The State of Things
If at this stage you are not convinced that the underpopulation crisis is real and immediate then you simply cannot be helped, go back to scrolling TikTok like an addict you lobotomized gender non-binary degenerate.
For the rest of us, we must now engage the question, what happened and what must be done about it? Birth rates have declined and continue to decline or in some nations at best remain constant but far below replacement, why is this? No policy, by any government, has been able to reverse the trend, but why?
We need to keep in mind this problem did not start yesterday, in many countries it began over half a century ago. This problem persists, it is not transitory and there is no reason to think it will not continue indefinitely, as I have hinted at, once collapse begins other factors in the realm of politics will snowball into an unstoppable avalanche, that will either result in species extinction or a far more dystopian society than we have today. You will not be worried about whether or not the state requires you to have kids, you will be worried about whether or not you are going to starve, be robbed, or raped, or whether the minority group you belong to is going to be scapegoated and massacred in a pogrom.
If civilisation fails, then all your fantasies about freedoms and human rights are a crock of shit. Here’s a question for Steven Pinker, how much enlightenment is equal to one baby, yeah, I mean that really, a crock of shit! Completely fucking useless!
Common reasons people suggest:
Reasons People Don’t: “Having Kids is Too Expensive”
We briefly discussed this in the section on Japan in the previous post. This is obviously not the cause, birth rates decline after industrialisation i.e. after countries become rich, in the West they began their trend down in the 60s when people were richer than they ever had been before, and business was booming. Some of this might be accounted for by the Silent Generation taking over the baby making business from the Greatest Generation, they were in most Western countries a smaller generation but then we would have expected it to rebound and it did not and the economic situation did not become substantially worse in the meantime.
The reality is early in the 20th century people had lots of kids and they had far fewer resources and lived much simpler lives than people do today. Indeed, it is the poorest countries today that have the least problem.
Therefore, if anything, we are forced to conclude the exact opposite in fact, we need to make people poor! Okay well, if we continue on this trajectory that is certainly going to happen. It seems to me it is preferable to force people to have kids than to forcefully impoverish them in order to get them to have kids. Perhaps we should present it as a dichotomy like this, either have kids or have the option of not having kids and being poor, this is in fact the dichotomy the Universe is giving us and regardless of whether we impose it, it will occur, if we do not impose it, it just might invite other catastrophic consequences to come along for the ride. So if we imposed this dichotomy we would merely be doing something akin to a Carbon Tax, trying to offset the negative effects of CO2 before it leads to more catastrophic results, yes this all sounds wonderfully progressive, we are acting with the future in mind!
I think there are a few reasons why people say having kids is too expensive, which are; that their life is based on hedonistic pleasure, that they no longer feel any allegiance to any collective or culture greater than themselves, that they no longer have any belief in the fundamental goodness of human life and so there is no positive moral good in bringing it into the world. I think this can be seen in the attitudes of people in the West today, amongst the midwits, who pride themselves on not having kids because they are so very cosmopolitan and with such a conscience, they selflessly deny themselves for the greater good of mankind, to prevent overpopulation. Of course, in reality, this is just a convenient excuse to indulge in the hedonistic lifestyle they were going to pursue regardless. They pursue this hedonistic lifestyle because, hey why not?! We are all nihilists anyway right?
I do not think that a lack of allegiance to a culture or greater social organism explains the phenomenon observed in places like Japan or China however, I think that has much more to do with nihilism. That is they no longer believe it is good to bring people into this world.
Interesting, before we continue further with this line of reasoning, let us investigate the other proffered causes.
Reasons People Don’t: “Having Kids is bad for the Environment”
This goes along with the arguments regarding overpopulation, if people have more kids that means more consumption and therefore more environmental destruction. This reasoning is faulty because it assumes that consumption must continue as it exists today and because of an erroneous conception of the problem of climate change and how to address it. In the mind of a modern progressive, the way to address climate change is through batteries and solar panels, which produce lots of toxic waste, Lithium Ion batteries needing to be replaced every 1,500 to 2,000 cycles and Solar Panels every 25 years, with incomplete recyclability for both. Of course, this is true, but the answer is simple, nuclear. With nuclear energy electricity can be cheap and have no environmental impact.
Then we need simply to address the issue on the materials front. Technology has already begun to stagnate, as it does and as the difference in labour costs around the world begin to equalise, it will become optimal to build quality items that we repair and maintain. This will dramatically reduce waste. On other fronts we can move toward using glass, metal and other ionic compounds which can be melted and recycled, while this will increase the price of goods it is clear that we cannot continue on the current path with plastics, no matter what future we imagine.
These are some of the reasons why the claim that population causes environmental damage is erroneous, it neglects the other factor which is,
environmental damage = (environmental damage per capita) * (number of people)
we can reduce the term, environmental damage per capita, by 10 fold easily, with the exception of damage from agriculture.
More importantly, yet always neglected, is the counterfactual, namely, how will the (environmental damage per capita) change if we have rapid depopulation. As kermit the frog loves to remind us, it is the rich countries that care about the environment. People in poor countries are willing to sacrifice the environment if it means being able to put a decent roof over their head. If rich countries become poor, you just watch, they will be happy to start cutting corners too. This is especially true of the Western Nations whose young people demand a climate controlled house all year round. I can tell you my house has not dropped below 18 degrees Celsius, (that’s 64.4 degrees Farenheit for the Americans), all winter.
Imagine, while their population declines, while their economy enters multiple decades of depression, when their opportunities dry up, when in real terms they earn half as much as their grandparents did, that they have to stomach more price inflation for regular everyday goods because the environment cannot handle anymore plastic waste… How about when businesses are squeezed by a contracting economy and they need to find places to cut costs, not for profit, but just to stay afloat, you think they are not going to cut corners on environmental regulations?
In less stable nations the outcomes are likely to be even worse, government, not being able to fund the services necessary for the responsible disposal of waste will just dump it in giant piles of trash, where it will blow out into the surrounding ecosystem. I mean what do you expect them to do? If the choice of the government is between spending the money on maintaining essential infrastructure, so that the population has access to clean water and electricity or on paying their police officers, then there is no choice, if they do not do these things the society will collapse into a general anarchy, in which case things might wind up even worse, if you believe Africa to be war torn now, the future is incomparable. The whole of Africa will look like Somalia but worse. A continent of warlords, who maintain their rule by awful atrocities, it will be pre-colonial but with many orders of magnitude more destructive capacity available.
Developing or partially developed states, that have poorly designed reactors, that do not automatically burn out safely when disconnected from the power grid are at risk of a full scale fallout, that will make Chernobyl look like child’s play. In fact, as some of these partially developed states, decline in population and become unable to maintain a competent professional workforce, and as their quality and quantity of education declines, their bureaucracies will become more incompetent and they will be far more likely to replicate a Chernobyl incident as a consequence.
Therefore, in fact, the rapid depopulation of the developed nations and consequently the drying up of foreign capital and evaporation of expat expertise, will lead to worse environmental outcomes in the industrialised world but likely catastrophic outcomes in the developing, or should we perhaps say, presently developing, soon to be pre-feudal world. Thus, by decreasing the (number of people) factor in our equation substantially in a short period of time we will increase the (environmental damage per capita) factor well beyond any benefit gained, is quite likely that halving the (number of people) term in a short period of time could quite reasonably result in a 10x increase in the (environmental damage per capita) term, resulting in a 5x increase in environmental damage.
There might be some degree of merit to the above statement, if we were actually at risk of overpopulation, of course because we are not, there is not. If we had a slowly increasing population, still, much more could be done by making the practice of civilisation more sustainable in general than by reducing the population slowly. The whole notion of overpopulation we therefore conclude is much more of a midwit concern as regards the environment than a legitimate one.
Reasons People Don’t: “Having Kids will Impact My Lifestyle”
This one I think is a legitimate contributor and the response to such people should be cool, no pension or state sponsored welfare programs for you once you stop paying taxes then, since you did not provide society with what is necessary to provide such services in your retirement. If there are lots of old people with lots of pieces of paper or big numbers in their back accounts that does not help anything get done in the real world, no people — nothing to buy! Including age care workers. No amount of money creates humans to look after you.
From Sexual Liberation to Sexual Abnegation
The phenomenon of less sexual activity in Gen-Z and younger Millenials has been noted by numerous studies in recent years, suggesting that young men in particular are less sexually active. This survey suggests that 31% of men aged 18-24 reported no sexual inactivity in the last 12 months in 2018, this is compared to just 19% in 2000. Young women aged 18-24 have also seen an increase though to a lesser extent going from 15% to 19%. Declines were also seen in those aged 25-34, among Men 7% to 14% and women 7% to 12%, over the same period 2000 to 2018.
There are many variables at play here, I think one could note a number of things. The first and most prominent thing to note would be the decrease in long-term relationships and marriage, while there is more casual sex, overall there is less sex. There is the phenomenon of an erosion of the social taboo of dating/ sleeping with people in different age brackets and so no doubt we see that younger women are sleeping with higher status males from other age groups as well as a smaller number of high-status men from the same age group. The study also indicates this is the case, with males who earn less being less likely to have had sexual activity in the last 12 months and the converse being less true. We are forced into one of these conclusions given the 12% disparity for the 18-24 age bracket unless we conclude that young men do not want sex, which seems the least plausible.
I think the decline in sex broadly speaking is not the most important factor here, although I do think that contraception is a large factor and we’ll come to that eventually. Undoubtedly there is a strong influence from pornography here, especially on young men, of course, this conclusion is also taboo even though it is obviously true to an extent. Despite some self-awareness in this regard, young men are frequently mocked by mainstream culture for generating challenges like No Fap November to try and reign in their degeneracy.
Educated Women, Equal Opportunities and Declines in Marriage and Long-Term Relationship
Another suggested answer which has some weight behind it is the decline in long-term relationships, this has a lot to do with the ideology of young people which has been engineered to be positively anti-marriage and to see marriage as a retrograde Patriarchal institution, with the Patriarchy, of course, having all the possible negative connotations. It also has to do with it going from being seen as the absolute pinnacle of the laity’s spiritual journey to lacking any positive valence from the point of view of an atheist. Remedying this spiritually deadened state seems rather difficult and inducing such a spirituality by force is an unlikely prospect.
The other issue which has been suggested to contribute here is the education of women and their ability to access equal opportunities in the workplace. In fact, over the last 60 years, the workplace has really turned into an environment much more suited to women than men, as has the educational system. So that now in the West almost 2/3 of University graduates are women and our system engenders the idea that degrees convey some kind of mystical prestige almost like a kind of caste system.
This, combined with the strong female inclination to not date down social hierarchies, results in a large number of women in the middle of the distribution not being satisfied with the men available, so they engage in casual relationships with higher status men until around the age of 35, then often they panic and try to find a relationship in time to have children but many do not succeed in time and others only in time to have one child.
Evidence from dating apps corroborates the claim of evolutionary psychologists that women are more cautious when it comes to mate selection due to differential investment in offspring, a study from the University of London revealed that on tinder men liked nearly 60% of profiles compared to women only liking 10%. This validates the notion that women are much more selective than men. Of course, this is not to claim men are generous saints, obviously, they are more likely to chase casual sex, thus they will like profiles of women with whom they would not have a long-term relationship but would be willing to engage in casual sex. Nevertheless, this is unlikely to account for such a disparity and based on other evidence we know men basically do not care about the social status of women, or at least to a far lesser degree, there is certainly a mimetic effect here and that is what drives the social status effect but the core of the issue for men is physical attractiveness.
Say what you will about traditional Christianity being Patriarchal but the fact is that it was far more egalitarian in that sense, with the Church even preventing Kings and Emperors from having multiple wives, or even divorcing, and providing an air of moral indignity toward those who had concubines. In fact, the Church was so firm on this position Henry VIII had to murder a cardinal and start the Anglican Church to get a divorce. This was a good deal for women and children too because they would get one man to themselves. Did they have a choice, no, since the social norm was monogamy but hey it works! If women know the only way they are going to get a man is through marriage they will drop the fantasies of finding someone higher in the social hierarchy because all the high-status males will be locked in by the age of 30.
The other possibility of course is forcing women into subordinate status positions by restricting their freedom in the workplace, putting a steel ceiling in place that is. One of these options has to be chosen because we cannot keep playing around with the future of civilisation.
The reduction in Long-Term relationships is undeniably a major factor in the reduction in the quantity of sex young people are having and also the society’s lower birth rate. People are going to avoid having kids if they do not think they are going to be in a stable long-term relationship, wisely. If a couple enters a long-term relationship/ marriage early, they can get to the nest-building business right away, start a mortgage and get somewhere ready for children, increasing the probability that when the desire for children comes they will feel secure acting upon it.
In terms of resolving this issue, the sex negativity movement we are seeing is somewhat promising, however, what we really need is to encourage young people to enter into long-term relationships, especially young women, since after 35 infertility and pregnancy complications multiply explosively. If we as a society cannot figure out a way to do this our civilisation will collapse and feminism will collapse along with it, so if you care about what is good for women not just for you and your friends right now it is time to come to a compromise, a significant compromise, one that yes you will have to give up freedom over but the mythology that you deserve freedom, that it falls from the sky is a myth. Freedom always comes after a society establishes, order, peace and general prosperity, if a compromise for the survival of civilisation itself is not made there will not be any freedom left to compromise on, if civilisation survives at all it will be the most ruthless societies, which will be highly unequal Patriarchies where the dominant men have dozens of female concubines, ask yourself is this the future you want?
Biological Infertility
The noted decrease in testosterone levels may make the previous statement, regarding young men having a decreased sex drive, somewhat more plausible. I will not claim expertise in the etiologies of this decline but it does seem there are some reasonable possibilities worth discussing. Alongside it, there has also been the observation of declines in sperm count, musculoskeletal strength and a rise in testicular cancer. This last one especially makes one think that perhaps this is not purely the result of obesity but some chemical phenomena. Indeed controlling for obesity still leaves a substantial age-matched decline in testosterone. Indeed some have suggested pesticides are playing a role and there is now apparently some evidence that microplastics may as well. Unfortunately, this question remains without a definitive answer, because the last thing the overarching progressive ideology wants is to say we need to make men masculine again, it just does not have a good ring to it.
One thing is for sure we need to do something urgently. Getting young men to do more exercise and lower their weight, in fact, a good idea for both sexes, since obesity is certainly a prime contributing factor to biological infertility.
Contraception
Moving onto another topic where one again is meant to adhere to the prevailing Orthodoxy lest they be socially ostracised, I do believe contraception plays a large role in this phenomenon. If contraception did not exist people would respect sex more and would not engage in it so flippantly outside of committed long-term relationships and marriages. Contraceptives have decoupled sex from its consequences and in turn the seriousness it deserves to possess, it is not a trifling thing to be engaged in willy nilly, nor is it a thing to be commodified. Contraceptives have turned an act which is meant to be one of the greatest intimacy, to bond and unite a pair of people in preparation for child rearing into another meaningless hedonistic pursuit, reduced to a mere crass rubbing of the genitals to release dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin in each other’s brains. This is the view one unironically accepts in the frame of materialism.
This only further serves the acidic nihilism of modern progressive morality, convincing one further that there is nothing sacred or meaningful in life. These statements go for condoms, the pill and those other forms of contraception but abortion we ought to consider with special ire. With an arbitrary capriciousness, it declares certain things to be human and other things not, all on a mere spectrum of meat machinery of varying sophistication, by creating a vague ever-changing stance with respect to human life it undermines the very notion of murder and the sacredness of life. Conception and the sexual act reduced from the incarnation of a soul into the world, to a merely mechanical process, like the other forms of contraception do but further and more heinously with a mechanical outcome.
The conceived child can be discarded with impunity like an accidental byproduct of a chemical reaction. All this horror is covered over by a thin veneer of philosophical nonsense about personhood, upon which subject there is a controversy, akin in magnitude to the undecidability of the nature of God’s omniscience coexisting in a world of free will but far less satisfying and far more apalling in its contradictions.
Recently, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, comedians have got to joking about abortion, several male comedians have made the joke, that “if you get to murder the child, then surely I have the right to financially abandon the child”. This is troubling because I think they are actually serious about it. It will have two obvious outcomes, far fewer men will wear condoms, which will cause women to be forced, at even higher rates than today, onto hormonal birth control, resulting in consequences for women’s health and legally sanctioning fatherlessness in society, while society’s current stance when it comes to abortion is asymmetric and unfair to men, these are the consequences of the sexual act, the answer is not to remove responsibility from both parents, it is to place responsibility back onto both parents. In the meantime, it is preferable to have an unequal sharing of responsibility that works against the man, this is in so many ways the burden of being a man, authority is proportional to responsibility.
Men that advocate for this are not helping anyone, being equal is not the goal in lack of responsibility is not the goal, the goal is to be more responsible and thus justify the man’s authority in society because women will always erode that responsibility which is necessary for true delegation.
Modern Man’s Weakness
A lot of this can of course be attributed to the weakness and lack of self-discipline in men. I am writing this section because I know most of my audience is male. The reality is the world is against you, but in the wake of feminism, men have embraced it. You need, like the meme reels suggest, to reject modernity. Embrace masculinity and the masculine virtues, embrace fortitude, and honesty do not put up with bullshit from people put reasonable boundaries in place, tell people when they have crossed them and be willing to put distance in the relationship until they recognise their error sincerely. This goes doubly for women, especially the ones you really like.
Be honest, especially with yourself, especially when it’s hard, accept the weight of the world, and take on the mindset of the Stoic, that everything that is within your power to affect is your responsibility and that you could have done differently is your fault, that dwelling on the emotions caused by it is useless, learn from it, do your best not to repeat the mistake, remembering in this circumstance, particularly Master Yoda’s wise words, “Try not! Do, or do not! There is no Try!”.
Once you are honest with yourself, you can withstand anything. You will be able to stick to your guns even when society tells you that you are wrong and you be able to do so without falling into that great sin of Pride, countering it with a charity to others and to yourself, of said charity, true honesty and clarity of perception is the consequence.
The goal of man is to place virtue above all else. You are required in your life to do things that are hard and challenge you, doing so will not allow you to let yourself be deceived, you can either do x or you cannot do x. Create goals that will challenge you, push yourself harder at the gym, set time aside to read books that have something to say and that challenge you and do not devalue the mastery of the little things, common day things, that are so often the hardest hurdles, where your constitution is out of line with your goals try your damndest to amend it, use techniques like meditation or a stoic practice that evaporate the barriers of mental energy required to fix bad habits, they work and they will help you.
If you feel like you have a little issue, ask yourself if it is a metabolic issue, drink more water, a couple of litres if you need, and go for a walk, and if you still find yourself unable to do anything, then try not eating until the end of the day.
When in search of virtue look for examples you wish to replicate, look to tales long left untold, uncover the mysteries of the gospels, study the lives of great men and follow the better angels of their nature. Surround yourself with people who you know have overcome trials in the past and shown qualities you perceive to be virtuous given those trials and even better find yourself a true community in these end days, as hard as it can be, do not be afraid to embrace the past, do not be afraid to embrace the religious.
All rests upon this, only virtuous men, in the end, can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
P.S. I am writing this at a time when a large PUA wave has hit popular culture in the form of the Tate brothers, the Tate brothers say many things that are valuable, perhaps invaluable, but they are not role models. The way they live is a form that cannot sustain a society, remember this, there is a form of virtue that is beyond what they possess which is to be able to engage in the promiscuous behaviour they do but to choose to not engage in it. Though there are far worse role models and at this stage far be it for me to claim you ought to take advice from myself over them but times do change friends.
Addressing The Issue
I have discussed a number of reasons given by others about the causes of the fertility crisis and I have responded to them and said what truth I think there is with respect to each of them. In the following post, I will elaborate on my views.
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