Unseen Insights: Mormon Fertility Trends and Cultural Dynamics In this special episode of Basecamp, we delve into exclusive data regarding fertility trends among the Mormon community, contributed by one of our listeners. Through a study involving 310 members from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, fascinating trends emerge among different age and religiosity groups. We discuss the rapid transition to wokeness, fertility collapse, and the impact of cultural pride versus deontological religious rules on fertility rates. The episode explores clan-based versus communalist moral systems and their influence on Mormon society, offering intriguing insights into the future of Mormon demographics and culture.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] HeLlo, Simone, I am excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be having a very special episode where we are going to be giving you Basecamp listeners access to exclusive data that no one else has seen. And you know why? Because one of you put it together.
Yes.
So anyway, I was talking with this fan, and he is saying, anecdotally, as a Mormon so, obviously he has a lot of insight into what the Mormons are doing, the fertility rate among the Mormon community, he goes, it seems to me that the most religious of Mormons are having two big issues.
One is, is they are going woke much faster than other Mormons. Like, the individuals within their communities seem to go woke at a higher rate than other communities.
He noted. This mostly happens when they deconvert, but this is still a problem because their kids will be going to the same schools
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: which can become a drain on the community overall.
Malcolm Collins: And two is, they just seem to be being hit by fertility collapse much harder. than just generically religious Mormons. [00:01:00] And I was like, that's a really interesting observation.
Would you mind trying a study on that? And he actually went on and did a study and a big one. He got 310 people involved in this.
Would you like to know more?
Malcolm Collins: And so, he found out that his hypothesis was born out in the data and It gives us one of the keys for a new theory at solving fertility collapse that I have been building.
Simone Collins: Oh, yummy. I'm excited for this.
Malcolm Collins: I'm quoting him right now in an email where he sent the data to me. I took it upon myself to do a study on age, religiosity, and fertility among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
Everyone in the study has strong ties to the state of Utah and still maintains some relationship. For some, it may be very complicated, with Mormons as a cultural group. This is based on a random sampling of 310 people I found on Facebook for the study. They are divided into six groups. Groups 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, with [00:02:00] 1 being least religious and 6 being most religious.
Findings were stark. Among those aged 65 the correlation between religiosity and fertility was 0. 8%. They had an average of f 4. 53. So 65 and older for a 4. 5 average fertility r mormon. But that's also w Remember mormons used to
For and younger. The fertility rates dropped dramatically among those 35 to 64. The correlation between religiosity and fertility rate was 0. 16. So, no, it dropped to a rather low level. It dropped from 0. 45 to 0. 16 in this next generation. And I'm going to, you know, I think what's really happening here and why this hasn't been picked up in data yet is, I think that this is a new phenomenon.
Where in some religious traditions within the [00:03:00] modern post cell phone generation generation. Fertility rates drop as religiosity enters extreme ranges. But we'll, we'll, we'll talk more about the data here. Going back to the quote, what appears to be the case is that among the strongly religious, they started having kids less, but among those less religious, they still had cultural reasons to have kids.
35 to 64, Age cohort had a fertility rate of 2.92. Among those age 25 to 34, the correlation between religiosity and fertility was 0.32, so much stronger than the 35 to 64 group, but not as high as the 65 plus age group. They currently have a fertility rate of 1.1, but I expect this group to eventually have 0.9 more children on average.
So round out to about two barely below replacement rate
Simone Collins: so wait, you meant 2.1 then.
Malcolm Collins: You just
Simone Collins: said 1. 1 earlier.
Malcolm Collins: No, they have a current fertility rate of [00:04:00] 1. 1, but he expects them to have an additional 0. 9 kids as they age. Oh, oh, sorry, of
Simone Collins: this sample. Okay, yeah, sorry, okay, now I'm following.
Malcolm Collins: By the way, I don't cut out when you misunderstand something, because other people have pointed out in the comments, they're like, if Simone has misunderstood something, more than half your audience Not
Simone Collins: everyone is as sleep deprived as Simone.
So, that's Maybe not, but yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well then honestly you should be going to bed earlier and putting the kids to bed earlier because they're really tired when I wake them up, which to me implies that they're not going down. They're refusing to go to bed. Simone, if you get them in the room alone earlier, they'll go to bed earlier.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: All right. Sorry, this is our parenting negotiation here. Being a bad, bad husband, just being to like, you have to get more sleep wife. I demand it. No choice do you have in the matter? Okay. Previously. I thought these trends would only appear for those born post 1980, but the data clearly shows them emerging for those.
Born post [00:05:00] 1960. So the internet was not the major factor here. Oh, I was wrong. Yeah. Okay. I would say it may deal more with economic factors, but I'm not entirely sure. Furthermore, I , acknowledge the largest limitation to the study. is mere subjectively rating people one to six, but I feel like it's not too different than doing the same thing with people on the Jewish spectrum by analyzing clothing, style, aesthetics, activities, language, et cetera.
I also acknowledge that my Facebook may be a slightly higher fertility sample than average but I'm unsure about this. This is where it gets interesting. For the 64 plus age group, the fertility rate for those most religious six rating, their fertility rate was 5.4. Most of the other religious groups hovered around four, so boomers and the silent generation Mormons usually had around four-ish kids on average.
Obviously some as high as seven in sizeable numbers. and somewhere as low as two in sizable numbers. However, for the 35 to 64 age group, the most religious, a six [00:06:00] rating, the fertility rate collapsed to 3. 21. But the group that was rated as four actually rose to 5. 27 from 4. 4 in the older cohort.. So I want to make this clear. In the younger cohort, as time has gone on, the The fertility rate of less religious Mormons has gone up, not down.
Okay? So Mormons who considered themselves slightly less religious than half of Mormons. Oh no, wait, so sorry, what was the four group? It went up to six. So, Three was average. So these are people who consider themselves slightly more religious than the average Mormon but are not at the five or six level.
So these are individuals who would have some Mormon friends, some non Mormon friends, but would generally follow all of the rules and blah blah blah blah blah.
Okay.
Their fertility rate has gone up as overall Mormon fertility rate has been collapsing. Where it's been collapsing is in the ultra religious cohort.[00:07:00]
Simone Collins: Doesn't that dovetail well with your argument around
Malcolm Collins: deontological religious systems being the core failure?
Simone Collins: No, pluralism being a driver of fertility. When you're more surrounded by groups that are different from you, you feel inspired to have more of your own group out of a feeling of pride.
Malcolm Collins: That's likely a big thing here.
So we've noted here that the more immigrants the country has typically the higher the native groups fertility rate becomes and the more animosity immigrant groups have with each other or the more culturally distinct they are the higher the fertility rate. I think this is a big thing sort of subsidizing Israel's fertility rate.
Well, and
Simone Collins: it's also you could look at it. As a cultural pride thing, when you discover what it is that makes you special, it makes you proud to perpetuate that. If you don't see what's special about what you have because you're surrounded by it, you have less of a motivation to try to do your part to continue it.
Malcolm Collins: This is actually something that he, he, he looked for. So, to be in the five and six categories, specifically in the sixth category. It meant that almost all of your friend group was Mormon at that [00:08:00] point.
So, and apparently this is a thing among devout Mormons, like super devout Mormons just don't have many friends who aren't devout Mormons as well.
And so it leads to this You know that would definitely you're right there. I actually think that this is partly down to deontological relationship with religion versus non deontological relationship with a religion And in mormonism, it's very easy to build a deontological relationship to a religion.
Yeah to a
Simone Collins: fault in fact a lot of practicing mormons that i've met focus only on the deontological element not even really believing in the faith at all just being like I go through the motions because I like the community Yeah, but they don't do it for a reason, you know?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and this, this, this creates downstream negative effects, but we'll get to this at the end of the lecture, not the lecture episode.
I don't know. Whatever. Everything of mine is a lecture. I'm sorry, people. I used to, I used to teach classes. So that's, that's why you
Simone Collins: grew up on the great courses. Of course you believe in, in lectures.
Malcolm Collins: For people who don't know there was [00:09:00] this great company teach one, two, where now you can get a subscription and just listen to their, I thought it was
Simone Collins: referred to as the teaching company.
Now you can get
Malcolm Collins: company, but I'm just saying teach one, two. com is, is, is their URL, but it originally used to offer these absolutely amazing courses where they would find the best professors at like tons of different universities. I've heard that the quality of their courses has gone downhill recently and I found the same thing.
When I've reengaged, I haven't been like as drawn in as I was by the old stuff. It depends.
Simone Collins: There's a lot of variation. So they still have, it's now known as Wondrium. You can get an app and then you sort of buy a subscription to get access to their library of courses. And so you don't have to buy courses individually, like you used to have to, to get big tapes of them.
The problem is that now there is more variation. So for example, I'd love all of their courses by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, but you know, you can also get a lot of stuff by him for free, or you can just read his books. But those are really great. There are others that just kind of suck. So yeah, it
Malcolm Collins: depends. For people who've read the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion.
I mentioned that you should divide your life into stages. Like that's the way my life was [00:10:00] taught to me by my parents. Like between X age and X age, this is your focus. And I was taught up until a certain age, like my entire focus in life was to prepare myself, like make myself the best tool possible for changing the world.
And that. Part of doing that was education. And I knew like in high school, I just wasn't getting a high enough quality education. So I would spend all of my free time listening to lectures in my early jobs when I had to do like boring sorts of just like lab work all day. That wasn't cognitively engaging.
I'd spend all day listening to lecture series. So, you know, these lecture series are typically like 24 48 hours long in total. So, you know, It was an opportunity for me just to basically constantly be blasted with lectures to get a college level education. It was something your family
Simone Collins: also always did on long car rides.
You would listen to them. I think it's a great thing for a family to do your mom still every morning while doing her yoga.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. My family built it as a normalized thing that you should always have lectures on. And [00:11:00] I remember when I bought them at a young kid, they're really expensive. So, they, and this was in the nineties, you know, I think it would
Simone Collins: cost in the nineties like 130 and that it would cost a hundred
Malcolm Collins: to 500 depending on the lectures.
Yeah.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I think these days, yeah. They, they almost charged what you would pay. For an actual course at a not even a community college more than that,
Malcolm Collins: but you could get them really cheap if you bought them on cassette or not really cheap, but like in the less expensive, like 70 range sometimes.
So I buy these big books of cassettes. If anybody remembers those old cassette books, this was long after anyone was using cassettes. And I just have a cassette player all the time. Also because you still have them
Simone Collins: by the way,
Malcolm Collins: did a very good job of holding my place in the lecture. And so, I remember once I was jogging in gym class and one of the teachers pulled me aside and they go, Oh my God, was your family, because you're from Florida, right?
Were they one of the ones hit by the hurricane? Like, is that why you always have all this cheap technology?
And I
realized I could use this because I, I didn't like to change out of my [00:12:00] dress shoes before running because it was such a pain in the ass and I was like, Oh yes. And then I didn't have to change out of my dress shoes anymore before running because you were
Simone Collins: too poor.
I was too poor. Yeah. Poor. Oh
Malcolm Collins: no.
Simone Collins: Sorry. I derailed us. Let's go back. Let's get back
Malcolm Collins: here. I have to go back to the thing. Religious rating 5 remained roughly stable, and ratings 1 to 3 plunged. Currently, for the 25 to 34 age cohort, the fertility rates are as follows. 1, 0. 27, 2, 0. 49, 3, 1. 43, 4, 1. 89, 5, 1. 41, and 6, 1.
23. So I want to note here, if you were like, graphing this, the graph would peak at 4, and then start going down when you get to 5 and 6. And that 3 actually has a higher fertility rate than 5.
Simone Collins: That's [00:13:00] very interesting. So it
Malcolm Collins: peaks on the early side. Yeah. So, so you want to be in the three or four cohort, not in the five or six cohorts in terms of what I expect.
And this is even among the very young kids, right? So we're still seeing this effect in the young kids in terms of what I would expect these numbers to be. Eventually these women are still having children is the following. He goes , 1. 05. 2, 1. 31, 3, 2. 31, 4, 2. 91, 5, 2. 39, and 6, 2. 25. The groups currently have a standard deviation of the following.
1 at 0. 56, 2 at 6. 36, 0. 69, 3 at 1. 04, 4 at 1. 13, 5 at 1. 38, and 6 at 1. 19. The implications of this as far are as follows. For whatever reason, devout LDS born [00:14:00] after 1960 started having far fewer children. Lower religiosity Mormons born after 1988 will have fertility rates comparable to secular society at large.
Moderately religious Mormons born since 1960 have on average the most kids. Four being the highest rating with three and five being virtually the same for younger Mormon women, but five being much higher for Gen X Mormon women. The theory is that those with And no, he has a lot of beliefs about different and I'm not actually going into all of his emails because I just don't have enough information and there's not enough data to say that his observed theories are correct, but he thinks this mostly that the difference in which religiosity group somebody falls into has a lot to do with what immigration.
Oh, interesting. The Mormon church with different parts of England and different motivators Well, and, and, and Germany and stuff like that, and different motivators for the immigration, leading to them falling into [00:15:00] different categories of sort of the Mormon faith. But just have that in your mind while I'm reading this next part.
The theory is that those with Yankee slash heritage cultural background among Utah Mormons had collapsing fertility rates in the 1960 1990 period. Among the other high income and highly educated, they were able to maintain high fertility rates for those born 1960 to 1980, but afterwards. This dropped precipitously.
Some of
these high income slash education still have higher fertility and this explains the higher standard deviation, 1. 38 for this group. The group that is doing the best right now is likely part of what one would call the trustee slash clan based family structure, which there are an abundant amount of in Utah.
Perhaps 10 percent of the total LDS population belongs to one. This group leans more working class, is extremely Trump coded, while the further away one is from four, the less that they are, and typically much more quote unquote red state in their culture, more culturally Western and vaguely Southern, as opposed to [00:16:00] waspy.
And he showed me pictures of this group and they, they do exist across the Mormon religiosity spectrum. And we'll talk about this more in the next video because what was really interesting for me is they didn't set off my pod person instinct and the other type of highly religious Mormon does set off my pod person instinct.
And this was just really interesting to me, to me, when I looked at them, I was like, Oh, they're culturally similar to me, or, or if not culturally similar, like they come off as like normal people to me, to me. And not like, weird, otherworldly WASPy people which, which was very interesting.
Speaker 2: I don't think you've
Speaker 5: had enough pie. Why don't you have one more?
No, no, I'm fine. I really think you should have more pie. Have more pie. Try some
Speaker: pie.
Speaker 5: Well, I just had a piece, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: Try the pie. Try the pie. Try
Speaker 5: it.
Speaker 4: Try the pie. Try the pie. Try the pie. Try the pie.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): Tomorrow's episode is going to focus much more on the pod person, instinct that some people have that causes them to be sort of instinctually freaked out [00:17:00] when people show, , a degree of conformity. To a central authority. , ,
And, and tried to delineate exactly what signals elucidate this. As well as the cultural impact that the pod person. Indistinct has had, but.
The type of Mormons that do not trigger this pod person instinct.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: Culturally speaking often have a lot of similarities to each other.
Malcolm Collins: Typically, these are the types of people who would wear a lot of camouflage or American flags. Be a bit more tan you know, look a bit more like they drive a pickup truck that sort of thing. And that is not all Mormons that fall into this category.
It's, it's actually quite different from mainstream Mormon culture. What this means long term is that Mormons genetically, based on reproductive fitness trends among the Utah Mormons, are becoming more Danish and somewhat more borderland slash Celtic and are becoming less Anglo.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: So to fill in a bit of what he's saying here from other parts of his theory that I didn't take time to fully read, and this is anecdotal evidence, [00:18:00] not stuff that he picked up in the data, but he suspects that the Anglo Mormons, , who predominantly came from some parts of England and where some of the first of the Mormon settlers. , fall much more into this deontological religious extremist category of Mormon.
, and that later.
Scotch Irish groups who moved from the borderlands regions into the Mormon territory or from, , Denmark into Mormon territory. , they focus much more on this clan based moral structure. And that, , that has prevented them from becoming as ideologically extreme. , but also given them more pride in their family and cultural heritage. I E they breed a lot, not because there's a set of rules telling them to breed a lot, but because they have pride in their.
Family and Mormon identity.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-5: That's a great example of somebody like this in a different tradition is PG Keenan, who we had on the show recently. , and a lot of people in the comments were saying things like, oh, you finally had a Catholic on the show and they [00:19:00] don't know their theology. , this specifically we asked her a theological question and she was like, oh, I don't know that one. , and I think that this represents. A perfect example of somebody who is motivated to breed and takes great pride in her Catholic identity, but isn't particularly worried about. Deontological perfectionism or theological perfectionism.
And this mindset appears to be the mindset that is most successful in the current age. We, , actually after the episode, Simone was having a conversation with one of our, , Catholic fans, , who was another woman, was a lot of kids. And she was saying the same thing. , in other words, in one of her answers, just Simone, where there was some theological point that came up and she goes, yeah, I just don't really think about it much.
, and I think that this mindset, while it may be denigrated by the theological nerds, Which are the type of people who watch this show is actually the [00:20:00] most robust mindset. To resist fertility collapse.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: gosh, on a second revision of this, now that I think about it, I've also noticed that same thing from the Jews that watch our podcasts that we talked to. , well, we talked to a lot of like, Orthodox Jews that watch this podcast. The ones that are theologically most competent and most interested in the theological questions. Almost all are unmarried or have no kids.
Whereas the ones that are more focused on Jewish identity. And pride in Jewish identity. . Do you have lots of kids?
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-7: And I think this helps elucidate one of the purposes behind sort of the techno period 10 project that we've been working on, which is to say.
It's very important for me. Intergenerational fertility perspective. To identify what it means to be part of your culture, what your culture is about and who you are as a people. And so even if you don't feel like [00:21:00] you may have a history or one of the existing cultures that you want to glom on to, you can build your own, just make sure it's distinct and communicated to your children. And something that you take pride in and something that they might be able to choose to take pride in as well.
Malcolm Collins: I believe that Mormons age 65 plus were much more dysgenic and are selected than those under 35 Being much more case selective.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: So first, what is case selected versus our selected mean. , our selected species are typically species that specialize in having tons of offspring, but don't put a lot of parental involvement into them. Think of like the hundreds of turtles going down from the beach and some of them getting eaten by like crabs and seagulls that we talked about in the PG Keenan episode. , but , a K selected species is one that invests a huge amount of parental time in just one particular offspring or, well, never one particular.
I was bringing any species that did, that would go extinct, but, but fewer offspring. The problem here being is that. [00:22:00] Within a species, you don't get a bifurcation of case selected. Our selected strategies, especially within humans. , this is a, between species comparison thing, and it doesn't really make sense to think of humans as either case selected or are selected strategies because.
Generally the humans who have tons of kids or the cultural groups that have tons of kids. Also put more effort into raising those kids. Then the humans who have very few kids in addition to that, then there's been a lot of studies done on this. The amount of effort you put into raising every individual kid doesn't. Lower the amount of effort you have for other kids.
So if you look at like a graph of families, based on how many children they have and the success, likelihood and adulthood of those children, , it's just not a huge correlation. You're not really hurting your other children's potential outcome by having more children.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-11: Also one thing you may note in this graph [00:23:00] is that children with. One sibling actually do better than children with no siblings and children was two siblings do even better than children with just one sibling. So the idea that, oh, I just have one kid I'm going to focus tons of resources into raising that one kid. And then they'll be better off than if they had a sibling or two siblings.
That's just factually untrue. Your first kid is helped by the first other kid you have. Then those two kids are helped by the next kid you have. And after that, Any degree, which they could be hurt is just really not that bad. So for example, If you're raising four kids on average, those kids are going to have better outcomes than somebody who was raising just one kid.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: And finally I note is that the. Few groups in history.
, the Backwoods culture that we'll talk about more tomorrow, and we talked about in yesterday's lecture. Could be [00:24:00] thought of as like plausibly are selected in the way that they structured their clans in that they offer almost no parental resources, which is one of the things we're going to talk about tomorrow.
They were really just like, okay, half a ton of kids. , and you kids work together to figure it out, but I'm not gonna, help you in any way. , and therefore a lot of them died
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-12: Or didn't end up securing spouses than having kids if their own.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: and then people can be like, well, that's a horrible way to do it. But if you don't do things that way, if you lean too far on case like activity, , then you don't get any intergenerational improvement because you don't have the fitter of the, the offspring being the ones who end up continuing the line.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-13: Or the fitter variants of the culture being the ones that continue the line with the assumption that every offspring is going to alter the culture, to some extent.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: You basically are artificially propping up whichever random ones you do happen to have through the, , immense attention that you're focusing on them and money you're pouring into their education, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
, which intergenerationally [00:25:00] is going to have really negative effects for that culture.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-10: A culture that is not okay.
With its less fit. Offspring failing is a culture that is going to eventually die.
However. Ignoring all this K R stuff. , Eve we're thinking about this type of Mormon that I was talking about earlier, that does seem to be pretty high fertility in our current environment. And doesn't set off my pod person detector.
Malcolm Collins: Like a mormon who codes this way to me Kevin dolan is a mormon who codes this way to me, you know, one of our mormon friends where to me he feels much more Western than Mormon, like waspy. I, I guess I would say like the, the primary thing I would look for here is how sort of like preening do they come off as.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: In his letters to me, he used the term trustee to describe this clan based, Section of Mormon culture. And one of the really interesting things he pointed out about the trustee section of Mormon culture was that. Unlike the rest of Mormon culture, they're much more outdoorsy. , more [00:26:00] focused on, , fishing and hiking and skiing and stuff like that.
And he noted , how actually unusual stuff like skiing and outdoors-y stuff is for people on the Zubie side of Mormon culture. Given how. Much of a paradise, Utah is for these sorts of activities.,
Malcolm Collins: he says that this difference and we'll go into it more in the next episode, is something called being a a a, a a zoomie, I believe a zubie, a zubie. Which is a term that Mormons would know, but I wouldn't know. And I was reading, here's a quote about what Zubis are.
You can tell a Zubi by appearance only, although there are a certain stereotyped look. Preppy sweater boys and plastic girls are often associated with Zubi hood. But yeah, continuing off of other trends and assumptions this gene pool is now deselecting those with 110 IQs, but has become increasingly technophilic with some small reactionary groups, often six in religiosity [00:27:00] being technophobic. This means that future Mormons, often coming from trustee slash clan families in the three to four range will be of IQ 90 types, but they may be higher educated types.
That if they do reproduce some will be group five and two will have a higher amount of the iq 130 types I foresee similar conditions to exist for the next 30 to 40 years And that group fives fertility will stabilize around 2. 3 right now I've noticed influencers are still having lots of kids like at least four so there may be a real possibility a future Genes in Utah will select even more for increased sociability, extroversion, performance skills, verbal IQ over spatial IQ, hand eye coordination, and other related traits, and conventionally attractive looks that would support this.
Bottom line, Until the world radically revolutionized, those groups three and four will continue to have kids out of cultural pride. Honestly, there's almost as much local pride here as Texas, and a big part [00:28:00] of that is having large families and will be the most fertile group until there is either one radical changes in the outside global cultural environment or two radical changes in the LDS church demanding higher fertility.
I don't see either one of these happening mid century. Now, this is really interesting, and he makes a really strong point here. Cultural pride in the current landscape, like the current social technological landscape, is a better motivator of high fertility than deontological religious rules. And what we are seeing is the Mormons in this ultra high religiosity category, they are likely motivated more by what the church is telling them to do and the church rules.
And this does not appear to be good enough to overcome fertility collapse and the drivers of fertility class. However, the Mormons in this. I'm an average Mormon or I'm a bit more Mormon than the average Mormon. This group is primarily motivated by cultural pride.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And their cultural pride [00:29:00] motivation is what is actually able to drive high fertility.
And in fact, in the age of social media leads to an increase rather than a decrease in this cultural group's fertility.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And that checks out with what. I see in social media, the Mormons who are very active aren't the most devout Mormons by any stretch of the imagination, they kind of cheat or skirt on the rules a ton, but they clearly Are generating pride and they themselves have a lot of pride in their church and religion.
So that is really interesting.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah well, I mean the gatekeepers are doing nothing but hurting their church Basically the ones who are not a true mormon unless unless unless unless where you know I think that that what we're seeing here is that those deontological mormons those preacher boy type mormons need to look to this other group To learn from them.
And I think [00:30:00] that this is something that you know, we can also see in the United States where you see things like the collapsing fertility rate of the Orthodox Christians and the Catholic Christians, who I think traditionally saw themselves as more of this preacher boy type character when they're, when they're altered about than the more vulgar you know, Protestant or Appalachian groups and it's because these groups just have more pride in who they are, and they're not motivating fertility was a set of rules, but it's because they like existing and they like people like them existing.
So let's, let's keep that going. Right. You know, so, and here I know one final point for those born After 1960, among this population group, I theorize that those who are in groups one and six have damaging slash complicated slash negative relationships with sexuality, especially forms of sexuality that are pronatal, and those who are in groups three and four are the opposite, with twos and fives being in between.
. And, and I note here Yeah, I definitely see this is there's this new [00:31:00] like a group of Mormons who are becoming more sexually comfortable and we'll do an episode on the Mormon swinger phenomenon Because apparently like swinger culture has gotten really big among Mormons because they get married or it's
Simone Collins: just these moms of mom talk Yeah, I mean,
Malcolm Collins: no, no, no, no.
No, I've heard from other Mormons online They're like, oh, yeah, like you go to ex friends house and you'll see signs that it's been happening like but it's a really weird sort of swinger culture because they believe the only way to do it without cheating is to watch them sleeping with somebody, like if the husband or wife is in the room watching you.
Well, my understanding
Simone Collins: is that the the swinging is anything but actual PIV intercourse.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think it's usually like oral and hand jobs. Yeah. So it's,
Simone Collins: I think also the, the, the Mormon religion is, is kind of. It's one of those loopholes where like, if you're not going to be super persnickety about things, the whole, you know, sex before marriage thing, you know, it doesn't count if it's [00:32:00] oral, that's not sex.
And so that's pretty pervasive, et cetera, you know, things, things like that. So I could see that is not counting as sex outside of marriage because. It's not technically sex, but anyway,
Malcolm Collins: well, and I know there's some Mormons here being like, Oh no, those Mormons are the worst. And I'm like, those Mormons represent the hope for your religion.
And that's,
Simone Collins: that's, what's really surprising me about this message that normally you think it's. And we've even kind of shared this message that it's the religious extremists that are going to, you know, carry forward their religious legacies and their people, and they're going to inherit the future of those groups.
And yet here it's essentially the moderates that represent the future of the LDS church, which is the last thing I was going to expect you to say, but it makes so much sense. And I should have thought, well, of course.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Now I've been doing more research, and it appears that the level of trustee slash clanness may correlate more strongly than even the religious group rating.
What I've realized is that for whatever reason, [00:33:00] trustee slash clan Mormon families concentrate on level 4, 1 6 religiosity group. Now, Here we need to take a stop because remember I said at the end of yesterday's episode for anyone who hasn't watched that you might want to watch it in preparation for tomorrow's episode because these three episodes are sort of all building to the conclusion that while I think that these things matter, like the pure vitalism of a group matters, which can be matters in terms of murder rates.
That's what we talked about yesterday. Or Going for a clan based structure versus a deontological structure, like a group pride versus following a set of rules matters in terms of fertility, right? I actually think the key to all of this is his 2nd observation, which he goes into a lot more data about.
But unfortunately, it comes from a lot of personal observations of family members and stuff like that. So I can't go too deep into all of that. But That within the Mormon culture, the people who have clan [00:34:00] based moral frameworks appear to be able to maintain really high fertility rates and the people who don't have clan based moral frameworks and people have communalist based moral frameworks have are the ones whose moral Or whose fertility is collapsing,
And it makes perfect sense that the communalist would cluster at the edge of the, the fives and sixes in terms of being the most Mormons and the planners would concentrate in the threes and fours.
So, to understand what I mean by the difference between a clan based moral system and a, a, a communalist based moral system, and we're contrasting these individualist based moral system, because people often make the mistake. They're like, right, they're an individualist. For your communalist is like, no, there's actually 3 moral systems, clan based individualist and communalist.
So if I ask a clan based moral system into person, like, what, who are you? Right? Their 1st thought is, I am a member of my clan. So, if I was going to explain this, and we'll go into this a lot more tomorrow, if somebody said. [00:35:00] Hey, Malcolm, you know, like when I was growing up, how were morals taught to me? I was never taught things in terms of like moral absolutism.
Like this is a good or a bad thing to do. It was, you are a Collins and this is what is expected of Collins's. Collins's have, and it was, it was taught to me as if Collins's have a stricter and higher moral standard expected of them than the general population. And that the general population is just basically Degenerates, and you shouldn't expect anything of them.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-15: generally, if somebody is in one of these clan based moral systems, the fear. Is falling into the communalist space moral system. So to explain what I mean by that, you know, growing up, I was taught while you're a Collins and these are the things expected of Collins is, and I would, you know, see all of my wider family achieving these things.
And my fear was if I didn't achieve those things, well, then I'm not a Collins anymore. I'm just a Mormon. I'm just a regular Mormon now.
Malcolm Collins: Now, there are two ways that you can, if you're a Mormon teach [00:36:00] moral systems to people, right? You could be the communalist, and say, You are a Mormon, and this is what Mormons do.
Okay? Or you could say,
You are a Collins, Who happens to be a Mormon, like the Collinses are a type of Mormon, and this is what Collinses do. So why would this, this clan based thing lead to a more centralized position on the religiosity scale? It's because if you primarily identify with Mormonism instead of your family tradition, then you're just gonna follow everything the church says.
Everything the church says is what you follow. So you're going to fall at the extreme end of the religious spectrum. But, if you are first a Collins, Well, we're Collins is break Mormon rules or where you're
allowed to break moral rules and where you
should have stricter rules. And so that makes perfect sense, you know, for example, if you look at a lot of these clan based women, so they'll be a little looser on, like, how they wear their undergarments and stuff like that, [00:37:00] where they'll hike it up a bit more.
And it's like, okay, well. That's technically not being ultra religious, but if your cousins are doing it and they're still considered home to the family. And I should note, one thing about clan based systems that people who didn't grow up in the United States have to point out now, is they're really quick to throw someone out.
So when I look at like my wider cousin group and I'm like, I always compare myself to family members, that's where I'm judging myself. Like, am I doing a good job in life? How should I be approaching, you know, what success is defined? What basic ethical constraints am I dealing with? When one of them doesn't perform up to family standards, I just sort of stop.
Using them is one of the measures of comparison that I have access to. And I suspect that's the way these Mormon clans work as well, which is what prevents them from dropping off as quickly. If somebody leaves the church or stops following tons of rules, and they're clearly no longer acting according with the clan's, like, moral [00:38:00] system you stop using them as somebody to judge yourself off of.
And so, they don't end up pulling you down. And in tomorrow's video, we're going to get really into why clan based systems are so super, super resistant to fertility collapse and why communalist systems. You can immediately see why communalist systems are so susceptible to fertility collapse. Because you are always going to be affected by outside culture if you are a communalist.
Simone Collins: Yeah, well, and so if your outside culture becomes infected or toxic, you're more likely So essentially, there's less, There's less quarantining. So if there is a cultural infection that is sterilizing, you will not be protected from it. Whereas if you're, if you're in a clan based culture, you may survive it because you're isolated
Malcolm Collins: sufficiently.
Yeah. I think that there's a secondary thing here, which is genetic. And this is again, as many people know, I think people make the [00:39:00] mistake of assuming that human sociological profiles human sociological profiles are clearly genetically correlated. Like, we've seen this in the data over and over again.
It's like, 60%. But people make the mistake of assuming that genetically correlated means falling into ethnic buckets instead of falling into very recent selection events i. e. immigration waves, stuff like that, which is actually where. A lot more of the concentration happens.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-16: So the word this a different way.
, I think I remember from my old psychology classes, it was around a quarter of people experienced some form of auditory hallucination. Now Mormons regularly will ask God what they should do in specific circumstances. So speaking to God is a regular thing that most Mormons do. , now, if I am living by a Mormon community, whether I am, you know, black or Hispanic or anything like that, and I happen to be subject to auditory, hallucinations, and a Mormon says, well, if you're not sure what religion you should be, why don't you just ask God? , I am going to be [00:40:00] dramatically more likely to convert to Mormonism.
If I have this genetic script for auditory hallucinations. , which means that this can concentrate super, super fast in a population like Mormons or Quakers. , when other populations may not have it much at all. And if I am a Mormon who doesn't experience these auditory hallucinations, and I keep trying to talk to God and he never responds, I might be much more likely to deconvert. And that's how you can get these genetic clusters. , occurring really, really quickly.
But then this also would happen with something like a communalist mindset or a clan based mindset of a specific group of Mormons really leans into communalist based ways of thinking they are going to disproportionately convert people, whatever their ethnic or cultural background. , that lean more communalist around them.
However, having a genetic propensity for communalism can help cause a really negative side effect, which we talked about earlier, which is once you deconvert well, now what's your new communalist source of information.
It's the urban monoculture. And that's [00:41:00] why. , this would explain why the most extremely religious Mormons, when they deconvert become the most extremely woke individuals, whereas clan based people when they deconvert, they're still. Moderated by their clan. They might have deacon burden, but they're still a Collins.
You know, they're still looking to the clan for a sort of core moral centering.
Finally I note here is that I suspect that people with a. Genetic predilection towards a communalist moral framework. Even if they are like Mormon, Mormon. I E they, they want to be as Mormon as possible. They are going to be subconsciously influenced by the urban mono culture, given how much it dominates our society, much more than somebody who has been genetically selected intergenerationally for a clan based moral framework.
Malcolm Collins: And so I think if you have been for a few generations in a communalist culture versus a a clan based culture the genetic.
Correlates that you're going [00:42:00] to be selecting for are going to be the ones that that look to society around you to try to determine the social norms that you're setting for yourself. And these people who used to only be surrounded by Mormons now, in terms of the, the images that they're seeing in the media, they're seeing are just going to see more non Mormons and be comfortable.
Correlating themselves with those individuals. Also, they were motivating their moral behavior through what they saw in what's the word I'm looking for here? Like deontological rule sets. And those deontological rule sets they are no longer at play right now. And so, um, well, when I say they're no longer at play, they're no longer strong enough to overcome the urban monoculture.
Well, they're no longer
Simone Collins: protective. I think what you're saying is they're no longer protective. And, and there were environments in which they were probably. And if they are not adapted in the face [00:43:00] of new technology and globalization and other elements that render old rules ineffective, then yeah, they won't matter anymore.
And
Malcolm Collins: clan based moral systems are primarily motivated by pride.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And I would say they're, they're more adaptable in the end, because most clan based systems, which I imagine you will discuss more later. Are they reward the successful family members who then dictate the future of the clan's culture?
Meaning that people can adapt and those who do adapt to changes and to technological progress are going to help the culture iterate,
Malcolm Collins: right? Yeah, they adapt much faster. And think about it like within a clan based moral system And he was noting this in other emails to me that they've gone way more technophilic Than the deontological communalist mormons who are at the extremist end of their religion these individuals Have not become like all coders and everything like that.
Whereas the clan based people have and I think it's because [00:44:00] They, they genuinely are motivated by wanting to be better than other people, like have their clan be better than other clans and other people and stuff like that, and pride in their individual clan. So, if they see a societal arbitrage opportunity, like, engaging with technology, they're going to do it.
Whereas the other community is just not going to do it as quickly. They're like, well, is this what our people have always done? You know, whereas. A clan based person will be like, well, my cousin who I know is a devout Mormon is currently working in crypto. Therefore it's okay to work in crypto. My cousin, who's a devout Mormon is currently working in AI tech.
So I can go work in AI tech. Like now that's on the table because everyone in our family is talking to about him with a lot of respect. With the deontological group, you're not going to get that adaptation as quickly.
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-17: I wanted to add a comment from our discord where somebody made a really good point in one of them. , UCA, who said clan structures correlating with high fertility is a good point of the countries outside of [00:45:00] Africa.
The ones with the highest fertility today have the strongest clan structures, whether Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, or the central Asian stand countries, the countries in Africa with the highest fertility are also those with the strongest clan structures like Somalia, for example, it would also explain why Muslim countries was weaker or no clan structures.
Like I ran have lower fertility. That being said. I think the strengths as clan structure is heavily tied to urbanization and the more urbanized the country gets, the weaker, the clan grows. Most of the previously mentioned countries with strong plans are still very rural and poor as they get richer and more urban, the clan structures might weaken. In east Asia, there used to be a stronger clan structure.
Was every family having a shrine dedicated to their ancestors, but they went into significant decline. About a century ago is modernization slash industrialization. Also, there are different types of clan systems, one where people mostly marry outside of their clan. And one where people mostly marry inside of their clan, that traditional east Asian model, which includes Mongols would be to marry outside your clan. [00:46:00]
This is also how it was done in Scotland. Not sure if it would be the same in Appalachia. But I'd assume since they're descended . From the scotch Irish, and yes, it was true outside your family. Marriage tradition. , in most clans in the Muslim world, on the other hand, it is more common to marry within your clam.
Not sure if one would correlate more with high fertility than the other. It seems that marrying within your own clan does, but this could just be because the cultures that do this are poorer and more rural. , here. I wanted to know my response to this my disagreement would be that east Asia was really a clan based moral system. It has always been fairly communalist was the cultural norms coming? Not from the family, but from the central court. Yes. Superficially you worshiped your family, but you cared what outsider thought an awful lot.
Malcolm Collins: What do you think, Octavian? Do you, what do you want in who you make a mommy for your kids?
Octavian: Indy.
Malcolm Collins: You want Indy? You want to [00:47:00] marry Indy? That's your sister. No,
Simone Collins: you treat Indy like your little sister..
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-18: obviously, we've never sat down with Octavian yet and explained that you don't marry your siblings. But I actually think this answer shows a very instinctual sort of clean identity that he, when he was trying to choose who is the best woman I know of around my age, he's not choosing like a fictional character from one of the shows he watches, but he's like, oh my sister that's the best a woman can be.
, and so I thought it was a very sweet answer, but one that also sort of illustrates that there might be a genetic component to this because obviously we didn't. Teach him that that would be a very bad thing. If we had taught him that.
Simone Collins: Octavian, Octavian, can you tell our listeners that we should, they should like and subscribe? Then do it.
You're a silly goofus. I love you, buddy.
What are you
Malcolm Collins: doing?[00:48:00]
Do you think the audience likes to look at you spin? You got to say things. They only like it when you say it.
Octavian: You're not saying like and subscribe. You're not saying like and subscribe.
Say I'm like and subscribe.
Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.
Malcolm Collins: Here, I'll leave him with you while I go get the other kids. Thanks. Okay.
Octavian: Dad, I have a favor. Can you tell Stacy to get the crab for me?
Malcolm Collins: Okay, will do. Here.
Anyway. I absolutely love you, Simone. You are amazing. We got these two episodes done pretty quickly, so we can start on the next one if you want, or we can do the, do dinner early.
Simone Collins: If I need more sleep, let's do dinner early. Let's do dinner early
Malcolm Collins: and put the kids, you're actually going to put them to bed early.
You're not going to be in bed. Well,
Simone Collins: yeah, if I have an easy, an earlier start time and they're eating when they get home instead of, [00:49:00] you know, after I'm done
Malcolm Collins: prepping. By the way, one thing I'd love it if you could begin taking out for me is sawing some of those kebabs. guys. Yeah,
Simone Collins: We actually, I'll walk you through what we have in the deep freezer because I found some artisanal Amish meats.
Oh, what types? Yeah, I will show you.
Malcolm Collins: Can I really? You gotta enjoy.
Simone Collins: They're high quality. They're what an esteemed guest had accidentally left behind and said was all ours because he wasn't going to come back and get them, so.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, what, what, what are they?
Simone Collins: I will show you. You will have to see. The audience
Malcolm Collins: is going to want to know we're recording right now.
Simone Collins: I, well, I think some of it's Amish chicken because you know, that's what you get in restaurants. I think some of it might be some sausage. And then I think there are two salmon patties. If memory serves, but I actually didn't look that closely. Because it hurts my hands to hold them when they're out of the bottom of the freezer like that.
Malcolm Collins: So I just toss them in the basket. Okay, those things don't [00:50:00] sound that appealing to me. You know I don't really like chicken or salmon.
Simone Collins: Alright.
Malcolm Collins: And for tonight I guess we're doing pasta again, right?
Simone Collins: You don't have to. You can, you can do I think the kebabs are probably ready to go out of the, Oh, really?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Do you want to do kebabs tonight? Do a kebab with like, mixed vegetables or potatoes? Let's do the potatoes and kebabs.
Simone Collins: There's only a tiny bit of potatoes left. So how about sautéed vegetables and potatoes and kebabs? Or do you want your street corn, your Mexican street corn? Oh Mexican street corn, vegetables, and kebabs.
Malcolm Collins: Let's do potatoes, street corn, and kebabs. Oh,
Simone Collins: all of them. Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Just, well, no, take out the mixed vegetables. Just do the potatoes and the corn to finish off the potatoes. So you just
Simone Collins: want carbs and, okay,
Malcolm Collins: yeah. Oh, no. Okay. Okay. Okay. Veggies.
Simone Collins: You get a veggie, you get a carb, and you get a protein. That's Veggies, potato, and
Malcolm Collins: kebabs.
Let's kill the potatoes to get something done in the fridge.
Simone Collins: Okay. I love, ow. I love you. I love you. I'm sorry. I'd be
Malcolm Collins: annoying.
Simone Collins: [00:51:00] You're never annoying. You're perfect.
Malcolm Collins: You're perfect. Ow. Okay. Ow.
Simone Collins: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I can't. Why can't I move you? You're not moving. There, thank you. Oh, gosh! Hold on. I
Malcolm Collins: saw a really funny BabbleOnBee article.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Talib uninjured after her pager mysteriously explodes. Oh, no, that was, I, I like, do we, do we need to do an episode on that event?
Cause that was so cool that they pulled that off.
Simone Collins: Incredible spy movie stuff. I feel like maybe we need more information first, but it, what an incredible feat of.
Malcolm Collins: I might after like all the information has come out do one of these things where I try to create like the most comprehensive source on a particular subject.
That would be
Simone Collins: great because I want to watch that. I want to know everything about this.
Malcolm Collins: Because that was, wow I cannot believe. Pull that off. All right. Yeah, let's get started.
Simone Collins: I guess. Wait, you would have to own the [00:52:00] largest pager manufacturer in the Middle East, like, or several
Malcolm Collins: theoretically. No. So it appears I don't want to explain it because I actually read into this in detail already.
Okay. Yeah. No spoilers of how it was pulled off.
Why Are the Most Religious Mormons No Longer Having the Most Kids? (This Changes Everything)