Urban Life: Humor and Complexity in Apocalypse Preparations

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In this episode, Simone and the host delve into the concerning trend of families leaving major American cities. They discuss an article from The Atlantic titled 'The Urban Family Exodus is a Warning for Progressives,' highlighting statistics and factors contributing to this mass migration. With a focal point on the dramatic decline of children under five in cities like Manhattan, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, they explore the potential consequences on urban life and progressive policies. The conversation extends to comparisons between conservative and progressive cities, the impact of progressive ideologies on city infrastructure, and personal anecdotes on living in both urban and suburban environments. The episode also touches on the broader social implications and the future of family life in urban areas.

Speaker 2: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! Today we are going to be talking about an interesting phenomenon that I was aware was happening, but I was not aware how severe it was, and it is chilling when you go to the stats, and here we are talking about the mass and very recent mass exodus of families and children from major American cities.

They are just disappearing. And for this, I will be looking at an article in the Atlantic called the urban family exodus is a warning for progressiveS. So, of course, the piece starts with the writer bemoaning J. D. Vance as the worst human being in the world, and Trump is all monsters because they must, in their performative shlicking, I love this as always whenever they're the pronatalist piece, they must start by saying how horrible we all are, and then they go to But they may have a point. But, at the risk [00:01:00] of giving Vance any credit here, I must admit that progressives do have a family problem. The problem doesn't exist at the level of individual choice, where conservative scolds tend to fixate.

Rather, it exists at the level of urban family policy. American families with young children are leaving big urban . counties in droves. And that says something interesting about the state of mobility and damning about the state of American cities and the progressives who govern them. First, the facts in large urban metros, the number of Children under five years old is in free fall, according to a new analysis of census data by Conan O'Brien, a policy and Oh, no, sorry.

Connor O'Brien looks like he's

Speaker 4: a policy analyst.

Speaker 2: Now you're doing a new guy at the think tank economic innovation group from 2020 to 2023. So in three years, the number of these kids declined by nearly 20 percent in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens. And the [00:02:00] Bronx.

They also fell by double digit percentage points in counties making up most or all of Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and St. Louis. If you do not understand how huge that is, imagine if some other population declined by 20 percent in Manhattan over the course of three years.

Imagine if like the number of black people in Manhattan declined by 20 percent over three years, would progressives be a brick? Would they be running around like the sky was on

Speaker: fire? Well, and we also have to think about the, the industry impacts of this. If there are not enough children to justify good schools, good daycares, good services,

Speaker 2: it's going to be really hard to get that.

Yeah.

Speaker: This is terrifying.

Speaker 2: This exodus is not merely the result of past COVID waves. Yes. The pace of the urban exodus was fastest during the high pandemic years of [00:03:00] 2020 and 2021. But even at the slower rate of out migration since then, several counties, including those encompassing Manhattan, Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are on pace to lose.

50 percent of their under 5 population in 20 years. 50 percent in the next 20 years. To be clear, demographics have complex feedback loops and counterfeedback loops. The total population of these places won't necessarily have by the 2040s. But we all know it will, so let's be honest here. Nor is this exodus merely the result of declining nationwide birth rates.

Yes, women across the country are having fewer children than they used to. The share of women under 40 who have never given birth doubled from the early 1980s to the 2020s. But the under 5 population is still declining twice as fast in large urban counties as it is elsewhere, according to O'Brien Censor News.

Analysis. So what's the matter with Manhattan and L. [00:04:00] A. and Chicago? After the Great Recession, during a period of low urban crime, young college educated people flocked to downtown areas to advance their career. Retail upscaled and housing costs increased. Soon families started to leave. In 2019, the economist Jed Koloko showed that in cities including San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.

C., young high income college educated whites were moving in. And multiracial families with children were moving out. The coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in school closures and loosened the tether between home and office, pushed even more families to flee. Now, I want to note that they are playing a little shell game here because I want to put these statistics out on the screen right here.

Multiracial people as an ethnic group have the lowest fertility rate of any ethnic group in the U. S. Well below whites. Wait, really? Yeah, remember when we were going over that piece yesterday? Oh. But yeah this is, [00:05:00] he's just, he's just playing, playing games here. Playing games here. And also, as I mentioned in that episode of all ethnic groups in the U. S. other than inter ethnic groups blacks have the second lowest fertility rate. If you are only looking at blacks, not 30 percent of income.

If you're looking at blacks in the bottom 30 percent of income, it brings the black fertility rate in line with other fertility rates.

Speaker 3: But

Speaker 2: blacks actually have a devastatingly low fertility when they're not in just objective poverty. Wow. In the United States at least. Which goes against progressive narratives.

, so here they're saying, quote, I am deeply worried about the family exodus doom loop, end quote, O'Brien told me, quote, when the population of young kids in a city falls to 10 or 20 percent in just a few years, that's a potential political earthquake. Almost overnight, there are fewer parents around to fight for better schools, local playgrounds, or all the other mundane .

Amenities families care about in quote behavior is contagious as Yale sociologist Nicholas Chetensky has shown if you have a [00:06:00] friend who smokes or exercises It significantly increases the odds that you will do the same The same principle might hold for having or not having kids actually studies have shown very I don't know He's not familiar with these studies, but okay, whatever as young children become scarce in big cities People in their twenties and thirties who are thinking about having children will have fewer opportunities to see firsthand how fulfilling parenthood can be.

What they're left with instead are media representations, which tend to be inflected by the negativity bias of news. At a glance, these trends might not seem like they have anything to do with contemporary progressivism, but they do. America's richest cities are profoundly left leaning and many of them, including New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are themselves in constant in left leaning.

States, the places ought to be advertisements for what modern progressive movement can achieve without the meddlesome conservatism getting in the way. At the local or state level, if progressives want to sell their cause to the masses, they should be able to say, elect us and we'll make [00:07:00] America more like Oakland, or Brooklyn, or New York.

Suburban Detroit. If they can't make that argument, that's a problem. Right now, it's hard to make that argument because urban progressivism is afflicted by an inability to build. Cities in red states are building much more housing than blue states, blah blah blah, and they're going NIMBY here. But the point being is and just, you know, it is Democrats that are keeping this building stuff from going up.

It's due to the way the corrupt unions influence democratic politicians to ensure that building costs in the U. S. are much more expensive in cities than they are even in the E. U. Again, the visual politic video on this, I'll put the picture on screen so you can search it. The picture says the 2 million toilet, but I think the, the actual title is something like infrastructure costs in the U.

S. are skyrocketing. And VisualPolitik, I would always recommend their channel. Oh, they're great. Yeah. Ask, like, how I know so much about the world. In terms of like contemporary international politics visual politic is probably the best educational research [00:08:00] or contemporary political events that exist in the world today by a significant margin.

After them, Peter Zeihan is the next best resource.

Some people dismiss him as a CIA. Asset. Quote unquote, and I would really push back on this notion. That's not to say that he isn't obviously tied very closely to the American military industrial complex. And he doesn't have a very strong, , motivations to promote their interests.

But he is the first geopolitical analyst that any of the mainstream listen to that recognize the huge potential impact of fertility collapse. And he has made a number of a very, very correct calls over the ages. And he's generally been right about most of the calls that he's made. So when an individual comes to me and they're like, oh, , don't trust this guy because he has these preset interests.

I'm like, well, that may be true, but he sort of batting a hundred right now. So when somebody with no [00:09:00] geopolitical contacts. And who has made it no accurate predictions about future geopolitical events. Comes to me and says, don't trust this guy who has tons of geopolitical context, because he has tons of geopolitical context and who has made tons of accurate predictions about the geopolitical scene and how it's going to play out.

I don't know, I'm just a little incredulous.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But also I

Speaker: just love how wholesome Peter Zeihan is just like Doing his podcasts while on hikes a little bit winded, you know, so he's really trying to exert himself.

He's a

Speaker 2: good guy. When we were publishing our book, we asked him for advice and he actually got back to us.

And I always, you know, I have sort of this internal reference part of everyone more famous than us who did us a solid before we were as famous as them. And they're sort of in my never ever betray.

Speaker: Or

Speaker 2: who just

Speaker: took to take time to respond to us as nobodies. It means a lot.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And this was back before we had received much news coverage and stuff like that But also even now like that.

We're well [00:10:00] known i'm like for example Just pearly things platform does she had us on her show, you know, she was friendly with us and she's at a much higher level than we are right so huge for me infinite like I'm always in her camp. Same with Chris Williamson. Same with Stuttering Craig, who runs Sidescrollers.

These are people who, Ru Rubyart who runs what of all his? Ayla. These are all people who helped us before we became big deals. And there's many other famous people who've helped us before we became big deals, but don't want to be officially associated with us, so I'm not going to name their names.

But they're still in my I will do and always stand them bucket.

The one downside of this, of course, being that individuals might be able to.

Triangulate who our friends are from the individuals who we always stand, no matter what, even when it may not make perfect sense why we're standing them.

Speaker 2: But yeah, those are, those are good sources. But anyway, so they, they basically show in that particular video how progressive politics in the United States has made it [00:11:00] impossible to build in the major cities. However, I think if you're saying, Oh, the problem is we're not building enough housing in major cities and that's why people aren't having kids.

I think, you know, you're missing the forest for the trees.

As an example of this, a lot of people, when they complain about oh, low fertility rates are totally a factor of small living spaces or cost of housing. I would point out that in Israel over the past decade of home prices have increased by 345% and are unusually high on a global scale. And this has actually been driven primarily by government policy.

Specifically regulations in inefficient land use. And yet Israel has sky high fertility rates.

Speaker 2: I do think he makes a point that. If progressives can't go to conservatives and be like in the areas where we dominate we have fixed the problems that you don't have because it's clear I think to anyone who has lived in a progressive in a conservative district as we have now life is like objectively better in conservative districts.

Like [00:12:00] there's more stores that it's cheaper. The, the Police are better. The fire people are better. The infrastructure is better. The it's it's kind of

Speaker: humbling. It's humbling just to also even just to see the experience that our son is getting in kindergarten because we're setting we're letting him go to public schools kindergarten because he asked.

We don't consider it his education. It's a supplement to school. homeschooling that he like, you know, we consider like soccer, man, the resources he gets the treatment he gets. It's incredible. So yeah,

Speaker 2: this was not the case. So my, my brother and his wife made an exodus from LA where they were based. And they've just been like, Oh my God, like it is so much better out here in, in rural Pennsylvania than it was in LA in every respect.

And I think, yeah, This is something where you you really didn't want to move to a rural area when I first suggested it to you and you were treating it as a massive concession. I [00:13:00] remember when we were first talking about this, you're like, yeah, but there's so many things to do in the city and there's so many, like, I could walk

Speaker: everywhere, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, you can

Speaker 2: walk everywhere. Like we can walk to the grocery store. And then what ends up happening, right? As, as you realize. I remember like when you realize you're like, wait, we were walking to a grocery store 30 minutes and carrying our bags back home and we are driving two and a half minutes to a grocery store here, filling our trunk and driving it back home that it is infinitely more convenient.

Or it's like, yeah, but you won't have as much to do. I'm sorry. I get to take my kids to the grocery store. Myriad of festivals which are happening constantly around us. I get to take them to pick pumpkins I get to take them to to pick wildflowers at the wildflower picking areas. I get to take them to pet bunny rabbits I get to take them to like it is so so so much to do that is so much [00:14:00] Like nicer and more wholesome than the things I was doing in the city before.

And, and what do I want from city with a kid? It's like, what are they offering kids? Nothing. And then it's like, Oh, but they have a few nice museums. And it's like. Yeah, maybe, but they're not harder to get to from ex urban areas than they are from the cities. So, for example we went to Philadelphia this weekend to go to the Franklin Institute and it was a 30 minute drive.

If I had gone from the city, what would it have been, a 20 minute drive? Like, this is the thing with cities, especially the major cities like San Francisco that people miss is you're not actually that much closer to other stuff in cities because the infrastructure of cities is so poorly designed

Speaker: when we also thought that living in a city or sorry, living in the suburbs would isolate us from friends when it turns out that.

We actually socialize more and more efficiently as people who live outside the city. And that's not because people come to us because it is no one wants, no one's here. No one's even really in Philadelphia. [00:15:00] We go out to New York. We've got to DC, but what we do, and we're just about to do this is we will host happy hours or cocktail parties two nights in a row while staying at a nice place.

And just invite everyone we know in that city to come out and a decent number of people show up

Speaker 2: Because we're a limited commodity.

Speaker: Yeah, like if you're in town, everyone's like, well, maybe I'll just see you later. You're here. I'm here We'll see each other eventually and it never happens and we socialized very very little when we lived in cities Now that we're outside.

We're very systematic about it. We don't waste our time and when we do it, we do it really well It's nice. So yeah, it's You Not what you would expect, I guess. I was very surprised by our move to the suburbs. They're much more pronatal, for sure. Well, and people like MoreBirths on Twitter constantly make this argument that I mean, he likes to argue, I think, that there's just not enough physical space in apartments and cities that people are too But hold on, I'll

Speaker 2: [00:16:00] argue more than this.

I don't just think it's living in a rural area. So that was one thing that changed, but you have lived in more conservative and less conservative cities. So you've lived in San Francisco and Dallas. What is the quality of life like between those two cities?

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: You grew up, I grew up in Dallas.

My, my family's in local politics in Dallas. So I, my opinion of Dallas doesn't count. What is your perspective of the city? As somebody who visited, I remember the first time you visited and you're like, where are the homeless people?

Speaker: Yeah. It's just too hot for them. Although now there are homeless people in Dallas, but before, yeah, they're just

Speaker 2: not that many.

I mean you say it's too hot for them, but it's not that it's that they don't offer services for them. Yeah, there's just not much of an incentive. San Francisco recently had a policy to convert luxury high rises to homeless apartments that are given to them for free. New York has a policy where they rent out rooms in hotel rooms, sometimes luxury hotel rooms, for homeless people [00:17:00] rather than letting them sleep on the streets.

Speaker: Yeah, not ideal. You think Dallas

Speaker 2: has s**t like that?

Speaker: Not ideal.

Speaker 2: That's why they're not in Dallas, because they're not putting them up in luxury hotels. And Dallas has democratic politicians running it. They're just not wackadoos like the ultra progressives of the East Coast.

Speaker: I mean, I don't know what to say. It is, it is very different. Yeah. And even the social scene I thought would be worse in Dallas and it wasn't, and it wasn't much, we couldn't find progressive people. In fact, the progressive people that we met. In Dallas, you know, because you think, oh, there are only conservatives in Dallas.

And that certainly was the impression of people I knew in the Bay Area. When I left, they always said, well, couldn't you at least just go to Austin, not Dallas, but they were many conservative and many progressive young people in Dallas. And they were honestly more interesting because they were [00:18:00] progressive, not because it was normative, but because they.

We're genuinely progressive people. And I think that's the other really big thing is that progresses are more interesting and fun in conservative or centrist cities because they're real and they're not just let's

Speaker 2: talk about. I'm sorry that I think you actually make a great argument there, right? Like.

If you, if you go to a Dallas is a Democrat city, like it is a solid blue city. One of my cousins recently ran for Congress in Dallas. And she ran as a Republican and it was just like, she had no shot. She had no shot. My, my, my granddad with the Congressman there who, when it, when it was Republican, but like it's not anymore.

Anyway, so, they, they, they, if you can trust something like Dallas. We've been to Austin recently, which is genuinely more progressive. Like it's like a progressive progressive city.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker 2: It is nightmarish living condition. It

Speaker: doesn't feel safe. It doesn't [00:19:00] feel clean and nice. We

Speaker 2: literally

Speaker: saw

Speaker 2: a bum fight.

Speaker: Remember we had one

Speaker 2: actually start following us and like, like yelling at us to like attack us.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker 2: That one time. Yeah, we felt super not safe. Austin is not a safe place.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Could you imagine What's so funny though is that we also walked by that boogaloo guy who like had a pretty sizeable Did you know

Speaker 2: Austin had a parade, an anti natalist parade, where everyone dressed in like black and like looked sad and like

Speaker 4: Oh, they just looked sad?

Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently somebody said it was the most Depressing parade they've ever seen because the anti natalists are just like depressing people you know We're gonna have a pro natalist like parade like a fairground thing when we host the pro natalist. Oh, yeah. Yeah cheaper So if you are in austin, for the natalist conference garbage fire of the city but no, and I, I literally mean it like when I think like Austin, it is, it is like Portland level bat.

It is like an actual open garbage fire at this point. You would [00:20:00] not want your kid walking down

Speaker: the neighborhoods outside of the main city. It's just the problems that we always go to, like that area around the convention center that has the most problems.

Speaker 2: I don't think so. I mean, Dallas has quote unquote, like downtown is a dangerous part of Dallas and I've never actually felt in danger in downtown Dallas.

I have been to Austin like three times recently and I have felt in mortal danger every one of those times. I have never. Downtown Dallas has wing bucket,

Speaker: wing bucket, home of the sour cream and onion. Yeah. I don't know if it's still

Speaker 2: there, but that was in central Dallas.

Speaker: It had better be. Oh, get your bucket.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker: You

Speaker 2: got

Speaker: to

Speaker 2: get your bucket. When I learned something else for people who are watching this from Dallas because I didn't know this when I was interviewing my dad but apparently it was him. He's the reason why the underground tunnels that connect the center of the city do air conditioning stuff.

He was on the, or like started the community to put that together. Oh, your grandfather

Speaker: did that?

Speaker 2: What? Your grandfather started that? No, I think my [00:21:00] dad did. It was either my dad or my grandfather. I can't remember from the thing. I just didn't know. Wing

Speaker: Bucket is still there, by the way. And also, there is now a Deep Ellum location.

Speaker 2: Oh! Oh yeah, I wanted to invest in them when I had their food. I was like, this is some great stuff. I know, I think you

Speaker: met the owner and spoke with him. And you're like, can I invest? And he's like, I don't know, man. I just own this business. Labors.

Speaker 4: But oh yeah, they PPJ, spicy Korean

Speaker: barbecue. Sorry. Mm.

Speaker 2: Why Austin is so bad. Like why this ends up happening. And I think it's all downstream. And we talked about this in another episode, this rehabilitate rather than prosecute mindset. Which is to say that when people are bad actors in a city environment the progressive mindset is we can fix them and it's probably our fault that they're bad actors.

Whereas the more conservative mindset is to say

Speaker: just remove them from the equation.

Speaker 2: Remove them from the equation. Yeah. They're being a bad actor. They're going to breed more bad actors, cause more people to make the same poor decisions that they've made. Yeah.

Speaker: Cause more damage. So,

Speaker 2: and, and, and [00:22:00] worse victimize innocent people, which is what we see in places like Austin all of these signs that say things like keep Austin weird and stuff like that, you can be weird.

And still have a degree of ruthlessness to the way that you, you treat individuals. Yeah,

Speaker: that's so true. You can be weird and ruthless and weird.

Speaker 2: Does it mean hold on what people say? Keep keep Austin weird. I'm in weird. Okay. Oh, no. Now that, now that

Speaker: but like since Tim Walz started the whole weird as like an accusation against conservatives, does Austin have to, and does Portland have to drop the whole Do they have to drop?

Weird. Weird. I hope they do. I hope

Speaker 2: I, I actually wanna like, do a campaign around that. Like, Portland is weird. Just like JD Vance. Just like JD

Speaker: Vance make, make Portland weird again.

Speaker 6: Here in Portland, we've been hearing for a while now that we are weird. And if he's weird, she's weird, and they're weird. And if this is weird, and that is [00:23:00] weird.

Then all we have to say is

Democrats and the Harris campaign now deploying a new adjective to blast the Republican ticket. Some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it's just plain weird. Get those nerds! I mean, on the other side, they're just weird. Nerds! It's not just a, a, a, a weird style that he brings. Nerds! Nerds!

Nerds! Nerds! Where are they? I think they're talking about us. No way. Oh no! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Speaker: Oh my God. Yeah, that would be interesting.

Speaker 2: But when they say weird, they mean normative. Like they mean culturally normative to the urban monoculture.

I mean obviously that's what that's code for. Yeah. But it, it, it turns them into these horrible places to have your kids. I mean, would you feel safe with your kids in Philadelphia right now? I haven't been to Philadelphia for a long

Speaker: time,

Speaker 2: so I don't know. [00:24:00] Okay. I guess, yeah, I, I'm the one who still goes to Philadelphia.

You don't, when was the last time you went, you go to DC and New York more than Philadelphia now, right?

Speaker: I do. Yes. Sadly.

Speaker 2: Even though we're like, no one,

Speaker: no one's in Philadelphia. Like we don't have a critical mass. of movers and shakers in Philadelphia. We've tried to build it, but just no one seems to be there aside from one person who I deeply respect.

So there you go. There's

Speaker 2: a couple interesting people in Philadelphia. We just don't, aside

Speaker: from Tracy wood grains, who

Speaker 2: Oh, Tracy Woodgrain's in Philadelphia? No, I was thinking of the various, like, conservative influencers we know in the area. And keep Oh, like the YouTubers who live in Phoenixville right by us, right?

Yeah, so for example, like, somebody who lives in our neighborhood is the Lore Lodge guy. He's like, he, I don't know where he is, but I know he lives in Phoenixville, so he's within eight minutes of our house. But I know I've also seen, like, I've been able to piece together where other [00:25:00] YouTubers live, and I don't want to, like, out it, because He's talking is not cool.

Yeah. We live easily within a 10 to 15 minute drive of like 10 other really famous YouTubers. And we're not famous YouTubers here. I'm saying like, these are like actually famous, famous YouTubers. Yeah, actually famous people like our neighborhood YouTube . Maybe we can

Speaker: make this the new YouTuber hangout.

You know, like in LA there's all these mansions where YouTubers live, but like this is where the based family man YouTubers live, where everyone just has their own house and lives a good life instead of. You know, living, like, cracked out. Yeah, all the YouTubers

Speaker 2: I'm thinking of are, like, true crime YouTubers or, like, like, cryptid YouTubers or, like, YouTubers who focus on geopolitics or YouTubers who focus on conservative politics.

Those are, like, the categories that this area seems to attract. But and I will note this that they are all, like, either politically centrist or conservative, as YouTubers that I'm aware of and they All are very private and do not hang out with like the [00:26:00] wider YouTube community. So that's the thing.

Like you could try to create like a critical mass of them here, but they don't like they'd be, have no interest in talking with other YouTubers.

Speaker: Come on, man. That sounds great. Let's just all, I grew up with this culture in my family. It's one of my favorite family traditions of all time. And this is something that my parents coined, or at least that's they used, they called it parallel play.

Which is we would just all ignore each other, do our own things, but in proximity with each other. So we were enjoying each other's company. Sometimes we were listening to the same thing. Like we'd always listen to the same NPR shows together. We'd listen to this American life. We'd listen to the wait, wait, don't tell me.

We'd wait to listen to car talk. We'd listen to all these like folksy Bay area, like San Francisco radio shows that came on. It was like a Celtic program. It was just great. And we would just all do it together with the same kind of backdrop of media. and be really happy. My mom would fold laundry. I would go through catalogs while eating food and my dad [00:27:00] would do whatever it is that my dad did.

And it was great. And I would just love to have a parallel play community here where everyone like, maybe we'll walk by each other at stores and just be like, I'm glad they're here, but not talk. We won't talk. And we won't make eye contact. We'll just be like, That's your idea of community.

Speaker 2: I love all these people who are like, Oh, well, we moved near you guys.

You know, we'd want a feeling of community and stuff like that. And you're like, yeah, your kids can play with our kids, but don't expect us to talk to you. Like, yeah, I don't want to risk having to communicate with somebody. Even our like, Close friends, like people who I really respect. I don't like, I, I'm like, I, I guess I moderately enjoy talking to them a few times a year, but I mostly like reading the content that they put out and watching the videos they make.

And, and that's my, my social connection is a parallel parasocial connection. I don't need more than that. Yeah.

Speaker: But then, you know, if the apocalypse comes, then we like, you know, create a sort of defensive network and, you know, trade guns and bullets and vodka and [00:28:00] Legos. Are we getting a

Speaker 2: bunch more guns this Black Friday?

Speaker: Yeah, and maybe vodka and Legos for our currency. It'll be great.

Speaker 2: That's a great gift for the architects and stuff like that. You got to give them Vodka

Speaker: and Legos.

Speaker 2: No, vodka and guns.

Speaker: Oh, vodka and guns. Oh, vodka, guns, and Legos. I feel like that's really, maybe that's what we can bring, wear to like the Hereticon Apocalypse Ball, is just to have like little, like,

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're going to be cartridge patches on this next time.

Yeah, but they have like

Speaker: a, they have a ball that like either you have to wear black tie or you can wear apocalypse apocalypse themed clothing. And I just, I'm really thinking a lot about, I don't want to go to the ball. I don't want to stay up late and by late, I mean, go to bed past like 8 PM. But I want, I want to, I want an apocalypse costume.

Yeah. Cause I'm wearing one. I'm dressed like a cult member.

Speaker 2: But I'd actually love to hear your theory. Why are cities like Austin so [00:29:00] bad to live Like, like, like, like, astronomically worse to live in and be in than cities like Dallas? Because here you're comparing urban to urban. Like, what is it Or Houston, which is a Have you been to Houston?

Speaker: I've never been to Houston. Honestly, This, this is going to be horrible. But I feel like culturally homogenous cities are just categorically a lot better to live in. I think Dallas is a more culturally homogenous city. I think cities like San Francisco and Austin are a lot more culturally mixed.

And I don't just mean, I'm not talking about race. I'm talking about culture. So, and where we even talking about like the Bay Area people versus the people who grew up in Austin clashing when there's just not enough shared context, shared norms.

Speaker 2: I don't know. I think one of the reasons why here's what you might be missing.

There is a lot of cultural diversity of major populations in [00:30:00] Dallas.

Speaker: No, no, no. But no, no, no. You don't understand. That's not what I mean. It's not, you can come from a different background, but if you all grew up with the same norms and rules and understand what I'm

Speaker 2: talking about. So like the, the communities I'm thinking about that are huge in Dallas.

Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: There is a very, very large Indian immigrant community in the Dallas area that is totally different value system from the rest, but it's like an aligned value system when we're like, when you go to the Indian immigrants and you're like, we're going to like, Get the homeless people out of town.

Yeah. They're like, yeah, do that. Get rid of them. There's also a very large Hispanic area population in Dallas. But again, they're like very conservative and based. Yeah, but that's, that's what I mean. Few like, like Filipino communities and stuff like that in the Dallas area. But again, When they migrate to Dallas, I think what you're wrong about, or what you're missing, is that there's cultural diversity in both

Speaker: [00:31:00] Maybe I could make my point better if I described this in the terms of like fan communities.

A lot of people have talked about this phenomenon of fan or niche communities. Starting to suck when they get larger because first you have this community where, you know, a lot of different people came together, but they all really enjoy this one thing and they all share the same inside jokes and they all came to it out of love for the thing.

And, you know, we're early fans of it. They know the content, the lore. And then the thing gets really big and starts going mainstream. And now a bunch of people are coming in, not necessarily because they love the property, but because it gives them cachet in other realms. Like, Oh yeah, I'm a star Wars fan.

Like, or I like games, follow my channel. And they're not really into it for that. And they start to exploit the community. Yeah. In ways that, that, you know, they're not there for the spirit of it. This is

Speaker 2: totally different than your previous point. I mean, I have noticed this about Dallas. So if you look at cost [00:32:00] of living versus the amount of money you can earn in a city, typically, if you divide those things, you get the terribleness of a city.

The city was the worst that I have lived in cost of living versus the amount that you earn in that city divisor is Miami. And it is by far the worst city I have ever been in from a, a, a lifestyle perspective.

Speaker 3: Miami is

Speaker 2: terrible. And, and, and the people it attracts. And it is because it is people who are sacrificing a decent ability to live for the ability to say that they live in Miami.

Whereas if you're in Dallas, it's sort of on the opposite side of that spectrum, nobody's impressed when you say you live in Dallas, Dallas, it is because you are moving there because when you divide the amount an average person makes there by the cost of living there, you're like, Oh, this is a pretty good equation.

And so you, you go there and I agree with that to an extent. And I think that that's [00:33:00] definitely, definitely, definitely cheeses. Dallas's numbers is the, is the bad brand that the big D has. But I actually think. That the, the bigger thing here is that when people with conservative sensibilities are migrating from around the world,

I.

e. If I'm a Hispanic immigrant and I'm moving to Dallas, or I'm an Indian immigrant and I'm moving to Dallas, or I'm a Filipino immigrant and I'm moving to Dallas I am not moving there. And I think partially you're right here. Like I'm not moving there because I want like. Cliche TM us like I don't want like the New York glitz and glam of an immigrant lifestyle.

And I think that this is actually really true when immigrants often move to places like Miami and New York and San Francisco. They were partially fooled maybe by movies, maybe by people who oversold what it was like to be an immigrant in these areas. When immigrants moved to Dallas, it's usually cause they had a family member in the Dallas area.

He's like, yeah, [00:34:00] it's actually pretty nice here. Come on out. And so, what you are getting is more of a wide open eyed practical immigration standpoint. And also an immigration standpoint that isn't utopianistic, but is pragmatic, right? So like, I'm not trying to move to the most perfect place that's ever existed.

And for that reason, when I see politicians getting rid of homeless people, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. Like, I don't, I, like, I got kids here, man. Like, what do you, they, they, they, they keep hassling people. Like, why would I, why wouldn't I not handle that? And so I think that that is part of what it is because I think that the and I've noticed this because we were around.

I was actually looking at our school bus recently. We're again around. I grew up around a heavily in Indian community because Alice is heavily Indian. So I had a ton of Indian friends growing up in recently. I was looking at our school bus when it parked by our house in our neighborhood. And I realized that I think our kid.[00:35:00]

was the only white kid I could see on the entire school bus. The entire rest of the population was South Asian or Indian. And in other words, what, the reason I say South Asian is I can't tell the difference between Indians and Pakistanis. And I know that's super offensive. And so they could be Pakistanis.

Is it, wasn't the

Speaker: line kind

Speaker 2: of arbitrarily drawn? It was arbitrarily drawn, but they hate each other now. Okay. Uh, So I've got to pretend that they are two distinct groups when to me, they look the same. But anyway the point being is our district, if you look at young people in our district, like people of our age range is 70% South Asian.

Like our, like small neighborhood area. And so I was like, Oh, it's weird that I ended up moving into Indian community again, but.

Speaker: They're great people. Yeah, I'm not

Speaker 2: worried. I'm not worried whenever I Wait, I'll tell you what But yeah, but if I

Speaker: go door knocking and miss out the Asian answers, like I think I'm gonna have a pretty good conversation [00:36:00] and all of my horrible experiences have been with white people

Speaker 2: Every single one.

They're very entitled, I've seen with doorknocking. It's

Speaker 4: not just women, it's men too. And I think,

Speaker 2: why are

Speaker 4: we

Speaker 2: so beautiful? I've noticed East Asians are really nice when you doorknock too, right?

Speaker 4: Yeah, basically anyone who's not white has been amazing.

Speaker 2: How has the black family's been doorknocking?

Speaker: Awesome, super nice.

Like

Australia, do you notice you notice when

Speaker 2: you're door knocking the heavy South Asian population, or is it just that they're really heavy in the younger breeding groups in our area?

Speaker: They're , they're, they're in all the nice houses. , they're wealthy in our area. They're high achieving and a lot of them are pretty based.

Speaker 2: So I don't know. I don't, I do not know how we have so many in our area, I assume.

Speaker: They're all, we're all working at SEI. I don't know. These

Speaker 2: few big corporate campuses we have here, like Pfizer is right next to our house. [00:37:00] They have

Speaker: Pfizer. Yeah. Because like, I don't know, I just, I'm assuming they're working at them because they're in the nice houses that cost a lot.

And I like door knocking there. Cause it's pretty, yeah,

Speaker 2: you, you go to the rich neighborhoods. Hey, I haven't just

Speaker: gone to the rich neighborhoods. It's just that. In the rich neighborhoods, people, especially if I'm door knocking on weekdays, I'm more likely to be working from home. And so I can actually reach someone.

Whereas in like apartment complexes and lower income areas, they have to work. I can't like, they're not home. They're not going to answer their door. Well, I also always

Speaker 2: love the immigration stories when door knocking, because immigrants are like way nicer to Republicans than other people. Okay.

Because a lot of them come from countries where it used to be terrible and they're like, oh my God, I don't want to go that direction in America. Like, we've seen this was like the people who immigrated from China and stuff like that. They're really like, oh my God, like, you guys are saving the country sort of stuff.

Oh,

Speaker: you know, okay, yeah, there've been [00:38:00] some, some Chinese families. So they weren't mean, just like very suspicious of me. But that's okay. Cause I don't, I don't want people to knock on my door. Like, I don't blame people for that. And you, are you coming with a baby? No, I was pregnant. Like when I've met the, the, the memories I have with Asian families being very suspicious of me.

It was when I was pregnant, but I probably just looked fat. So

Speaker 2: that's a good reason to be suspicious of somebody. Yeah.

Speaker: It's a fat woman appearing in my doorstep and this is not a good situation. But yeah, so the other thing I'm wondering though, and I don't know how much the stats are correcting for this is the extent to which antinatalism is just getting, and has been so bad in cities where.

Yes, families are, are actually, you know, actively moving out of cities, but also we're just not seeing the same rates of people having kids and babies in cities. And also high fertility being priced out of cities, the cost of living in [00:39:00] cities being so high.

Speaker 2: A spiral collapse of the ability to have children in cities and have them safely in cities.

Especially as, and I think we're going to see this more and more with progressives. And I think we're already moving in this direction where people are going to see having kids as a strict moral negative and are going to want to begin to make life harder for parents. And I think that as the procreation of our species becomes increasingly partisan, I mean, this is why we put together the Collins Institute, As it becomes increasingly partisan there is going to be less of a reason to yeah let's let a, the, the, the, the, the future of humanity is going to become increasingly conservative.

It doesn't make

Speaker: a difference though. And I just, I wonder because in, in Seoul and in Tokyo and other, you know, Japanese cities. There are awesome resources for kids, you know, changing tables and state or like [00:40:00] little seats. You can put a baby in inside toilet stalls amazing little shopping cart things for kids.

Like they're very, they

Speaker 2: have a special parking for people with infants.

Speaker: Yeah. And yet, you know, the birth rates aren't great there either. And they're very kid friendly. They're trying desperately who is. I'm talking about cities in Tokyo and in Seoul as well. I'm not talking about here.

Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, but that's a completely different cultural context

Speaker: We've

Speaker 2: talked about why fertility rates being low There is different from the reason why they're low here if people are wondering Go watch our why are fertility rates low in koreans or why can't koreans make these and it's like a picture out of our baby It's korean fertility rates are totally different reason than u.

s fertility rates and

Speaker: i'm just trying to make the argument that in a post industrial society You Is, is making things pretty and easy for families really the thing that makes a difference? No, I don't think so. I think in the end fundamentally it's cultural and, and like [00:41:00] a city making it more logistically difficult for parents I don't think is going to be the, the death knell.

It's, it's the way people live that ultimately fundamentally changes birth rates and family formation.

Speaker 2: Maybe. I, I will say as well, one thing I would say for people who have stereotypes of and I've always found this really interesting. Is the, that's Octavian,

Speaker: I don't want to move. And he is totally crashed out on my lap.

Speaker 4: You should see Malcolm, she's like, totally just done.

Speaker: Milk drunk. Very relaxed. Next.

It's like having a cat sleep on your lap. You don't want to get up just like warm and heavy.

Speaker 2: You can get started on dinner early.

Speaker: Okay. Well, let's wrap it up then.

Speaker 2: Octavian.

Speaker 5: Dad, [00:42:00] I just did two more minutes from school. It's so it doesn't take too long. Okay. And Octavian two socks. Look at mom

Speaker: Octavian.

Do you want to live in a city or do you want to live where we live now by the trees and the grass.

Speaker 5: I wanna go to a city.

Speaker: You want to go to A city? To city?

Speaker 2: Tell me about it. Why do you wanna go to a city? Why a city? '

Speaker 5: cause I, where we like cities to get some or toys.

Speaker: So cities have toys. Is that what's going on?

But doesn't

Speaker 5: target have toys and that's near us? Okay. Um, Do you know what a city is?

Speaker 2: Do you remember New York?

Speaker: Would you want to live in New York? He doesn't remember New York when he was taken. Remember when we, we took Torsten and Octavian to New York when they were young. And I thought, Oh, this is going to be great. You know, they're gonna play in all the parks and everything, you know, everything's so walkable.

Central [00:43:00] park is huge. There are lots of playgrounds there. The playgrounds are so bad compared. Oh dear. To the playgrounds we have, I guess we're making dinner now.

Speaker 2: You need to be careful about that. Okay.

Speaker: Oh The playgrounds are really bad in, in New York city compared to what we have here. And I just didn't think, I thought central park.

Lux, you

Speaker 2: know, that like the swimming pools here have like water slides.

Speaker: Wait, in our public playground

Speaker 2: or something? In our area? Yeah!

Speaker: Wow. Well, nothing beats the, the playgrounds in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If

Speaker 2: you want to speak to our watchers, come on, you've got to have something you want to say to them. Yeah, at least

Speaker: ask them to like and subscribe.

Speaker 2: Is it the creek? Yeah. Is it going on a boat?

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Okay, say like and subscribe.

Speaker 5: Like and subscribe. Alright,

Speaker 2: bye bye. Wait, what? No.

Speaker 5: Like I described. And I also want to make a video of [00:44:00] me a turtle.

Speaker 2: Okay, you want to be a turtle? Then become a turtle.

Speaker 5: First I need a serpent on me, okay?

Speaker 2: Okay, go get something on you and you can go be a turtle.

Speaker: I will send you a picture of what he's referring to. Okay, I love you Simone. Come

Speaker 2: on down.

Speaker: Okay, on my way.

Speaker 2: I love you.

Speaker 4: I love you too. Bye. Bye.

Speaker 8: Help me! Help

Speaker 9: me! Help me! Is that puzzle making you angry? Here, let me show you a little trick. You have to flip.

Yeah, but Toastie was right the other way. Flip it. Flip it!

Speaker 8: Flip it! No! Flip it! [00:45:00] Flip it! Flip it! Flip it for selfies! Flip it! Flip it! Toasty, what are you doing to me? I said I'm going to be

funny.