Thursday 4 February 2016

Education versus fertility - our revealed existential preferences

When it comes to women, the strong correlation (over many years) is years in formal education are inversely associated with fertility: more education = less babies.

That is not the whole story - because in the modern West even the uneducated are usually considerably sub-replacement in fertility (fewer than two children per woman) - but it is a significant part of the story.

So, on the one hand, the native Westerners are going extinct by choice, and have already created the most  old-age skewed population in history and matters are continuing to get worse. On the other hand, an ever greater proportion of ever less-able, less-motivated, and less-benefitting women are staying ever more years at places that call themselves 'a college' (and getting - or sometimes not - something called a 'degree').

Which is more important? 

This is, or ought to be, a non-problem - since there are 1000 ways of solving it while saving time, money and effort as well. 

The fact we do nothing about it except to continue to make matters worse, shows our priorities - no, worse that that, it reveals our preferences. We get what we want.

Real, actual, existing college is (for the overwhelming majority) a (literal) waste of time - in that it takes time, and actively-wastes it - which is evil. (Same with resources.) And it takes more and more time from more and more people and destroys it (while lying and misleading and concealing what is going on).

This is not neutral - this is evil. Yet this is our preference. This is what we celebrate - individually and culturally. Our moral imperative, unchallengeable in its authority...

By contrast, this situation reveals that we fear and hate our own potential babies, our unborn children and the ways and means by which they come among us: loving, stable marriage and family.

We must hate them because we will do nothing for them, not even speak-out in their favour; indeed we are - as a civiization, for our own selfish reasons - wrecking their future in ways both deep and serious, and superficial and immediate.

On the one hand, the primary form of human relationship -- on the other hand, a few more desultory years pretending to learm things that have neither interest nor relevance; pretending to have acquired skills that have really never even been attenpted, staving off loneliness and boredom by distraction with recreational sex, drink, drugs, and other miserable but addictive indulgences.

All this means - in brief summary - that as a culture, as revealed by what we actually do and celebrate and try to do more of: we fear, loath and want to destroy ourselves.

Okay that is the situation - and it IS the situation. What are we going to do about it?

Are we going to continue to pretend that there is no real problem except that we do not get enough of those things we supposedly want? (Like college, sex freedom and frequency, enjoyable distractions).

We already have more of this stuff than anyone ever in the history of everything. Is our lack of even-more really the big problem?

So - given that we are deep in a hole and still digging, and the walls will sooner or later collapse and crush us -- what are we going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? 


10 comments:

DA said...

I've decided that I don't want my children to go to college. I'd rather they skip those 4 years of corrupting influences and learn a valuable trade, although if one of them has their heart set on being a doctor then maybe I'd be fine with a religious school. Higher education most certainly is not high, nor is it an education when universities increasingly offer courses and majors that end with "studies".

I wasted a lot of time in college, and while I went to a state school so my student loan debt wasn't that high, I'm still paying it off 10 years later. I would have done a lot better and been a lot more productive if I had just gotten a job. In the end, my degree isn't even related to my actual work, so those 4 years didn't really help much. We've been so conditioned to believe that without that piece of paper we're throwing away our futures so we spend our time and money for what? Yes, it does seem evil now that I think about it. That's why I love what Mike Rowe is doing with his foundation (http://profoundlydisconnected.com/) to promote the skilled trades. I want my children to have a good future, and that doesn't include 4 wasted years, student loan debt, and a worthless degree.

Anonymous said...

Lately, I've been thinking that for some people, 4 years of intensive work would be better than 4 years of college, especially if you were going to get a general studies, psychology, basket weaving, or women's studies degree or anything else equally worthless. By working a lot, you could save up enough money to buy a decent house, and then you wouldn't have to pay rent for the rest of your life. You could also acquire properties to rent out.

As far as intensive work, you could learn to drive trucks and do long-distance trucking and spend lots of time away from home. I worked a brief stint with a company that did merchandising all over the country and with disaster management and monitoring companies you can do work that requires you to travel if you can get such a job. There are also the various trades that would involve a short amount of school or no schooling at all.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Anon - (Please use a pseudonym) - The point is that almost anyone can sit down and in five minutes come up with several ways of doing things which would be educationally superior, cheaper, and less of a sheer waste of human life than what we have at present.

Nathaniel said...

I imagine many of your readers are of the type that do or would traditionally benefit from higher education. I believe there are a few more conservative or traditionally oriented institutes available. The advice, of course, applies - one should have an intention for a specific goal and not simply waste time (as I did)!

ajb said...

Although 'education' is certainly a part of this picture, I'm not sure - in and of itself - it is the main part of the problem.

Consider how much time women spend in formal education (even with multiple degrees, they are usually complete by their mid-20s) compared to how much time they spend working, as a percentage of their fertile years.

Compare contemporary work with traditional work. Back in the day in many places, women and men would almost all work on home-based businesses called 'farms'. (This is still fairly popular among certain cultural sub-groups, like traditional Mennonites).

They could take children with them to work every day, and furthermore, once the children reached the age of 5 or so, they could start to help with the work (by 10, they could do a large percentage of the tasks required to run a farm).

I am also wondering to what extent the education component isn't causation but correlation - women who get more education tend to be more intelligent, which means they use birth control correctly at a higher rate. They also tend to have greater opportunities for work which a) pays more and b) has better working conditions, so the 'opportunity cost' of taking time out from work to raise children becomes higher, relative to other typical contemporary jobs (not to speak of work on a small farm).

"native Westerners are going extinct by choice, and have already created the most old-age skewed population in history and matters are continuing to get worse"

Except the lowest fertility rates in the world are in the East, not the West. Consider Japan, China, S. Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, even Thailand and Vietnam. The most old-age skewed population in history is Japan, not anywhere in the West. The difference is that there isn't mass immigration to those countries like there is in much of the West.

Bruce Charlton said...

@ajb - You missed the caveats - my point is not that this is the main problem, nor that it is entirely causation - but that this is a very solid and accepted causation of lower fertility among intelligent women which is essentially undeniable yet nothing is done to remedy the problem but instead massive efforts are made to make it worse.

It certainly is causal - because the proportion of women college graduates who end up with zero chidlren has remained very high (about one third) even when the proportion of women graduates has increased manyfold. These women graduates include those at very unselective, unacademic colleges.

ajb said...

@Bruce,

If we replaced university with some sort of career-specific aptitude test, wouldn't the women just go directly into a career? If a woman has 0 kids, is it really that she spent 4 of those years at a university that is the cause? It seems difficult for me to believe that. My guess is it's that going to university signifies that she has bought into career as being most important.

As far as lower relative fertility being a problem when it comes to intelligent women in particular, I suppose the typical response would be 'yes, but the Flynn effect'. Because people think ave. intelligence continues to rise, in spite of intelligent women having fewer children, they therefore conclude that it's not a big problem.

Indeed, I think the Flynn effect is *the major* reason people are blase about these trends, which as you note have been going on for a long time.

Observing said...

This plan is deliberate, yes - the media and corporate owners want this (I would not personally use the term 'we' in regards to this agenda). At least it's not a hidden conspiracy.

One quibble on the issue of sexual freedom and frequency is I do observe there is a serious problem on the sexual level nowadays. This problem is that young women are constantly from the youngest age of sexual maturity rewarding men who are scum/rats/posturing blowhards.

Decent young men are going for years with a total lack of validation as men, in fact the opposite, while evil is rewarded. This has far greater impact than anyone I've ever read online has spoken of. It's typically dismissed with 'learn game' by some, and otherwise dismissed as somehow okay by others. There is no justification for this being alright in any way. NONE.

Without addressing specifically teenage girl behavior, and stopping pretending there are almost any attractive virgins past the age of 20 for any practical purposes, things could improve. Very good, decent people seem to think that a 16 year old girl is like an innocent child instead of a young woman who is shaping lives by who she and her fellow girl-women go after sexually in their formative years.

Without serious discussions about what young women are really like and without serious discussions about shutting down high schools - as only one example among many - then nothing much is serious at all.

The modern apparatus of education and sterility promotion is only one wing of the attack, and that level is discussing women at ages where it's already too late for many.

As for plans, I have a plan that might work but it's totally inappropriate to share on this blog, or anywhere in fact. This may lead to some insight for the fractional percent who care about such things - we have to find an approach of our own and implement it to the best of our ability.

I do not think the current time lends itself to treating this kind of subject in a public strategy, banded-together kind of way. The subject of Native Westerners being destroyed does lend itself to far greater organization than exists now, and the lack of such is a surprise. But organizing for young, intelligent women to have families?

The sad truth is Western Europeans are both under attack and have left spiritual protection voluntarily by renouncing God. There is a psychological and pathological problem among Western Europeans.

If we simply closed the borders and let things sort themselves out we would still be us - like the Japanese - and gradually the religious, family and child-oriented would have more children. This could easily be helped by something as simple as giving money that is now given to 'refugees' to Native Westerner youth. As you say, there are many solutions.

I doubt a reversal would even take a hundred years. The current situation is a major exploit of trends and tendencies in Western Europeans that have to hit the wall and crash and burn or almost destroy the host. Unfortunately. It really is a tragedy of historical proportions.

My recommendation is to remember God throughout and within that primacy find a personal solution, if possible tell no one about it, and then do it.

Anonymous said...

"So - given that we are deep in a hole and still digging, and the walls will sooner or later collapse and crush us -- what are we going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?"

I can do nothing about it - socially. I cannot stand up to the media, the politicians or secular multi-national corporations. I can't stand up to any of these manifestations of Antichrist, or any other. I haven't the strength or the skills.

All I can do, is talk and behave in my community as a Christian. I can do something about 'it' on a person to person basis.

I don't believe any person can do otherwise, except one.

He can and will do something about it.

To think that we can make things right flies in the face of what I believe the bible tells us will happen. This world situation was predicted and described long ago.

The bible said that the thing to do is believe and accept that prediction, and wait for the final events to unfold. If we are challenged personally by the Antichrist, we are to rise to that challenge and suffer the consequences whilst remaining strong in our faith. That is our comfort.

To wish to change prediction by somehow facing down Antichrist for the whole of world society, with a hope of winning and bringing about God's kingdom is wrong thinking. In fact, if we were apparently successful, we would be creating a pseudo version of God's kingdom. That would be playing into Antichrist's hands. It is what he is trying to do.

We need to wait for Christ to come. There is no substitute for the real thing.

Seeker

Anonymous said...

The problem with attempting to persuade the intelligent to breed and the problem with persuading the stupid to desist is the same. We would do both by being cruel.