patrick.net

Ten years ago this month - January 2006 - The Wall Street Journal and The New Criterion published my first draft of what would become the thesis of my bestselling book, America Alone. The Journal headline sums it up: "It's the Demography, Stupid." Opening paragraph:

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.

The argument was straightforward. The western world is going out of business because it's given up having babies. The 20th century welfare state, with its hitherto unknown concepts such as spending a third of your adult lifetime in "retirement", is premised on the basis that there will be enough new citizens to support the old. But there won't be. Lazy critics of my thesis thought that I was making a "prediction", and that my predictions were no more reliable than Al Gore's or Michael Mann's on the looming eco-apocalypse. I tried to explain that it's not really a prediction at all:

When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2006, it's hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026 (or 2033, or 2037, or whenever they get around to finishing their Anger Management and Queer Studies degrees). And the hard data on babies around the Western world is that they're running out a lot faster than the oil is. "Replacement" fertility rate--i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller--is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that: the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?

Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top breeders and you'll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada's fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That's to say, Spain's population is halving every generation. By 2050, Italy's population will have fallen by 22%.

Enter Islam, which sportingly volunteered to be the children we couldn't be bothered having ourselves, and which kind offer was somewhat carelessly taken up by the post-Christian west. As I wrote a decade ago:

The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyperrationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion.

That didn't work out too great for the Shakers, but the Europeans figured it would be a piece of cake for them: "westernization" is so seductive, so appealing that, notwithstanding the occasional frothing imam and burka-bagged crone, their young Muslims would fall for the siren song of secular progressivism just like they themselves had. So, as long as you kept the immigrants coming, there would be no problem - as long as you oomphed up the scale of the solution. As I put it:

To avoid collapse, European nations will need to take in immigrants at a rate no stable society has ever attempted.

Last year, Angela Merkel decided to attempt it. The German Chancellor cut to the chase and imported in twelve months 1.1 million Muslim "refugees". That doesn't sound an awful lot out of 80 million Germans, but, in fact, the 1.1 million Muslim are overwhelmingly (80 per cent plus) fit, virile, young men. Germany has fewer than ten million people in the same population cohort, among whom Muslims are already over-represented: the median age of Germans as a whole is 46, the median age of German Muslims is 34. But let's keep the numbers simple, and assume that of those ten million young Germans half of them are ethnic German males. Frau Merkel is still planning to bring in another million "refugees" this year. So by the end of 2016 she will have imported a population equivalent to 40 per cent of Germany's existing young male cohort. The future is here now: It's not about "predictions".

On standard patterns of "family reunification", these two million "refugees" will eventually bring another four or five persons each from their native lands - or another eight-to-ten million. In the meantime, they have the needs of all young lads, and no one around to gratify them except the local womenfolk. Hence, New Year's Eve in Cologne, and across the southern border the Vienna police chief warning women not to go out unaccompanied, and across the northern border:

Danish nightclubs demand guests have to speak Danish, English or German to be allowed in after 'foreign men in groups' attack female revellers

But don't worry, it won't be a problem for long: On the German and Swedish "migrant" numbers, there won't be a lot of "female revelry" in Europe's future. The formerly firebreathing feminists at The Guardian and the BBC are already falling as mute as battered wives - saying nothing, looking away, making excuses, clutching at rationalizations... Ten years ago, I wrote:

The problem is that secondary-impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengths--or, at any rate, virtues--and that's why they're proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam.

"Multiculturalism" was less an immigration policy than an advertisement of our moral virtue. So the really bad thing about New Year's Eve is not that Continental women got groped and raped by coarse backward "migrants", but that all these gropes and rapes might provoke the even more coarse and backward natives. I did all the gags a decade ago:

The old definition of a nanosecond was the gap between the traffic light changing in New York and the first honk from a car behind. The new definition is the gap between a terrorist bombing and the press release from an Islamic lobby group warning of a backlash against Muslims.

And so it goes ten years on. We're beyond parody now. A decade back, I noted:

Then September 11 happened. And bizarrely the reaction of just about every prominent Western leader was to visit a mosque: President Bush did, the prince of Wales did, the prime minister of the United Kingdom did, the prime minister of Canada did . . . The premier of Ontario didn't, and so 20 Muslim community leaders had a big summit to denounce him for failing to visit a mosque... But for whatever reason he couldn't fit it into his hectic schedule. Ontario's citizenship minister did show up at a mosque, but the imams took that as a great insult, like the Queen sending Fergie to open the Commonwealth Games.

Nobody makes that mistake these days. Six Canadians working for a Quebec Catholic humanitarian organization repairing schoolrooms in Burkina Faso get slaughtered by Muslim terrorists, and the Prince Minister skedaddles to a mosque run by a woman-hating loon to hold the moment of silence.

Like I said, I did all the jokes way back when, and it's not so funny after ten years. My thesis was straightforward: a semi-Muslim France will not be France; it will be something other, and - if you happen to value things like freedom of speech and women's rights - it will be something worse:

Can a society become increasingly Islamic in its demographic character without becoming increasingly Islamic in its political character?

This ought to be the left's issue. I'm a conservative--I'm not entirely on board with the Islamist program when it comes to beheading sodomites and so on, but I agree Britney Spears dresses like a slut: I'm with Mullah Omar on that one. Why then, if your big thing is feminism or abortion or gay marriage, are you so certain that the cult of tolerance will prevail once the biggest demographic in your society is cheerfully intolerant? Who, after all, are going to be the first victims of the West's collapsed birthrates?

And so it goes, on the streets of the most "liberal" "progressive" cities on the planet.

A few weeks before The Wall Street Journal published my piece, I discussed its themes at an event in New York whose speakers included Douglas Murray. Douglas was more optimistic: He suggested that Muslim populations in Europe were still small, and immigration policy could be changed: Easier said than done. My essay and book were so influential that in the decade since, the rate of Islamization in the west has increased - via all three principal methods: Muslim immigration, Muslim birthrates of those already here, Muslim conversion of the infidels. David Goldman thinks aging, childless Germany has embraced civilizational suicide as redemption for their blood-soaked sins. Maybe. But it is less clear why the Continent's less tainted polities - impeccably "neutral" Sweden, for example - are so eager to join them. As I wrote:

Permanence is the illusion of every age. In 1913, no one thought the Russian, Austrian, German and Turkish empires would be gone within half a decade. Seventy years on, all those fellows who dismissed Reagan as an "amiable dunce" (in Clark Clifford's phrase) assured us the Soviet Union was likewise here to stay. The CIA analysts' position was that East Germany was the ninth biggest economic power in the world. In 1987 there was no rash of experts predicting the imminent fall of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact and the USSR itself.

Somewhere, deep down, the European political class understands that the Great Migrations have accelerated the future I outlined way back when:

Can these trends continue for another 30 years without having consequences? Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone. We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world.

It's the biggest story of our time, and, ten years on, Europe's leaders still can't talk about it, not to their own peoples, not honestly. For all the "human rights" complaints, and death threats from halfwits, and subtler rejections from old friends who feel I'm no longer quite respectable, I'm glad I brought it up. And it's well past time for others to speak out.

http://www.steynonline.com/7428/it-still-the-demography-stupid

https://rudy.substack.com/p/reverse-logans-run

This is sort of like a reverse Logan’s Run - you kill everyone under age 30.

I firmly believe the rising cost of living - which has been intentional Fed and governmental policy - is perhaps the leading cause of our demographic dystopia.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/burning-man-ethos-friday-august-29

You will be unsurprised to learn that plummeting birthrates have a political dimension. The Financial Times ran the story yesterday, headlined, “Why progressives should care about falling birth rates.” The reason they should care wasn’t because humanity itself is at risk, or from fears of catastrophic economic collapse. No. The subheadline drolly cautioned, “Falling fertility levels are making the world more conservative.”




... The trendline is stark. The more progressive, the worse the birthrate. It seems so clear, in fact, that births have nearly become a proxy for anti-human political ideology.

Patrick says

. The trendline is stark. The more progressive, the worse the birthrate. It seems so clear, in fact, that births have nearly become a proxy for anti-human political ideology.

This is why cities die unless they bring in more ppl from outside. Roman cities were like this, too. San Francisco has been famous for having more licensed pets than kids in school.

Another thing to consider:

Childless people are less involved with threats to children. They're fine with drag queen story time. They never learn that part of the soul in INNATE and really not learned.

EDIT: fixed "lean" to "learn"

https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/a-simple-primer-on-replacement




Wow, you can see the change in the 1990s where Democrats decided to throw the working class overboard, and the working class moved over to the Republican Party, bringing their higher birth rate with them.

MolotovCocktail says

Patrick says

. The trendline is stark. The more progressive, the worse the birthrate. It seems so clear, in fact, that births have nearly become a proxy for anti-human political ideology.

This is why cities die unless they bring in more ppl from outside. Roman cities were like this, too. San Francisco has been famous for having more licensed pets than kids in school.

Christ, I felt an earthquake. So I have been right. I've been saying this for months. Glad you've finally admitted it.

WookieMan says

I've been saying this for months.

Sure pal, sure.

MolotovCocktail says

WookieMan says

I've been saying this for months.

Sure pal, sure.

What are you even talking about? Read my comments. Other users can corroborate that I've said cities are dying. Move out of them. I'm not wrong.

WookieMan says

What are you even talking about? Read my comments. Other users can corroborate that I've said cities are dying. Move out of them. I'm not wrong.

Again: "Sure pal, sure."

MolotovCocktail says

WookieMan says

What are you even talking about? Read my comments. Other users can corroborate that I've said cities are dying. Move out of them. I'm not wrong.

Again: "Sure pal, sure."

You sound like a 14 year old. I have one. Do you have a kid?

WookieMan says

MolotovCocktail says

WookieMan says

I've been saying this for months.

Sure pal, sure.

What are you even talking about? Read my comments. Other users can corroborate that I've said cities are dying. Move out of them. I'm not wrong.

Is Chicago dying? I visited last month - didn't look dead at all.

PS. Except for the ground floor of Trump tower - that was completely dead and vacant (at least on the river side).

WookieMan says

You sound like a 14 year old. I have one. Do you have a kid?

No. I sound like someone who calls out your bulkshit. If a 14 year old does it too, no big surprise there.

Patrick says

As Professor Larry Sabato says, "Demographics is destiny".

.

Good countries will raise strong armies and use them to keep out the riff-raff.

New book out on it. Good reading so far.

MolotovCocktail says

That means a lot of abandoned commercial and residential real estate as in South Korea is close to becoming a ghost town. And nearly zero housing starts for at least the next 50 years in South Korea.

What does that mean for geopolitics like its neighbor North Korea ?

.

AD says

What does that mean for geopolitics like its neighbor North Korea ?

You would need the same chart for them as well. It's not much different though.

zzyzzx says

AD says

What does that mean for geopolitics like its neighbor North Korea ?

You would need the same chart for them as well. It's not much different though.

Norks are pumping out ~1.8 kids* per woman. South Korea is currently around 0.72. North Korea's TFR is also higher than those of Russia (1.4), Japan (1.2), and China (1.0).

That's a big difference. If the Norks hold this for another 25 years while the Sorks lose a much larger huge chunk of their population, they'll be able to roll right into the South.

A TFR of 1.0 means that in two generations, 75% population reduction. And in three, 93%. It's not linear. A generation being defined as 25 years.

^^^ this is what peeps don't get about demographic collapse. It isn't demographic decline on steroids. It is its own animal and usually is terminal.

South Korea is fucked. Ukraine has a worse TFR and that is because of the war.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/prk/north-korea/fertility-rate

* if their stats can be believed.

Back to Boomers.

One thing that can't really be shorted is Sportsball.

GenX slightly less into sports than Boomers but once the Boomers go, Millies are far less and far smaller households, and Zoomies hardly at all, so Pro and College Sports will be nowhere near as profitable.

In 10-15 years, the great Sportsball decline will probably be the death knell of the Legacy Network Channels.

Cable TV Programming will have to become streaming, another thing that will die within 20 years. Talking to some seniors while exchanging a router: "What do you mean you don't have a Cable Box?"

Just like Newspapers were blithely confident in the mid-late 90s about their future, as were many Department Stores, so is Sportsball today.

(And no, I'm not happy about the end of Sportsball. While I think it once took up too much air in the room, It's now one LESS thing that culturally unites Americans)

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Cable TV Programming will have to become streaming, another thing that will die within 20 years.

Interesting. Plain old over-the-air TV broadcasts will outlive cable. It may even be that ATSC-3 standard will give a new lease on life to OTA broadcasts, as ATSC-3 is interactive and can charge per view if wanted.

Another Dismal Science thought:

Boomer Men will pass / become invalid faster than the Women. Many Grey Karens we see at protests are the older side of Boomer Women. So the red wave might subside somewhat from that end.

On the other hand, Men generally own more housing than Women, since men get borrrrrred and want a channnnnge less often and actually pay their mortgage before shopping for knick knacks and trips.

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

One thing that can't really be shorted is Sportsball.

GenX slightly less into sports than Boomers but once the Boomers go, Millies are far less and far smaller households, and Zoomies hardly at all, so Pro and College Sports will be nowhere near as profitable.

Already hit the floor with it. Gambling and fantasy changed the dynamic. Ratings won't be great, but you're going to have multiple gambling companies fighting for ad space. Viewership will be lower, but gambling, beer and car ads will stay strong. Stadium concession, tickets and fees with that. Baseball and hockey are in the worst position if you have a losing team.

Golf in my opinion is really the only genuine sport. 1-2 strokes on the leaderboard could be $500k. If you're in the top five on day four of a tournament it's highly unlikely you throw the round. Football is probably the worst with fixed games and betting. Team game, but a quarterback, cornerback, wide receiver, kicker and even coaches can throw games. Hell linemen with offsides penalties. I don't like sports betting but over/under score wise shouldn't be allowed. Point spread is bad too. It's so easy to throw a game. Just do win or loss and the game would have more integrity if there's gonna be gambling.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/the-new-american-century-wednesday

The President began by tackling mass immigration. It was one of the most direct and unstinting condemnations of open borders that you could possibly have prayed for. President Trump started by accusing the United Nations of basically attacking the US through a manufactured migration crisis. I am not exaggerating:

Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should. Too often, it's actually creating new problems for us to solve. The best example is the number one political issue of our time, the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It's uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined. The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders.
In 2024, the UN budgeted $372 million in cash assistance to support an estimated 624,000 migrants journeying into the United States. Think of that, the UN is supporting people that are illegally coming into the United States, and then we have to get them out. The UN also provided food, shelter, transportation, and debit cards to illegal aliens, can you believe that, on the way to infiltrate our southern border.
The UN is supposed to stop invasions. Not create them. And not finance them.

Then he drew a line in the sand: America won’t take it anymore, and he called on Europe to stand up to it, too:

America belongs to the American people. And I encourage all countries to take their own stand in defense of their citizens as well. You have to do that. You're destroying your countries. They're being destroyed. Europe is in serious trouble. They've been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody's ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe, and nobody's doing anything to change it, to get them out. It's not sustainable.
And because they choose to be politically correct, they're doing just absolutely nothing about it.
Both the immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe if something is not done immediately. This cannot be sustained. What makes the world so beautiful is that each country is unique, but to stay this way, every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders.
Your countries are going to hell.

He’s not wrong. Headline from the UK Telegraph, July:

The Telegraph
Elite police squad to monitor anti-migrant posts on social media
Concerns for free speech mount as Home Office creates team to flag signs of potential unrest

I'm the President of the United States, but I worry about Europe. I love Europe. I love the people of Europe, and I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration. This double-tailed monster destroys everything in its wake, and they cannot let that happen any longer. You're doing it because you want to be nice, you want to be politically correct and you're destroying your heritage.

My parents owned 5.5 acres. We had a 1 acre garden and the front yard was 1 acre. As a child I was in charge of garden weeding and cutting the front yard with a push mower. And they wondered why I couldn’t gain weight.

SharkyP says

My parents owned 5.5 acres. We had a 1 acre garden and the front yard was 1 acre. As a child I was in charge of garden weeding and cutting the front yard with a push mower. And they wondered why I couldn’t gain weight.

That was good for you. Your father sounds like a good one.

https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1973172864233722194

MolotovCocktail says

https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1973172864233722194

Feminism has done a job. There are college-educated Millie Chicks who "Know about biology" claiming they can easily have babies into their 40s. It's not a minority view, many believe that thanks to years of Feminist programming. In reality, having a first child in the 40s is extremely expensive, not guaranteed to work, if lucky you will have just one.

Another new cope is that "old sperm" is responsible. Eggs are the large gamete and don't get renewed; sperm is the small gamete and is renewed every few days. Birth defects are overwhelmingly due to aged eggs.

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Birth defects are overwhelmingly due to aged eggs.

Correct, as the 40+ ladies use young donor sperm.

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Another new cope is that "old sperm" is responsible. Eggs are the large gamete and don't get renewed; sperm is the small gamete and is renewed every few days. Birth defects are overwhelmingly due to aged eggs.

I used to sit by this guy at work. Super cool dude but he wore earbuds everywhere I saw him in the building. At his desk, in the lunchroom, in the bathroom. I gave him a hard time one day and told him his life has a sound track.

Anyhoo, it turns out, for Autism at least there is also a link with older men. First time older men got any blame for anything. If I recall he said something like it explained ~50% of cases. The structural variants in the paper are basically big chucks of dna in chromosomes missing. Or flipped around. Or moved somewhere else they don't belong.

I did an AI search:

William Brandler's prominent autism research focuses on the genetic architecture of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), specifically the contribution of rare inherited genetic mutations in noncoding regions of the genome. His key research findings and publications include:

Paternally inherited noncoding structural variants contribute to autism

Key finding: Brandler and his colleagues discovered that children with ASD are more likely to inherit specific structural variants in noncoding DNA from their fathers.

Significance: This finding added to the understanding of ASD's genetic roots beyond previously identified de novo (spontaneous) mutations in protein-coding regions. It suggests that rare, inherited, noncoding variants with intermediate effects play a role in increasing the risk for autism.

Publication: This research was published in Science in 2018 under the title, "Paternally inherited cis-regulatory structural variants are associated with autism".

Personalized therapeutic interventions

Key finding: In a 2015 review paper, Brandler and Jonathan Sebat discussed the shift toward personalized therapeutic interventions for ASD, given the diversity of genetic causes and underlying biochemical pathways.

Significance: Their paper emphasizes how the growing understanding of specific autism genes and causal variants supports the use of clinical genetic testing to inform personalized therapy for individuals with ASD.

Publication: This was published in the Annual Review of Medicine under the title, "From de novo mutations to personalized therapeutic interventions in autism".

High diversity of de novo mutations

Key finding: Brandler was a co-author on a 2016 paper that uncovered a high diversity and complex clustering of de novo (spontaneous) mutations in subjects with autism. The study's method for analyzing whole-genome sequencing identified structural mutations that were previously undetectable.

Significance: This research showed that a high rate of structural mutations contributes to the genetic risk for ASD.

Publication: "Frequency and Complexity of De Novo Structural Mutation in Autism" was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Handedness and autism genetics

Key finding: Brandler has also published research on related neurodevelopmental topics, including a study examining the genetic relationship between handedness and autism.
Publication: "The genetic relationship between handedness and neurodevelopmental disorders" was published in 2013 in PubMed.

These papers highlight Brandler's contributions to understanding the complex genetic landscape of autism, particularly the role of noncoding DNA and inherited risk factors.

Just Autism, we never discussed the myriad of other genetic diseases people can get from rotten eggs.

Maga_Chaos_Monkey says

Just Autism, we never discussed the myriad of other genetic diseases people can get from rotten eggs.

If old eggs or old sperm was the problem, then we would have seen a history where the latest born kids in large families would be autistic.

HeadSet says

If old eggs or old sperm was the problem, then we would have seen a history where the latest born kids in large families would be autistic.

I don't know that this is not true. What we do know: Structural variants (SVs) in CREs were preferentially transmitted from fathers to children with ASD.

So we find the structural defect in the dad (sperm or sperm generating cells), then in the child and it maps to ASD.

A CRE (cis-regulatory element) is a region of non-coding DNA that regulates the transcription of nearby genes. CREs function by binding to transcription factors—proteins that control when, where, and how much a gene is expressed.

I looked if I could find any trend with the latest born kids:

- Some studies suggest firstborn children may have a slightly higher risk of autism compared to later-born siblings.

- Other research indicates that increasing birth order is associated with more severe autism phenotypes at diagnosis, meaning later-born children who are diagnosed may show greater symptom severity.

- A significant factor is interpregnancy interval (the time between births): both very short (<12 months) and very long (>6 years) intervals are linked to a higher risk of autism in the younger sibling, regardless of birth order.

- Having an older sibling with autism is a strong risk factor, increasing the younger sibling’s risk by up to 14 times, but this is not due to birth order itself.

So there are a lot of other reasons for this. Like Tylenol lol... I think vaccines too but that's just my opinion.

What is interesting about Will's research as it isn't a theory it's empirical data. For a long time that type of data couldn't be collected due to limits of tech.

You make a good point though. It could be that the 'old dad' effect is simply swamped by other factors. Doesn't mean it's not a factor though.

This guy writes a good article on the effects of demographic collapse OTHER than economic.

South Korea, which stands at 0.75 births per woman. In 1 generation, the working-age population of South Korea will contract from what it is now (51.5 million people) to 19 million people.

That is economically apocalyptic.

By 2035 (10 years from now), China is estimated to have a population of 400 million people above the age of 60.
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So far, no nation has managed to turn around a negative fertility rate. Expect this to become a wedge issue between future political parties.
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If current trends continue, then by the year 2200, the Amish will represent the majority of American citizens. In the year 1900, there were only a few thousand Amish people. As of 2018, there were approaching 350,000 Amish people. As of 2025, the current Amish population is estimated to be around 400,000

https://alwaysthehorizon.substack.com/p/demographic-decline-a-long-term-sociology

And this:

https://youtu.be/BZORu7EkpyM?si=_Srgra0nvyFtW7n_

Bush Jr cracked West Virginia as it went Republican in 2000 and stayed that way.

https://wvmetronews.com/2022/02/15/demography-is-destiny/