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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   28922 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 2024

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If you were going to increase the birth rate how would you do it?

There's lots of suggestions, most of them bad. For example, Scandinavian countries have been touted as "doing it right" by offering generous perks to families such as paid family leave. But these efforts, despite outrageous costs, have done little or nothing to stem the falling birth rate. Sweden's fertility rate is a dismal 1.66 as of 2020, and if trends hold, the rate among ethnic Swedes is far lower.

I think that, like everything, deciding to marry and have a family comes down to status.

Mongolia is a rare country that has managed to increase its fertility rate over the last 20 years, from about 2.1 children per women in 2004, to about 2.7 today. This feat is more impressive considering the declines experienced worldwide during the same period. It's doubly impressive considering the fertility rate in neighboring Inner Mongolia (China) is just 1.06!

What is Mongolia doing right? Apparently, they are raising the status of mothers by giving them special recognition and status.

https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1827418468813017441

In Georgia (the country), something similar happened when an Orthodox patriarch started giving special attention to mothers with 3 children:

https://x.com/JohannKurtz/status/1827070216716874191

Now, raising the status of mothers is more easily said than done. But I think it's possible, especially in countries with a high degree of social cohesion like in East Asia. In Europe, a figure like the King of Netherlands could personally meet and reward mothers. In the United States, of course, this sort of thing would be fraught as any suggestion coming from the right might backfire due to signalling. Witness the grim specter of the vasectomy and abortion trucks at the DNC. But the first step to fixing a problem is to adequately diagnose the cause. To me, the status explanation is more compelling (and fixable) than any other suggestion I've seen.

If you were going to increase the birth rate how would you do it?

Assuming I have control over / loyalty of the CIA / all the other glowies, it's pretty easy. Bribe Taylor Swift, and all the other female role models, to start having kids (make the bribe dependant on staying within a marriage for good measure), bribe a few media outlets to cover it positively, and have anyone who covers it negatively meet an unfortunate accident.

Can Taylor Swift be bribed? Threatened, sure, but she's a billionairess. If anything I'd be more worried about her bribing the average glowie agent.

She could probably be threatened with an IRS audit.

Celebrities always get disproportionately targeted by tax authorities so I assume she’s paying what she should.

There are some things money can buy. For everything else, there's the CIA.

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