The Mysterious Fertility Strip Running Down the Center of the USA

Join in this intriguing discussion as the hosts delve into the perplexing phenomenon of a high-fertility strip running from Texas to North Dakota. They explore various theories and data, including maps of fertility rates, immigration patterns, income levels, religious census, and more. Does this strip represent America's final frontier or a hub of conservative, religious communities? Tune in to explore the intersection of demographics, geography, and culture in the U.S.

The song:

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be discussing a bizarre B, bizarre, bizarre phenomenon where there is, if you look at the county level, total fertility rate in the United States.

There is an extremely high fertility, I mean, extremely high fertility. When you look at the rest of the map, nothing comes close to the strips. Fertility rate strip down basically like where the west side of Texas is. Mm-hmm. All the way up to the top of the United States.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like from the Texas panhandle up basically directly up from there is this weird blue strip.

Malcolm Collins: And so like, obviously I'm gonna have a map on screen here that you guys can look at and be like, what is going on here? One of the people who dug into it was friend of the show, Robin Hansen. 'cause of course, like if somebody's looking at interesting questions, it's like always gonna be one of our like small friend groups.

I sometimes wondered, it's like not everyone else programmed in [00:01:00] this simulation like Uhhuh because it like 20 people who are fully programmed and they're all guests of the show. And then everyone, you gotta save

Simone Collins: processing power. This stuff's expensive. I mean, so yeah, I'm very, so if, okay, what, before we go into what he thinks is going on, what are you gonna guess?

Is it that like these are very low population rural states? I mean, we're looking at North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas a little bit. There's

Malcolm Collins: lots of low population rural states that would not explain this at all.

Simone Collins: Okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So. I'm gonna guess it's either one of two things.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Thing number one that it could be is it could be actually a mistake in the data.

Okay. It could be something about how these are like near a date line or how these are near, some lines are done. So some zone

Simone Collins: where measured twice because of like weird, it's causing

Malcolm Collins: things to be measured twice. That's hypothesis number one. Hmm. Because it just [00:02:00] doesn't seem realistic when I look at other things here.

But then I think, okay, like I'm from Texas, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: These districts do not, not make sense as to why they would be higher fertility. They are incredibly rural districts. Yeah, that's

Simone Collins: what I was thinking too rural and that's where you get those, I mean, it's, it's, there's a selection bias there, right?

You're getting. People who want big families who are probably more likely to be religious conservative, who have this space. And of course there's all these pretty advocate space

Malcolm Collins: problem. Problem was this explanation.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: The districts actually remind me most of places like Arizona or Western California, which is way below these districts in terms of fertility rate.

Simone Collins: That's true. Yeah. Why would those not also show up as Yeah, why would those,

Malcolm Collins: they're just as conservative. They're just as, so the other thing that it could be is immigration patterns is the other thing I I, I'd hypothesize here.

Simone Collins: Interesting. It

Malcolm Collins: could be that if you look at this, this is, if you're looking at immigration waves moving west mm-hmm.

This is [00:03:00] where pretty much everyone would stop when hitting the Rockies. Oh. So if you're just gonna continue to move west mm-hmm. Until you hit the Rockies, immigration wise that's what would lead to this line. This is the most, I wanted to get away from other people and live my own way of all people in the United States make up this line.

I. That could be what we're seeing. Hmm. And then people could be like, well, what about that, like edge of Texas thing? Like, that's not the Rockies. And I'd say, well, that's the desert. Yeah. So let's, let's have a look here. What is, what is the first thing that he notes here? He says it's really weirdly along the mountain time and central time, time zone divider.

Simone Collins: Yeah. What is up with that?

Malcolm Collins: If you overlaid them, it looks so suspicious. That's why I think it could be a statistical error because Okay. That divider, if, if you look, and I'm comparing them on screen here. Yeah. Goes through the center of South Dakota [00:04:00] there. And the line moves from where it is on this map towards the center of South Dakota which is weird.

Why is it doing that? Yeah. This to me indicates that it might be some sort of statistical error.

Simone Collins: Yes. But then when we scroll down a little bit more, Y vert, who's so prolific on x suggests that it's a combination of being rural and high income, showing an American community survey of five year estimates showing medium household median household income for counties that are completely rural from 2013 to 2017.

And there's also exactly where the fertility strip is. A concentration. I, I actually income above

Malcolm Collins: $75,000. So I, I think that this graph is entirely hugely misleading. So let's talk about why it's misleading, because there's something you might not be noticing about it because it draws your eyes in and you're like, oh, okay, this could [00:05:00] explain it.

Mm-hmm. But what you're not counting is really almost all of the colored in places on the map at all. Or in this strip. Hmm. That's why it looks so green, because it's not looking at the whole of the us. It's only looking at rural counties. And so what we're actually seeing here is for whatever reason this strip in the United States has far more consistent rural counties than any other strip in the United States.

Simone Collins: Hmm. But then the

Malcolm Collins: question is, is how are rural counties being counted here? Because I know for a fact that these places aren't particularly more rural than you know, places in Arizona, for example, which is shown as that having a single rural county or. Eastern California, not shown as having a single rural county or New Mexico shown as having almost no rural counties.

Yeah, that's, I'm sorry, that's, I don't buy that. There, there's something about the way this map is structured that I think is trying to prove a point. And I [00:06:00] don't know how they fudge the data, but I can tell you there are rural countries in Arizona. Yes, Ariz, Arizona is not a populated place. There's like a few like medium sized cities in it.

But like if I was trying to date in Arizona, I'd be like, but nobody lives in Arizona. Yeah. You know, so something's off. Something's off about that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, now, now Crem U comes in by the way which I love. We're getting all the, all the art stars here. Simone, how did you not hear about that? I, yeah, this

Simone Collins: is, well, 'cause I'm not on X, we're so bad at doing, but we have things to do.

I don't know how these people can be so productive and yet spend so much time on X. I don't understand. But anyway, yes, graph is quite interesting.

Malcolm Collins: I wanna be clear, Simone, they are not an ounce as productive as you and I.

Simone Collins: Probably,

Malcolm Collins: None of these people have a daily podcast. None of these people are running multiple companies at the same time.

None of them are running multiple major efforts to

Simone Collins: well, or they don't have, like Robin Hanson has grown kids. REU has no kids yet. [00:07:00] To my knowledge, you're

Malcolm Collins: pregnant with kid number five? Yeah. We also are regularly in the media. I mean, we were just before this recording and a phone call was, what was it?

Ms. A-B-C-U-S-A

Simone Collins: today,

Malcolm Collins: USA today. And then I had another interview this morning, and then yesterday we had a reporter team come over to our house. So our days are being constantly disrupted in spite of all this. No, these people really are shredding their potentiality through their engagement with X and I think it's bad.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So Remus says you get a somewhat similar, the Bible belt. It's gone or has shifted picture with data from the US religious census. And here he is looking to adherence of US religious bodies, adherence as a percentage of the population.

Very heavy overlap with that line. Yeah. This again, makes me think it's immigration patterns, stopping at the natural barriers to Western immigration. Hmm. That is what we're actually seeing here, is it's the Americans who had the most fire in their heart to keep moving or to take action. And here [00:08:00] you see another thing about these districts, right?

Mm-hmm. I actually really like this one, right? Jeremy cio where he showed. Thi this is the line in America was by far the lowest suicide rate.

Simone Collins: Oh, that's so interesting. Wow. And it's such a fascinating map of suicides. Okay. Where is it Really bad, Nevada, they just, they just wanna die Northern California.

What's

Malcolm Collins: wrong with you? Oh,

Simone Collins: so this really

Malcolm Collins: divides like the, the Arizona or Eastern California thing. I keep talking about Uhhuh because both of them have really high suicide rates. Maine,

Simone Collins: why would you ever wanna die if you're in Maine and this whole Pacific Northwest? It's not looking good there. I don't get it.

Malcolm Collins: 'cause it gives a lack of vitalism. A lot of these places are traditional and I think that this is the thing that people don't get. It's the different American cultural grooves, which have a different reason to live. Mm-hmm. This line is a lot of backwoods Americans and a lot of, and people with faith.

People with faith, which is really important. No, no, no, no. There's people with faith in Maine. [00:09:00] There's people, there's, you overlapped this with a map of like faith of the United States, which I can do here. Oh, I'm going

Simone Collins: back to the religious. Bible belt? No. Maine, it's pretty fricking light. And also the Pacific Northwest is actually, yeah, if you look at these graphs, nah, actually, so the, the, so what's interesting is that religiosity is, is pretty still high in the South.

Yet this suicide rate.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: You only really see this No, no. Kill rate in, in that, in that fertility strip and not in the religious south.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that's because the religious south is descendant of cavalier culture. Yeah. Like of course it wouldn't be as vitalistic.

Simone Collins: That's Well, yeah. Yeah. I guess so. You can't say reli religiosity predicts lower nihilism or desire to end your life.

It is. It is religious vitalism specifically. You keep going on and on, like so many Orthodox Christians just see so seem so depressed

Malcolm Collins: and I don't hear what isn't in this. For people who aren't looking, is Utah, like, if you wanna say this is Mormons. [00:10:00] No, Utah is actually like, super not in this.

Simone Collins: Yeah, man,

Malcolm Collins: that's scary.

Not, not only is it not high in fertility rates particularly is, is, you know, at the county level at least it's not in this rural. Thing. It is in the high religiosity thing, but here's what's really interesting. You go down to suicide rates super high across Utah.

Simone Collins: It's crazy. That's crazy.

Malcolm Collins: I would think I've actually noted this suicide rate thing, like if you look at other places, was like really low fertility rates.

They typically have high suicide rates like South Korea.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So yeah, this is, this is a, a bigger story about. Is humanity good? Is the future bright? Is life good or are we intensely focused on suffering? Humanity, bad, future, dark, and then those people both don't have children and, and their lives at disproportionate rates.

I

Malcolm Collins: apparently. That's really fascinating. That is fascinating. All right, you wanna go to the next map? This is my Borg. Whoa.

Simone Collins: [00:11:00] Okay. This is also fascinating, right? This mystery strip the mystery strip. The mystery strip. Aren't you loving the mystery strip? I'm loving the mystery strip. Oh my goodness. What they called

Malcolm Collins: the catchier than mystery strip.

A America's, what, what is it they call it like the, whatever trail on on humans. The, the Trail of tears, the, the Western Trail on humans. On like the human body, like I, the, the.

Simone Collins: The line Negra.

Malcolm Collins: I wanna say like that, that's a, that's

Simone Collins: a, that's a line that sometimes shows up on a pregnant woman's belly from her belly button downward.

Oh. So we can call it the line Negra.

Malcolm Collins: The line Negra. That's, that's fun. And then people will be like, that's racist. You said Negra. I'm like, what is wrong with you? You've encountered

Simone Collins: a pregnant belly before, apparently. Oh

Malcolm Collins: goodness.

Simone Collins: I don't think I get them though. I haven't seen one, but I also just don't spend a lot of time looking at my body, so I wouldn No,

Malcolm Collins: You don't get them?

I, I wouldn't. Okay. Because I don't, I don't think that they're unattractive. Like I I've seen them before. You've seen them, right? Yeah. They're, they're, [00:12:00] they're,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Haven't been like, that's unattractive looking. It, it looks like a type of pregnant belly, so

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Just type with

Simone Collins: the line. I was thinking, by the way, if I, if I get a tattoo, I probably shouldn't, like, I wouldn't do that for surgeries, but like, I.

A zipper on my C-section line would be hilarious.

Malcolm Collins: You could get that after you have your uterus after all the C surgery, after all the CI actually think that'd be really fun for reporters.

Simone Collins: It would make me so sad though if it was after I lost my uterus. No, is so true. I'll be so traumatized and devastated by that.

That let I I can't

Malcolm Collins: be something else. Sorry. She has to have a C-section with every pregnancy, so

Simone Collins: maybe we can put something else interesting where the uterus used to be. You know, like, I don't know, an AI muffled speech from within my belly. I really don't know. Yell at

Malcolm Collins: people like you, you have a baby

Simone Collins: inside you that talks.

Malcolm Collins: Get me outta here. Get outta here.

Simone Collins: So something, something like [00:13:00] a, I don't know. I'll say is

Malcolm Collins: Simone, I have faith that it's not gonna happen anytime soon. I believe that, that you know, God's looking out for us. It's gonna work out. I hope so, as long as we keep debting ourselves fully to this, this cause.

Simone Collins: I hope so.

Malcolm Collins: Really, really hope so. Anyway. So Borg here. Did one. The title, the 2024 Presidential Party Heat Ma by County. The Most Dark Red goes through the same line.

Simone Collins: Yep, there you go. You got the MAGA ISTs.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It is. You're

Simone Collins: right. MAGA is vitalism. MAGA is the future is Bright. MAGA is is family is good.

MAGA is, children are awesome.

Malcolm Collins: That's

Simone Collins: huge.

Malcolm Collins: But I also think that this is where the most vitalistic people from the backwoods cultural group eventually immigrated out to.

Simone Collins: Mm mm

Malcolm Collins: This is the wild West of the Wild West. This is the Wild West Strip.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, that's it. That's really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Like every W Western you've [00:14:00] seen takes place in this strip.

Simone Collins: I guess. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Now, now here's an interesting take on this. The agriculture, I don't, I don't see this one most crops by county, so this county, this line isn't exact, but it's where most wheat in the US has grown and, and a bit where corn in the US has grown. The problem is, is where the line like sort of splits apart the most, it is the most large is in South Dakota.

In South Dakota. You don't see a lot of this. And then you also see the lines sort of expand in God, what state is that? Nebraska. And it doesn't look like, well, yeah, you get corn farming there. Yeah. So it could be wheat farming.

Simone Collins: Well, I, I just think of this,

Malcolm Collins: that gladiator scene, his hand, he's got his hands on the wheat. That's my life already.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:15:00] You

Simone Collins: You can't do that as easily with corn, so you have children of the corn. They're creepy, but you've got the sentimental dad of Gladiator running his hand over the wheat. But I, this is too tenuous.

I wanna go to the next graph. Oh. Ooh, wind speeds. This is where it just gets like, let's play the ridiculous data matches game. And this is why so much research is just bonkers. No, I actually think wind speeds are at, at play here. Are you kidding me? Right. So what we're looking at now for those who are just listening is a map of wind speeds in the United States, showing zones with the highest versus the lowest wind speeds and miles per hour.

And in this fertility line weirdly. You see much lower wind speed.

Malcolm Collins: [00:16:00] So what you're actually seeing here is what creates high wind speed, uhhuh. It is the last part of flat land before you get to the mountainous or desert regions. Mm. And so it's large areas of fra flatland before you get to mountain or desert regions, which is leading to these wind speeds.

Mm-hmm. So it could be caused by the same things that taught the migrants to stop.

Simone Collins: Interesting Flatlands, why would flatlands promote higher birth rates?

Malcolm Collins: It's not that they promote higher birth rates, it's that these are the migrants who kept moving and moving and moving. They, they were more

Simone Collins: people.

They,

Malcolm Collins: they were more

Simone Collins: flatlands. So vitalistic people just love flat land.

Malcolm Collins: No, it's that they kept it moving as far as they could where there was good land. You stop moving. Well, why?

Simone Collins: Why would non-vital people. Not give up. That sounds, it, it sounds like the, the place where the lazy, easy people give up then that, that doesn't show up.

Malcolm Collins: No. The hungriest people [00:17:00] settle in the richest possible soil. It is. The, the there, I think what you're confusing is people who just want to like. Huckster their way through lives and live on the fringes of civilization and not actually thrive. Who are the ones who are squeaking by in like the Arizona deserts and stuff like that, or in the mountains of the Rockies?

This is quite different than that. These are the individuals who were always looking for something better.

Simone Collins: Maybe. Maybe I'm what, what so far has convinced me the most. Is the the line of religiosity. The line of maga. So I think that's, that's what so far has got me wind speeds. I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: Here's the next graph here.

US home affordability. That's,

Simone Collins: I mean, it's not a strong a correlation, but there's definitely,

Malcolm Collins: it's when you keep in mind the income of these regions, which is quite high, you know, around 70 K. [00:18:00] Yeah. And this, this, this home.

Simone Collins: Oh, yes, yes. Right. Because there was that other graph that showed that there's this line of relatively higher wealth.

In that area. So when you combine higher wealth with affordability, you get people who feel like they're millionaires, which would produce this feeling of abundance. And of course the future's gonna be bright because I can buy a giant house.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Okay. Sorry. Nevermind. Changing my mind. Delta. That is compelling and interesting.

Yes, but it's where you make, it's not

Malcolm Collins: that strong a connection. Now here's one that aligns with why. Well, no, no, but

Simone Collins: like when you combine the two, because the houses are here more broadly affordable than they are in like the coasts, certainly in California. Mm-hmm. And when you combine that with.

Especially, I think when you have, when you feel really wealthy, like remember how we felt when we were in Peru and we're like, I can just go to a restaurant. Ha, look at me. I'm a king. I order, no, I, I literally would like

Malcolm Collins: eat at restaurants every day there because I could at the same cost as like cooking at home in the us

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But now I'm cooking from home. You're [00:19:00] better than the Peruvian restaurant, so like, it doesn't even matter. You're so sweet.

Simone Collins: But like, I think that feeling of abundance. Can create this. So, because you, you've also pointed out in, in, in other podcasts and research that there's this, this fertility U curve where obviously very low levels of income and poverty, people have more, more kids.

And then also when you see people starting to make more than $500,000, they start having more kids. And I think what might be going on here is people feel like they're making more than $500,000. 'cause they're able to literally get everything they want. Yeah. And then they're like, well, if I can get everything I want, then I don't have to worry.

About $70,000

Malcolm Collins: to a family in rural America is quite a lot of money. And, and in terms of like housing the kids and everything like that, you're gonna have a space and everything. It's good area, yeah. Childcare.

Simone Collins: Especially if you're in a religious community where maybe theoretically there's a bunch of like girls in your church community who babysit kids for like $12 an hour, supposed to like, no.

Here's,

Malcolm Collins: Another interesting graph here that I quite like. This one [00:20:00] is from Slut Dragon. Good name. Something strange to do with the hundredth of meridian and rainfall. Wow. So what they're showing here is the hundredth versus the 98th Meridian which is around this area. And you'll notice at each of these two lines, the rainfall changes pretty dramatically.

It does a lot.

Simone Collins: Then it's really where that trip is on the, on the left side of Texas.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Well, it's actually a bit past the hundreds meridian. Mm-hmm. Remember where I said it's like right at the end of where you would stop when you're hitting, like the issues that have to do with moving into mountainous regions?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So it's, it's past the hundredth meridian. They're sort of acting like it's between the 90 eights and the hundreds, but it's really not, it's past the hundreds. Meridian rainfall has already started to decline a bit. Mm-hmm. So again, this is the furthest you can go and still claim to be hitting better good land.

Mm-hmm. That's what we're seeing here, I think. Now this one is a very interesting map from Chad Singer. This map shows how far you have to drive to get an abortion and it lines up [00:21:00] exactly with this line.

Simone Collins: Wow. So these are all districts that, I guess, post Dobbs, which was the Supreme Court ruling in the United States that.

That basically gave decisions about abortion, legality back to states. This is showing this strip of of apparently, because it's not on a statewide basis, but districts that have made it.

Malcolm Collins: Very difficult to get an made. It is how far do you have to drive to get out of a state or district.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. Fair enough.

That's why the edges look like they do. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. But the

Malcolm Collins: point, the point here being is that what I think we're actually seeing here is that that the abortions, 'cause we know from other studies and from like Europe, like typically the stricter country is on abortions, the lower its fertility rate is.

Mm-hmm. Now this could be a false correlation created with Catholic countries being stricter around abortions and Catholics having like. Garbage fertility rates. Hmm. Which, okay, maybe that's what we're seeing in Europe, but I actually think what we're seeing here is it's not the legality of abortions, [00:22:00] it's the public sentiment around abortions.

If you get pregnant, is your first thought I'm gonna have an abortion, or is it, well, no one I know to would ever talk to me again. Like, this is a really horrible thing to do, like, mm-hmm. Voting happens in these districts this way because people have this sentiment. Yeah, and I think that's what's leading to higher fertility rates.

I think it's the same thing that leads to the religiosity. I think it's the same thing that leads to the Trumpism. I think all these things are connected. I. That makes sense.

Simone Collins: Very interesting.

Malcolm Collins: And remember I was talking about good land before, right? Yeah. Look at this post by Matt Popovich, which looks at acres of land in farms as a percentage of land in acres in 2007 by county.

And what you'll see is this district up and down is straight up farmland compared to other places. Do you

Simone Collins: think this may also have to do more with the corporate family? If you have a family growing up? [00:23:00]

Malcolm Collins: And they're more likely to own a farm. I think it's,

Simone Collins: you have probably a mother and a father and extended family living together, working on the farm together, and then the kids helping out too.

And suddenly this is, the corporate family is an inherently prenatal environment. You know, you're all leaning in together. You're spending time together. Explain by

Malcolm Collins: corporate family for people who don't. The

Simone Collins: corporate family is the much like the truly trad family, which is a family where the mother, the father, children, and often expended extended family plus additional.

Workers, in some cases all live together and work together in a household, not necessarily on a farm. It could be a brewer, it could be a blacksmith, it could be any number of things. But this is what the norm was before the industrial Revolution, and we argue that it really is. When the men left the house to go work in fam in factories, that we started to see the beginnings, the, the wheels started turning that set up demographic laps.

It wasn't women getting empowered, it wasn't the birth control pill by that point. The momentum was already there. [00:24:00] We were already headed straight to the Titanic without an ability to turn away. It's just that, that was when they saw the iceberg and were like, oh no. That doesn't mean that it wasn't gonna happen anyway.

And so. Yes, this, this is a region clearly from the various graphs that we're seeing, that if there isn't gonna be a place in the United States where we will see more corporate families, more husbands and wives living and working together very closely, I. It's gonna be here. That's so interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Right?

Oh, hold on. I got another one for you. Okay. And this aligns with my original season. If you scroll down a while, you're gonna run into a light map of the us, a picture from space at the United States to see where light density is. Okay? Okay. And what you'll see is this region is right past the end of sort of civilizational expansion in the United States.

My

Simone Collins: Yes. It's where the darkness comes. Oh. And meaning romantic. They get to see like the Milky way at night, they actually see a real night sky more likely.

Malcolm Collins: Right? But it's not just that, remember how I said like a lot of people think like, oh, Americans just kept [00:25:00] immigrating forever, like the the frontier.

No, there is still a frontier in the US and it is this line like, wow, if frontier gets pushed westwards every decade, every year and in the US yes you had people like Rush to the coast for example. But this is still where the American frontier is.

Simone Collins: Gosh. And still this feeling of manifest destiny growth space.

Malcolm Collins: Right. So these are the people who went just past the last major populated area. Mm-hmm. But didn't go out seeking further unpopulated areas for the sake of further unpopulated areas.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Very interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Here is the last graph that might explain it for you if you go a bit further down than that.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: It's mostly, this is rational renaissance. It's mostly population density. Don't overcomplicate this. People in less densely populated places have more kids. Dan Hass is

Simone Collins: just chiming in to be like I told you [00:26:00] so.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I would disagree because it doesn't actually map exactly. No. This is the first line in the US where you get a low population density, which aligns with my theory that it's about immigration patterns.

It is not the last line in the US where you get low population density. Look at like Nevada for example, or north of that, or like there's all sorts of places here. Utah is low population density where you don't have the high fertility rate. Yeah. So, mm-hmm. It is not about population density. It is about the first strip of migration where you get low population density,

Simone Collins: the first strip. So just the edges of humanity, you're trying to say just the, the fringes, is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay.

I, I think it's, what, what's really getting me is this, this zone in the United States where there's this feeling of abundance. And more corporate [00:27:00] families. So one, you feel like your dollar goes farther and you're making more, like you're making enough to feel like you really have everything you need and you can get everything you need.

And it's totally okay to have a family, plus you're religious, plus your MAGA and you think the future is bright. And then plus, you're more likely to be surrounded by, or even be a corporate family.

Malcolm Collins: Maybe here's another couple maps that is interesting where you get a line that overlaps with this a lot.

It's minerals. Why? So here you have critical minerals by region, and here you have a lot of, it's the first line, not the last line of expensive minerals in the United States. And it also explanation hardness in milligrams per liter. You get a line of valuable minerals around this area. Oh, it's not a perfect match, but it's, it's, it's something else to think about.

Simone Collins: I don't know. I mean, stranger [00:28:00] things have caused other strange things to happen, but I ain't seeing it here.

Malcolm Collins: You ain't seeing it. Mm-hmm. Well, let's do this. Farming dependent counties. Heavy overlap. Non-metro farming, depending counties.

Simone Collins: More points to the corporate family theory.

Malcolm Collins: I'd say more points to the corporate family theory.

Yes. Well, what did you think of that? Interesting deep dive That

Simone Collins: is truly fascinating. When you mentioned to me that there was a mysterious fertility strip, the line Negra, as we're calling it, I. I don't know. I just, I figured it would be where the Bible belt was, and I thought it was just gonna be this open shut case of, oh, I guess we're religiou, just people are still having kids', not, I think what we see

Malcolm Collins: is that cavalier culture in the United States, the aristocratic southern culture is not conducive to high fertility.

Well, that's because it's flourish. I

Simone Collins: mean by our definitions. I don't think we would even call it religious.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, I wouldn't either. I, I think it's a performative form of social [00:29:00] conformity. Mm-hmm. That is antithetical to, I think what we would think of as real internal religion. But keep in mind, you know, we're the type of people who, you know, who were traditional Christians, we'd be some form of like, Calvinist Baptist or Reform Baptist.

Right. Like, I don't know if I yeah, I, I agree. Look, if, if religiosity is about conformity to you and it's about fitting social norms, and this is why I think the iterations of conservatism in America that are being replaced by the sort of new right are dying so much where they're like, you are acting weird.

You are doing weird extreme things. You are doing whatever, like, just fit in. You know, those are the ones that are gonna go extinct. Because it is that mindset that is so toxic to fertility rates. Mm-hmm. I actually think that this is part of what's led to a lot of Catholic fertility crash is a lot of Catholic culture historically was like, don't be weird fit in, et cetera.

It had a very similar cultural framework to the the, the Cavalier culture. Mm-hmm. [00:30:00] Which is like, well just structure yourself, you know, hierarchically you know, don't be weird. Social hierarchy is not based on like personal vitality, right. But it's based on you know, it is like specific metrics of like, this is how you act like you have manners.

These are the, the special things.

Simone Collins: These are the things you buy. This is the country club you're a member of. These are the people who approve of you. This is how you dress.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yes. Whereas this other cultural group has always much more focused instead of having religion come from above, have religion come from within.

Mm-hmm. And when I say above, I mean above culturally and, and socially speaking. Like your betters tell you what's true about religion. Instead, if you tell yourself what's true about religion, f you're better is they don't know what they're talking about. Right. And so that is really, really fascinating to me.

Simone Collins: That is, yeah. I'm. I'm shocked. I really would've thought that the, the Bible Belt would have more. Also, because I expected to see [00:31:00] regions that had higher immigrant populations, which, which I associate with a lot of coastal cities and also the south. I think they have fairly high. I wonder if I can look up a map of immigrant USA recent Oh yeah.

It could be migrant workers.

Malcolm Collins: That'd be really interesting

Simone Collins: population. No. I don't think it's migrants. I but I just thought that where there would be more immigrants, no, but it's not. Okay. So it if you look up maps of US recent immigrant population density, there's basically no overlap with this strip.

So it's also not that we're talking about immigrant populations, it's just haven't yet been, that's

Malcolm Collins: not, that's, that's not true. There is high overlap in the southern parts of Texas and Yeah, yeah. And the southern parts. Yeah.

Simone Collins: But the, but there's the, the whole strip is, the whole point is it's the strip. It goes all the way.

Because when you look at the immigrant population density maps. [00:32:00] It's, it's from the, the, I mean, Florida's drenched. It's like it's dipped in it, and then the, the base of Texas is drenched. And then of course, all along the me, all along the Mexican border, through California, you see it, it's like, like a cookie, like the cookie of the United States was dipped in the milk of immigration.

It's, it's just soaked in a little bit there, but it just stays soaked in around the borders. It doesn't go all the way up the strip. And so I'm just writing that off. I'm saying it's not an immigrant thing because it would've gone all the way up the strip. You're looking for matching patterns. That's what everyone else playing.

I found this map after we filmed this episode. , but this is a map looking at immigrant versus native born fertility rates. And you can see here this dark, green and green area with dark green, meaning foreign born growth, overcame native loss, and light greening foreign born gross slowed, overall population loss.

And it aligns almost perfectly with the strip. So what this could mean is, what we are actually looking at here is, , [00:33:00] immigrant farm laborers making up the, , fertility rate of the native population.

Simone Collins: I'm here matching game did

Malcolm Collins: by county religion. Mm-hmm. And you see, an overlap with the eastern part of the Baptist group that's like, I guess Baptist, but not under the, you, you know, cavalier cultural group does very well here. Mm-hmm. And then the, a lot of Lutherans, it's not a perfect overlap, but and, and, and some Catholics if you're talking about the immigrant heavy areas,

Simone Collins: I mean, that's interesting.

The interesting, the

Malcolm Collins: Mormon areas seem to be doing really bad.

Simone Collins: That's what's crazy, especially when it came to suicidality in Utah. It's

Malcolm Collins: even where they expand outside of Utah. Like, I was just surprised like Mormons are not doing that good.

Simone Collins: It's, yeah, it's saddening. It's saddening. But also, I personally find the landscape of Utah to be fairly oppressive.

But I don't know if I would feel that differently about the, these flatlands across the mysterious [00:34:00] fertility strips.

Malcolm Collins: So, I dunno. Well, we live in heaven out here, so that's the problem. Right? Oh my

Simone Collins: gosh. It's so amazing. But yeah, apparently people aren't having big families out here. There's, there's too much light.

Not enough. Well, I mean, they're not

Malcolm Collins: doing that bad. If you're, if you're looking at like the Northeast, like it's really, well, I'm sure if you

Simone Collins: went and looked at, at Lancaster County where there's a bunch of, a bunch of Amish Yeah. You, you see again, I think the same characteristics that we're highlighting here and, and theorizing or the driving factors of the fertility strip, which is farming families, the corporate family.

Religious dedication and relatively low levels of development.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, if you actually look at our county, Simone, in the county next to us, you're looking at an around two fertility rate.

Simone Collins: That's pretty impressive, all things considered. But the fertility strip was getting close to three, which is

Malcolm Collins: the United States.

Simone Collins: Very

Malcolm Collins: impressive. I'm just pointing out that we're not like in a bad area, fertility wise.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I hear you. And

Malcolm Collins: especially with the wealth of [00:35:00] our, of our district, which is quite high.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I guess, yeah, you're, you're quite right. You would expect us to, but is it just the Amish that are holding us up?

Malcolm Collins: No, not our county.

Mon Montco. There's almost no, oh, yeah. Right, right, right.

Simone Collins: Montgomery County doesn't really have, yes.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. The, the two counties I'm looking at here, the one where we bought a house, Chester County, which is actually really high fertility. I don't think they have many Amish at all in Mon.

Simone Collins: Okay. Wow. Good for us.

We moved to a good place. I know ISTs, you should move to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. 'cause it is really awesome.

Malcolm Collins: It it really is. It really is. It's, it's like a spectacular place to live. Anyway. Love you to DeSimone. You are amazing. You are beautiful. And I am so happy to be married to you.

Simone Collins: I love you so much and I am excited for dinner and.

I'm going to sleep. It's been a week, hasn't it?

Malcolm Collins: Since we slept. Yeah, it has. [00:36:00] Sorry. We've gotten like super viral. This, I don't know when this episode's gonna go live, but like this has been crazy. Nothing like this has ever happened.

Simone Collins: I think we're just tired. I can't stop yawning, but we'll just. We will just get rest and it's gonna be amazing.

But thank you for being you and thanks to everyone for listening. Oh, and by the way, if you do listen, if you could, if you have an iPhone and you could give us a five star review. On Apple Podcasts. Let's see what our Apple Podcast

Malcolm Collins: rating is now. Do you know?

Simone Collins: I don't, but I have a Mac. So while I can't leave us a rating, 'cause I guess you need an iPhone to do that.

I can look five

Malcolm Collins: reviews now on Apple.

Simone Collins: My God, you guys, thank you. If this is one of you who did this, who, who contributed one of these thank you.

Malcolm Collins: 4.5.

Simone Collins: Okay. Well that's, hold on, let me see this for myself. [00:37:00] Oh my gosh. 95. Thank you.

Malcolm Collins: You're getting close to the a hundred mark. A hundred reviews on Apple is quite big because, you know, you can only do it if you have like an iPhone or something.

Simone Collins: That's true. Yeah. Well that's, that is really wonderful. There's still that picture of you and toasty with dry ice in I,

Malcolm Collins: I, I think that's a good image for the podcast, to be honest. The mixing

Simone Collins: bowl. Yeah. Toasty with this giant head. Everything else is so tiny and this, this, this giant head, this little, no.

Yeah. Wow. Okay. I love you and I'm capable of getting out of this chair and moving on with the day. I bet you are. I'm definitely You're gonna go to

Malcolm Collins: bed soon. You're gonna get, make dinner soon.

Simone Collins: I know, but like the, the things that have to happen between dinner and bed, like hauling the children up the stairs, bathing them, cleaning up after dinner.

You don't have to bathe them. I do to check for ticks these days. I wanna make like, I just wanna check every inch of their bodies 'cause they're playing outside now, which is [00:38:00] as they should 'cause it's finally warm. And you just got a tick, so I'm not taking any chances. Like the shower, the shower period, I do with each of them is like my chance to check for rashes, ticks, mosquito bites, scratches, wounds, anything else.

Sand in the

Malcolm Collins: hair. You got, you got this tighten dump, a bunch of sand in her hair

Simone Collins: over and over again.

Malcolm Collins: It'll still be there. I.

Simone Collins: The, I rinsed so many times, no matter what I did, you just kept like, how did, how can you get that much sand in your hair? Like, I don't even know, blah. Like it should. Anyway I love our children and I have, and I love you, founder.

This energy. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: bye.

Simone Collins: That smile all about.

Malcolm Collins: Did you see the song

Simone Collins: I sent you?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That's what I wanted to do. More like the the the biodiesel song. Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell me, [00:39:00] we need that

Simone Collins: Broadway

Malcolm Collins: flare

Simone Collins: for sure. That Broadway villain. Broadway villain Energy. Very necessary.

I slink through the night with a sneer and a plan. My lineage will bury the wokes shallow clan. Their cities of glass built on ego and lies will crack the weight of my. Battle cries ha to my triumphs myone. I see the new world with my blood and my ball culture will crumble and.[00:40:00]

Ignites the new rain.

The past fuels my fire. It's dead. I'll repay with children who carve out a glorious new day. The urban night cream in their,

their. Bark with the truth in my eyes, ha to my triumphs, my alone. I see my.[00:41:00]

Ignites the new rain.

My offspring will surge like a flood. Their strength will unravel the wokes frail defeat their bonfire of selfies so thin will choke in the smoke of my all. Submit

triumph.

See?[00:42:00]

Ignites the new rain. So you fool as.

With life's iron hand.

Get full access to Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm at basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe