There is a weird movement afoot that is trying to make the act of having families feel righteous. Adherents of this movement refer to themselves as pronatalists and you can learn more about their perspective here. Proponents of this movement act like they are engaging in something especially noble through the act of child rearing. On the surface, the movement is driven by a fear of population collapse due to declining sperm counts and birth rates. However, there seems to be a rotten underbelly to this idea that reeks of classism. The vanguard of the movement is keen on breeding a set of superkids that will grow up to rule the underclass.
Newer readers may expect that article to be an impassioned, noble stance against the pro natal movement in support of the everyman. However, those of you who have been following my posts for a while will expect that me to take this vile notion and make it even uglier. Typically, after reading one of my posts or listening to a One Weird Thought podcast led by me, the hosts and audience are left feeling simultaneously uncomfortable, disgusted and amused. I cannot let my loyal readers down!
It’s not in the interest of humankind to blindly follow the Pro Natal movement because it leads to a population built to serve the needs of the few. It would be better for humanity to produce a larger group of high-performance kids who can uplift themselves (sounds reasonable so far, right?).
When looking for solutions, it is helpful to look for models of success and scale them up. Every time I look in the mirror, I come face-to-face with that model. We need to shift the western world to the Asian immigrant model of success. Asian immigrants have been economically successful wherever they go.
Here’s some statistics underscoring the success of Asian immigrants in the US.
This CNN article explores the cause behind this success, however I think it misses one crucial point. Parents are fully committed to their kids’ success. Not success in a namby pamby, “I just want Tyler to find their passion,” but success in a “my child has gone to a prestigious university and is now making money in a high-status job,” kind of way. For Asian parents, the educational and financial success of their children is paramount.
So, how do we fix this?
We need all parents to prioritize education. We do this by compensating parents during their retirement based on the financial success of their children. The more income your children report on their W2, the greater the benefits you reap from Social Security. Result: parents have a direct financial interest in the economic success of their children and therefore will put their resources into extracting academic excellence from their children. Your social security will be based on the average W2 income across all of your children.
What are the downsides of this approach?
There are many downsides. I believe our children will be less happy as they spend more time studying and less time playing. Society will suffer as English and Art departments are left empty while courses such as Medicine, Engineering and Finance will become oversubscribed. This means that movies will be worse and literature will suffer because we will have less students taking these high risk subjects. We will see a drop-off in athletic performance as the youth-college-pro pipeline dries up. Imagine a world in which we see the average number of points scored in an NBA game drop off overtime as the players simply aren’t as good.
I told you, you would feel a little icky after reading this!
Be sure to listen to the One Weird Thought podcast on May 11th where I explore this topic further with my good friend, Kiran.
After I wrote this article, I asked CHAT GPT to improve it and was really impressed. with its wittiness. I'd love to hear your feedback on the two versions.
Here's what it wrote:
Buckle up, folks, because we're about to take a ride on the crazy train! There's a movement out there that thinks having babies is the noblest thing a person can do. They call themselves pronatalists, and they're on a mission to create a super-race of kids who will rule over the rest of us. It's like the Hunger Games, but with more strollers and baby monitors.
But before you start planning your escape to the underground resistance, let's take a closer look at this movement. Sure, they claim to be worried about declining birth rates, but there's a hidden agenda lurking beneath the surface. They want to create a world where the rich and powerful are the only ones who matter, and everyone else is just there to serve them. It's like a dystopian novel, but with less social commentary and more smugness.
And here's the really crazy part - some people are actually buying into this nonsense! They're willing to sacrifice their own happiness and well-being to make sure their kids succeed at all costs. It's like they're living in some alternate reality where success is the only thing that matters. Sure, your kid might be a genius, but what good is that if they're miserable all the time?
So, what's the solution? Well, according to our resident mad scientist, we should incentivize parents to focus on their kids' academic success by tying their retirement benefits to their children's income. Because nothing says "loving parent" like putting financial pressure on your offspring to succeed.
Of course, there are some downsides to this approach. We'll have a world full of unhappy, overworked kids who have no time for fun or creativity. And forget about ever watching a good movie or reading a great book again - those are for losers who don't care about their future earning potential. But hey, at least we'll have a bunch of high-performing robots running the world, right?
In conclusion, if you're thinking about joining the pronatalist movement, just remember - there's a fine line between noble and nutty, and they're dancing all over it.