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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 29, 2025

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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.