For quite some time, several years, long before Elon Musk, I have claimed that the coming population crash is the most significant mechanical (that is, non-spiritual) problem facing the West. This December 1 and 2, in Austin, the first Natal Conference will take place. It aims to bring together reality-focused men and women of keen mind to search of solutions. Speakers include me, myself, and I, along with Mary Harrington, James Poulos, Alex Kaschuta, Raw Egg Nationalist, and many more of equal caliber, as you can see at natalism.org.
I very rarely travel for “business.” You will not find me hawking my wares at this and that conference. That I am traveling to Austin for the Natal Conference shows my strong support for this endeavor.
You can learn more at, as I say, natalism.org. Or keep up to date at the conference’s Twitter account. Or read the summary at this Substack.
Good luck Sir.
No Dawn save Victory.
Sounds very interesting but ironically my wife is scheduled to give birth in late November so I will not be able to attend. Glad to read the first day will be live streamed.
Right now, the United States is letting in a flood tide of illegal aliens across our southern border. Under the Biden administration, we can expect two more years of it. So, we are doing what we always do when we need something, importing it. So, what’s the problem?
I assume this question is a joke, but (a) all birth rates around the world are declining, and the few that are not below replacement will soon reach it and (b) they’re not sending their best, as someone once said, not to mention that importing aliens that destroy our nation isn’t a solution.
Dear Mr. Haywood,
I agree that the population crash of developed countries is a serious problem. Our current solution to import people from the third world seems like a suicide strategy. I really appreciate that you participate in discussion about this topic. I have some stray thoughts about it.
What could be the reason for the population crash in developed countries?
1. Is reduced fertility the issue due to body polution by chemicals?
2. Are we becoming like the rats in Calhoun´s experiments due to living in a crowded enviroment and having no serious struggles for survival?
3. Did the trend to promote male behaviour and demote female behaviour destroy the drive to get children in women?
4. Are we guilt-ridden due to the two world wars that we have a strong wish to die?
5. Are we becoming lazy and anti-social due to our technical environment which seems to become hostile to everything human including giving birth to children?
6. Are we still adapting to the wide-spread availability of contraception?
Additional thought:
Maybe, we know on a subconscious level that our population is in overshoot due to the one-time availability of massive amouts of energy known as fossil fuels, which cannot be completely substituted by our other energy collection mechanisms (nuclear, solar, wind, water). Therefore, we promote sterile ways of living (homo- and transsexuality) and unhealthy ways of living (e.g. veganism) to reduce the population.
My Empty Planet review discusses this. It is primarily simply a consequence of autonomic individualism, a consequence of the Enlightenment–that is, the universal spread of poisonous Left ideas. That’s in part your #3. But there is definitely reduced fertility and testosterone, which is definitely due to some environmental factor(s), your #1. (Apparently Calhoun’s experiments are not replicable and not reliable, though they are interesting.) Not #4; this extends far beyond the West. Something to #5, too, even aside from Left values. #6 is in part part of #1, but contraception is a disaster as well.
I don’t think much of subconscious explanations. But certainly the West is capable of maintaining a high standard of living, and energy use, indefinitely. After all, we have hundreds, if not thousands, of years of coal. I have some sympathy for John Michael Greer and catabolic collapse, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.
Population is not declining everywhere. Birth rates are very high in Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest, least educated and worst governed region in the world. Birthrates are elevated in MENA also. Migration from these regions is already a cultural and economic problem in Europe. Our own open Southern border is causing plenty of trouble here as well.
A bigger problem than population decline might be population imbalance
Perhaps the conference will address these matters as well. I can’t attend, but very much want to read or watch anything that comes out of the conference
Yes, population imbalance is a big problem for countries unwilling to defend themselves. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, birthrates are going down, but I don’t know the mechanics. The problem, of course, is that all those countries cannot support large populations without constant infusions of free gifts from the West. As others have pointed out, if Europe closes its borders, those countries will likely suffer greatly as a result, which will fix their population problem.
The bigger thing to note is that it’s not, strictly speaking, large populations that accomplish and lead to dynamism. Ancient Athens and Renaissance Florence were tiny. It’s the right people and the right culture. Africa has never had either. But a universal rule is that a society dominated by the old is terrible. That’s the immediate problem in the West, although of course it is caused by a failure of those same old leeches to have enough children, and by their teaching their children, and other people’s children, not to have children.
I know genetics play a role in the level of culture available but had the west done a better job culturally colonizing Africa I think they would probably be able to have at least an India type civilization where the elites keep things mostly ticking along.
e
E M Jones points out that at one time Germans were running around doing much the same thing that Africans so today but the grafting in of Catholic culture led them down a different path
I will be disappointed if nobody makes any crude jokes about what goes on during the “private closed door sessions” at a pronatalist conference!
Some things I noticed on this natalism topic:
1. Mormon church leader Dallin Oaks gave a talk last week about how even Mormons are getting married years later and having fewer children. That surprised me. Highly Mormon cities like Provo and Ogden in Utah have long had some of the highest fertility rates in the US. (Salt Lake City is much less Mormon.) What changed?
2. Peter Drucker noted in his 1985 book Innovation and Entrepreneurship:
“The most prominent American population experts called together by Franklin D. Roosevelt predicted unanimously in 1938 that the U.S. population would peak at around 140 million people in 1943 or 1944, and then slowly decline. The American population [in 1985]–with a minimum of immigration–now stands at 240 million. For in 1949, without the slightest advance warning, the United States kicked off a ‘baby boom’ that for twelve years produced unprecedentedly large families, only to turn just as suddenly in 1960 into a “baby bust,” producing equally unprecedented small families. The demographers of 1938 were not incompetents or fools; there was just no indication then of a ‘baby
boom.'”
3. Past predictions tell us that predictions are rarely accurate. Predicting the world population in 2100 seems meaningless to me. Just look at the predictions people were making in the 1920s about the world of 2000. Way off.
4. Like many aspects of our complex human societies, people have opinions on the causes of the fertility decline but there’s really no way to know. Given that uncertainty, I’m not sure there is a solution to be had. Depopulation seems be a problem bubbling up from the bottom, and those are very hard to counter with a top-down solution.
5. I looked at the webpage for the Natal Conference. “Brightest minds in the world” will be attending? That’s a bit of a boast (but it looks like you have an interesting speaker list). Still, the Natal Conference looks like a good effort. I wish you luck.
My guess is that the Mormons are unable to resist modernity, and that’s all that changed.
While it’s true that predictions are hard, especially about the future (as Yogi Berra supposedly said), it’s also true that (a) we’re already in a demographic death spiral, where a baby boom wouldn’t get us out of it; and (b) the problem is spiritual, as I discuss in my Empty Planet review, more than anything else, and without fixing that problem it seems very unlikely the population problem can be solved. I don’t think that there’s much mystery about the problem’s cause, but maybe I will think differently come this winter!
Interesting! But God is still ultimately at the Helm! You Men aren’t! Fortunately! Stop being Down on each Other!! Life is Cultural diversity ! God loves You! Love him in Return! Be Easy on each other! I Am That I AM! Criticism and Hate never Wins! Sing Dance and be Happy! Stop examining Life! You have it! Rejoice and be Glad!