Why Are Muslim Fertility Rates So Fragile?

In this episode, we debunk the myth that Muslims will dominate global demographics due to high fertility rates. We delve into the data showing declining fertility rates across Islamic countries and look at the various strategies these nations are employing to reverse this trend. From cultural campaigns and economic incentives to restrictions on family planning, we explore why these measures are failing. Highlighting intriguing case studies from Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, we discuss the implications and what can be learned from their approaches. Tune in to uncover the complexities of this pressing issue and what it means for the future.

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Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I'm so excited to be speaking with you today, especially because we're talking about a big misnomer in the demographic collapse world, which is that Muslims are gonna take over the world 'cause they're gonna have perpetually high fertility, which is just not true as Kamir recently pointed out on X.

And what's most interesting is when you go into what various Islamic countries and Muslim majority countries are trying to do to keep their birth rates up. It's basically. A buffet, an overloaded buffet of all of the disparate policies of the different camps that the prenatal movements want. There's the culture stuff, which, you know, we are always like, it's the culture, it's the culture's, the culture.

Well, they did that stuff. And then there's the, all the, you know, it's the, there, it's the payout people. Well, it's all about the giving money and cash payouts and cash pays, what they're doing that, and, and then there's also the, the people who are like, no, it's traditionalism and you know, early marriage.

It's the marriage. It's the marriage. Well, they're doing that too. And guess what? They're also doing the whole thing of scaling back, family planning, like taking away access to birth control and abortions. And that's not working either. And so I think [00:01:00] it's really important to look at, at the Middle East and Islamic countries as a case study and say, alright, so there is this world in which everyone got their way.

All the prenatal leaders with all their disparate little pet projects got their way. Why is it not working?

Malcolm Collins: And I, I'd point out here then people are like, well, don't, some Muslim populations have a high fertility rate. Muslims are not high fertility. They're poor. Okay. It's a mistake that people make.

Muslims are actually have a lower fertility than Protestant groups when you control for income. And their fertility rate is so low that despite the relative poverty of the Middle East. Only Iran. You were saying what? What was it? Iraq only. Iraq

Simone Collins: Only Iraq. Only. Iraq. Israel, because I think Israel's a really great.

Like, here's where we are with developed non non-Islamic Middle Eastern nations. And I think it's a really good base. And of course it's, it's the ul Ultra Orthodox Jews that are really propping this up. You know, they're, they're killing it. They're doing great, but they've [00:02:00] figured it out.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So in this episode, what we are going to be covering is crashing fertility rates around the Islamic world. Yes. Crashing fertility rates within the Islamic diaspora. Mm-hmm. What the Islamic communities are attempting to do to decrease this. And there are

Simone Collins: some really, there, there are some policies in here that like.

Are so insane in terms of a over the top. You will not believe it Malcolm. I'm like, what? So there's some good stuff in here.

Malcolm Collins: Great. Okay. Let's go

Simone Collins: and then, and then try to figure out what do we learn from this? 'cause they're not working. So, there's a mio. This, this was all inspired by him because he is so freaking amazing.

We love him. He posted on x basically like a clarification to people because, especially in X as a whole, like Muslims. He writes, there's a myth that the Islamic world has figured out fertility, but it has not, they show the same declining fertility rates that other places have, barring Iraq. The Middle East has lower fertility rates in Israel, and hopefully you could put a, this graph that he shared up on the screen.

Showing this just overall declining [00:03:00] fertility graph and infertility rates births per women in the, the Middle East, basically with Iraq at the top, then Israel, then Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Oman, Libya, and so on. With the UAE at the bottom. But I love the UAE because you're gonna see they have my very favorite.

Prenatal is policy. I can't wait to get to it. And this graph that we're seeing really tracks global fertility rates in general. And that's an argument that Mio makes in the comments of this thread where people are like, oh, what about this? What about that? And he's just pointing out, no, everywhere this is happening.

And that I think is a really important theme of all this. So he continues in his thread. Exceptions, maybe Yemen and maybe Palestine, both of which have terrible data. So their comparative situation is unclear. But two things on that. Firstly, Jewish fertility is the head of Arab fertility in Israel, and he shows a graph of fertility rates in Israel of basically the average number of births per woman for Jews and others in Israel, and then Arabs in Israel.

And what's really [00:04:00] interesting with this graph, if you're just listening Arabs in 1990 were at. Eight, eight kids per woman and Jews were hovering a little bit below four. They were at at 3.49. And now in 2018, or at least as of 2018, they were basically at exactly the same spot 3.05 for Jews and 3.04.

For Arabs. And so Arabs just are, are freaking plummeting. And there's something, and this is why we're always so interested in Jews and in Jewish culture and like what's going on in Israel, right? Because they are holding strong in the face of modernity. So anyway, REU continues. Secondly, Israeli fertility might be just ahead or slightly behind.

Palestinian fertility, depending on the source. Israel, Israeli growth is definitely head of Palestinian growth due to immigration, Palestinian immigration and Palestinian mortality. So he shows another graph, fertility rates, births per women in Palestine, in Israel, again, Palestine. Arab Islamic [00:05:00] Muslim going down, Israel, holding steady.

So he continues. So no, I don't believe in Islamic excellence in fertility. Even their famously fcan culture is not immune to the global baby. Bust, not in Denmark. And then he shows basically after. Muslim immigrants spend some time in Denmark. Their fertility plummets, they normalize to normal Denmark fertility levels.

He continues, nor in France. And even if we look at second generation immigrants not shown in the graph. He, he had but linked below and we can link to his same sources and then he shares his sources. And, and basically he shows that the diaspora that's Middle Eastern also doesn't have great fertility.

So once they leave, 'cause a lot of people were like. Okay, yeah, fine. In these, in these countries, they're bad. But then, you know, they go to other countries and that's where they're spreading so much. But no sweeties, no. So like one, the source is drying up and two, once the diaspora goes out there, they, they drop in fertility even faster.

I. So I think what's really important is that [00:06:00] you, the stereotype exists for a reason, right? That, you know, Muslims are high fertility because this is a culture and a religion that supports that. You know, like traditionally this is, you think of, of traditional Muslim families and it's, it's young marriage, it's a lot of children.

It's very traditional gender roles, right? So you think like, these guys are going to, they're gonna like, they're gonna be the fine ones. No one's gonna have trouble with them. We don't have to worry about them. And indeed these countries have really, at least after they've. Gotten over, freaking out over too much population and they've really put in a lot of effort

Malcolm Collins: when they started a lot earlier.

So for example, Iran as an example, started its massive fertility efforts about 10 years ago. So what's interesting about the data we have from these countries is they give us a lot of data on long term and quite dictatorial implications. Implementation of often the most aggressive forms of prenatal list policy that people can imagine.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Because from the 1980s to the two thousands fragility in Iran dropped from 6.5 to 1.7 children for [00:07:00] women. So, like Iran is especially boned and they're also kind of the leader in, in like fertility obsession. I mean, I kind of see them as like the hungry of the Middle East, you know, like they're kind of the ones who are like, yeah, rah, rah, rah.

So in terms of their policies, I. They've totally reversed their family planning programs. They scaled back their birth control programs and even in 2014 they proposed bans on vasectomies to restrict sterilizations and encourage higher birth rates, very similar to what's going on in China.

So stuff that, you know, China's. Like just getting used to, this is like old conversations in Iran. So they also have pass cash payments for additional child. Oh, all the socialists love this. You know, limestone super happy. Right. You know, he loves this stuff. Right. And then then for on our part, they're they're, they have a big cultural push.

For prenatal as policy, Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Alni has publicly condemned contraception as a Western influence, promoting larger families as a national and Islamic duty. So this is clearly, you know. [00:08:00] At least on a national level, they're really trying to push prenatal as this is, this is good, this is for your country.

And then they of course, have various bills proposed that are supposed to penalize the promotion of contraception which is very similar to stuff that's been proposed in project 2025. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of parallels, but they've already been there. Which is important. Yeah. When we, and

Malcolm Collins: we can see from this that I, Iran actually has had his fertility rate up go, go up a little bit recently.

Mm. So it's not that the policies are having no effect.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You know, if anything, and I think Ew would argue this, the cash payments are probably the biggest thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: He's and we can have his separate podcast about this, he's kind of changed my mind a little bit about direct cash transfers. Oh yeah.

We, we could have, I mean, this is, I think it's important for us to, when we moderate our views, well that's no

Malcolm Collins: topic, but let's talk more about the other policy. Yeah, let's, let's

Simone Collins: go to Turkey. Which I fell down the other, the other, like, I think a year ago Turkish hospitals where women are giving birth.

It's like a whole thing. [00:09:00] They, these are like luxury hospitals. You get all the flowers, you get all these, like, they're literal. There's a, a small economy. Built just around huge decorations and celebrations and meals and parties like literally held for you in the hospital. And there are like celebrity doctors delivering kids like the, I can already tell even before, before reading about Turkey's prenatal is policies that this is a country that's really making it cool.

Simone Collins: And what I think is important there is. When I see it on Instagram, like when people are flexing it on Instagram, it's not like a cringe thing that like, you know how the CCP is kind of trying to pressure people and to have kids, they don't think it's cool, but knowing Turkey, like they're actually flexing it on Instagram.

They're actually excited about it, and I think that's really important to note. But you know, in general, what I think is really funny is that Erdogan has repeatedly urged families [00:10:00] to have at least three children and he, he frames family planning and contraception as. Treason, which is amazing. It's treason.

I love it. 'cause Turkish nationalism, treasonous people. So I mean, not, I think they take a step beyond the Iranian thing of just like, this is for your country, it's your duty, it's nationalist. Like, no. You're freaking treason for not having kids treasonous. I love that. But also back to stuff that, you know, a lot of people really advocate for, including reu, including all the people who are like, yes, Marxism they have they have housing support.

They have maternity benefits, they have tax breaks. I think tax breaks are great for families. They have subsidies for newlyweds, which is big. And also campaigns to, to reinforce traditional family structures. So, you know, the sort of the heritage camp, the religious traditionalists would love that, right?

Early marriages support the family. And then they also have extended maternity and parental leave policies. Really what these, I, the funny thing about maternity leave and parental [00:11:00] leave is I only really hear non ISTs advocating for it because basically,

Malcolm Collins: do they always advocate when they hear a prenatal list advocating for something, they get really mad and they're like, why aren't you advocating for this?

And that's because it's really

Simone Collins: like the, the funny thing is there's not, not actually any expert in the. In the, in the prenatals world, that's like, yeah, extended parental leave really helps. 'cause it really doesn't, like, there are, there are definitely people who are like, cash payments are very important and we really should be investing in these.

And here is actual robust evidence. And then the, you know, cultural things really do help. There's robust evidence. No one's really standing. Extended parentally, but they're still trying. And you know, every little thing helps. And I think that does, it doesn't

Malcolm Collins: help any families, but I think it's something that should be relegated by industry.

Mm. And not holistically.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like for some work from home is just such a better policy. But, you know, if you work in food service or in hospitals and things like that and you have to show up and it's very difficult.

Malcolm Collins: And, and then per industry, I think it should be, the childcare center should be the responsibility of the company.

[00:12:00] 100%.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, if,

Malcolm Collins: if they're going to demand that somebody comes to work, which I'm totally okay with.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So let's fly over to Saudi Arabia whose TFR has declined from over seven in the 1970s. Woof to 2.4 in recent years. So the government has been a little bit less aggressive in this case. It, with prenatals policies, I think.

'cause they're like, oh, 2.4 is fine. Like, we're doing great. But they, they are focusing more on economic diversification. And I think that's actually really smart. Because, you know, another element that really predicts good fertility is good economic prospects. And I think Saudi Arabia very reasonably is like, we can't depend on this one industry forever.

So I think they're doing the right thing, but they're also doing the cultural reinforcement thing. They state backed clerics are really pushing, you know, for having a family. There aren't really that many explicit. Government campaigns, but I, I think we're gonna argue later that that actually kind of backfires.

And they do have subsidies for housing, subsidies, for education, subsidy for healthcare. And while these things aren't directly [00:13:00] branded as prenatal as they are, like, they definitely can help. And then also they have extended maternity leave, which again, I don't know. So Qatar or Kaar, I guess how some people say it.

They have a, like two to three fertility rate. And they also have housing grants, child allowances, state sponsored programs promoting traditional family. Again, the heritage camp loves that. They have free or subsidized maternal, healthcare and child healthcare, which again helps, you know, like in terms of, you know, more births.

Whole thing about this is a fertility stack. It's a bunch of factors. Most of these countries have multi-pronged strategies. Here, we've got the payouts, we've got the extended leave, we've got the cultural leadership. And it's still not working. But let's go to the, the UAE 'cause this is my very favorite.

Okay. One, they have one of the lowest fertility rates in the region. They're like 1.5 to 1.7. So like at the US level or maybe a little lower. And the, the us, the, the, the Emirati government, it's like uniquely [00:14:00] concerned. I think about kind of like cultural genocide, which they should be. We, we cite them as like, one of the classic examples of, of people who are gonna disappear, like South Koreans, like Emiratis, native Americans, Janes, like, they're on that go-to list.

We give, obviously they have childcare incentives and childbirth incentives. So they give subsidies and benefits for Emirati families like education support, healthcare support and they have national identity campaigns that sort of are like, yeah, like be proud to be Emirati, but here's my favorite thing.

Can, can you guess like, I hope you haven't read my outline, but like, can you guess?

Malcolm Collins: No, no.

Simone Collins: Okay. Would you get married, Malcolm? This reminds me of that comedy ski you you shared with me on like, what, what is it? Married? Yeah. They have great, great comedy, whatever. They literally, I feel like they're doing that in the UAE.

They're like, Hey, okay. What if we gave you two $20,000 for a wedding? Like literally they're, this is beyond like having a kid. They will give you money for your wedding. So [00:15:00] they have this thing called the, the marriage fund, and it provides financial grants to Emirati men to cover wedding costs in, in, in hopes that they will encourage early marriage and family formation like.

In most cases, you can't qual, well, obviously you can't qualify if you're not Emirati, but also you won't qualify in most cases if you've been married before. So they're like really trying to target like first time young marriages. And so I'm like, this is, this is insane. Like this can't actually exist.

But no, it definitely does exist. According to one source, getting married is also an extremely expensive affair in the UAE Emirati women can officially demand a maximum dowry. Of up to what is this currency called of up to 20,000 Durams, though families often set much higher amounts, so there are dowries, and then the average cost of a UAE wedding has been reported to be in excess of 300,000 durams, so that's approximately $81,677,

Malcolm Collins: which is $81,000 you get.

Simone Collins: No, no, no. That's how much like a wedding can cost, like a typical wedding in the uua e. [00:16:00] Can cost. So, and they

Malcolm Collins: government pays for it.

Simone Collins: But like, because this is a problem, like the government's like, oh, culturally this is kind of an issue. But also like, we don't wanna get rid of our culture, so what do we do?

Well, I guess we'll pay people for weddings up to 20,000 US dollars. So then that like cuts it down 20 thou. What if the traditional UAE wedding look like? I mean, they gotta, it's gotta be great, man. But yeah, there's, there's been. There's some, like one of the reasons why this grant program began is there's some speculation that Emirati men are choosing to marry foreign women in order to save money.

So this brings us back to the passport bro. Thing of like, I just looked up

Malcolm Collins: UAE wedding and it's a bunch of Emiratis marrying foreign women.

Simone Collins: That's the only way to make it sustainable.

Malcolm Collins: That's the only was proposed to by an Emirati Royal. What? Yeah. I won't say her name on air, but yeah. My sister had a, a marriage proposal from one of the, if I remember correctly, one of the Emirati Royal families.

One of the big [00:17:00] ones too, actually. Not like one of the side ones.

Simone Collins: That is insane. That is insane. Well, but I, okay. This fund, though, I'm obsessed with this fund, like literally here's your wedding money. The fund is led by a committee, which is selected by the UAE government to enable nationals who are battling to raise the funds to cover their wedding expenses.

So they give away approximately three, 3000 grants on an annual basis. Where couples can expect around 70,000 omes, and that's, that's about $19,000. And they get 30,000 upon the announcement of the marriage, and then the rest is handed to them once they've begun their wedding plans. So you have to kind of like show that like the wedding's actually gonna happen.

But you get like. 30,000 upfront. And in addition to providing the financial assistance of this grant, they also provide guidance for couples before their wedding ceremony on like lectures and like how to handle sexual relations. And then also 300 UAE nationals are married in group weddings hosted by Sheikh Mohammed, bin Zed, [00:18:00] the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

So also like literally if you are. Okay with a group wedding, and I guess a lot of women are probably like, no, not for me. You need to do all the things. But like. It's also hosted by the shake. Like, I don't know. I feel like that could be decent. I've been to

Malcolm Collins: any sort of group events in the UAE before that are hosted by like world and they can be pretty decent.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, like you're, they're in a palace, right? I mean, I mean, often what you're outlaying a lot of cash for is to get married in a palace with a lot of food. The only problem is that it's just not, it's not, you're a special day Malcolm, and I don't think, like you get the whole thing for women, it's, it's supposed to be all about the woman.

What about her? But anyway, you can't have a group wedding, but I just, that is, that is a prenatal is policy. That is so. Out there, and I get the cultural reasons and everything, but I'm just like, man, like we're just trying to scrape together for like $5,000 per kid had in the United States and like, here's the UAE and they're like, here, [00:19:00] here's $20,000 for your wedding

Malcolm Collins: winning.

Oh my God. I it not kids yet.

Simone Collins: I just think it's so great. You know, Egypt, Egypt, if we're moving on has a relatively high TFR at at three, but the government has, it's, it's, it's also focused on reducing fertility. So they're still kind of like transitioning from the, oh my God, we have too many people still.

They provide subsidies for food, education and healthcare.

Malcolm Collins: Really unique. They have a pretty high fertility rate, right? Three.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: they're three. And they are massively overcrowded. Egypt is a great example against the argument that it is about.

Simone Collins: Oh. Having space, having leverage from, and

Malcolm Collins: you keep me on, if you just look at like the, the land mass of Egypt to the fertility rate of Egypt or the population of Egypt, you're like, what?

No, they have a very low density of population. Oh. And then you look at like a light map of Egypt or a, a population map of Egypt, and you're like, oh yeah, I forgot you can only live in like 2% of the Egyptian landmass. Yeah. Rest is a horrifying desert. It's a fricking sand. And, and if you go to [00:20:00] Egypt, you know, I, I, I've driven around there it is super, super crowded, super, super people stacked on top, top of people.

Mm-hmm. And yet the fertility rate is really hot. Yeah, that actually might be an interesting question to explore is why is the Egyptian fertility rate as high as it is? Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And, and also like, even in the face of them, really the only interventions they've placed so far to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down.

Like, can we not? So, you know, because Iran did that and it worked really well. So I don't know if it's poverty. I'm guessing that that's it. And I, I, that's that, I mean, that was like, I, 90, 90% confident that that's just the case. But I, I just wanna like, you know, bring it together. This is a who is who of everyone's pet policies.

We've got the cultural and religious messaging. We've got the economic incentives, including like direct subsidies, tax breaks, grants for housing and education, wedding payments. We have early marriage promotion. Heritage is happy with that. All the, the, the marriage people are happy with that. [00:21:00] The religious conservatives are happy with that.

And then scaling back, family planning, you know, all the people who are like, abortion is murder and contraception is killing you and making you infertile like. Again, they're, these are all the things, nothing is missing. This is really

Malcolm Collins: interesting, by the way. I was just looking at the differential average yearly incomes.

Simone Collins: Uhhuh.

Malcolm Collins: So Irans is $5,300. I, I, Iraqs is $4,137. Mm. And Egypt's is 3,636. Well, there

Simone Collins: you go. More

Malcolm Collins: money you, so its significantly poorer. That's, yeah. More

Simone Collins: money for kids. Okay. I mean, unless you make a ton more and then suddenly you have more kids. But I think, so the, the, the thing here though is that it's not working.

The, the, the, the payouts, everything else. I mean, Mio, if you were here might argue, well, you don't know what the counterfactual is. You don't know how much a lower their fertility would be if they didn't provide these subsidies and this cultural support and everything else. [00:22:00] I think it's more in the execution, honestly.

I think that I. As, as Aria Babu PO pointed out, when you look at countries that are on the whole mm-hmm. Culturally conservative, where it's like this oppressive miasma that you have to walk through everywhere. You're not like endogenously excited to have kids.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You

Simone Collins: feel like it's forced on you and then it becomes this burden, and then you're really concerned about having kids.

I even think about the case of Turkey. Where I, I fell down this, this Instagram loop of these insane hospitals and celebrity doctors and in beautiful delivery rooms and parties and balloons and flowers. These women were not having a lot of kids. This was like a first or second kid, and I think they were like, where are this backfired is they're like, oh yes, our culture idolizes the mother and like blah, blah, blah.

But then the way that women are doing it. Is like, well, okay, well then I'm gonna front, I'm gonna show how much, you [00:23:00] know, how many designer clothes I have my kids in and, and how fancy my kids' daycare is. And then they can't afford to have a big family. I.

Malcolm Collins: Which, you know what I mean, which has a lot too.

We're like these giant parties for their kids. Like we don't do birthdays for our kids. I don't see the point of a birthday party. Well, they

Simone Collins: don't like them. I mean, we we're, we're doing what Malcolm calls kid maxing, where we actually just do what the kids really like instead of what we feel like we're supposed to do as good parents.

So for their birthdays, we do whatever it is. Their favorite activity is Malcolm takes them to a store and they get to choose whatever they want, which. Costs a tiny fraction of an entire birthday party. We go to a store and we buy whatever their favorite food is like. For tourin, it's just tons of fresh berries.

And then, you know, for him, he doesn't want a cake. He wants a candle and a dinosaur nugget. And so we do it. Whereas other, other parents would be like, no, you have to have a cake. Can you have to eat your, you know, and like then they cry and they're overstimulated and there's like, kids, I would just

Malcolm Collins: Google if the kid wanted a cake or something like that.

How do I make a good cake? You know? [00:24:00] Yeah. Of the time they want, like, you just make it right. Like,

Simone Collins: yeah. Which is what we do for our kids who like cakes, we've never, we've never bought a cake as a family. Have you realized that you

Malcolm Collins: even see this in the United States where, you know, in our episode where we're talking about how progressive social media significantly mentally hurts people and conservative social media doesn't, somebody is like, well, yeah, that's because you're talking about the modern US definition of conservatives.

Mm-hmm. You know, if we were talking about the conservative culture of the path, social conformity and shaming, and like mm-hmm. Instead of vitalism and excitement about your ancestry and who you are you know, modern conservative is much more based around vitalistic positive nationalism. Yeah. Whereas historic conservatism is based around, you know, having the nun watching you and making sure you're not breaking any of the rules.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and then again,

Simone Collins: this is all about intrinsic versus extrinsic. When it is extrinsic, when it's. Forced on you, or even when you are? Well, if you could

Malcolm Collins: have an extrinsic, intrinsic force, Uhhuh the individual who goes online and is so proud of their [00:25:00] conservative tradition and is shaming other individuals for doing things like, let's say, like masturbating or being gay or something like that, right?

Like this individual is the type of conservative that's dying out. And I think that they don't realize that they're not really part of the. Governing apparatus that's going to exist within the conservative movement going forwards. Mm-hmm. Because it's become a fundamentally vitalistic movement.

Mm-hmm. Instead of a nanny state movement. And I think that this is where a lot of these nanny state types have begun. They're, they're like those progressives who haven't woken up of like. Oh, we are the party of the imperialistic authority. Mm-hmm. Like these people haven't woken up and be like, we're not the party of the imperialistic authority.

Yeah. And when they have that wake up, they're like, oh, I'm actually a progressive. I just didn't realize that the parties had flipped yet.

Simone Collins: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. But I mean, so like I, when I, when I'm trying to think through like, okay, what would I do differently if I were these countries? And also [00:26:00] when, for example, the United States does actually decide to invest.

Maybe a lot of money but also at least more policy effort into prenatal policies. How can we go about all these things? How can we go about the fertility stack of more births in a way that's actually effective because they're doing the fertility stack and it ain't working? And so the, the question is, you know, how do we do that, right?

Like, if it's the UAEI, it's clearly a problem that like weddings can cost over $80,000, but like maybe instead of. Shoving out money to people on a limited basis. 'cause that's only 3000 couples per year. You could just be like, well, you know, anyone who wants to book my palace as a venue the palace booking is free.

You can use my staff. And the food is at cost. You know, like, how can you use existing government resources to just make this. More doable and or change the standards. I mean, I know that they wanna keep Emirati culture, but I also don't [00:27:00] think that Emirati weddings always cost that much. 'cause I just don't think Emirati families always had that much money.

Like I don't think traditional Emirati culture is like. Ish, if you know what I mean. Like it is now buddy, and it's now there's you don't wanna like, no, our culture is nivo. I'm a real housewife. Garishness for the sake of garishness. Yes. I mean power to the people. But like, if you wanna do garishness for the sake of garishness and like how can the government do that in a more.

Scalable and efficient way. Because while with this grant program, they're expanding it now to make it more available to people at all income levels, they only at first made it available to people at lower income levels. And then like, ah, you're, you're sort of limiting the program that you're still dissuading people and then like all the rich people are just marrying Russians and Americans and Italians and it's just not working.

But also like, how do you make, how do you support this endogenous. Self-motivated culture, and I think that that's, you know, like having these [00:28:00] government messages, like turkeys, it's treason to not have more children. It's treason to use birth control. Gets along little creepy, like just a little like, I don't know.

It, it goes, it goes too far. So I feel like, I don't know. How would you, aside from cultural sovereignty, which I think is the key thing is like homeschooling, let the weird cultures be weird. Let people do their own cultural thing and encourage weird religious subcultures and cults and all that stuff.

Like what would you do on the culture front?

Malcolm Collins: The culture front? Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Just sovereignty, cultural sovereignty.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I think. You know, in the past, the United States has funded and put pressure on Hollywood to make movies that are nationalistic, that celebrate things like our military or celebrate things like national Pride.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Our school system had entire holidays created around this.

Sort of celebration like 4th of July. [00:29:00] And today, you know, it's like 4th of July, but with qualifications. And I think we remove the wiz qualifications. You don't have a day every year where you unironically as a country celebrate how awesome you are, which America has so many reasons to do. Like, if you are not just wildly brainwashed, uneducated, you'd be like, wow, America's like a really awesome country and like the grand scale of countries.

You are like, well, what about sleep is like. It contrasted was like the great things American has done, the like bad things we've done are just not particularly detracting from the greatness of the country. Hmm. We won a World War and then focused on rebuilding the economies. Of the people we defeated while keeping them as autonomous countries.

Yeah. And not taking their land or money or like that hadn't been done before. The idea of let's help the people we just defeated. [00:30:00] That was a look at like the end of World War I. It was all reparations and punishment and dividing up.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and clearly it went wrong and we saw that and we learned from it.

So it's, I mean that there's also. At least,

Malcolm Collins: no, it's not that. It was, it was. So they when at the end of World War ii, there was this moment where the Americans said We're, we're bringing everyone to the table. And they're like, okay, we're setting the agenda for this. And everyone expected. The, what the Americans are going to do is going to be to carve up their countries and take their land.

Yeah. Or, or give them like really horrible terms. And America was like, no, we're gonna like help rebuild. We're gonna like make everything. And apparently like everyone was shocked, they were like, wait, what? You're gonna do what? You're gonna give us money? You're gonna send. US engineers to rebuild the things you destroyed.

Yeah. You're going to, what are you talking about? Like the, sorry. America, we need to take you aside. This is not what you do when you defeat somebody. America has been, you know, we [00:31:00] denigrate the concept of the melting pot today, and yet it is where all of American culture comes from. You know, if you today look at American.

Cinema, you know, this is downstream of Jewish refugees. Often if you look at American technology, this, there are Nazi scientists. If you look at America music pretty much all forms of American music that have been globally influential came from black people. By this, what I mean is. If you look at modern for example, rock music modern rock music came from blues music, which was a predominantly black form of music.

If you look at modern sorry, did I say rock or country? Country music. I.

Simone Collins: You said rock.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, sorry. Country came from blues. Rock and roll came from jazz and blues. And if you look at hip hop, obviously a black form of music. If you look at modern American pop music, it often came from like rock and country.

Which [00:32:00] again, come from black forms of music. All of American music is, whether, whether you're talking about the countrys of country song is ultimately heavily, heavily, heavily influenced by predominantly black music. And that's okay. Like, that's that something that all Americans have pride in.

Like, I have pride in country music. I listen to lots of country music.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: So yeah.

Simone Collins: So, yeah, I guess more investment in media that supports it. Which actually a big theme in the comments on the REU thread when, where he pointed to these swelling fertility rates was, this, is Western culture diffusing into Middle Eastern culture and Western values.

I. Polluting it. And I'm, I'm sure that's a factor. You know, and I mean also this rampant consumerism, I mean, the fact that Nova Reach has become the aesthetic of the UAE 100% is not helping with birth rates. Like it is not helping. Mm-hmm. It, it can only hurt. So I think you're right there. And in terms of the.

The, the, the economic incentives. I think [00:33:00] the tax breaks are great. I think income tax breaks from a demographic collapse perspective is very good at incentivizing the creation of more high taxpayers because people who pay the high taxes and, and would be excited to pay less of those taxes are also likely to produce through their children future high tax payers.

So it's like you're getting greater bang for your buck. I feel like at that. Grants for housing sound good, but in terms of things like. Childcare, housing setback, like I'm not, I'm not as sure about those. I just feel like maybe they need to be more evidence-based and the whole like extended parental leave thing, if they just took the money that they spent on that and shifted it to just more direct payments and subsidies.

But I think more direct payments in general, they'd probably see better results. So maybe more of it's just about smarter versions of the policies they already have. Early marriage promotion. I'm just surprised, like I'm, maybe this is one of those issues of like, early marriage promotion really does help and they're doing a great job with this, [00:34:00] and if they didn't do it, things would be a lot worse.

But it is interesting to me that despite there being so much traditionalism preached, I mean, I, I do wanna kind of highlight this to people who are in the prenatal movement when they're like, no, this is all, it's all about early marriage. It's 100% early marriage because.

Malcolm Collins: You get that in in, in these countries?

Simone Collins: Yeah, like that. You couldn't do it more than it's done here. Like it's so explicit. You could never get close to the level. Of early marriage promotion in the Middle East that you, that like in the United States, like that would just never happen. So it reminds me a little bit of what happened with Covid, where like, only when we grounded all flights functionally speaking and, and almost everyone stopped commuting and everyone was inside their house, did we reach the level of emissions that, like the, the Paris Climate Accord incremental

Malcolm Collins: reduction that we needed year over year every year by the Paris?

Yeah.

Simone Collins: And it still wasn't enough. And so I feel like that's kind of it. This is analogous with the whole marriage thing like. You know, even that, even if we went to that level with early marriage promotion in the United States, which would be insane, [00:35:00] pandemic mirror, world dystopia level promotion by our standards, by American standards, it would still not be enough.

And, and so I. I do question. I mean, I, I am all for marriage formation. It's so much easier to raise kids when you have someone to help you like it. That's just a logistical truth. It, this is not a a, it has to be a man and a woman thing. Like I don't care if it's a, a, a cat girl and a cat girl. Okay. But like the logistics are easier.

And then the scaling back family planning thing, like, I feel like that's just, that's just so dumb. Like this has been shown again and again to not. To not be helpful. I don't even know if we can count that. Maybe we just have to throw it out. Like, unless you get, I feel like China is gonna be the first country to do this in a way where maybe it works.

Because unlike with Romania, I think instead of just dumping kids in orphanages where they, they languish and are not taken care of, I could see China just being like, yeah, we'll take them now. They're. [00:36:00] CCP babies and we're gonna raise them to be in our CCP Army and it's gonna be like the clone wars and they're just all gonna, it's

Malcolm Collins: gonna be the

Simone Collins: clone wars.

No, I think will

Malcolm Collins: do that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But see, I think that's the one way. Where removing reproductive choice and going hyper dystopian is gonna work is if you're like, I'm gonna force you to have babies, but also I'm gonna raise them. Because you can't force a, a, a, a person to have a baby and expect them to do a job raising them and like not abandon or abuse them.

You know, you're not gonna create high tax paying citizens or high productivity citizens if you have. This resentful or traumatized or whatever, like coerced slave person. Yeah. Well, from the

Malcolm Collins: perspective of the state, childcare has always been free and that needs to change. Oh, that's a really

Simone Collins: great way.

That's a wonderful way of putting it. Yeah. From the perspective of the state, childcare has always been free. Free. Freeloading

Malcolm Collins: state. Freeloading state, they expected these [00:37:00] taxpayers, come on man.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. Now I'm like, I'm genuinely insulted.

Malcolm Collins: The state is using you, Simone. That is, it makes that you care about the future.

How dare they? Anyway, love you to death.

Simone Collins: I love you too.

Malcolm Collins: Great topic. Great job researching it, Simone.

Simone Collins: All thanks to REU for inspiring this, but I found the UAE marriage wedding thing, and that's so insane.

Malcolm Collins: That is crazy.

Simone Collins: It is crazy. It is crazy. Okay. I already sent you the link for the other one. I'm ending recording.

Malcolm Collins: The story I'm working on is so engaging. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Who, what kind of husband walks up to their wife on a random day and is like, I accidentally wrote a novel

Malcolm Collins: today. Yes. Well, it's, I finally found a very good AI integrated storyteller for like, exploring worlds. Okay. And so I put an IS together, which is like a Harry Potter of message rationality, but Good.

I'll link to it in the comments here [00:38:00] so people can read it. But it takes place in like an zaki world. It's got an overly arrogant protagonist who is just had it with this zaki nonsense and decides to take over the world immediately to, to make things better. And I did it always the ai, like allowing the AI to.

If it presented a challenge to me or like if I didn't know how like a magical system worked I would always have the AI sort of lay out the rules of the thought experiment that I was going to have to try to get through. Mm. So it was written, you could say to an extent Adversarially where there wasn't a lot of like, oh, I want this to happen, or I want things to go in this way.

Which I think makes it roll pretty fun. Mm-hmm.

You know, it's very much like I'm going in and I'm like, okay, we're gonna do things in this new way. We're gonna have this new technology. It's really fun. It's really fun.

Simone Collins: Very methods of rationality. Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: if people like it and they're like, Hey, write more of this I can continue in this world and try to make like a bigger world and even create with our video game like [00:39:00] a thing.

So you can explore worlds like this or do this yourself better. Well, that's

Simone Collins: the point of the. Platform that you and Bruno are building is that while you're starting off with this PO post-apocalyptic or like post demographic collapse, AI world game, anyone's lore or fan universe can be plugged in and be explored with this really rich format.

Right. That's what I'm so excited about.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that's what I'm really excited about too, is it, it creates a system where, you can create these really big, persistent and interesting worlds that, that you can explore. And that's what we're working on with the Reality Fabricator project to basically create this, but more adversarial and better.

But with this one system, I was just really impressed with it. And I ended up, because I finally had a, you know, a little bit of time to myself, like, okay, let's actually play through one of these 'cause I haven't in a long time.

Simone Collins: Yeah, enjoy it while it lasts. You're not gonna have a private moment for. A long time in a bit.

Malcolm Collins: You're going for the cruise together.

Simone Collins: It's gonna be [00:40:00] great.

[(BGM)] When I woke up, I couldn't breathe so hot. I closed my eyes and still touched the stars. I was looking there, a pretty blue sweet country. All along, the

sea went away. Through the crowds, and the light. [(BGM)]

The people around me asked, and I guessed that they were Yeah!

If you need some help, you can be a [00:41:00] volunteer.