Pronatalism: Interviews with Malcolm Collins

WHAT IS PRONATALISM?

If birth rates continue to fall at the current trajectory, most industrialized nations will face population collapse within five generations. Pronatalism is a movement that aims to lessen the effect of this imminent collapse by fostering reproductive rates that are well above replacement levels. According to Simone and Malcolm Collins, of Pronatalism.org, falling fertility rates do not have an “organic floor.” This means that population collapse will not create a course correction on its own. Populations headed toward extinction face a turning point past which there may be no return.

Rather than offering coercive measures to prevent the imminent population collapse, the Pronatalist movement seeks to encourage anyone who genuinely wants to have children to do so, with creative solutions for child care, education and intellectual tools to resist the “urban monoculture”, whose goal seems to be to render all who join it infertile. The Pronatalist movement welcomes ethnic and cultural diversity and wants to foster a pluralistic society.

Using the most modern reproductive methods available, including genetic screening and IVF, the Collinses try to ensure a selective process that minimizes disease and disability. Since the current culture selects against higher education and intellectual ability — fertility is highest in those portions of the population without a college education — there is an expectation that within seventy-five years the IQ of the urbanized population may drop by one standard deviation. Natural selection is operating against intellectual ability in the general population, while the pronatalists use genetic screening to optimize health and intelligence in their own offspring.

Following the example of groups most resistant to the urban monoculture, like the Amish and Hasidic Jews, the Collinses are creating a culture and religion that will help their children resist the pressures that are bringing down fertility rates in most industrialized countries. However, instead of turning their back on technology, like the Amish, the Pronatalists are embracing the latest technology and even hope to propel their descendants into outer space, to colonize the universe and escape the limitations of our home planet.

Much of this sounds like science fiction. However, today’s technological reality is yesterday’s science fiction. It will be interesting to see what the Pronatalists may achieve.

Related Links

Pronatalist.org

The Pragmatist Foundation