How to Fix Low Birth Rates & Hedges Against Global Fertility Decline
I keep seeing bad proposals... here's what I'd do.
All solutions to low birth rates I’ve seen proposed on X are retarded and won’t work.
Everyone loves ranting about “birth rates” and “extinction” of certain cultures and panicking about the fact that the current incentive structure promotes highest birth rates in the bottom quintile of society both domestically and globally.
It is no secret that both inter-nationally and intra-nationally (within countries), the highest rates of reproduction are, on average, from the dumbest and least productive citizens (with few exceptions/outliers).
“Low IQ Africans are having a lot of kids while living in squalor whereas Whites/Euros and East Asians are far below replacement rates.”
But even if you examine Whites and East Asians (e.g. in the U.S. and China) the most productive, healthiest, and highest IQs are having the fewest kids.
Healthy, productive, smart people have been paying more in taxes and charity to subsidize low IQ, unproductive people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to survive… and the lower IQs continue breeding like rabbits in heat.
That said, even continents like Africa (with high TFR) are experiencing fairly swift declines in birth rates (annual declines over 1% per year); fertility rates are dropping everywhere.
I should also point out that while lower educated groups have slightly higher fertility than higher educated groups in the same populations — absolute births are still dominated by the middle (because that’s where most people fall within the bell curve).
Something I’ve noticed: People with kids are mad at people without kids (for not having kids)
I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of people with kids angry who’ve expressed anger/frustration towards people without kids… shaming them for not having kids. Many erroneously assume that people without kids are as healthy and/or productive as they are and/or would find the experience as rewarding as they do… this is why they are so vocal about it.
Why are some people not having kids?
It could be that they have some chronic health problem that they don’t want passed on and have struggled/suffered a lot (even though you can’t tell) and might be making a logical choice.
Others may think: Well I’m barely scraping by and can barely take care of myself… how the heck am I going to have kids?
Some may be like well I would like kids but I can’t seem to find a compatible partner or woman who will give me kids.
However, I don’t think this is the norm.
I think most people aren’t having kids due to a variety of changes: (1) Paradox of choice/choosiness/difficulties finding an appropriate long-term match; (2) multiculturalism (some studies show that it reduces birth rates); (3) technological advancements; (4) higher education (males & females waiting too long); (5) occupational demands; (6) sex power dynamics (women now more educated and higher earners than men); etc.
Probably many more reasons than those I’ve brainstormed.
I’ve noticed the most anger from Whites with kids who are angry at Whites without kids in the: US, Canada, EU, UK, Australia, etc. because they are beginning to understand the likely downstream implications.
These might include: anti-White racism (a la Biden/woke era); favoritism towards non-Whites; cultural erasure/erosion; decline in level of trust; lower productivity; higher crime; stagnation/decline in standard of living/development (e.g. South Africa).
I sense the real reasons they’re mad are as follows (regardless of whether they’ll admit it):
Whites are set to become a majority minority: Hispanics have the highest birth rates in the U.S. Whites have much lower birth rates and the rates continue dropping. Fewer people with genetics downstream from those who built up the U.S. from nothing (a time with zero gov benefits) will exist. To some this is perceived as a horrible thing (e.g. Californiazation/Miamification of the U.S.).
Culture is changing: Predictably when you change the aggregate DNA of the populace from self-selected Europeans who once valued freedom/capitalism and punishing criminals, culture changes significantly. Many don’t want to lose core traits of the culture/country that they once had. (For some reason this is controversial for Whites to say… but many people hate whites so don’t care. When someone brings up the fact that Japan and/or Korea will lose their identities due to low birth rates nearly all people seem to panic. There’s some sort of pass for wanting to preserve your culture if you’re non-White.)
IQ is decreasing: Not at an exponential rate (well maybe in EU it is)… but the U.S. is on pace for a slower decline. Thankfully there should be some good remedies for this soon (whether they’ll actually get implemented remains unclear).
Throwing the country away: Many with kids feel as though Whites without kids are passively throwing the country away and/or letting it be conquered by non-Whites. Turning the U.S. from a country that their ancestors fought hard to defend – into something that better resembles California in 2025.
Concerned about the country for kids & grandkids: Most want a place they feel is safe, high trust, intelligent, and better than when they existed. They also want to preserve and protect the culture that they feel made their country great. However, many think that this will rapidly evaporate and are thus lashing out at the childless (ineffective).
Most are thinking through the fact that fewer kids among Whites and high IQ East Asians (e.g. Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, South Korea, EU/UK/AU/CA, U.S.) equals higher crime, lower intelligence, cultural decay and lower prosperity.
It’s fine to be angry at healthy smart people who aren’t having kids for idiotic reasons…
If healthy, productive people aren’t having kids for any of the following reasons… they should be ruthlessly attacked (if they otherwise would’ve had/wanted kids). These are braindead reasons for opting out. Please rescue anyone who has done a 180 on wanting kids for any of these reasons.
Destroying the world, resources, nature: “OMG you took a hot shower for 15 minutes? Imagine all the wasted water! Imagine some person starving in a Brazilian Favela! Shame on you.” These people are mentally ill. Abundance is already here… we can accelerate abundance but need more competent people.
AI doomerism: There are people I consider high IQ retards promoting AI doomerism. Some of this is because they can give talks and/or sell books and earn big $ from sticking with this schtick (many genuinely believe AI will end humans or create some sort of dystopia). While these scenarios are possible… any “doom” scenario is technically possible. Stop going down doom rabbit holes and go for a walk outside. Stop the ayahuasca. Stop the EA/LessWrong/Rationalist crap. Maybe AI/robots will take all jobs… so what? This might be a good thing and make life better.
Low social status: Due to the incentive structures in the West, not having kids somehow became a symbol of high social status in some circles. This may be changing… but wealthy people have few or zero kids… whereas single moms on welfare remain above replacement rates.
Global warming & climate change: Many women and nerd guys fall for the idea that the world will go up in flames and that the future is fucked because of climate change/global warming. These people are retarded and need help. The truth about global warming? Yes there is warming (both cyclically and from humans). Warming is not inherently bad. If it’s a problem we need more smart humans working to solve it rather than assume defeat.
Overpopulation fears & egalitarianism: Some people I’ve met won’t have kids because they think there are already enough people in the world and that we should allow them to come to the U.S. or other countries to make a better life for themselves. This means subsidizing randoms from third world countries stricken by poverty/wars. The issue here is that you’re just importing the same DNA that caused the shitty conditions in those countries. You are not making the world better by not reproducing because people in faraway lands are suffering. No these people are NOT the same as you and would not achieve the same shit even with the same opportunities.
Poverty & starving Africans: The irony here is that poverty and starving Africans will not improve if the most productive people stop having kids. The only way out of poverty is innovation, free market capitalism, gene engineering, and/or AI/robotics. Just because there are poor people in Mumbai doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have kids or give them your resources. If you are healthy and productive then having kids does the entire world good.
Brainwashing campaigns (blind leading the blind): There are antinatalist movements and anti-suffering movements that promote not having kids for various reasons (e.g. there are already starving Africans, global warming, humans depleting resources, etc.). These are all fucking retarded and anyone falling for this shit needs to lay off the Ayahuasca and get treated for an advanced stage of the woke mind virus.
Reddit toxicity: There are entire Reddit communities (e.g. antinatalism) that trash people who have kids and hype up how great life is without kids, etc. These types of communities have turned into cults where they try to make themselves feel good by trashing people with kids and seeking out confirmation bias (why having kids is terrible and/or why not having kids is great). Most of these people are mentally ill (which is probably a good reason not to have kids)… but these communities capture some normal people who would likely otherwise make great parents.
How to rapidly & significantly increase birth rates… (My strategies/ideas)
These are my own thoughts/ideas. No I didn’t use any AI here… I’ve been writing more without AI because I can’t really tolerate the amount of AI slop/spam I’ve been seeing on X. Just something unsettling about everyone deferring to the same GPT vomit output.
I think my ideas are better than what I’ve read elsewhere. Can debate feasibility/practicality… but this is for those who are serious about counteracting the low birth rates.
Some of these would be braindead easy to implement: UBO, gov recruitment/payment for competent DNA and surrogates, lowering taxes for having kids, etc.
UBO (Universal Basic Ozempic): Why? We already have Universal Basic Obesity… we need to make people better looking. Obese blobs aren’t attractive. People’s health/hormones are fucked up from being obese. May not have quite the effect people think, but net ROI would likely be positive. I don’t think this would necessarily have a big impact but there’s some preliminary logic suggesting that Ozempic et al. (GLP-1/GIP inhibitors) are increasing birth rates because people look better and libido increases (makes sense).
Government breeding programs: Dead serious. Any government could implement this. Ruthless governments could have a lot of success. I’m sure China would have zero problem making this a reality if the CCP wanted to do it. Same goes for North Korea. Could essentially coerce/force the most competent people to have a certain number of kids and/or collect sperm/eggs from the healthiest/most productive and run some sort of gov breeding operation via surrogates.
Artificial wombs: Eliminates much of the hassle of having kids for women. Can also make conditions optimal so that development is even better than in a natural womb. Sounds a bit ridiculous to the average person today… but could improve things in the future. There are some massive advantages if this tech is perfected. The idea is to help any responsible adult reproduce who wants to have kids.
Recruiting surrogates: Can pay them handsomely. Long-term benefits would be substantial especially if AI/robotics don’t pan out. Increasing the right-tail of health/IQ would give a massive edge.
Recruiting and paying men & women to reproduce: Can come up with some sort of criteria to recruit men and women for reproduction. Anyone at a certain threshold of health/cognition and/or productivity is compensated for sperm/eggs. They have the option of reproducing with someone the government selects OR donating sperm/eggs – could just pay them a lot for it and have them sign consent forms, etc.
Pay surrogates: To be surrogates and/or have kids if they fit certain criteria (e.g. healthy, productive, stable, etc.). Can pay them generously as each baby would have high value if selection criteria were optimized.
Mating/breeding app: Dead serious once again. Have some sort of blockchain verification so that personal information doesn’t leak. Pair people who are serious about wanting/having kids. Ideally they are productive (have a job), at least average IQ, and somewhat healthy.
Zero sex-based quotas (pure merit: academia, occupations, etc.): This means you go by blind test scores and pure merit rather than requiring a specific number of women in certain industries. They must achieve the same level of competency as males rather than be accepted into colleges and/or special programs just for being female. Should eliminate all government funding for special women’s programs as well – there should be zero preferential treatment for men/women.
Import women willing to have kids: Preferably healthy with at least average IQs. Citizenship contingent upon having kids with healthy/productive Americans. Not necessarily a bad idea if there is truly a shortage women willing to have kids in the U.S. as a result of too many “boss girl” phenotypes or whatever. Could create an app for this. Would likely be cutthroat competition but you could require IQ tests, physical health screening, family history screening, etc. or whatever you prefer.
Government subsidized embryo selection: For whoever wants it. I think this would be good for any subset of individuals who are unsure about having kids due to the potential fitness (health, cognition, etc.) of their prospective kids. If you can ensure your kid won’t have any wicked disease, guarantee an IQ of at least 110, lock in a certain height/body composition, minimize criminality, etc. – I think more would have kids.
Make having kids “high status”: Market having kids as being high status. Fertility campaigns targeting middle class, middle upper class, and elites. Pay women like Sydney Sweeney, Taylor Swift, et al. to have kids and subsequently promote having kids. Women tend to follow other high status women.
Incentivize more babies (permanent tax cuts and/or payments): If you have an IQ above a certain threshold and are a productive/healthy person – you get a tax cut for each kid you have. If you have more than say 5-10 kids you maybe get down to zero tax for life or some insanely low tax rate. The idea is that healthy/smart people should be ramping up the baby making because the value to the U.S. is substantial.
Eliminate all inheritance taxes: Zero inheritance taxes. Your kids automatically inherit your fortune unless otherwise formally specified. Would eliminate a lot of bullshit paperwork and frontrunning.
Gene therapies to increase birth rates (?): If extremely desperate it might be possible to invent some sort of gene therapy that increases desire to have children and give to people willing to opt in. This may translate to much higher birth rates and become somewhat of a virtuous circle (i.e. people get gene therapy → increases desire to have kids → pass on these genes, etc.). People end up wired to have large families… those kids end up with the same wirings, etc. Another option is to select for this trait via embryo selection if possible.
Critical hedges against low birth rates
Reverse/Stop Aging (Manhattan Project): No I’m not talking about people like David Sinclair grifting some NAD+ trash or intermittent fasting to live an extra 10 days. Or people like Bryan Johnson getting good sleep at night to achieve some epigenetic age of a 20 year old. I mean a legitimate Manhattan Project to reverse/pause aging… no more fucking around with “increase healthspan” or minicircle bullshit. A project like this should have already started. Operation Warp Speed Reverse Aging. Any major advances (e.g. longevity escape velocity or turn your aging population into 30 year olds or something would eliminate the debt). Imagine having 10 generations all alive at the same time and looking young. Would be cool.
AI & robotics acceleration: The single top hedge against low birth rates is acceleration of AI/robotics. If you can just make 10 million productive robots with 200 IQs that do whatever a population of 1 million humans want them to do, you don’t need to import immigrants and you have a highly productive country that maintains whatever ethos/culture you want.
BCI/Neuralink augmentation: Elon stated that the primary motive for neuralink is so that humans can achieve parity (or at least try to keep up with) advanced AI. Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and Neuralink tech should be able to increase brain efficiency and improve cognition in the future… unclear to what extent.
Gene therapies (health/cognition): Many people opt out of having kids because they feel like they can barely cut it in this world (whether it’s related to physical health, mental health, cognition, etc.). Ideally we invent various gene therapies to improve everyone’s health to the point that they want to have kids because they feel good about their own lives. Ideally gene therapies boost IQ/cognition for anyone who wants/needs an increase. (These should be accelerated by AI.)
Trait selection enhancement: Whether genome-wide or Pareto efficient… we should be selecting for specific traits. Can use big datasets and AI to enhance capabilities so that people can customize their kids. That’s essentially what they’re trying to do already but “naturally.” Everyone wants their kids to be better than other kids in some way (why not just give everyone the exact set of traits they want?).
Cloning: Pay healthy/smart people to clone them. I don’t think anyone would object to cloning 100K Elons as a hedge against stalling AI/robotics. Obviously could clone others who are innovative/inventive etc. Can also allow people to clone themselves (once the tech is perfected)… you know yourself better than anyone. People who want multiple versions of themselves should be allowed to have them.
Emulations: Digital versions of people emulated on some sort of computer software. Akin to what Ray Kurzweil refers to as “mind uploading.” You upload a digitized version of yourself onto some computer and it works like an Alaskan sled dog 25/8. May not be necessary with AI I guess.
Dumb and/or ineffective ideas to fix low fertility rates (TFR) in competent populations…
Many with kids are angry at people without kids and attempt to make them feel bad about it proclaiming things like:
People without kids should have to pay a lot more in taxes! They have no skin in the future of their country! (This is a dumb argument because you don’t know why they aren’t having kids. It’s also dumb because some people reproducing could be massive net negatives to the future of their country in terms of extracting more than they contribute.)
People without kids shouldn’t get to vote! (Dumb argument because many people without kids contribute more than people with kids to their country.)
People with kids should get extra votes! (People with kids should not be given extra votes per kid. The reason being is that the person could be a deadbeat and a net negative.)
Imagine you have some childless scientist inventing some breakthrough AI architecture, rocket launch system, or biotech cure (massive benefits for his/her country) getting zero votes and paying more in taxes than some moron who has never held down a job, smokes crack-cocaine on weekends, and has 6 kids.
So what were the retarded proposals I’ve seen?
Childless get zero votes: Already discussed. Dumb.
Childless pay higher taxes: Already discussed. Dumb.
More votes for having kids: Already discussed. Dumb.
Tank the economy and/or go to war: Have seen this thrown out as a solution. The logic is something like “Well look at countries with bad economies, look at Israel.” Could work but the risk/reward is really bad.
Lower the age of consent: Unnecessary.
More government benefits: Examples include things like free childcare, post-birth PTO (paid leave), mandate employers give benefits to women with kids, etc. These are all unfeasible and stupid. Just waste more tax dollars and/or put absurd government pressure on businesses to become uncompetitive to cater to female employees who give birth.
Ban abortions: Another stupid solution. Would likely increase crime and birth rates among the bottom quintile.
Restrict women’s rights: Not going to happen. Too many men would side with women if this happened and you’d have a civil war between angry men vs. men and women. So bizarre fantasies about restricting voting and education won’t work. We should level the playing field by stopping all the stupid sex quotas and simply go full merit in all fields (i.e. we should NOT be trying to require that at least X # of doctors, scientists, AI/ML researchers etc. are female.) Should be pure blind testing.
Do we really need to increase birth rates?
Unknown… we can’t know what the future holds. It really depends on the economic impact of AI/robotics over the next 10-20 years. If productivity gains from AI/robotics and/or augmentation are so substantial that we can simply create millions of 110-200 IQ robots to replace human labor… then we don’t necessarily need to increase birth rates.
However, nobody knows how long it will take to achieve elite AI/robots that replace vast swaths of the workforce. If predictions are incorrect… we are somewhat fucked given the hundreds of billions being poured into AI CapEx and the U.S. debt and interest on debt.
But even if we have many robots… humans should be around to enjoy the fruits of their labor. More people = more enjoyment. Life will get better than ever before. It’s good to have humans around to experience it. And we will be able to upgrade humans significantly (better health, less disease, longevity, cognition/IQ, etc.).
“But Elon is a hypocrite promoting AI girlfriends”…
Not really. I don’t really care about XAI promoting some anime AI girlfriends or whatever and neither should you.
Elon is trying to generate revenue to accelerate AI/robotics development, likely because Elon realizes that there’s no stopping this train (i.e. there’s no stopping the decline in birth rates).
I think he’s mostly thrown in the towel and realizes he has no power to change it so is saying fuck it, we’ve gotta bet big on AI/robotics so that even if the population declines – productivity can remain high and we don’t need to import a zillion immigrants who will negatively reshape the entire DNA/culture of the U.S.
Final thoughts…
There’s likely no reversing low birth rates without significant intervention and/or a major global calamity. Why? As countries become more technologically and developmentally advanced, birth rates drop.
At this rate seems like the future is maybe: Africans, Israelis and Amish?
We can better attempt to understand why birth rates are dropping… but this is mostly useless in terms of solving it. You don’t need to know why birth rates are dropping to fix the problem.
Just like a deficiency in GLP-1 receptor agonism isn’t a “root cause” of obesity (yet GLP-1 receptor agonists effectively treat it)… we can likely efficiently increase birth rates without dwelling on underlying causes.
Incentives shape behavior. You can incentivize people to have more kids if you try hard enough.
Finally, I don’t think low birth rates are inherently a problem if countries deliver on AI/robotics and human enhancement (e.g. aging reversal, augmentation, etc.) in a timely manner. If they do not deliver… humanity could stagnate. We don’t necessarily need more people.
Right now we need more productivity to sustain the Ponzinomics that is social security and debt/interest on debt, etc.