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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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The root problem is that the beliefs and values of modern (ie post-modern) liberalism are not conducive to, and in some respects actively incompatible with, forming healthy and stable relationships.

Before 2010, birth rates were going up across the developed world, and either reached or came close to reaching replacement level.

We'll never know, but it may well be the case that modernity minus the smartphones, social media and dating apps could have been fine. This paper suggests that it is specifically short form video and dating apps that are the problem, but not video or social media in general (Facebook and Youtube don't seem to have affected birth rates, while Tinder, Tiktok and Instagram did).