5D ago
HOT
11 sources
Among high-ability groups, outcomes may hinge more on personality and mental health than intelligence, but IQ looks dominant because it’s measured cleanly while personality is noisy. Measurement error attenuates correlations, steering research and policy toward what’s convenient to quantify rather than what matters most.
— It warns that evidence hierarchies and selection systems can misallocate attention and resources by overvaluing the most measurable traits.
Sources: Some Quotes, Beyond Body Count: How Many Past Partners Are Too Many?, The answer to the "missing heritability problem" (+8 more)
5D ago
5 sources
Acalin and Ball simulate that without primary surpluses, surprise inflation, and the pre‑1951 interest‑rate peg, U.S. debt/GDP would have fallen only to 74% by 1974 instead of 23%, and would sit at 84% in 2022. This implies postwar debt reduction came mainly from financial repression and inflation eroding real liabilities, not from growth alone beating undistorted interest rates.
— It undercuts the idea that America can simply 'grow out' of today’s debt, pointing instead to politically costly surpluses or inflation/interest‑rate suppression—each with deep distributional and institutional tradeoffs.
Sources: Did the United States grow its way out of WWII debt?, The path to a new sovereign accounting, A Few Links, 8/25/2025 (+2 more)
6D ago
HOT
16 sources
Industries tied to in‑kind benefits—farmers (food stamps), home builders (housing subsidies), health providers, and teachers unions—form constituencies that resist rigorous evaluation of those programs. Cash transfers lack such secondary beneficiaries, so they get studied more and criticized when results are modest. This creates an evaluation asymmetry that biases policy toward in‑kind programs regardless of effectiveness.
— It reframes welfare debates around political incentives, not just evidence, and suggests reforms must mandate evaluation where organized interests prefer opacity.
Sources: Cash Transfers Fail?, Some Links, 8/17/2025, Poverty Insurance Audit Juries (+13 more)
6D ago
HOT
6 sources
AI partner apps lower the cost of simulated intimacy, potentially substituting for dating, marriage, and family formation at the margin. The cumulative effect could be fewer real‑world ties and lower fertility even without explicit policy or ideology.
— This raises demographic and mental‑health stakes for how we regulate and design AI that targets romantic and sexual attachment.
Sources: Age of Balls, The Last Days Of Social Media, Some Links, 9/21/2025 (+3 more)
6D ago
4 sources
As traditional denominations hemorrhage members (e.g., Southern Baptists down ~3M since 2006; mainlines halved or worse), non‑denominational evangelical churches with vague brands and warehouse venues surge. These congregations center on charismatic leaders and flexible identities, operating more like influencer franchises than accountable institutions. The model scales fast but weakens oversight, doctrine coherence, and inter‑church governance.
— It reframes U.S. secularization as institutional erosion replaced by personality‑driven religion, mirroring broader shifts from formal bodies to influencers in politics, media, and civic life.
Sources: The Demons of Non-Denoms, The “Marvel Universe” of faith, Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name Above All Names, Inc. (+1 more)
6D ago
1 sources
Contrary to the standard secularization story, recent U.S. survey data suggest weekly religious attendance increases with educational attainment (e.g., CES 2022–2023: 23% among high‑school grads vs 30% among those with graduate degrees). Philip Schwadel’s work is cited to show each additional year of education raises the likelihood of service attendance. Parallel signs of revival are reported in Europe and the UK, alongside a sharp decline in progressive mainline denominations.
— If religion is resurging among the educated, it rewrites expectations about who shapes faith‑based civic life and policy, and complicates culture‑war assumptions about religion versus elite education.
Sources: Why God came back
7D ago
2 sources
Kaufmann claims public opinion on transgender issues has moved 'backwards' after 2022, breaking a decades‑long pattern of steady liberalization on cultural topics. If sustained, this marks the first significant reversal for the cultural left’s agenda in modern polling history.
— It challenges the 'inevitable progress' narrative and signals that future cultural fights may not move monotonically left, reshaping strategy for parties, media, and institutions.
Sources: Post-Progressivism, Fewer Young People Are Identifying as Non-Binary or Non-Heterosexual
7D ago
1 sources
Eric Kaufmann’s new report finds student self‑identification as non‑binary and non‑heterosexual has fallen since peaking in the early 2020s. The drop is not explained by shifts in politics or social‑media use, and seems partly mediated by improving mental health post‑pandemic, suggesting a trend cycle rather than a one‑way rise.
— If identity self‑reports are receding, it revises expectations about the permanence and scale of recent cultural shifts and informs school policy, media framing, and health research.
Sources: Fewer Young People Are Identifying as Non-Binary or Non-Heterosexual
8D ago
2 sources
The piece argues that for families, bedroom count matters more than total square footage, yet new construction overwhelmingly delivers studios and one‑bedrooms. It presents survey evidence that Americans across groups prefer 3+ bedroom homes for raising children and notes small‑unit vacancies are rising as millennials age into parenthood. Policy should target unit mix—especially three‑bedroom apartments and starter homes—rather than just total housing counts.
— This reframes housing policy from generic 'more supply' to 'the right supply' by tying bedroom availability to fertility and family formation.
Sources: Open Floor Plans Are Killing the American Family, Building More Family-Friendly Homes
9D ago
4 sources
International assessments show second‑generation immigrant students’ test scores correlate strongly with their parents’ country‑of‑origin averages, even when they attend the same schools and after socioeconomic controls. Gains from first to second generation are small on average (≈1 IQ point), and big positive outliers reflect immigrant selection (e.g., highly educated Indian migrants), not rapid host‑country assimilation.
— If human capital largely persists across borders, education and immigration policy should account for inherited skills and selection effects rather than assume quick convergence.
Sources: The Assimilation Myth, The American Assimilation Myth, The Son Also Rises (book) - Wikipedia (+1 more)
10D ago
HOT
8 sources
Compare homicide rates within the same racial group across states rather than overall state averages. This reduces confounding from different population mixes and shows that places like Washington, D.C. can be far safer for whites (21% of national white rate) yet far deadlier for blacks (208% of national black rate), with Hispanics near average (113%). This lens can change how we judge state performance and policy impact.
— It reframes partisan crime claims by showing demographics drive much variation and that performance should be measured within groups, not only by aggregate rates.
Sources: Do Blue or Red States Have Worse Crime?, Who Was Greatest Baseball Player Ever?, Blacks are 97x As Likely to Be Murdered in D.C. (+5 more)
11D ago
HOT
6 sources
Absent restored cultural selection, small high‑fertility groups (e.g., Amish, Haredim) will eventually demographically supplant the broader low‑fertility mainstream. The long lag masks an underlying evolutionary advantage.
— This shifts demographic policy debates toward cultural adaptability and fertility as determinants of civilizational continuity.
Sources: We Need Elites To Value Adaption, Beware Macro Decay Modes, The North Sea and the Baltic form the core zone of certain tendencies (+3 more)
11D ago
1 sources
When you’re uncertain which values best support long‑run success, treat the survival of traditions as evidence of adaptive fitness and be cautious about dismantling them. Pursuing moral ideals that reduce group adaptiveness can select your values out of the future.
— This reframes culture‑war reforms by imposing an evolutionary and demographic constraint—moral change must pass the survival test, not just the righteousness test.
Sources: Beware Moral Confidence
12D ago
1 sources
U.S. undergraduate enrollment has fallen 12% since 2010, with two‑year colleges down 39%, and the shrinking pipeline of young people means fewer students even if college costs improve. The author argues this will hollow out college‑dependent towns, creating a 'Second Rust Belt' as 'education mills' contract. Managing the fallout will require proactive regional transition plans, not just campus fixes.
— It reframes higher‑education debates as a demographic and regional‑economy challenge, warning policymakers to plan for post‑college‑town futures.
Sources: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?
12D ago
1 sources
A spatial model with migration, trade, agglomeration, and human‑capital diffusion finds development patterns persist for centuries when education is costly in the wrong places. Cutting schooling costs in sub‑Saharan Africa or Central/South Asia raises local outcomes but can lower global welfare, while the same move in Latin America improves it. Equalizing education costs within Africa can even backfire by shifting people toward less productive areas.
— This challenges blanket 'education everywhere' prescriptions, arguing development gains depend on where human‑capital subsidies land relative to local productivity and agglomeration.
Sources: Claims about education and convergence
12D ago
5 sources
A 2025 BioRxiv preprint sequences Golden Horde elites and reports Y‑chromosome data that bear directly on whether Jochi—Genghis Khan’s eldest—was a biological son. This turns a 13th‑century legitimacy dispute into a testable claim and maps how imperial male lines spread across Eurasia.
— Genomics can now confirm or overturn myths that underpin national identity and history education, shifting debates from legend to evidence.
Sources: Genghis Khan, the Golden Horde and an 842-year-old paternity test, The plunder lie about Western wealth, The North Sea and the Baltic form the core zone of certain tendencies (+2 more)
12D ago
1 sources
A genome from an Egyptian man dated to roughly 2500 BC closely matches the ancestry mix of today’s Egyptians, pointing to 5,000 years of population continuity along the Nile. Breaking down his ancestry also hints at the prehistoric sources that shaped ancient Egypt’s people.
— This anchors contentious narratives about ancient Egypt’s identity in measurable genetic evidence, informing debates on migration, heritage claims, and civilizational continuity.
Sources: A Nile shadow 4,500 years old
12D ago
1 sources
Pew’s 2023–24 Religious Landscape shows Christians at 63% (down from 78% in 2007) and the religiously unaffiliated at 29%. Unlike prior years, the Christian share looks flat since 2019, suggesting the secularization trend may be stabilizing rather than continuing linearly.
— A plateau would alter expectations for culture‑war politics, coalition strategies, and forecasts that assume steadily rising religious 'nones.'
Sources: Mapped: If America were 100 people, this is what they’d believe
13D ago
2 sources
The piece argues that human civilization depended less on early technology and more on rare cultural breakthroughs that curbed male reproductive greed, enabling stable cooperation among unrelated men. With 'every man a warrior' societies cannot support nerds, specialists, or complex tools; male–male peace is the substrate for technological growth.
— It reframes the origins and maintenance of civilization as a fragile social-innovation problem—managing mating competition—rather than a linear tech story, with implications for crime, family structure, and institutional norms.
Sources: The Scientific Case for Divine Inspiration, Claims about polygyny
13D ago
1 sources
A new multi‑country analysis reports that higher polygyny rates are not linked to larger shares of unmarried men; in many such populations, men actually marry more than in low‑polygyny ones. This contradicts a common assumption used to explain conflict risk, the evolution of monogamy, and modern incel narratives.
— If polygyny doesn’t systematically sideline men, theories and policies that tie marriage rules to instability and male violence need re‑evaluation.
Sources: Claims about polygyny
13D ago
1 sources
Britain’s black population has quietly flipped from Caribbean‑led to African‑led over the past two decades. Caribbeans fell from about half of England and Wales’s black population (2001) to roughly a quarter today, while Africans rose to about 62%, reshaping cultural signifiers, public faces, and political narratives like Windrush.
— This demographic turnover alters who defines 'black British' identity and undermines static Windrush‑centered myths used in immigration debates.
Sources: Why the Right mythologises Windrush
13D ago
4 sources
Declines in working mothers’ labor-force participation track the business cycle: they fall when the labor market cools and rise when it runs hot. The current dip is better explained by weakening demand from tariffs and other shocks than by a wave of 'tradwife' values or return‑to‑office vibes. Past cycles (2003 'opt‑out,' 2013 rebound, 2022 peak) show the pattern.
— It shifts debate from culture-war explanations to macro policy and labor demand as the primary drivers of family‑work choices.
Sources: Moms leaving the workforce is a warning sign, not a revolution, The Math Problem at the Heart of the Family Budget, Top Economists Agree That Gen Z's Hiring Nightmare Is Real (+1 more)
13D ago
1 sources
The article argues that most of America’s fertility drop comes from fewer marriages, and that working‑class men became less 'marriageable' when deindustrialization, globalization, and high immigration eroded secure jobs. It proposes protectionist trade, directed industrial investment, vocational training, and tighter immigration to rebuild male economic security, lift marriage rates, and thereby increase births.
— This reframes pronatal policy from childcare subsidies to labor‑market engineering, directly tying trade and immigration choices to marriage and fertility outcomes.
Sources: Make Men Marriageable Again
14D ago
4 sources
Demographic and Health Surveys, a U.S.-funded program, have provided standardized, independent data on births, deaths, and disease across 90+ poorer countries. Ending this funding creates a data blackout that will degrade mortality estimates, program evaluation, and cost-effectiveness analysis worldwide.
— It reveals a geopolitical single point of failure in the world’s evidence base, showing how a domestic budget choice can cripple global decision-making and accountability.
Sources: The Demographic and Health Surveys brought crucial data for more than 90 countries — without them, we risk darkness, The end of tuberculosis that wasn’t, Why Governments Can’t Count (+1 more)
14D ago
HOT
10 sources
Political media can fixate on scandals that most voters barely notice. Using Google search trends and simple polling checks can show whether a story like Epstein has truly 'broken through' or is confined to the Beltway microclimate. Treat cable-news cycles as weather in a studio, not the country.
— This redirects campaign strategy and news prioritization toward measurable public interest rather than newsroom momentum, reducing misallocated focus and overhyped 'game-changers.'
Sources: Is Epstein the new Russiagate?, Moms leaving the workforce is a warning sign, not a revolution, Republicans are much less likely to see inflation and election fraud as very serious problems than they were a year ago (+7 more)
14D ago
5 sources
Tracking ~30 countries by birth cohort, cohorts that grew up with higher life expectancy and higher income per person end up with fewer children. The study aligns early-life conditions (ages 0–14/18/25) to completed cohort fertility and uses mixed-effects models to isolate within-country changes, with placebo pre-birth windows as a check.
— It reframes fertility decline as a developmental response to improved early-life conditions, guiding pronatal policy beyond short-term subsidies toward the deeper drivers of reproductive timing and family size.
Sources: From Longevity to Low Fertility: Evidence Across Countries, Follow-up: Do changes in childhood conditions predict fertility outcomes?, Rethinking education balance and cohort fertility: dynamic panels vs. Mundlak (+2 more)
14D ago
1 sources
As assisted reproductive technologies (IVF/ICSI) scale, they can allow people with infertility‑linked genotypes to reproduce, relaxing natural selection against low fecundity. Over generations, this could gradually reduce baseline natural fertility even if short‑run birth numbers are boosted by treatment.
— It reframes ART from a purely therapeutic tool to a demographic force that could reshape population fecundity, informing fertility policy, genetic counseling, and long‑run projections.
Sources: What is driving the global decline of human fertility? Need for a multidisciplinary approach to the underlying mechanisms - PMC
14D ago
HOT
8 sources
Silver’s 'River vs. Village' lens maps political power to risk preferences: the risk‑seeking 'River' (Silicon Valley, Wall Street) is ascendant while the risk‑averse, institutional 'Village' (legacy media, academia) loses credibility. He ties this to 2024’s outcome and Musk’s growing leverage, arguing Democrats misread voter mood through a Village filter.
— Reframing coalitions around risk appetite rather than left‑right ideology helps explain shifting alliances and how tech capital now shapes electoral dynamics and policy.
Sources: One year later, is the River winning?, We Need Elites To Value Adaption, Did Taiwan “Lose Trump?” (+5 more)
14D ago
3 sources
Instead of treating race as looks or a pure social construct, the article argues it is fundamentally about who appears in your family tree (genealogical ancestry). This frame explains why 'English' vs 'Irish' could be meaningful historically despite limited visual distinguishability and why American visual sorting confuses surface cues with lineage.
— Defining race as ancestry clarifies debates in identity politics, medicine, genetics, and census policy by separating genealogy from phenotype and rhetoric.
Sources: Tree of Knowledge, Are children of interracial unions less genetically related to their parents than to unrelated individuals of the same ethnicity?, The case for race realism - Aporia
14D ago
1 sources
The article asserts that extremely heterogeneous societies are not necessarily more civil‑war‑prone because high 'coordination costs' impede mass mobilization. Instead, moderately homogeneous polities can be more unstable, where factions coordinate more easily.
— This flips a common assumption about diversity and conflict, changing how policymakers read social composition when assessing domestic stability.
Sources: Civil War Comes to the West - Military Strategy Magazine
14D ago
5 sources
Low heritability can arise because a trait is biologically rigid with almost no variance left to explain (ten fingers), or because environmental/context variation swamps genetic effects (number of children). Distinguishing these cases requires parsing family/twin h², SNP-based h², and GWAS/PGS results across cohorts.
— This reframes media and policy claims that 'low heritability means not genetic' and guides how we interpret and deploy polygenic scores across populations and time.
Sources: When Low Heritability Means Different Things: Number of Children vs. Number of Fingers, When Low Heritability Means Different Things: Number of Children vs. Number of Fingers, What a New Massive Mexican Family Study Tells Us About the Effects of Ancestry on Different Traits (+2 more)
14D ago
HOT
21 sources
Adding control variables to a regression doesn’t make it causal unless you know the causal structure. Controlling colliders (variables influenced by both X and Y) can create spurious links, and controlling mediators can hide real effects. Examples like COVID voluntary datasets and college-only samples show how selection turns 'controls' into bias.
— It tells readers and editors to demand causal diagrams or stated assumptions before accepting 'controlled for everything' findings as policy-relevant truth.
Sources: You Can't Just "Control" For Things, Did the United States grow its way out of WWII debt?, Who gets into the best colleges and why? (+18 more)
14D ago
2 sources
The authors argue that socio‑economic status doesn’t just reflect genetic differences; over generations it feeds back on the gene pool through assortative mating, migration, and fertility patterns. This creates measurable genetic stratification aligned with social hierarchies without endorsing hereditarianism.
— If social structure imprints on population genetics, debates over inequality, education, and 'nature vs nurture' must account for dynamic gene–environment feedback rather than one‑way causation.
Sources: Genes, money, status... and comics - by Adam Rutherford, Socio-economic status is a social construct with heritable components and genetic consequences | Nature Human Behaviour
14D ago
HOT
7 sources
Apollo’s Torsten Slok estimates that with zero net immigration, the U.S. could sustainably add only about 24,000 nonfarm jobs per month, versus 155,000 average in 2015–2024. This reframes monthly payroll numbers: recent growth relies on inflows that expand both labor supply and consumer demand.
— Quantifying immigration’s macro contribution challenges 'jobs taken' narratives and affects targets for growth, monetary policy, and border decisions.
Sources: USA counterfactual estimate of the day, The imaginary war on American workers, Coming Down from the Open-Border Sugar High (+4 more)
14D ago
1 sources
Pew’s new data indicate that for every Singaporean who leaves Christianity, about 3.2 others convert into it. The post also notes Buddhism is shrinking in Japan and South Korea. Together these figures complicate simple 'secularization everywhere' narratives in developed Asia.
— Religious switching patterns in wealthy Asian states affect culture, politics, education, and social services, and challenge assumptions about uniform secular decline.
Sources: Singapore fact of the day
16D ago
2 sources
Using YRBSS, NSFG, and GSS, the author finds the Gini of sexual activity has risen mainly because the share of virgins increased, while overall dispersion (absolute inequality) has actually narrowed. This means the distribution is getting 'spikier at zero' rather than more dominated by a small group of hyper‑actives. The male share of rising sexlessness is growing fastest.
— This reframes 'incel vs. Chad' talk by showing inequality is driven by more people having no sex rather than a few having much more, shifting how we think about social policy, mental health, and dating markets.
Sources: Incels Rising, Modern chads, virgin cavemen?
16D ago
1 sources
Tracking the lead SNP from a new GWAS of lifetime sexlessness across 12,000 years of West Eurasian ancient genomes, the author finds the allele associated with sexlessness was more common in the deep past and has declined toward the present. A weighted regression on 500‑year bins (adjusted for latitude and coverage) shows a negative time trend (slope ≈ 0.0105 per kyr; standardized β ≈ 0.51). This suggests slow, long‑run selection against genetic liabilities that reduce partnering and reproduction.
— It injects evolutionary genetics into debates about modern sexlessness and mating markets, indicating that recent behavioral shifts likely reflect social environments rather than a genetic rise in sexlessness‑prone variants.
Sources: Modern chads, virgin cavemen?
18D ago
2 sources
A Nature study estimates wildfire smoke caused about 41,000 excess U.S. deaths per year from 2011–2020 and could kill 68,000–71,000 annually by 2050 without stronger prevention and health measures. The authors include deaths up to three years after exposure and show smoke harms extend far beyond the West, with drift impacting the Midwest and East Coast. The mechanism is fine particulates that inflame lungs and enter the bloodstream, triggering heart attacks and strokes.
— This reframes U.S. climate policy by elevating smoke mitigation (forest management, filtration, alerts) and integrating smoke mortality into climate damage models and health planning.
Sources: Could Wildfire Smoke Become America's Leading Climate Health Threat By 2050?, Frailty in Ageing Populations Worsened By Air Pollution, Global Review Finds
18D ago
1 sources
A global review of 10 studies across 11 countries finds outdoor particulate pollution raises the risk of frailty in middle and old age. In the UK, an estimated 10–20% of frailty cases may be attributable to outdoor particles, with men in some studies more vulnerable than women. Secondhand smoke boosts frailty risk by ~60%, and solid‑fuel cooking/heating adds additional risk.
— This links environmental exposure to functional decline and care needs, making air‑quality and anti‑smoking policy part of aging and health‑system planning.
Sources: Frailty in Ageing Populations Worsened By Air Pollution, Global Review Finds
19D ago
4 sources
Innovation power tracks the size of a country’s extreme‑ability tail and total researcher headcount. With ~2.6 million FTE researchers and far more 1‑in‑1,000 cognitive‑ability workers than the U.S., China now leads in areas like solar, batteries, and hydrogen. Because ideas are nonrival, a multipolar science world accelerates progress even if the U.S. claims a smaller share of laurels.
— This shifts U.S.–China debates from zero‑sum IP fears to scale‑driven innovation dynamics and global welfare gains, informing R&D, immigration, and alliance policy.
Sources: The Simple Mathematics of Chinese Innovation, Smart Extinction? Projecting the Future of Global Intelligence and Innovation, All of these factors are strong predictors of change in military technology (+1 more)
20D ago
HOT
12 sources
Across human history, plunder and conquest were the norm; ancient DNA shows repeated population replacements and a severe Neolithic male bottleneck. What distinguishes modern rich societies is not unique access to plunder but the institutional shift from predation to protected exchange—monopolized violence, property rights, and rule‑of‑law that curb raiding.
— This reframes colonialism and development debates away from zero‑sum blame and toward building anti‑predation institutions as the path to mass prosperity.
Sources: The plunder lie about Western wealth, The struggles of states, the contentions of classes, The North Sea and the Baltic form the core zone of certain tendencies (+9 more)
21D ago
2 sources
Across countries, people care less about the total number of past partners than about when those partners were accumulated and whether the pace is tapering. A slowing trajectory signals lower future risk, while recent, fast accrual raises concern. This reframes 'body count' from a crude tally to a timeline‑sensitive signal.
— It challenges viral dating narratives by replacing a stigmatizing headline metric with behaviorally grounded, time‑aware criteria that travel across cultures.
Sources: Beyond Body Count: How Many Past Partners Are Too Many?, Intelligence Isn't Really Sexy
21D ago
1 sources
Across speed‑dating labs and real‑style app tests, intelligence is detectable but adds little to sexual appeal compared with physical attractiveness. A 2025 study using verified IQ on synthetic profiles found attractiveness (~β=0.80) outweighed intelligence (~β=0.12) by roughly sevenfold, with similar patterns in face‑to‑face experiments. Population‑genetic data further link higher intelligence/education to greater sexlessness risk.
— This challenges widely held claims that intelligence is a decisive attractor, reshaping conversations about dating advice, status signaling, and the roots of sexlessness/incel trends.
Sources: Intelligence Isn't Really Sexy
22D ago
3 sources
Cross‑national surveys indicate age of first sex has fallen and partner counts are stable or rising, while sexual frequency is declining. This pattern contradicts the U.S. 'incel' narrative and tech‑blame theories and instead suggests fewer marriages and cohabiting relationships are lowering how often people have sex.
— It reframes the sex recession debate from universal tech explanations to demographic and institutional shifts that vary by country.
Sources: Incels Rising International Edition, Incels Rising, Has sexual desire been reprogrammed by the internet?
24D ago
2 sources
Because PISA‑D is calibrated to the main PISA scale, Zambia’s 275 average versus U.S. Black students’ 459 implies about a 1.8 standard‑deviation difference in reading. That magnitude suggests schooling quality and broader environment drive much of the disparity, not ancestry alone. It reframes how we compare U.S. subgroup performance to developing countries.
— It injects hard numbers into contentious education and heredity debates while highlighting the scale of global human‑capital deficits.
Sources: How Low You Can Go in the Third World, Zambia fact of the day
26D ago
2 sources
New analyses suggest the Fulani carry substantial Ancient North African ancestry—traces of populations that moved during the Holocene “Green Sahara” period. This phase of higher rainfall likely opened corridors that reshaped Sahelian genomes and later cultural diffusion.
— It links climate shifts to lasting population structure and cultural history, updating public narratives about African diversity and migration.
Sources: Cesar Fortes-Lima: the Fulani out of the Green Sahara, Did Harsh Winters Shape Psychology? Answers from Ancient and Modern DNA
26D ago
1 sources
The piece argues that long‑term survival in cold, highly seasonal ecologies selected for lower Extraversion and Neuroticism and higher Agreeableness. It operationalizes this by predicting latitude‑linked signals in Big Five polygenic scores using ancient and modern DNA, and cites Inuit food‑sharing as behavioral corroboration.
— If climate‑driven selection shaped population differences in personality, debates over culture, migration, and inequality would need to grapple with contentious gene–environment histories rather than purely contemporary explanations.
Sources: Did Harsh Winters Shape Psychology? Answers from Ancient and Modern DNA
26D ago
HOT
6 sources
As wealth and frictionless communication unify societies, macro-level cultural evolution loses the selection pressures that once filtered maladaptive norms. Rapid, activist-led shifts become random relative to survival needs, pushing societies into a 'decay mode' despite technological progress. Resistant subcultures may preserve adaptive traits through the decline.
— It reframes globalization and activist-driven change as potential sources of civilizational fragility rather than automatic progress.
Sources: Beware Macro Decay Modes, Masculinity at the End of History, We Need Elites To Value Adaption (+3 more)
27D ago
1 sources
Britain’s long period of relative internal peace may have been aided by mass outmigration, which absorbed surplus ambitious elites who couldn’t find roles at home. By turning would‑be internal agitators into settlers abroad, emigration functioned as a psychological and political safety valve.
— It reframes immigration/emigration policy as a tool for managing intra‑elite conflict, implying that fewer outlets for surplus strivers today could raise instability.
Sources: Second Son Syndrome
29D ago
2 sources
Thailand’s poor are often rural smallholders who own their land, contrasting with Western urban 'ghetto' poverty where renters lack assets. Asset‑holding in rural settings may buffer hardship differently than cash‑poor, rent‑burdened urban poverty.
— It pushes anti‑poverty and housing policy to consider asset structure and urban form, not just income transfers.
Sources: David Van Ofwegen: a peripatetic philosopher across Eurasia's antipodes, The world needs peasants
29D ago
1 sources
The article claims global urbanization is decelerating and that smallholder family farms still feed much of the world. It argues peasants make up roughly a quarter of humanity and that supporting them is key for food security and social stability rather than assuming inevitable replacement by agribusiness.
— This reframes development and climate policy by challenging the assumption that cities and large‑scale mechanized farms will naturally absorb the countryside.
Sources: The world needs peasants
30D ago
1 sources
The book argues that inflationary monetary regimes and credit expansion foster short‑termism and unstable expectations that discourage marriage and family formation. It cites long‑run declines in marriage rates (e.g., about 10.5 per 1,000 in the mid‑1980s to 6.5 in 2018) and frames these as predictable spillovers of fiat‑money policy, not random social drift.
— This reframes inflation debates from purchasing power to social cohesion, suggesting central‑bank policy choices may shape family stability and demographic outcomes.
Sources: The Social Costs of Inflation
1M ago
5 sources
Summarizing Borjas, the author argues that immigrants who arrived during the 1924–1965 'pause' assimilated economically much faster than cohorts from high‑immigration eras. Large inflows create ethnic enclaves and coordination frictions, and add wage/congestion pressures that slow convergence. Treating scale as a first‑order variable undercuts open‑borders models that ignore these dynamics.
— It reframes immigration policy around the size and pacing of inflows as levers to maximize assimilation and minimize social costs.
Sources: The limits of social science (II), The limits of social science (I), The Many Faces of Nationalism (+2 more)
1M ago
1 sources
The Financial Times reports Chile’s total fertility rate fell 42% in a decade to 1.03 in 2024, now below Japan’s. Since 2013, vasectomies reportedly increased by 900%, signaling durable shifts in family planning. This is an unusually fast demographic transition for a middle‑income country.
— Such a sharp fertility decline will reshape pension sustainability, workforce planning, and regional migration dynamics across Latin America.
Sources: Saturday assorted links
1M ago
1 sources
A cited poll summary says Gen Z Trump‑voting men rank having children as their top success marker, while Gen Z Harris‑voting women rank it near the bottom. This suggests an inversion of the traditional assumption that women prioritize children more than men, with ideology tightly bound to family priorities.
— If parenthood values polarize by gender and party in Gen Z, it will shape fertility trends, coalition politics, and policy demand on family support.
Sources: Some Links, 9/20/2025
1M ago
1 sources
Liberals who came of age after 9/11 remember when the right led speech crackdowns, and are therefore more skeptical of progressive 'cancel culture' that peaked around 2020. Cohort experience with earlier cancellations shapes today’s willingness to punish or tolerate controversial speech.
— If cohort memory steers speech norms, institutions and parties should expect—and plan for—age‑structured splits in reactions to provocations and sanctions.
Sources: The political mood feels like 9/11 again
1M ago
1 sources
Analyzing 4,133 ancient genomes with a weighted OCA2/HERC2 haplotype score finds only about 4% of Imperial Romans were likely blue‑eyed, compared to roughly 22% in Iron Age Rome and 21% in Medieval Rome. Vikings score much higher (~55%), while steppe cultures are darker‑eyed than many assume.
— Quantifying eye‑color shifts across eras reframes Rome’s imperial period as a demonstrably cosmopolitan genetic mix and corrects common myths about European ancestry.
Sources: The Origins and Spread of Blue Eyes in Europe: Evidence from Ancient DNA
1M ago
1 sources
China now leans on roughly 200 million 'flexible workers'—including 40 million day‑wage factory hands and 84 million platform drivers/couriers—who lack contracts and urban hukou, so they miss healthcare, schooling, pensions, and property rights. Most factory gig workers are young, male, and single, and many sleep rough between jobs. A recent Supreme Court ruling allows claims for denied benefits, but enforcement is unclear.
— This shows how China’s consumption pivot and social stability are constrained by a precarity‑based labor model and hukou barriers, with global growth and supply‑chain implications.
Sources: China's Future Rests on 200 Million Precarious Workers
1M ago
3 sources
The piece advances a hypothesis that groups with longer historical exposure to alcohol have lower rates of binge drinking today due to genetic and cultural adaptation, while groups with recent exposure face higher risks. It calls for biochemical research tailored to these differences rather than one-size-fits-all interventions.
— This reframes addiction policy through evolutionary mismatch, implying targeted medical approaches instead of purely cultural or moral framings.
Sources: Nature: Stop Noticing American Indians' Drinking Problems!, Ozempic and Alcoholism: Does It Work?, Chimps Drinking a Lager a Day in Ripe Fruit, Study Finds
1M ago
1 sources
UK retirement villages often charge high monthly service fees and ground rents, then require heirs to sell the lease when residents die or enter care. About half of these homes reportedly sell at a loss and can take months or years to sell, while families remain liable for council tax and ongoing fees.
— This highlights a structural consumer‑protection gap in elder housing that shifts risk onto families and suggests a need for standardized contracts and exit‑fee regulation as societies age.
Sources: The sordid truth about retirement villages
1M ago
1 sources
Census miscounts and multi‑year gaps are common even in major democracies and can abruptly rewrite a country’s population baseline. Paraguay’s 2022 census came in 1.4 million below projections; India hasn’t censused since 2011; Nigeria’s counts are widely doubted. When the state can’t count, budgets, representation, and health/education planning become guesswork.
— Accurate population baselines are a precondition for coherent policy, so widespread census failure distorts political maps and social spending far beyond statistics.
Sources: Why Governments Can’t Count
1M ago
1 sources
Reanalysis of NLSY ’79 wage trajectories shows earnings begin rising as much as six years before marriage and dip after divorce. Because standard fixed‑effects models use soon‑to‑marry singles as comparisons, they likely understate the marriage premium if the premarital ramp is part of the causal effect. This pattern also challenges explanations centered solely on household labor division or employer favoritism.
— It reframes the marriage premium as partly an anticipatory, behavioral dynamic and a measurement issue, altering how researchers, media, and policymakers interpret gender gaps and family policy.
Sources: Are All the Good Men Married?
1M ago
2 sources
France now spends about a quarter of all public outlays on pensions—roughly €420 billion a year—more than it spends on education, defense, security, transport, research, justice, and infrastructure combined. Indexation added another €14 billion in 2024 alone, and officials claim roughly half of the €1 trillion Macron‑era debt increase traces to pension costs. A pay‑as‑you‑go system under worsening worker‑to‑retiree ratios (now under 2:1) is crowding out investment and destabilizing governance.
— If entitlements consume the state, intergenerational equity and Eurozone fiscal stability become central political questions rather than abstract budget debates.
Sources: How the boomers crippled France, Saturday assorted links
1M ago
1 sources
A linked estimate suggests Macau’s total fertility rate may have fallen to roughly 0.49—about half a child per woman. That would be among the lowest ever recorded anywhere, far below replacement and below even Japan and South Korea’s recent lows.
— Such an extreme low births rate would sharpen global debates on demographic decline, immigration, and pro‑family policy by showing how fast fertility can collapse.
Sources: Saturday assorted links
1M ago
1 sources
A new analysis of NHANES and precursor surveys finds U.S. males born in the 1960s had later or smaller adolescent growth spurts than 1950s cohorts, ending up the same height in adulthood after catching up later. Females didn’t show height differences but did experience later menarche than those born a decade earlier. The result points to changes in growth tempo rather than final size.
— It challenges the standard narrative of uniformly earlier puberty over time and invites investigation of cohort‑specific environmental, nutritional, or health factors that shape development.
Sources: Human growth sentences to ponder
1M ago
HOT
8 sources
Contrary to forecasts of Aztlan-style separatism, immigrant dispersion across states and the pull of mainstream consumer culture have produced a more individualized, de-tribalized public rather than coherent ethnic subnations. The result is cultural flattening and political weirdness rather than formal breakaway zones.
— It challenges a core assumption in demographic politics by shifting attention from territorial fragmentation to social fragmentation.
Sources: Examining Prophecies about Multicultural America, Highlights From The Comments On Liberalism And Communities, How We Got the Internet All Wrong (+5 more)
1M ago
2 sources
Since the 1990s, big chains have shed playful, kid‑centric designs for minimalist interiors and 'healthy' menu cues to escape obesity stigma and appeal to wealthier adults. The post suggests two deeper drivers: rising inequality concentrating spending among bougie customers, and declining fertility reducing the payoff from kid‑friendly spaces. Everyday retail aesthetics thus mirror changing class and demographic realities.
— If inequality and low fertility reshape even fast‑food branding, they are also likely altering broader public spaces, consumption, and class signaling in ways policymakers and cultural analysts should track.
Sources: Links For September 2025, Pets as Substitute Children
1M ago
1 sources
Across U.S. states, higher birthrates correlate with more 'pregnancy' searches while lower-birth states search more for 'cats.' Nationally, as birthrates have fallen over three decades, pet spending has surged. This pattern supports the idea that pets increasingly serve as substitute children, reinforced by our evolved attraction to infant-like features.
— If pet‑as‑child substitution is measurable in consumer and search data, it reframes parts of the fertility decline as a cultural substitution that shapes markets and policy messaging.
Sources: Pets as Substitute Children
1M ago
1 sources
National Conservatism 2025 reportedly centered on pronatalism, with Heritage’s Kevin Roberts urging policymakers to judge every bill by whether it strengthens the nuclear family. This elevates fertility and family formation from a talking point to a governing metric on the right.
— If pronatalism becomes a core policy test, it will reorder conservative priorities across tax, housing, education, and social policy and force clearer left‑right contrasts on family policy.
Sources: Some Links, 9/10/2025
1M ago
3 sources
The Roman Empire’s integrated economy also integrated pathogens, depressing average health and productivity. Bioarchaeological data on adult long-bone lengths decline from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD, then recover after the 5th century, consistent with a 'first integrated disease regime.'
— It reframes globalization as a health trade‑off that can sap human capital, informing current debates on integration versus resilience.
Sources: The North Sea and the Baltic form the core zone of certain tendencies, REVIEW: Cuisine and Empire, by Rachel Laudan, The Rise of Rome: From Village to Superpower - A Brief Historiometric Analysis of Outlier Growth
1M ago
2 sources
Elite media now cast midlife divorce as emancipation and sexual rediscovery for professional‑class women while marriage and birth rates sit near record lows. Treating exit as empowerment may normalize dissolution costs away—on children, spouses, and social capital—just as younger cohorts de‑prioritize family. The cultural script could further depress marriage formation and durability.
— If cultural narratives valorize divorce during a demographic slump, they can influence norms and policy debates around marriage, family stability, and pronatal efforts.
Sources: Eat, Pray, Leave, Rep. Rashida Tlaib Stands With Anti-Western Radicals
1M ago
2 sources
Using observed links between fertility, national IQ, and innovation output, the article projects a 73% global decline in people with IQ ≥131 by 2100 and a fall in the +2SD cutoff from 128 to 116. It estimates this will reduce global innovation capacity by about 50%, effectively erasing roughly 18 years of scientific progress this century.
— If accurate, these projections force policymakers to confront how demographic-genetic trends could throttle growth and scientific leadership absent countervailing policies or transformative AI.
Sources: Smart Extinction? Projecting the Future of Global Intelligence and Innovation, Tweet by @degenrolf
1M ago
1 sources
A cited study reports that higher scores on the Dark Tetrad (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism, sadism) are associated with having more children and reproducing earlier. If robust, this implies antisocial tendencies may confer reproductive advantages under modern conditions.
— Selection favoring darker personality traits would complicate crime prevention and social‑policy strategies that assume culture alone can reverse such tendencies.
Sources: Tweet by @degenrolf
1M ago
2 sources
Modern industrial systems were designed around large, expanding populations that enable economies of scale. With fertility below replacement (e.g., South Korea at ~0.75 births per woman), these systems risk stalling, and automation won’t fully substitute lost human inputs. The piece proposes a 'megaproject economy' to sustain high throughput in aging, shrinking societies.
— This reframes growth and industrial policy by tying demographic decline directly to the feasibility of large-scale production and national ambition.
Sources: The Megaproject Economy, Pronatalism isn’t just for illiberal freaks
1M ago
1 sources
Pronatalism need not be coercive or illiberal: liberals can back higher birthrates by building more housing, funding high‑quality childcare, protecting reproductive and health freedoms, and countering cultural antinatalism. This reframes family policy as compatible with autonomy and prosperity rather than religious or nationalist agendas.
— It opens a cross‑ideological path on fertility policy, potentially realigning coalitions and shifting debates from culture‑war postures to concrete governance levers.
Sources: Pronatalism isn’t just for illiberal freaks
1M ago
2 sources
Many viral, 'stunning and brave' stories trigger a distinct pleasure when someone from a group seen as barred or stereotypically weak does a forbidden or unlikely task. Kurzban labels this reaction 'boosting' and notes it can be evoked even when the original barrier has largely vanished, suggesting audiences crave the transgression narrative itself.
— If praise is increasingly allocated for identity-coded boundary crossing rather than absolute performance, media incentives, awards, and HR norms may drift from merit toward narrative fit.
Sources: Boosterism, Eat, Pray, Leave
1M ago
2 sources
The author argues that when each child is empowered to define their own moral code, parents cannot sustain coherent rules across multiple kids. A therapy‑inflected culture that encourages severing ties over perceived harms puts secular parents into a religion‑like dilemma: keep family norms or follow the dissenter.
— If true, therapeutic individualism may erode family cohesion and suppress higher‑order fertility, with knock‑on effects for social policy and demography.
Sources: Keeping my religion, Eat, Pray, Leave
1M ago
2 sources
ISTAT data (2003–2023) show foreign-born women’s total fertility rate fell by nearly one child while natives’ barely moved, making the gap shrink steadily. Regression estimates indicate foreigners’ fertility is declining about ten times faster than natives’, implying convergence by the mid‑2030s if trends hold. This normalizes immigrant fertility toward host-country levels rather than sustaining a large, persistent gap.
— It challenges population‑replacement narratives and refocuses policy on overall low fertility and immigration flows/age structure rather than assumed group-level birthrate gaps.
Sources: Immigrants' fertility is declining much faster than that of native Italians, Immigrants' fertility is declining much faster than that of native Italians
1M ago
3 sources
Protests after George Floyd’s death were overwhelmingly concentrated in countries with Germanic Protestant roots, with the U.S., Netherlands, U.K., Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Belgium, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and Norway leading per capita. Even inside countries, Dutch‑speaking Flanders far outpaced French‑speaking Wallonia, and English‑speaking Canada exceeded Quebec. Latin Catholic and Eastern/Central European countries showed much lower rates.
— This suggests secularized Protestant cultures are uniquely receptive to collective‑guilt moral movements, challenging the idea that such activism is universally resonant.
Sources: Floyd Summer and the Deformation of Guilt, A Few Links, 8/25/2025, That Old Black Magic
1M ago
1 sources
The piece claims Britons with Norman‑origin surnames (e.g., Glanville) are more likely to be wealthy than those with Anglo‑Saxon names (e.g., Smith, Cooper), a millennium after 1066. It ties this to how Norman elites recast 'English' as 'British' to justify rule, suggesting that identity and class stratification from conquest still echo in today’s politics.
— If conquest‑era lineage still predicts wealth, debates on inequality, nationalism, and elite legitimacy must reckon with deep ancestral persistence rather than only recent policy or markets.
Sources: Why the Normans still matter
1M ago
HOT
6 sources
Over seven years, 1,241 black D.C. residents were homicide victims compared to 11 whites, implying a 97-to-1 per-capita risk gap. This shows crime is hyper-concentrated by group, so citywide ‘crime up/down’ talk can hide who bears the danger and who benefits from crackdowns.
— It shifts crime policy discussions toward distribution of victimization and the equity implications of enforcement choices.
Sources: Blacks are 97x As Likely to Be Murdered in D.C., D.C. needs real policing, not propaganda, When politics isn’t local (+3 more)
1M ago
2 sources
Re-estimating cohort fertility with dynamic panels that include lagged fertility shows most early-life factors vanish, but the male‑to‑female education ratio remains predictive. Negative coefficients on this ratio in childhood windows imply that cohorts with relatively higher female education have higher completed fertility. This reframes the education–fertility link as sensitive to gender balance, not just years of schooling.
— If relative female education boosts fertility, pronatal and education policies should target gender balance rather than assuming female schooling suppresses births.
Sources: Rethinking education balance and cohort fertility: dynamic panels vs. Mundlak, Rethinking education balance and cohort fertility: dynamic panels vs. Mundlak
1M ago
2 sources
The Fulani’s lactase persistence variant matches the Eurasian mutation rather than the East African one, pointing to gene flow plus strong selection tied to pastoralism. This is a concrete case of cultural practice (dairying) driving biological adaptation across regions.
— It illustrates gene–culture coevolution with policy-relevant lessons for how lifestyle and biology co-adapt in diverse populations.
Sources: Cesar Fortes-Lima: the Fulani out of the Green Sahara, The first breeders unsurprisingly selected for temperament
1M ago
1 sources
A cited study reports that children from first‑cousin unions have more than two years lower life expectancy at age five, on top of previously documented early‑life mortality risks. This implies lasting health penalties that persist beyond infancy for survivors.
— If consanguinity inflicts large, long‑run health costs, public health policy, counseling, and immigration/family‑law debates need to reflect those risks rather than treating the practice as value‑neutral.
Sources: Thursday assorted links
1M ago
2 sources
Splitting childhood shows different levers: early child mortality (0–5) and school‑age life expectancy (6–18) each predict lower completed fertility, but through distinct channels. In adulthood (18–45), the signs flip for mortality (replacement/insurance) and GDP (pro‑cyclical), while life expectancy stays negatively linked to fertility.
— Pinpointing when and how safety and prosperity shape fertility helps policymakers target education, health, and family policy to the stages that actually move long‑run demographics.
Sources: Follow-up: Do changes in childhood conditions predict fertility outcomes?, Follow-up: Do changes in childhood conditions predict fertility outcomes?
1M ago
3 sources
Texas’s proposed mid-decade map aims to flip about five seats, but that payoff only holds if Republicans maintain their 2024 surge among Hispanic voters. If those margins revert toward pre-2020 levels, several newly drawn districts become competitive or even backfire. Gerrymander ROI is now contingent on volatile subgroup alignments, not just static partisanship.
— It reframes gerrymandering as a risky demographic bet rather than a guaranteed structural edge, affecting party strategy and legal arguments about map predictability.
Sources: How many seats will Texas redistricting cost Democrats?, Democrats can win the redistricting war, The Texas Redistricting Fight Has Been the Testing Ground for the Trump Administration’s Latest Legal Strategy
1M ago
2 sources
If people most concerned about climate avoid having children, the next generation may inherit fewer traits linked to long‑term planning and environmental concern. Twin and behavioral genetics research suggests conscientiousness and future‑orientation are partly heritable. Over time, this selection effect could make pro‑climate norms and policies harder to sustain.
— It reframes climate ethics and policy by showing that self‑selected childlessness can undermine the very social traits needed to address long‑run environmental challenges.
Sources: The Hereditarian's Gambit, Part 1: Arguing With a Climate Activist Who Won't Have Kids., The Hereditarian's Gambit, Part 2: A Sinister Proposal
1M ago
1 sources
The piece frames a reciprocal trade: climate activists acknowledge some anthropogenic warming and, in return, accept policies to mitigate 'dysgenics' (e.g., pronatalism or embryo selection). It treats two stigmatized concerns as a package deal rather than isolated fights.
— This reframes polarized debates as coalition trades, suggesting how cross‑taboo bargains could unlock movement on demographic and climate policy.
Sources: The Hereditarian's Gambit, Part 2: A Sinister Proposal
1M ago
1 sources
Childcare is expensive because it is labor‑intensive, not because markets are malfunctioning. Labeling it a 'market failure' misdiagnoses the problem and invites subsidies that conflict with many families' preference for a parent at home.
— This reframing redirects family policy from propping up daycare supply toward restoring one‑income viability or cash supports that respect parental choice.
Sources: The Math Problem at the Heart of the Family Budget
1M ago
2 sources
Surveys reported by Chris Elmendorf and colleagues find that only a minority of residents think adding a lot of regional housing lowers prices. Large, bipartisan majorities instead blame developers/landlords and favor price controls and subsidies over permitting more supply. These beliefs are weakly held but consistent enough to shape policy preferences.
— If democratic majorities don’t believe supply cuts prices, YIMBY reforms face a legitimacy gap that could entrench ineffective controls and worsen affordability.
Sources: Some Links, 8/19/2025, No country for young families
1M ago
1 sources
Age‑restricted '55+' projects enjoy a federal carveout (HOPA, 1995) that lets developers and towns build legally protected no‑kids housing. Municipalities can zone for these projects to collect property taxes without adding school costs, shrinking options for young families and quietly normalizing anti‑child bias.
— This reframes a pro‑elderly policy as an intergenerational exclusion tool that worsens housing scarcity for families and pressures fertility and school systems.
Sources: No country for young families
1M ago
4 sources
Low social trust in Rome trapped exchange inside family networks and face‑to‑face stalls, preventing a true market economy. North Sea/Baltic societies’ earlier norms—trusting strangers, nuclear families, late marriage—created the behavioral substrate for impersonal trade once opportunities appeared.
— It highlights culture‑level trust as a market precondition, shifting development policy from institutions alone to social capital formation.
Sources: The North Sea and the Baltic form the core zone of certain tendencies, Oppenheimer's last lesson, The Scientific Case for Divine Inspiration (+1 more)
1M ago
5 sources
Instead of militant, organized ethnopolitics, mass diversity has coincided with cultural low-effort homogenization—what the author calls 'slopification'—and 'bizarre politics.' The predicted permanent Democratic majority and separatist blocs give way to an unstable, deracinated mass culture.
— It introduces a sticky frame for interpreting multicultural side effects that differ from both progressive optimism and right-wing Balkanization fears.
Sources: Examining Prophecies about Multicultural America, David Van Ofwegen: a peripatetic philosopher across Eurasia's antipodes, Beware Macro Decay Modes (+2 more)
1M ago
HOT
7 sources
Small policy-driven changes to birth rates don’t stop with the first cohort; they ripple as those extra children later have children of their own. Even a 3–6% swing in births can yield much larger multi-decade population effects once compounding is included. Demographic accounting should routinely include this propagation, not just first-order changes.
— It provides a general heuristic for evaluating family policy, abortion law, and pronatal incentives by highlighting long-run multiplier effects.
Sources: The Generational Toll of Abortion, Go Ahead And Have Kids, Would Eugenics Work? Simulating Positive Eugenics Targeting IQ (+4 more)
1M ago
1 sources
Use pre-birth 'placebo' exposure windows to test whether relationships between early-life conditions and adult fertility are real or just trend artifacts. Comparing true exposure effects to placebo effects provides a simple falsification step that strengthens cohort-based claims.
— This raises methodological standards for policy-relevant demography, making causal claims about fertility drivers more trustworthy before they guide interventions.
Sources: From Longevity to Low Fertility: Evidence Across Countries
1M ago
4 sources
New analysis of mtDNA (maternal DNA) in Ashkenazi Jews finds that the major maternal lineages are not found among surrounding European gentiles. This contradicts the common model of Near Eastern male founders and European female founders. The result points to both male and female founders being of Near Eastern origin.
— It reshapes debates on Jewish ancestry and identity by challenging a widely cited admixture narrative with genetic evidence.
Sources: Round-up: Measuring emotions in art, Cesar Fortes-Lima: the Fulani out of the Green Sahara, Genghis Khan, the Golden Horde and an 842-year-old paternity test (+1 more)
1M ago
2 sources
Across 7,884 birth-cohort observations in 146 countries, within-country increases in calories and animal protein raise height, but cross-country differences align far better with a height polygenic score. The Netherlands does not consume exceptional protein or dairy relative to peers like the U.S. or Spain, undermining the dietary myth. Genetics explains the persistent country-level height advantage left over after accounting for nutrition.
— This challenges popular diet-based national stereotypes and pushes public health and media toward causal models that include genetic structure when explaining population traits.
Sources: A Cheesy Theory, Debunked: Dutch Height Isn’t About Dairy, Should Human Biodiversity Be as Respectable as Giraffe Biodiversity?
1M ago
4 sources
Institutions celebrate splitting animal taxa into finer species, but label inquiry into human population structure as 'pseudoscience.' The IUCN’s new four‑species classification for giraffes sits alongside Wikipedia’s sweeping condemnation of 'race science,' revealing asymmetrical norms about what kinds of biodiversity are discussable.
— This inconsistency shapes which research agendas and policy debates are permissible, affecting medicine, education, and governance.
Sources: Should Human Biodiversity Be as Respectable as Giraffe Biodiversity?, The Imago DEI, Tree of Knowledge (+1 more)
2M ago
2 sources
A new preprint that augments the DICE climate-economy model (adding endogenous innovation, age structure, and land‑use emissions) finds that keeping global fertility at replacement yields a much larger population by 2200 but almost no change in long‑run temperature paths. The larger population boosts innovation and quickly overcomes a short, relative dip in per‑capita GDP from higher near‑term emissions. This undercuts climate‑based antinatalism and reframes fertility as compatible with decarbonization.
— It challenges the premise that fewer births are a meaningful lever on climate, shifting debate toward innovation and decoupling rather than population restraint.
Sources: Go Ahead And Have Kids, The Hereditarian's Gambit, Part 1: Arguing With a Climate Activist Who Won't Have Kids.
2M ago
1 sources
Naïve counts imply roughly a quarter of post‑1973 generations were 'missing' due to abortion, but behaviorally adjusted estimates suggest abortion access reduced births by only about 3–6%. When you propagate those extra births forward (because saved babies later have their own kids), the total rises to roughly 7.6–15.3 million additional births from 1973 to 2020. This reframes the scale of abortion’s demographic effect from headline ratios to realistic net population change.
— It grounds a polarized debate in tractable magnitudes that matter for labor force, entitlement math, and long-run population policy.
Sources: The Generational Toll of Abortion
2M ago
2 sources
The gender gap has inverted by class: after starting with working‑class women, it is now driven by college‑educated women who provide the party’s leadership, votes, and donor base. Feminist‑inflected priorities have reshaped what it means to be a Democrat while coinciding with working‑class erosion and a measurable male backlash in 2024.
— This reframes electoral strategy and policy priorities by showing that Democratic competitiveness increasingly rests on a specific, educated female cohort rather than a broad female vote.
Sources: The Feminist Revolution and the Democratic Party, Why has the left gentrified?
2M ago
1 sources
As women moved from 32% of the workforce in 1948 to roughly 60% by 1999, their political preferences shifted in ways that produced a durable pro‑Democratic gender gap after 1980. This frames the gender gap as downstream of changing economic roles, not just identity or rhetoric.
— It redirects debates on the gender gap toward labor‑market status as a causal driver of partisan alignment.
Sources: The Feminist Revolution and the Democratic Party
2M ago
1 sources
Late Roman elites reportedly had fewer or no children, breaking the link between economic success and reproduction and reducing average numeracy and literacy. Ancient DNA is cited as showing a contemporaneous drop in proxies for cognitive ability, implying selection can shift mental traits within historical time.
— It suggests fertility patterns can quickly alter human capital, with implications for family policy and long‑run growth.
Sources: The North Sea and the Baltic form the core zone of certain tendencies
2M ago
1 sources
The article claims Washington, D.C. is a rare major case where non‑Hispanic whites directly displaced a large Black population, rather than the common two‑step pattern where Latinos first replace Blacks and then whites follow. If true, it points to unusual local labor markets, housing dynamics, and policy choices that enabled direct demographic turnover.
— It challenges standard gentrification narratives and suggests city‑specific mechanisms can produce different racial replacement patterns with political and policy consequences.
Sources: D.C. Follies
2M ago
1 sources
Nordic and U.S. data indicate that a nontrivial share of men acquire convictions or prison stints over a lifetime: Sweden ~7% convicted of violent crime; Denmark 6–7% receive unsuspended prison sentences; U.S. lifetime prison risk ranges from ~1/15 for white men to ~1/3 for Black men. Crime isn’t only the domain of a tiny set of offenders.
— This challenges narratives that crime is confined to a minuscule cohort and has implications for background checks, reintegration policy, and sentencing reform.
Sources: How many are criminals?
2M ago
1 sources
The piece estimates that if Africa matched East Asia’s urbanization payoffs, 2050 GDP per capita would be just over $18,000 instead of about $10,300. That implies a roughly 75% income gap driven by weakly realized agglomeration effects. The cost of inaction is framed as trillions in foregone prosperity.
— It gives policymakers a concrete magnitude for what stalled agglomeration means, prioritizing reforms that convert density into productivity.
Sources: Yes In My Bamako Yard
2M ago
1 sources
Early Fulani genetics papers generalized from a single tribe, risking misleading conclusions about the whole people. Fortes‑Lima’s study includes numerous Fulani subpopulations and shows how broader sampling changes ancestry estimates and historical inferences. Good population design can overturn prior narratives built on thin data.
— It warns that sweeping stories about ethnicity and migration often rest on undersampled datasets and that better sampling should be a precondition for policy‑relevant claims.
Sources: Cesar Fortes-Lima: the Fulani out of the Green Sahara
3M ago
1 sources
A model of $20,000 per standard deviation in parental IQ (above the mean) per year per child yields 2–18 IQ‑point national gains over 100 years and 22% to 6.5× higher GDP per capita. However, base fertility collapses to 0.66–1.14 without the policy, making births reliant on a perpetual subsidy costing ~3.2% of GDP.
— It reframes pronatal policy by showing selection gains require a permanent fiscal commitment and do not fix demographic shrinkage.
Sources: Would Eugenics Work? Simulating Positive Eugenics Targeting IQ
3M ago
2 sources
Shifting births toward higher‑IQ parents raises innovation and incomes, moving an 'innovation index' from Poland/Greece/Ireland levels toward Switzerland/USA/Sweden. Yet total population still plunges (control loses ~70% in 100 years), so selection boosts productivity but worsens headcount decline without broader fertility recovery.
— It clarifies that eugenic pronatalism cannot substitute for restoring general fertility and forces explicit tradeoffs among growth, aging, and workforce size.
Sources: Would Eugenics Work? Simulating Positive Eugenics Targeting IQ, Artificial Wombs Will Save Lives Not Birth Rates
3M ago
2 sources
Assimilation isn't just immigrants adopting the host culture; native Dutch youth are adopting immigrant accents, English is becoming default in service work, and urban soundscapes mix Dutch with Arabic and Turkish. This suggests cultural exchange and dilution happening simultaneously, not a one‑directional process.
— It complicates policy goals that assume assimilation is linear and controllable, reframing debates over integration metrics and cultural preservation.
Sources: David Van Ofwegen: a peripatetic philosopher across Eurasia's antipodes, Concordia Salus
4M ago
3 sources
The authors contend that the arithmetic GDP gains from migration are trivial compared to the hard question: how inflows affect a nation’s social connections and institutions. Immigration benefits depend on migrant scale, skills, and cultural fit because societies function on durable relationships that enable markets to work.
— This shifts immigration policy from narrow labor-market models to institutional and social-capital compatibility, changing how we evaluate costs and benefits.
Sources: Theory as a Barrier to Understanding, The failure of economists..., The limits of social science (II)
4M ago
1 sources
Cohort fertility is the gold standard but arrives decades late. By modeling the right‑tail of age‑specific fertility rates to fill in remaining births, we can project completed cohort fertility up to roughly 15 years early and publish comparable estimates across countries.
— This offers a more stable, tempo‑free fertility metric for current policy and media debates, avoiding misreads driven by period TFR timing swings.
Sources: Cohort fertility projections
5M ago
1 sources
Ectogenesis is already partial: NICUs sustain 22–26‑week infants and IVF supports embryos for five days, leaving an 18‑week gap to full artificial gestation. Closing that gap would reduce neonatal deaths and complications but won’t make people have more children because fertility decline stems from economics, culture, and incentives, not gestational difficulty. The bigger near‑term impact is on perinatal care and how law treats viability.
— This shifts pronatalist tech debates toward realistic benefits (survival, disability reduction, abortion‑viability law) rather than expecting a population rebound from artificial gestation.
Sources: Artificial Wombs Will Save Lives Not Birth Rates
6M ago
1 sources
The article claims 'English‑speaking Quebecers' is a mere linguistic bucket that hides a real ethnocultural group formed by generations of intermarriage between British Loyalists/settlers and French Canadians, centered on Montreal. This 'Anglo‑Québécois' identity is presented as a third Canadian ethnogenesis alongside French Canadians and Anglo‑Canadians, with shared ancestry, culture, and historical roles.
— If identity categories should track ethnogenesis rather than language, media, policy, and census practices may be misclassifying groups and misunderstanding claims about rights, representation, and cultural continuity.
Sources: Concordia Salus
6M ago
1 sources
Research on multi‑generational mobility shows that measurement error, short time windows, and imperfect intergenerational linkage make societies look more mobile than they are. Applying this directly to immigration, common datasets and methods likely overstate how quickly second‑ and third‑generation immigrants converge to natives on income and other outcomes. More robust, lifetime measures and better-linked records are needed to estimate true assimilation rates.
— If assimilation has been overstated by data artifacts, models and policies that assume rapid convergence may be miscalibrated, affecting debates over immigration scale and integration strategy.
Sources: The American Assimilation Myth
7M ago
1 sources
Compare life expectancy across states within the same racial/sex groups before attributing differences to policy. This reduces compositional confounding and makes claims about red/blue policy effects more credible than aggregate comparisons.
— It offers a cleaner test for policy impact that can defuse partisan misreads of health disparities and improve causal inference in state comparisons.
Sources: Ceteris Paribus: Red States, Blue States, Longevity, and Health
8M ago
1 sources
Before WWII, many Western countries slipped below replacement fertility and sparked public debate and pro‑natalist laws. The post promises to compile contemporaneous stats and demographers’ explanations, showing the baby boom as an interruption rather than the baseline trend.
— It recasts today’s low fertility as a recurring pattern with historical policy responses, guiding what levers might work now.
Sources: Sub-replacement fertility in pre-baby boom Europe