{"id":1490480,"date":"2022-05-24T17:59:39","date_gmt":"2022-05-24T21:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1490480"},"modified":"2022-05-24T18:00:03","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T22:00:03","slug":"elon-musk-vs-the-malthusians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/elon-musk-vs-the-malthusians\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk vs. The Malthusians"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Felon-musk-vs-the-malthusians%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1490480&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/50376740888_0c4a57d262_k.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Elon Musk wants you to have more <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1529193812949614594?s=12&#038;t=M7sNeRcpB8_dAXA7o5x-MQ\">kids<\/a>. Or, at least, that\u2019s what I think he\u2019s saying.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"ciiYKuVoMeQsEuxUD6dTnbnPj8z5qJtejdF7ThPgm60Cv8YyIgZ2RlGSX5BKDaLMtHIvo\"><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Contrary to what many think, the richer someone is, the fewer kids they have.<\/p>\n<p>I am a rare exception. Most people I know have zero or one kid.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1529100718065569792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 24, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>And according to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Elon_Musk\">Wikipedia<\/a>, Musk has eight children. His youngest, X \u00c6 A-Xii \u2014 pronounced, \u201cmy dad is an unfathomably wealthy eccentric\u201d\u2014 was born in 2020.\u00a0Musk, whose offspring are scattered across numerous nations, continents, and mates, is doing his part.<\/p>\n<p>Historically speaking, Musk is correct. The affluent tend to have fewer kids. Perhaps they wait too long as they pursue careers. Perhaps they see too many children as a burden. Whatever the reasons, the West finds itself under replacement levels (due to lockdowns, birth rates <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/u-s-births-increase-for-first-time-since-2014-11653364861\">rose<\/a> ever-so-slightly in the United States last year for the first time since 2014, but that almost surely won\u2019t become a trend). While it\u2019s unlikely that political factors are the leading cause of declining rates, or that Musk would frame the debate this way, we shouldn\u2019t ignore the decades-long effort to stigmatize large families and normalize abortion.<\/p>\n<p>The Malthusian case for treating human beings as if they were a disease was popularized in the 1970s. Abortion was no small part of the early environmentalist movement. The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wasn\u2019t joking when she <a href=\"https:\/\/v2-9mdnszte.thefederalist.com\/2014\/09\/24\/ruth-bader-ginsburg-really-wants-poor-people-to-stop-having-babies\/\">infamously<\/a> claimed that she always assumed\u00a0<em>Roe v. Wade<\/em>\u00a0was \u201cabout population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don\u2019t want to have too many of.\u201d The now-debunked fearmongering of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/innovation\/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499\/\">The Population Bomb<\/a>\u201d was folded into existing attitudes popularized by eugenicist Margaret Sanger, who believed that life under difficult circumstances wasn\u2019t worth living at all. Well, if you happen <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/07\/22\/planned-parenthood-disavows-margaret-sanger-but-history-books-still-hide-the-eugenics-movement-she-championed\/\">to be a minority<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>An iteration of this outlook remains popular among contemporary abortion advocates. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/arkansas\">Arkansas<\/a>\u00a0already struggles to support vulnerable children,\u201d Dana Bash recently <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/05\/23\/cnns-dana-bashs-solution-to-child-poverty-kill-the-babies\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cnns-dana-bashs-solution-to-child-poverty-kill-the-babies\">told<\/a> Gov. Asa Hutchinson. \u201cNearly 1 in 4 children in Arkansas lives in poverty. More than 4,600 kids are already in your state\u2019s overloaded foster care system. Do you really think that your state is prepared to protect and care for even more children if abortion does become illegal there?\u201d The left has anesthetized the abortion issue to the extent that a television personality feels comfortable arguing that fewer \u201cchildren\u201d born to the lower classes would be beneficial for society.<\/p>\n<p>Poor people <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/241530\/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us\/\">have always<\/a> had more kids, and yet America has consistently gotten wealthier. There is little correlation between poverty and fertility, as some of the wealthiest places are also some of the densest in the world. A baby born in Lagos has a far better chance of ending up in poverty than a child born in Seoul despite both having virtually the same density. Certainly, capitalist nations like our own have an abundance of resources. Setting aside the economic benefits of having more children, they also help create more vibrant communities and a more dynamic nation. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Climate change alarmism has given anti-humanists another pretext to push antinatalism. A recent\u00a0Science\u00a0magazine piece\u00a0argues\u00a0that \u201c[b]y choosing to have one fewer child in their family, a person would trim their carbon footprint by a whopping 58.6 metric tons\u2014about the same emissions savings as having nearly 700 teenagers recycle as much as possible for the rest of their lives.\u201d In 2020, more than 11,250 scientists\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/scientists-declare-climate-emergency-solutions-fewer-children-2019-11\">signed<\/a>\u00a0a declaration saying the best thing anyone can do is have fewer kids. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult,\u201d Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-climate-change-have-kids-children-1342853\">told<\/a>\u00a0her 2.5 million followers a few years ago. \u201cAnd it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is no such consensus. AOC\u2019s generation is the safest and most prosperous <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2019\/03\/22\/stop-whining-millennials-youre-prosperous-generation-thats-ever-lived\/\">that\u2019s ever lived<\/a>. And despite continued high fertility rates in developing nations, we see fewer hungry people than ever, fewer people dying in conflicts over resources, and fewer perishing from extreme climate. So it\u2019s refreshing to see someone as famous as Musk, a techno-optimist and environmentalist, argue that humans are the ones propelling a decent world rather than the ones holding it back.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books\u2014the most recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eurotrash-America-Reject-Failed-Continent\/dp\/0063066017\/\">Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk wants you to have more kids. Or, at least, that\u2019s what I think he\u2019s saying. Contrary to what many think, the richer someone is, the fewer kids<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":1888596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1490480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1490480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1888596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1490480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1490480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1490480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}