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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   10899 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 29, 2025

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This post is a follow-on from a conversation with @Amadan, who observed that I wasn't reading his posts correctly. I thought that hiding an apology behind a button most wouldn't click through would be what the kids used to call a bitch move, so I decided to make it a top level post.

^^^I ^^^also ^^^didn't ^^^want ^^^the ^^^effort ^^^to ^^^go ^^^to ^^^waste

You know what, I went back and read through the thread and it turns out I was misremembering the order of things. I thought you rejected faceh's proposal about tightening college admissions with the browbeating comment. My mind gets a little clouded with this subject sometimes. I think I owe you an apology in the form of a bit more effort, so here goes:

My belief is that the TFR crisis can be broadly understood in terms of basic economics. Sure, there are a million billion variables that go in to the exact shape of the curves, but I believe the fundamental problem is that the supply and demand curves don't meet at a point that produces a longitudinally viable volume. Therefore, any proposed policy must influence those lines to move TFR upward. To put it bluntly, this involves coercing either bid up or ask down. Browbeating. And we need to do it while remembering the goal isn't just more children, but ones raised in wholesome environments that set them up for the social and economic success we need to operate our societies, so "pay women billion dollars per child" is out. I'll note that some of these solutions involve catching women up to around the level of browbeating that men currently experience, and I hope this doesn't run afoul of the standard because it doesn't involve much additional browbeating on men. Lastly, I'd comment that these are not my preferred solutions, mostly because they involve coercion, which is a game I believe when played under real cultural and political conditions will result in much male loss and few additional births to show for it—but more pragmatically because I believe they are impossible to implement on a timescale that matters. I think the only real way out is to quintuple down on our current strategy of hoping for technology deux ex machina.

However, if we were willing to implement some painful measures to buy ourselves some more time, here's what that might look like if it were up to me:

Demand side measures, or, how to sweeten the deal for men:

  • Wholesale refactoring of no-fault divorce and the "best interests of children" doctrine. This is of special interest to men, who under current conditions hold virtually no protection against their investments into family being stripped away from them at any time and for any reason. Solutions to achieve this could be a list onto itself, but I believe the core of the idea needs to involve a rather humble proposition: what if we reformulated the doctrine of "the best interests of children" to take into account that save for extreme circumstances divorce is not in the best interests of children. The doctrine needs to be modified in whatever way necessary to accommodate this and to allow for the application of active deterrence against divorce. Sure, you can still divorce on a whim without any fault, but you're probably not going to like the terms if children are involved. To freestyle a lighter measure example off the dome, this could involve requiring filing parties to attend a humiliation ritual wherein they are browbeaten with every stat and fact known to mankind about how bad divorce is for children, and they must affirm personally and publicly: "yes, I am a complete piece of human shit, afflict all of these maladies on to my own flesh and blood for my own selfish gain".
  • Wholesale refactoring of filial duty and the taxation model used to achieve it. This is of special interest to men, whose earthly contributions to the human union lean more heavily in the direction of provisioning. Put simply, social security and other forms of elder welfare need to be either phased out or replaced with something far less permissive to the old and intrusive to the young. Obligations should be limited to flow within the family unit as much as possible. This would both incentivize family formation and grant more interpersonal and civilizational stake to the reproductive generation, something sorely lacking under current conditions.
  • Requiring of female duty to the well-being of children, in basically any form whatsoever. As it stands, there's very little from women our civilization actually demands for the benefit of children. She can drink, snort, and smoke however much as she likes while carrying her child and nobody can actually stop her. I'm gonna be honest with you guys, I don't know what moral platform our society thinks it has to demand even a single hair off a man's head while it tolerates this behavior from women. The benefits to children are straightforwardly obvious, but it would probably also do well for the morale of men to know that women's participation is an adamant expectation rather than a whispered plea. This would extend to limiting the provision of single mother benefits to the worthy.
  • A sea change in the tone by which our society speaks to men regarding their place in it, particularly in how it relates to his role as husband and father. I'm not going to start enumerating examples because once I do I'll never stop, but I'll point you in the general direction of concepts like the man cave and the world not owing you (male) anything.

Supply side measures, or, how to sweeten the deal for women:

  • Far steeper penalties for dereliction by men. The penalties are already plenty steep if you compare them to what women presently suffer, but not nearly steep enough if the aim is to make women's investment into family formation less scary and shield children from harm. The penalties for up and leaving should be made ruinous and inescapable. Again, measures to this end could form a list onto itself. Would essentially be a modern form of shotgun wedding, but done by faceless bureaucracy instead of by patriarch, so much easier on modern sensibilities.
  • Child support needs to be massively increased in the average case. This can be done by calculating support based on a basket of goods agreed necessary or beneficial to children's developmental success, rather than income. Some men won't be able to afford it. As I've remarked in the past, we have a persistent need for materials such as lithium and rare earth metals, and I think these men can help mine it.
  • In lieu of ill-advised cash bonuses per birth, subsidies for necessities that improve the lives of both women and children, such as housing and food stipends, attached to the child and their guardian, of course. These interventions need to be both greater in volume and more selective than current programs, in order to maximize both reproductive incentive to adults and benefit to children. This is of special interest to women, who due to reasons of physicality are often most impacted by these needs.
  • Expansion of pregnancy-related protections. Needless to say, measures where the well-being of mother and child intersect should be expedited. Regionally, however healthcare ultimately shakes out in the US, women should be exempt from whatever the hell is causing them to walk away from hospitals with not just a child but tens of thousands of debt. Due to the defined scope of this exercise and the well documented negative fertility interactions, measures where women and employment intersect should be deemphasized. If we do anything at this intersection, it should involve keeping women out of the workplace for longer during and after pregnancy, but in a way that doesn't involve direct subsidy by unrelated men. Ideally this should range not just from the big stuff but also to the small stuff like being allowed to park in disabled spaces and drive in carpool lanes; we ought to search wide for easy opportunities where slipping such privileges into existing infrastructure would be sensible, beneficial, and dignified for all parties.

If you haven't noticed, there's a strong pair of themes that run through these propositions. They mostly involve offering men a more durable ownership share in family formation, and women more durable guarantees regarding child-rearing. I know some readers are probably bursting at the seams to point out that a lot of this is just traditional marriage and romantic norms with extra steps. Why don't we just stop beating around the bush and go back to what works? Uh huh. How's that been working out? Mainstream conservatism has taken notice to how unpopular this position is and has largely adapted to this reality by promoting what I've take to calling neotraditionalism: offering a model of male obligation without the durable ownership. Good luck with that.

But this does cut to what I believe is the core of the issue. I think that advocating for any program that even smells like the above would get you accused of being a cryptopatriarch in a cool minute. The basic problem is that our civilization is emotionally allergic to a key active ingredient of the medicine, and that's not something any amount of sugar-coating can help. Take the religious shell away and put it in a container that's as secular and facelessly bureaucratic as we are, and I don't think it makes a difference to the overall reaction. There's also the question of societal patience. This is separate from the consideration of TFR and its consequences. As many including some here have contentedly noted, the current crop of men don't seem to bear an eagerness to form and maintain families that's just waiting to burst out given a few tweaks in policy and culture. This isn't something my program would change. I don't think any ever could. Men as a class have been subject to a campaign of demoralization and dispossession that began decades before I was born. Undoing this may very well require awaiting a completely new generation of men to come of age. This would require a level of patience with the male sex our civilization transparently does not possess, not even remotely close.

These are insurmountable problems. There's nothing to be done.

Would you like to hear about my $100T longevity moonshot instead?

Most of these seem outright counterproductive if you want more children. People have more children when life is difficult and uncertain no matter what they do, and someone will probably turn out sickly or disabled, so you're best off having six kids and hope half of them turn into productive adults who can provide a buffer for the rest.

When even a single child results in legal landmines, interactions with CPS, and onerous family requirements, you're asking for fewer, not more.

Sure, you can still divorce on a whim without any fault, but you're probably not going to like the terms if children are involved. To freestyle a lighter measure example off the dome, this could involve requiring filing parties to attend a humiliation ritual wherein they are browbeaten with every stat and fact known to mankind about how bad divorce is for children, and they must affirm personally and publicly: "yes, I am a complete piece of human shit, afflict all of these maladies on to my own flesh and blood for my own selfish gain".

Unless accompanied by banning contraceptives, this seems likely to actively lower people's willingness to have children (which would lower willingness to have sex as well).

Put simply, social security and other forms of elder welfare need to be either phased out or replaced with something far less permissive to the old and intrusive to the young.

Possibly? People with long time preference already have marriages and family oriented around wanting people around them when they're old.

Requiring of female duty to the well-being of children, in basically any form whatsoever. As it stands, there's very little from women our civilization actually demands for the benefit of children. She can drink, snort, and smoke however much as she likes while carrying her child and nobody can actually stop her.

Women do get shamed and end up having to raise retarded children if they screw this up. Already. I'm not sure what you're proposing here, but if it's increased penalties, maybe that could, on the margin, lower TFR a bit?

A sea change in the tone by which our society speaks to men regarding their place in it, particularly in how it relates to his role as husband and father.

Evangelicals do this already. How's it going?

Far steeper penalties for dereliction by men. The penalties are already plenty steep if you compare them to what women presently suffer, but not nearly steep enough if the aim is to make women's investment into family formation less scary and shield children from harm.

That seems like it would... slightly lower people's willingness to have kids?

Child support needs to be massively increased in the average case.

With the hope that men would be more vigilant in their condom use?

In lieu of ill-advised cash bonuses per birth, subsidies for necessities that improve the lives of both women and children, such as housing and food stipends, attached to the child and their guardian, of course. These interventions need to be both greater in volume and more selective than current programs, in order to maximize both reproductive incentive to adults and benefit to children. This is of special interest to women, who due to reasons of physicality are often most impacted by these needs.

Will it be equal to an entire adult's annual income? Otherwise, nice but unlikely to do much.

Expansion of pregnancy-related protections. Needless to say, measures where the well-being of mother and child intersect should be expedited. Regionally, however healthcare ultimately shakes out in the US, women should be exempt from whatever the hell is causing them to walk away from hospitals with not just a child but tens of thousands of debt.

We have the median household income in our state, and pregnancy and infant health costs were fully covered by medicaid. That was nice, I'm in favor. Maybe one or two more women would have another child if they knew about that?

Most of these seem outright counterproductive if you want more children. People have more children when life is difficult and uncertain no matter what they do, and someone will probably turn out sickly or disabled, so you're best off having six kids and hope half of them turn into productive adults who can provide a buffer for the rest.

I mostly agree with this overall sentiment. The problem is family formation is delayed, which makes women have less than the number of kids they want, which if they had the number they want would be a bit low, but still high enough to not make our populations look like inverted pyramids.

So, the simplest solution is do the opposite of what we have been doing: shorten school, and make the shorter school a better employment signal. This means, High School ends at 16 or 17, and college is 3 years. Both having vigorous entrance and exit exams intended to mean only people who really need college go, and only those who are super qualified finish. Law and medicine would also be reformed to fit into this new system and you'd be done with those in 3 or maybe 4 years after HS. Oh, and because college entry and exit is actually hard again, fewer women will do it, which dulls hypergamy effects.

To freestyle a lighter measure example off the dome, this could involve requiring filing parties to attend a humiliation ritual wherein they are browbeaten with every stat and fact known to mankind about how bad divorce is for children, and they must affirm personally and publicly: "yes, I am a complete piece of human shit, afflict all of these maladies on to my own flesh and blood for my own selfish gain".

Would you limit this to true facts and stats, or would you include false ones as well?

(If you limit it to true ones, you will have a problem because many "true" facts will be false as applied, unless you're getting down to insane levels of detail like "for people in your particular socioeconomic situation, in your specific state with your specific jobs..." And you probably won't have good statistics for those anyway. Of course, you could decide you don't care about truth when you do this, which has its own problems.)

We lack a crystal ball through which we can show prospective divorcees a differential analysis of their children's future, so I'd say keep it general but factual. I don't expect this to be a comprehensive solution or anywhere near; some people will simply not care, others will be convinced that their parenting skills are the exception. We'd need to come up with other interventions that target those cohorts, and beyond.

Why not just offer affirmative action to married couples with children?

Want a promotion in your white collar job? Have a husband/wife and have children!

Want your kids to get into a good university? Have more children!

This would efficiently target the most valuable, productive, ambitious people too, rather than the welfare class who don't really want to go to university, don't have anywhere near the necessary marks and aren't in line for promotion anyway.

This would efficiently target the most valuable, productive, ambitious people too, rather than the welfare class who don't really want to go to university, don't have anywhere near the necessary marks and aren't in line for promotion anyway.

The whole criticism of affirmative action is that it promotes non-meritocratic people. I don't really want my surgeon being selected for having four kids any more than I want her being selected for being a neurodivergent woman, or something. And if we started offering affirmative action for people who have kids, I don't know how it would stop otherwise-low-performing people from having kids to game the system. It probably would boost TFR but I don't think it would efficiently target the most productive or ambitious people any more than current AA policies do.

Only targets a small slice of the population, so unlikely to generate results worth the amount of aggro it will pull, which is what I was aiming for with my proposals. That's why I tried to make them as broad as possible while minimizing inflammation as much as possible while retaining effectiveness.

That's why I didn't recommend outright banning no fault divorce; that's a coup-complete solution.

She can drink, snort, and smoke however much as she likes while carrying her child and nobody can actually stop her.

This isn't exactly true; on a quick Google around half of US states treat substance abuse while pregnant as a form of child abuse.

Why don't we just stop beating around the bush and go back to what works? Uh huh. How's that been working out? Mainstream conservatism has taken notice to how unpopular this position is and has largely adapted to this reality by promoting what I've take to calling neotraditionalism: offering a model of male obligation without the durable ownership. Good luck with that.

This does work within the communities that practice it. Red states are attracting more children than blue states; devout religious conservatives are ~at TFR. You correctly point out the problems with packaging this in a secular model but it works well in a religious model where accusations of cryptopatriarchy are the cost of doing business.

These are insurmountable problems. There's nothing to be done.

If you extrapolate wildly and irresponsibly from current trends, what's being done is precisely what needs to be done: the evangelical non-denoms, Pentecostals, and Jews will slowly convert the entire population of the United States and then birthrates will stabilize nicely at about replacement, carefully husbanded by religious traditions with centuries of time to refine their methods for dealing with human mess.

Of course I don't think it's as simple as that; nothing is as simple as that. But I think it's important to realize in the TFR/birthrates discussion that the United States isn't a monoculture, it is a teeming ecosystem of competing subcultures, and some of them are radically out-competing the others. (And of course I assume this is true elsewhere as well.) If you want to boost birth rates, you can try to identify what works in those subcultures (or, if you're a genetic fatalist, you can probably relax because they will win in the end eventually anyway).

One parting note: I do think there is a distinct danger of trying to boost TFR by elevating high-fertility subcultures. I suspect that outside threat sensation boosts fertility rates - see Israel's extremely high TFR; it may not be a coincidence that evangelicals, which have had a persecution complex for decades, have a higher fertility rate than mainline Protestants even with similar beliefs (see my second link). So, as in other ecological endeavors, attempts to preserve or expand an ecosystem might backfire and end up destroying it.

This does work within the communities that practice it.

So in other words, it doesn't work.

The scope of the consideration here was solutions that might cause a widespread meaningful rise in TFR. If you're not invested in that, then sure, it not working isn't a problem for you.

The scope of the consideration here was solutions that might cause a widespread meaningful rise in TFR. If you're not invested in that, then sure, it not working isn't a problem for you.

Over what time span? Over a long enough time span, the problem as currently projected is likely to very slowly fix itself because those higher-fertility communities are growing. Of course I don't trust those projections to continue indefinitely but it seems just as wrong to assume that births will go to zero as it does to assume tradcons will go to 100.

Short of shotgun gestation, there's nothing that will fix TFR immediately. I expect you could fix it in about ten-twenty years in the States with a whole-of-society effort. I suspect free (state-subsidized) births (cheap, I suspect), school propaganda (~free), media propaganda (cost+), perhaps some housing subsidy-type arrangements could drag it back past 2.1. Throw in building 1000 nuclear reactors (expensive but we need 'em anyway) to boot. I don't think that's undoable by any means, but it would be hard and the social conditions aren't there to galvanize it yet. Maybe in a decade.

I don't think some of the gender-related stuff you talk about would hurt and it might help but I suspect that it would pale (particularly in terms of cost-effectiveness) in comparison with kids being told in school and on television "you will be a failure in life if you don't graduate high school, get married, get a job, and have 2 - 3 children." Maybe I am wrong, but people forget that there was a concerted anti-natalism campaign in the West in media and elite circles, and I do think that saw results. The tweaks you are proposing, to make men feel more "ownership," will also work, but slowly, because people work via vibes, and it might take some time for your legal tweaks to nudge the vibes - at which point, frankly, I think the nudge will be weaker than "wow energy is free and the housing is cheap." I broadly agree with you wrt pregnancy-related expenses although eliminating those would of course come out of someone's pocket. Ultimately I suspect "tough marriage policy" - the stick - would help, but not as much as a carrot, and you do that by making it easy to get a job and a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom white picket fence and lawn forever home at 24.

A big question, to me, is if a crash course in boosting fertility based on massive government intervention is sustainable. People are very susceptible to social pressure but it tends to breed backlash and resentment. I don't want a massive baby bump in 20 years followed by a massive crash and backlash in 50.

I like the way both you and @Amadan are approaching this problem, but as long as we are restructuring society, I propose working from the following first principles:

  1. One goal of family formation is the raising of healthy, resilient, intelligent children.
  2. It is best for children if mothers are not drinking, smoking, or toking. Even caffeine is suspect (although research on caffeine is heavily confounded by mothers who drink coffee also smoking.)
  3. It is best medically for children if they are breastfed to age 1 or so. (Failure to do this leads to improper palete formation (mouthbreathing, dental issues), and greater incidence of leaky gut.)
  4. It is best psychologically for children if they are cared for by their parents nearly fulltime to age 3 or so. (Failure to do this leads to ADHD and attachment disorders.)
  5. It is best for children if they are raised by their biological parents (non-biological parents have a much higher rate of child abuse) and their families are stable.
  6. Women are hypergamous, and so stable families will be those in which the father has above-average social status and/or the woman has limited opportunities to meet other men with higher social status.
  7. Men are promiscuous, and so stable families will be those in which the man has limited opportunities to meet other women.
  8. Overall biological fertility is dropping precipitously (-2% per year), and it looks like the drop is due to environmental factors (food contaminants, screens, poor sleep), especially exposure to estrogenic compounds in utero around gestational age 6-8 weeks.

I propose the following interventions for maximizing fertility and child wellbeing:

  1. As a society, we desperately need to re-taboo drinking, smoking, toking, and adultery.
  2. We need to ban estrogenic compounds everywhere the modern consumer is exposed to them. (Which means in everything from plastic food containers and airborne pesticides to polyester carpeting.) We should take a precautionary approach to new compounds rather than the "generally recognized as safe" approach.
  3. Marriage should be encouraged and divorce should be strongly discouraged while there are minor children in the home.
  4. Women should be forbidden from working (or part-time WFH only) while they have children ages 0-3. I agree with @Amandan that this should be funded by fathers.
  5. We should re-segregate society so that married men and women are no longer exposed to temptations outside of the home. (Which includes gender-segregated social circles, workplaces, and social media.)
  6. Married workers should be discouraged from jobs involving heavy travel.
  7. Biological fathers should be forced into shotgun weddings. Single mothers should be shamed. Widows and widowers should be supported on the public purse, but forbidden from marrying/dating while they have minor children.
  8. Fathers should be paid more for their work to compensate for interventions (3) and (6). This should be paired with commensurate increase in responsibiliites.

Overall, I think that interventions 4-6 mean that married women are going to be doing more WFH jobs, married men are going to be doing more field jobs, and the unmarried will be doing more travelling.

Of course, this has no chance in hell of being a popularly selected policy. The game-theoretic self-interest of hypergamous women is to vote for social support so they can have more babies out of wedlock with cads (paid for by taxpayers), no matter how much having babies out of wedlock harms the children.

In order to counteract this failure mode, I suggest the following initial (moderately sneaky) political platform:

  1. uniform paternity testing in hospitals (can be mandated under testing for genetic diseases)
  2. expand maternity leave to 3 yrs from the birth of the child at half- or one-third pay (probably quite popular?)
  3. legalize sex-based segregation and discrimination in the workplace
  4. reduce economic support to "single mothers"
  5. increase child support burden based on (1), if married
  6. build more mini (sub-1000 sqft) starter homes, depressing housing prices to make childrearing more affordable
  7. gradually license more doctors, nurses, and midwives, depressing medical wages to make childbearing more affordable
  8. make divorce legal only in the case that it serves the best interests of the child, and make divorce cases self-represented like small claims court to remove the economic incentives of lawyers to promote divorce. Compensate existing divorce lawyers with large sums for their early retirement.

The effect of (1) and (4) will be to make life harder for cheaters and cads. The effect of (2) will be to depress hiring of mothers, and the effect of (3) will be to raise wages for men and limit mixing of men and women outside of the home. (1) and (5) will increase the prevalence of "shotgun" weddings. (6) and (7) are attacking cost disease to make marriage more affordable. (8) is to reduce the rate of divorces to those that are really necessary for child wellbeing.

As a society, we desperately need to re-taboo drinking, smoking, toking, and adultery.

At least all but toking are positively associated with the creation of children. (Maybe toking too)

We should take a precautionary approach to new compounds rather than the "generally recognized as safe" approach.

A precautionary approach means stagnation and ultimately being defeated by those who do not take it.

We should re-segregate society so that married men and women are no longer exposed to temptations outside of the home. (Which includes gender-segregated social circles, workplaces, and social media.)

So people who get married are required to lose half their social circle? Since if we have segregation BEFORE marriage, it's going to be a bit hard to make marriages come about.

You're going after the wrong problems. It isn't smoking, drinking, or adultery which is holding down TFR. Probably isn't estrogenic compounds either. TFR was higher before prohibition when the saloon culture existed, and higher during the 50s-70s when people smoked like chimneys.

higher during the 50s-70s when people smoked like chimneys.

Which is really funny because (if I recall correctly) there's at least some evidence that nicotine is not great for fertility; if smoking was wide(r)spread today it would absolutely be Culprit #1 for reduced fertility.

Nicotine may be bad for fertility-per-sex-act, but I'll bet smoking is good for sex-act-per-unit-time. And drinking is good for increasing number of sex acts (up to a point, whiskey dick helps no one) and skipping contraception.

I appreciate you rereading what I said, because the entire issue is poisoned by bad faith toxic discourse on both sides, and it's very hard to make any kind of proposal for how either men or women should change their behavior, or be pressured to change their behavior, without being mapped to the worst extremists.

"I think men should be responsible for any progeny they create, you can't just dump them on the mother and/or the state and keep fucking around."

"OH SO MEN ARE JUST PAYPIGS FUCK YOU AS LONG AS WOMEN CONTROL REPRODUCTION AND CAN HAVE ABORTIONS MEN ARE SLAVES OF THE STATE!!!!!"

"I think women should be encouraged to have children young instead of giving up their most fertile years seeking a career they probably won't even enjoy."

"OH BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT IN THE KITCHEN IS IT? WHY DON'T WE JUST MAKE IT ILLEGAL FOR WOMEN TO LEARN TO READ LIKE IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS YOU PATRIARCHAL INCEL?!"

Obviously, it's pretty hard to have a dialog like this. Also obviously, the all-caps lines are a bit tongue-in-cheek but not far off from what you see most places online and even to some degree here. So I have definitely taken the first position, for example- if you get a woman pregnant, you did the deed, now you have to feed the kid. No, I don't care how irresponsible and slutty the mother is or if she "baby-trapped" you. No, I don't care that she has the unilateral power to abort or not. You stuck your dick in it, you know how babies are made, so the options are (a) you pay for it, (b) I pay for it, (c) we let the child starve. I choose option (a). Yes, some men get screwed. This is unfair. Tough shit. Use a condom or don't drink and fuck.

"OH SO WE SHOULD ONLY BE UNFAIR TO MEN WE CAN'T BE EVEN A LITTLE BIT MEAN TO WOMEN????"

Sure, we can be "mean" to women. I am not anti-shame. I think slut-shaming is good and we should do more of it.

I think if there was a way to implement welfare reform to ensure children get fed and clothed with as little incentive to the mothers as possible to keep popping them out, we should do it (I admit, I don't really know how this could be done, short of poorhouses or something, which historically have been even worse).

Relatedly, I would be in favor of social messaging to encourage fewer people (but especially fewer women) to go to college, and start families instead. But realistically I don't know how this social engineering would work, especially without the power of a church behind it, and I am not in favor of increasing the power of religion, so, yes, once again you may be right that there is no real solution.

Also, "young people should get married and start families young" and also "young people are totally screwed, the economy is terrible, no one can buy a house" - I read Scott's "vibecession" post and I am still not sure how much to believe about how bad the economy and the future really is but it does seem rather bleak for a young couple starting out without a lot of money.

All of which is to say, I mostly don't disagree with your proposals per se, and I mostly agree they can't really happen.

In the alternative, the proposals I mostly see amount to varying levels of coercion, and mostly this is directed at women. Ranging from "Be more mean to them and make them settle" to "Be really mean to them and make them property."

As much as I dislike the rabid bad faith feminists calling any man who has standards and expectations a sexist incel, you can kind of see why they react like this when you see their opposite numbers. There are quite a few men who hate women and are very clear that they consider women to be inferior beings who should just acknowledge their inferiority and suck it up (literally). We have some of them here on the Motte, and their he-man woman-hating screeds get lots of upvotes. A woman who's had a few encounters with these men (who also make it very clear they want to fuck the women they hate) is understandably going to develop a negative attitude about men and a paranoid attitude about any proposal that smells like "control women."

I dunno, man. But nothing any of the he-man woman-haters say has ever convinced me the solution is to hate/control women, or that I should feel anything but contempt for incels. I am not really averse to a "neotraditional" revival of some kind, but like you, I don't see how it can be done.

For what it’s worth, I don’t hate women. I’m married to one. I have young girls.

At the same time, I am of the opinion that feminism is poison. I don’t want my daughters to be girlbosses. I want them to have a lot of kids with a husband who is (1) the head of his house but (2) treats my daughter with love and respect. I also think it’s my responsibility as their father to provide some safety net in case their husband proves to be abusive etc.

I think modern society is all out if whack expecting paradoxically too little and too much from men and women.

I wasn't thinking of you, for what it's worth, nor do I classify everyone who is anti-feminist as a woman-hater.

I didn’t say you were thinking of me (would be slightly narcissistic to assume you were). It was more providing context re the comment that men who want to discourage current day gender norms often are women hating. I know you weren’t say they all are but wanted to provide a real life example to the contrary.

Where do you find good cultural influences for your daughters?

It is a difficult question. I guess I start at home where my wife is stay at home and we have a lot of kids. Our friends almost all have a lot of kids.

But there isn’t something similar to Hollywood we can turn to (though very old Disney such as original Cinderella fit the bill)

I hear what you're saying, but I guess my initial reaction is that I find it hard to take offense to a lot of what's being said. In all but the worst cases, none of it strikes me as being much worse than what's already imposed upon men as a matter of policy. But you're right, that doesn't make it good. There's very few posts that happen here or elsewhere I'd be happy to elect as my representative.

I've reflected a lot on the MRA phenomenon and my involvement in it during the early to mid 2010s. I'm increasingly of the conclusion that it was, at its best, an attempt to arrest a cycle of violence before its next iteration. Reconstructing a positive belonging for men was rightfully seen as a key element. It wasn't meant to be. From the early manosphere we got two winners that made it big into broader culture: incels and red pillers. And it seems like inceldom is now the favorite to win the whole bracket. Bone apple tea.

I don't know if it's just because it fits into a neat understanding, but I get the feel from a lot of these men based on the way that they present their ideas that they are more on the younger side. I think there's going to be more of them as the years go by. I believe that the tools and implements of nihilism and faithlessness that were used to dispossess men are now moving against their next victims in the form of women. The wheel of violence turns.

I think things will get worse, but maybe before they get better. Maybe once there's nothing left there will be room for something new.

Relatedly, I would be in favor of social messaging to encourage fewer people (but especially fewer women) to go to college, and start families instead. But realistically I don't know how this social engineering would work, especially without the power of a church behind it, and I am not in favor of increasing the power of religion, so, yes, once again you may be right that there is no real solution.

There is already a thumb on the scale in favor of women getting more educated uber alles. Obviously removing it is difficult in se, but we should probably start there.

I wonder how much of this will happen naturally as higher ed begins to face a crunch as the population narrows. Various fedgov policies could speed this along fairly "painlessly" (to the average American). It seems plausible that college enrollment trends will reverse even without ideological buy-in from the colleges themselves.

The only developed country with above replacement rate tfr is Israel. This even includes secular Jews. The main differences I think is Israeli politicians always promoted reproduction versus the west falling under some kind of white people bad/for the environment bad argument. The second and similar reason would be Jews still viewing themselves as basically a tribe and growing the tribe has value.

The only developed country with above replacement rate tfr is Israel. This even includes secular Jews. The main differences I think is Israeli politicians always promoted reproduction versus the west falling under some kind of white people bad/for the environment bad argument.

I agree that's likely a factor, but I think there's something deeper going on, which is that Jewish people were the very first group to get whacked full-on by modernity and its effects on fertility. So that in the early 19th century, Jewish people were heavily concentrated in urban areas while other groups had large segments working in the countryside in agriculture. And the urban areas were where fertility declines due to modernity have always hit the hardest.

Logically, what happens when a group experiences some kind of fertility shock like this? Logically, it's going to be roughly the same thing that happens when an antibiotic is put into a colony of bacteria. It will have a big effect at first, but over time, the colony will develop resistance. And arguably what's what happened with Jews, i.e. Jewish people developed cultural (and possibly genetic) defenses. In fact, it was around this time that Haredi Judaism caught on. And in the last 200-300 years, these types of groups have grown to the point where they will soon be a majority of world Jewry.

It's interesting to note that in the last 5-15 years, Jewish fertility in Israel grew to the point where it exceed Arab fertility. Which is very interesting, since Arab leaders have been promoting population growth as a way of winning a demographic war. And certainly Arabs are not suffering from any kind of "Arabs are bad" delusion.

The difference, in my opinion, is that Arabs have hard far less time than Jews to demographically adjust to modernity. So that their TFR is dropping like every other group that encounters modernity.

Cities are IQ shredders theory I believe, except Jews were hit by it early so those with the highest fertility in urban environments have survived and now produce higher.

It has nothing to do what Israeli politicians say or do and more of the fact that the Holocaust made the Jewish national existence the responsibility of every household. If they don't fuck in Israel, then they'll be demographically drowned out by the Arabs. That's why you get weird things like the IDF sperm squad which extracts sperm from dead soldiers to impregnate their widows, like some demented and sad version of 40k's apothecaries. If you're not spermjacking the dead to increase the birth rate, you're not pro-natal enough.

People care about Status. In Israel for whatever reason having kids is high status. In the US we lowered the Status of mothers. That matters a lot more than the marginal dollar in a post-scarcity society.

One of the things that the constant opining about low TFR has done in Korea is to make childrearing high-status again. Marriage rates and childbirth are both on the rise. It's too little too late for Korea, but it does show that there is a social dimension which cannot be neglected and is hard (but possible) to intentionally change.

Very interesting. Is there a nice succinct article/essay about this you could share?

I've been mildly optimistic that elite concern about the issue in the West is early enough that it will pull the elephant in the correct direction, so it would be very interesting to read about the South Korean experience on that question.

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