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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 29, 2025

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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.

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.

I think you mean to say that cities are fertility shredders. And yeah, I think it's very reasonable to hypothesize that (1) for hundreds if not thousands of years before the 20th century, if you lived outside of the city, chances are you and your family worked in agriculture; (2) if your family works in agriculture, there's a lot of incentive to have a lot of children since it means a very inexpensive source of labor for the farm; (3) if most of the community works in agriculture, then the culture will tend to value high fertility; (4) if a person (or a family) moves to the city, there is far less incentive to have a large family (and in fact there is the opposite incentive); (5) city culture can be expected to reflect this after a while, until of course cultural and genetic selection get you people and cultures who value large families even though it means cramped living conditions and spending a lot of time and money without much economic return; and (6) one would expect to see this change first in groups which have gone through the "fertility shredder."

That's why I think the idea of just copying Israel might not be all that effective as one might expect. Besides which, a large and fast-growing subset of the Israel population consists of ultra-religious types who don't contribute all that much to Israeli society.

I think you mean to say that cities are fertility shredders.

The term "IQ shredders" was invented by Spandrell and popularized by Nick Land. It's a combination of fertility shredding with the attraction that cities present to young, intelligent, ambitious people.

If you are a talented young man or woman from the countryside or suburbs, chances are you move to New York or Singapore to make it, then fail to reproduce. Hence, IQ shredders.

The term "IQ shredders" was invented by Spandrell and popularized by Nick Land. It's a combination of fertility shredding with the attraction that cities present to young, intelligent, ambitious people.

If you are a talented young man or woman from the countryside or suburbs, chances are you move to New York or Singapore to make it, then fail to reproduce. Hence, IQ shredders.

I understand. My objection to this concept is that in the modern era most people live in and around cities. I don't know about Singapore, but in the last 150 years, lots of people (both smart and stupid) moved from rural areas to New York and their fertility took a hit as a result.

I concede that there might be an add-on effect of modernity which is that (perhaps) unusually smart and ambitious people are presented with opportunities that depress their fertility and that those opportunities are heavily concentrated in cities. That being said, I think it's pretty likely that if you researched the subject you would find that (1) among men in cities, IQ does not have much of a correlation with fertility; and (2) among women in cities, higher IQ definitely is associated with lower fertility. If that's so, the perhaps we could call cities "female IQ shredders"

Well, IQ is heritable from both parents, so a "Female IQ shredder" is just an IQ shredder.

Of course, the other element of the metaphor is that you're not just shredding for the sake of it: there have been a lot of productivity gains from the agglomeration effects of cities. "IQ shredders" points to the trade-offs present in urbanization.

Well, IQ is heritable from both parents, so a "Female IQ shredder" is just an IQ shredder.

To a large extent, I agree, but I think genetic and cultural evolution are flexible enough to select for different traits in men and women even as those men and women are combining their genes. So for example, it's very common to meet highly intelligent women who nevertheless have terrible senses of direction. So common that the difference is very obvious even without doing a formal study.

I’ve seen the term IQ shredders but it’s close to what you are referring as fertility shredders. Cities also attract higher IQ folks. Then the population shredding kicks in. Which makes them at a society level IQ shredders since the new city folks are higher IQ then the people that stayed rural.

I think you mean to say that cities are fertility shredders.

They're called IQ shredders (by those who do) because the smart people move to the city and don't reproduce there, thus providing selection against IQ on a population basis.

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.

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.

Has there been a similar trend among Armenians? Or the Tutsi people in Rwanda?

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.

Not really. But marriage rates are increasing monthly and births are "way" up, large companies are starting to give 6 month maternal/paternal leave (+ 2.5 years unpaid), and everyone knows the issue is critical.

However, there is also a lot of government support for young families now, from special housing options to support for ultrasounds. I think my local district office will provide ~$800 in medical vouchers and folic acid supplements when a pregnancy is registered. $800 is probably enough to pay for the absolutely necessary medical expenses for delivery if the mother is on national health insurance, but I don't think it would be enough to cover electives like NIPT or first-trimester blood testing.

So on further consideration, it might be cultural change driving financial incentives, or financial incentives might make motherhood more high-status.

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

TFR went from .721 in 2023 to .75 in 2024, but this is generally linked to a boom in marriages that were put on hold during Covid (Koreans just do not have kids out of wedlock). This is most likely just a statistical anomoly that will revert to the previous trend in the next couple of years.

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