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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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I think it's a little broader than that, in that it's not just social security. Younger people work more, are more economically productive, and so on. Older people are more likely to be retired and consumers. The net result is a society in some amount of decline. But I agree that that wouldn't necessarily be any disastrous thing to worry about, there is no chance of extinction or something due to this.

It may also reverse itself to some extent, since now that birth control exists, wanting kids plays a much bigger role than it used to, rather than wanting sex, and so there should be an increase over time in people who want kids, if that's at all genetic. (Or if not, I would think that the effect of generations being disproportionately raised by people who value children would itself have some amount of effect. Religiosity could also matter, since more religious families tend to have more children.) Since the loss of children in large part from people delaying and not wanting children, that would provide a check on that.

I'm curious as to what this will do for future generations politically and religiously. I think in general, the right in the US is more pronatalist than the left, which could shift what demographics look like a generation from now back rightward, unless the zeitgeist proves a large enough influence (which, given what Gen Z looks like politically, is very plausible).

Edit: This is all assuming that the way society works stays relatively similar to now, which, given the recent AI progress, could plausibly not be the case.

Religiosity is also hereditary, so I'd expect selection for religiosity to be a major factor. It's probably worth checking to see if elementary school teachers, scoutmasters, and the like have more kids, or are related to people with more kids on average, although I have no idea how you'd go about doing that.

I do think rural areas of France are probably a thing to watch, because their fertility transition happened long enough ago that it could feasibly have some mild selection effects by now and I think that small towns haven't been replaced by Arabs yet. Again, not sure how to check- try to correlate desired fertility with TFR in 1840?