true.

Simone Collins: That's true. That's true.

Malcolm Collins: That's true. So this is a new thing and it's the same with IBF and stuff like that. The point that I'm making here is the quiver full reproductive strategy and our reproductive strategies are two different, but symbiotic and economically productive reproductive strategies that lead to groups that bring America forwards.

And so I think that government policies that recognize, ah, quiver full, this is a. A beneficial reproductive strategy for the state. It is okay to look for ways to promote this reproductive strategy, for example, preventing their kids from being brainwashed and everything like that. Maybe helping lower types of fertility technology.

It's cost that these types of families [00:38:00] use like those fertility technologies that like Catholics like to use for getting pregnant naturally at a higher rate and stuff like that and and increased training around those types of technology was in our school system. I'd promote all of that, even though it doesn't benefit my reproductive strategy.

It benefits one of the I don't know how to say non parasitic reproductive strategies. And and I would hope that they would have the magnanimity. to also promote technology that helps our reproductive strategy as Trump and JD Vance have already done with their signing into an executive order, an executive order reducing the cost of IVF.

Simone Collins: That was more just calling for advice on policy that would make IVF more affordable for people.

Malcolm Collins: Their goal was to reduce the price of IVF. Yeah, no, that's

Simone Collins: true. Yes, an executive order with the goal to do that. And I'd

Malcolm Collins: also point out with this executive order somebody on the discord was saying the only thing they care about in their big fear is that The possibility for IVF would be banned and they're like, Malcolm, like, which, like, seriously, can we trust that Trump's not going to do [00:39:00] that?

And I'm, I think we can say now, no, he's not going to do that.

Simone Collins: Come on. He's like called himself the father of IVF. I don't think he's gonna go back. Especially

Malcolm Collins: with evil on around, but

Simone Collins: I'm, I would be surprised if. Trump did not have any children through IVF. So I think once you, once you go through it, you are much more likely to be supportive of it. I think another thing that Jacob misses is if you just let this thing play out, the amount of diversity that you're losing is, is huge.

And as much as I'm all for evolution playing out. Some kind of, you know, game of optimization. I also don't want to lose a lot of really valuable perspectives and cultures that have sprung up, that have especially given your point about this rapidly evolving climate. You know, in the past, it made sense because for thousands of years, things wouldn't really change.

So, of course, it's good to just delete [00:40:00] from the genome the stuff that at one point in time isn't fit. Right now, if we delete from the genome something that right now isn't useful, but we're like, the singularity is here and things are about to rapidly go into clown world times, you know, like squared, cubed, to infinity, we're making a big mistake.

And I think that's another really important point is that we really don't we cannot afford To, to miss out on, on all that diversity, another really important point and you and I've looked at this from our nebula genomics sequencing, because actually two of the scores that Jacob mentions here are scores that we can see for ourselves in nebula.

We can see our scores for age at first birth, which are not really remarkable. So your polygenic score for age at first birth is 42nd, you're in the 42nd percentile. So you're 40% of, of the average score to be, to have an average, meaning, meaning you're more likely to be younger with first birth [00:41:00] because this is, this is a polygenic score for people who are more likely to be older when they have their first kid.

And I'm in the 29th percentile, so I'm even more likely to have kids young, which actually makes sense given when some of my ancestors had kids. So, the more important one is childlessness. More interestingly is the childlessness scores. Which I think one are accurate for you and me, but also show how genetics. aren't everything. How life is about nature and nurture. So your childlessness percentile is 59%, which kind of makes sense. I mean, your family, they're like, yeah, we're definitely having kids, but the cap it at three.

You know, I think

Malcolm Collins: I, well, it's a couple of four, but yeah, I think that my family is motivated, as I said, to be high fertility through a completely different mechanism than was particularly successful within the last few generations. Even though [00:42:00] my family has always had lots of kids. Like, if you read our family books, it was 12 kids per generation, like three generations in a row.

So, you know, very high fertility, historically high fertility still. But I think it was a different strategy being used than the one being captured here, but continue.

Simone Collins: More importantly, and this checks out, I'm in the 97th percentile for childlessness. So I am among those in the population who, based on my genetics, Is way less likely to have kids, any kids at all which kind of checks out, right?

I mean, like my counterfactual was going to be childlessness. My plan in life before I met you was childlessness. But I think the fact that I met you and that you changed my, my surroundings and environment and culture. Which can happen to anyone, especially based on things like government policy and various incentives.

Demonstrates just how weak genetic determinism is. Because suddenly, well not suddenly, like, you know, over years or whatever, [00:43:00] but based on external, exogenous factors, Jacob I went from wanting zero kids, in fact, to being really excited about the idea of, like, sterilizing myself, even though I didn't have, I was a virgin, I was just like, I don't know, just in case.

I went to being like, well, I want five kids. No, seven kids. No, 10 kids. No, 14, you know, just like endless, endless.

Malcolm Collins: What you're missing here is you see this as an argument against genetic determinism when it's not at all an argument against genetic determinism. It's an argument. For genetic determinism.

What you are missing is the thing that transformed for you is you internally frame it as I am what changed for you, but that's not really it. It's the culture and worldview. The mimetic framework that I brought. Worked really, really well to motivate high fertility with the very same impulses that may have motivated a very low [00:44:00] fertility rate when these numbers were being calculated.

So you being a person who is not motivated by arousal, being a person who is incredibly deliberate, being a person who really likes setting out numbers and goals. And hitting your metrics is in the last generation and was in the framework that most of society is using. This is going to be a very low fertility genetic profile.

However, within the techno Puritan worldview and framework that we hopefully can pass onto our kids, this is the most high profile and high fertility genetic profile you can have, which is again, why there is utility in preserving some degree of genetic diversity into the You

Simone Collins: don't know what environment they might suddenly thrive in.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and you've got to, and this is why I often tell people, when you're crafting a culture for yourself and your kids this is why it's so dangerous to just borrow somebody else's culture like lock and barrel, right? Instead of [00:45:00] tweaking it for your own proclivities, way of seeing the world, vices, etc.

And this techno puritan mindset, if you've watched our tracks on this and everything, that's very much about you do not breed for arousal, you do not do anything for pleasure, you do not, you know, you are doing it for the intergenerational improvement of humanity for your kids, for your, you know, it is a a task reframing fertility as a community.

Task and a task of value is how I made it conducive with this genetic profile for you.

Simone Collins: Huh Yeah, which is still a very compelling argument for people not looking at genetics and thinking This means this is how this person's life is going to play out and, and no one

Malcolm Collins: should know, but they, they should, they should, they should look at genetics and say, oh, these traits, like your personality is highly heretical.

It is not something that's going to change over the course of your life. So. If you want [00:46:00] to alter the fertility rate of somebody with this genetic profile that in the existing social context leads to very low fertility rates, what you need to change is the social context and scaffolding that is on top of them, because that is the thing that you can actually change.

You cannot change their genetics.

Simone Collins: Well, yes. Okay. Rule number one is. allow for cultural and religious freedom, let high fertility families do their thing. Rule two is if you want to create a new additional environment that is very conducive to high fertility, look at those factors. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay. That is, that is favorable.

Malcolm Collins: All right. I love you, Simone. You are a perfect woman. Okay.

Simone Collins: How about, all right,

Malcolm Collins: I have us recording for when you're ready. Good. I realized something, Simone.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You

Malcolm Collins: are not just post wall, but you're like seven [00:47:00] years post wall. Now,

Simone Collins: Is is wall exactly 30? Yeah. That

Malcolm Collins: this a common understanding. It's 30 or 32 or the two that I often.

Simone Collins: Yeah, see, I thought it was, I don't, I, I thought it was 32.

That's sort of like what I've anchored to, but who knows? I've been post wall for my entire life. Just, I look very post wall.

Malcolm Collins: Is irrelevant. If you have four kids and a fifth on the way yet, have we,

Simone Collins: We, we tweeted the frozen embryo transfer and then subsequently got the heartbeat pneumonia. Yeah. So hopefully the pregnancy won't be lost.

We have to see. How the next appointment goes. And if everything still looks healthy, then the odds of losing this pregnancy go down to around 2%, which would be ideal. So fingers crossed.

Malcolm Collins: And I wonder if the audience notices when we're doing, like, backlog content. I've been gone for the past week, for anyone who doesn't, didn't recognize that all the episodes were Evergreen and filmed [00:48:00] a while ago.

Evergreen. Evergreen. I love it when people are like, oh, they still got all their Christmas ornaments up. I'm like, no, we don't have Christmas ornaments up. We filmed all of that ages ago. Like, you think we can film an episode every day? Like, that makes no sense. We have jobs and other things that we're working on.