• per capita progress is real;

• Europe’s decline is likely permanent;

• and China is probably headed for stagnation sooner than we think.

Progress: We take it for granted

Let’s start with some good news. Antinatalists like Paul Ehrlich have been warning for decades that high birth rates and overpopulation will have catastrophic consequences such as recurring famines and environmental collapse. At least on the food front, human ingenuity has decisively beaten the Malthusian mindset. Childhood stunting—children being shorter than normal, usually due to food insecurity—used to be widespread, including in richer countries like Great Britain. Stunting rates are collapsing across the world, including in poorer high-fertility countries.

Update your mental map!: Population change since 2000

Different ways of visualizing change in population size since 2000. Eastern Europe has seen population decline. Elsewhere, most regions have seen growth, especially fecund sub-Saharan Africa and migration-fueled Arab Gulf states.

India’s population has grown by more than the entire population of the U.S.A. China, Nigeria, and Pakistan have each added the equivalent of a Japan. Indonesia of a Germany. The U.S. and D.R. Congo each of an Italy.

In the Gulf states, population growth is driven by migration, in sub-Saharan Africa, by babies.

Projecting to 2050: Population stagnation has gone global

Sub-replacement fertility now predominates in all regions except the Middle East (which will no doubt there soon, as seen in Iran, Tunisia, and Turkey) and sub-Saharan Africa.

Europe faces a widespread fertility collapse almost on a par with East Asia. That means a vicious circle of demographic-fiscal dynamics as elected politicans try to sustain welfare states’ ballooning pension and healthcare spending on a collapsing base of workers. That will mean more economic stagnation, more geopolitical impotence, and more dependence on the U.S.A. Has Europe’s Century of Humiliation only just begun?

The following map was based on U.N. projections, which admittedly must be taken with a grain of salt. U.N. demographers for instance often assume fertility in sub-replacement countries like South Korea will revert to a replacement level of 2.1. But, as of today, there is no reason to think a return to replacement levels is likely. The map may well understate the degree of population decline, especially in Europe and East Asia.

USA: Population growth has been driven by immigration

China’s demographic-fiscal Europeanization locks in

China’s economic growth is increasingly debt-driven. This may well get worse as the workforce steadily shrinks. Due the country’s less generous pension and healthcare systems for the elderly, China’s public finances likely won’t be hit as bad as western Europe or the U.S. by population aging. Still, the IMF estimates that aging will raise pension spending in China will rise by 10 percentage points of GDP between 2024 and 2050, a huge drag.

The rise of public debt across the developed world—mostly but not entirely due to demographic factors combined with welfare states—gives a sense of the spread of the Great Stagnation among productive countries. China is probably going to be hit by stagnation sooner and harder than we typically expect.

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1. “Irreversible” resolution of the Franco-German security dilemma

This is the starting point. For over four centuries, France’s strength threatened German security and vice versa, leading to a vicious cycle of recurring catastrophic conflict from the Thirty Years’ War to the two World Wars. The two waves of European Founders, from Konrad Adenauer in the 1950s to Helmut Kohl in the 1990s, sought to permanently break this cycle not only through symbolic reconciliation—psychological factors like good-feeling are rarely durable—but through institutional and socioeconomic lock-in.1

The European Founders achieved this lock-in through a series of Treaties entailing the nation-states’ legal commitment to submit to the decisions and lawmaking of supranational (effectively, federal) institutions, socialization of policymakers in shared decision-making processes, and the creation of shared economic interests and interdependence through a common market and currency. These measures were meant to make a reversion to traditional nation-state conflicts impossible.

The end of the Cold War signaled that peace in western Europe might no longer be secured by U.S. involvement and the shared threat of Soviet communism. In his December 1991 speech arguing for ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in the Bundestag, Kohl argued the treaty’s creation of a common currency would make European union “irreversible.” Despite the Eurozone’s problems, the popularity of the Euro among Europeans and, no doubt, the fear of uncertainty entailed by withdrawal from the Euro, suggest Kohl was very right on this point.

If even Greece’s far-left Syriza was unwilling to leave the Eurozone despite Depression-like conditions, it is unlikely other populist government will be willing to do so. Among Eurozone members, anti-EU agitation is likely to be largely symbolic and within bounds ensuring macroeconomic stability (hello Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni and France’s possible future president Jordan Bardella).

I used to be rather dismissive of the peace argument for the European Union. Our old, childless welfare democracies do not seem particularly belligerent. Even without the EU, would they even have it in them to resort to war among each other? In the age of Putin and Trump I am less dismissive. It takes only one foolish leader’s caprice to return to the usual vicious circle of mutual insecurity dynamics between neighboring nation-states. The European Union massively reduces the catastrophic downside risks of conflict among our nation-states, conflict which can only be deadly to our freedom and development.

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2. The Common Market: A continental space of freedom

The European Union has created a a vast continental Common Market of 450 million people defined by Four Freedoms: free movement for goods, services, capital, and people. This is a remarkable achievement among 27 nation-states. Other regions have developed similar market-building efforts—ASEAN, Mercosur, the African Union’s Continental Free Trade Area, the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union—but none is as deep and seamless as the European Common Market.

The Common Market represents tremendous convenience for companies and people in Europe. For EU citizens, you simply take for granted that you can study, live, and work in any other EU country without hassle or legal uncertainty. The Common Market is also a great antidote, albeit insufficient, to national welfare and regulatory states’ endogenous political dynamics towards economic stagnation and decline: individuals can leave to more prosperous and competitive countries, while monopolistic national companies have less scope for domestic market capture but must adapt to outside competition. People and capital can vote with their feet instead of being entrapped by centralized nation-states captured by special and generational interests.

The Common Market also naturally led to the European Union becoming a powerful trade bloc and regulatory regime, whereby Europeans can stabilize their geopolitical neighborhood via economic incentives and assert their preferences in the global economy. While the EU’s geopolitical clout is largely restricted to the commercial and regulatory domains, it is real. Most recently, President Trump backed down (TACOed) on his threats to impose tariffs to take over Greenland because the prospect of EU trade retaliation (the “trade bazooka”) tanked the stock market. The Common Market remains the fundamental achievement and core engine of European integration.

3. A pole of attraction and “convergence engine”

Finally, the European Union is a powerful pole of attraction for neighboring states—who desire to benefit from similar freedom, prosperity, stability, and good governance—and a “convergence engine” for new members. This is very apparent if we compare the economic trajectories of EU joiners (e.g., Poland, Romania, Bulgaria) and comparable non-joiners (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Macedonia) in post-communist eastern Europe.

The divergences are clear. It is hard to believe that Poland—which has achieved almost west-European levels of wealth—was poorer than Ukraine only a generation ago. I think the economic success of EU joiners has been partly due to EU development funds, but probably moreso thanks to the signal that EU membership and market access sends to both national companies and international investors.

It is also apparent—though this fact is underappreciated by Westerners who take their functional institutions for granted—that many national (semi-)democracies have entrenched tendencies towards native corruption and incompetent governance that do not spontaneously resolve themselves. The incentives of EU membership evidently can decisively attenuate these, though full convergence to north-European standards (“getting to Denmark”) rarely occurs.

“A good place” to be

The European Union creates individual and collective capabilities for citizens and nations, but also serious constraints. Trade-offs are real and often, in the name of a kind of a dull culture of consensus, underdiscussed. This naturally leads to disengagement, alienation, and frustration among citizens. Not least, the Eurozone entails huge suprademocratic constraints on macroeconomic policymaking which were scarcely communicated to citizens.2

Perhaps most dangerously, the European Union has a tendency to empower governments, vis-à-vis their own societies, and to overregulation, notably due to national executives’ constant collaboration and lawmaking role in the Council. (European lawmaking is effectively bicameral, with a directly elected European Parliament and the Council of national goverments acting as a kind of senate.)

One must be able to recognize the European Union’s constraints and defects while also acknowledging its achievements. One can certainly conclude that one’s country would be best served outside the Union—and the right to secession is guaranteed by the Lisbon Treaty, the EU’s basic law—although the British seem to have learned otherwise from their experience of Brexit. So long as one is a member, one must be able to work with the European Union’s particular structure and dynamic to thrive as a nation. And one must articulate and work towards passing constructive proposals for reform, because every political entity is a continuous work-in-progress.

In an age of geopolitical chaos, the European Union’s considerable achievements are striking: a continental space of peace, freedom, and law among 27 nation-states. As President Macron virally said of Europe at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos: “Sometimes it’s too slow, for sure, and needs to be reformed, for sure—but which is predictable, loyal, and where you know that the rule of the game is just the rule of law, it’s a good place.”

I recently spoke with Dr. Gary Girod of The French History Podcast on the subject of Euro-Gaullism: France’s longstanding ambition, at least since President Charles de Gaulle, of creating a more independent Europe.

Euro-Gaullism has had a resurgence of popularity in recent years—which in Brussels-speak corresponds to the concept of “European strategic autonomy.” With the rise of China, Donald Trump’s two elections as U.S. President, the COVID-19 crisis, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the risks of Europe’s overdependence on unreliable foreign powers are now obvious.

Under French President Emmanuel Macron, strategic autonomy for Europe has risen from a marginal French mania to a new European consensus, albeit one whose implications and implementation are uncertain. E.g., even if you accept the idea of strategic autonomy in principle, what does this mean in practice? What sectors should be made-in-Europe? Beyond political will, what policy conditions, notably economic, are needed to re-industrialize?

Way back in the early 2000s, German philosopher Jürgen Habermas—who operated as a kind of conscience for the Federal Republic of Germany—explicitly argued in favor of Euro-Gaullism: that the EU should dare to be independent of the United States, especially when the U.S. behaves badly, as under George W. Bush and Donald Trump. For postwar Germans wedded to Atlanticism, this was no small thing.

Gary and I discuss:

• Disatisfaction of the French with the EU together with longstanding majority support for EU membership and the euro.

• The country’s oscillating role as an engine and veto-player of European integration (pioneer of the Coal and Steel Community in 1950; proposer in 1950 and sabotager in 1954 of the Defence Community, de Gaulle’s restoration of national vetoes in 1966, pioneer of the Euro, rejection of the Constitutional Treaty by referendum in 2005…).

• De Gaulle’s remarkable life and career, putting France among the victors by sheer force of personal will, and founder of France’s current regime, the Fifth Republic.

• De Gaulle’s project of French and European independence from the U.S., including the proposals for “political union,” development of nuclear weapons (force de frappe), and withdrawal from NATO integrated command (including kicking out U.S. forces and NATO headquarters, the latter ultimately to Brussels).

• The core contradiction of Euro-Gaullism: wanting to build European independence from the U.S. on sovereign nation-states. This implies convincing simultaneously all partner European states to try to be independent of the U.S. This is not plausible given the incentives and possibilities for vetoes and defection.

• This contradiction has persisted ever since, including under Presidents François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, such as by creating a common currency and a theoretical EU foreign policy while also championing national sovereignty in order to maintain power in the Élysée. The result is the incoherence of European macroeconomic policy and the weakness of foreign policy, constrained by national vetoes (now 27 and counting).

• Where power is “federalized” and broadly majority based—as on trade and regulation—the EU takes decisions that reflect its own preferences, not Washington’s. See: EU trade retaliation against actual and threatened U.S. tariffs (including Trump recently backing down on threats against Greenland), regulation of U.S. Big Tech, large fines against U.S. companies for alleged monopolistic practices, exclusion of most GMOs from the EU market.

• The deep tension between French political culture (political voluntarism, executive discretion) and the EU as a rule-bound order. In general, French political discourse on the EU works tends to be symbolic rhetoric (“European power,” “social Europe,” “more Europe”), not institutional thought, which leads to unrealistic expectations and alienation among citizens. By contrast, postwar German political thought, with its emphasis on fixed economic and constitutional rules, is much pedagogically healthier in explaining what the EU actually entails.

• France’s geopolitical influence and capability for independent action have declined in recent decades, mostly because of France’s weakening demographic, economic, and fiscal base. (Since 2000, the U.S. population has increased by 61 million, close to the entire population of France.)

• Populism is rising in France—a “far-right” nationalist president is not unlikely in the years to come—but I suspect most French will be fearful of the disruption of anything like “Frexit” from the EU and/or the Eurozone.

• Amid global uncertainty, Europe has pivoted sharply in recent years: EU policymakers have shifted to a competitiveness agenda—promising to cut regulation and eliminate barriers within the Common Market—and national military spending is way up.

• France remains the EU state with the greatest independent nuclear, military-industrial, aerospace, and intelligence capabilities. French assets often serve as essential foundations for European capabilities, as with the spectacular success of Airbus.

Have a listen!

The Brussels Times—Belgium’s largest English-language print and online media, notably aimed at expats—has published an op-ed by yours truly on how the Belgian capital can take inspiration from Singapore.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever published a book recently, entitled Prosperity, in which he argues his country should learn from the Asian city-state, one of the most developed countries in the world. I suggest 4 ways Brussels can do so, as summarized in the following infographic by the graphic AI tool Sora (not bad, really):

Having lived in Brussels for 15 years, and having studied the remarkable history of Singapore and the leadership of their late leader Lee Kuan Yew, both subjects are close to my heart!

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I am hosting a webinar next week on the Foundations of Biopolitics. This first webinar will cover Aristotle’s biopolitics, Darwin on human societies, and insights from genetic science (behavior genetics, population genetics, and paleogenetics) relevant to politics.

Time: Wednesday 11 March 2026, 12:30-14:00 Central European Time (GMT+1)

Platform: Zoom (use the link to enter the webinar)

Join us as we explore how insights into human nature can improve how to govern ourselves to enable human flourishing.

Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Highlights from this week’s edition:

• Repro/genetics

  • Olympic skater and IVF-baby Alysa Liu wins gold in Milan

  • Preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) market forecast to grow 10.5% annually to $1.13 billion by 2030

  • Alev Scott’s book Cash Cow reports on fertility industry in Europe, including dubious fertility tourism in Northern Cyprus

  • Germany debates decriminalizing abortion

• Population Policies & Trends

  • Discounted IVF drugs now being sold on TrumpRx website

  • France’s fertility plan includes sending letter to all 29-year-olds regarding family plans, reminding them of free fertility services such as egg-freezing

  • The New York Times reports that U.S. fertility is falling massively, but mainly due to lower teen and working-class pregnancies

  • Small Hokkaido town offers big baby bonus—and why it’s unlikely to work

• Genetic Studies

  • European ancestry is correlated with higher socioeconomic status across the Americas

• Further Learning

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Repro/genetics

IVF baby Alysa Liu was born via surrogacy (Men’s Journal)

• 20-year-old Alysa Liu has won the winter Olympic gold medal for figure skating in Milan.

• Her father, Arthur Liu, was a single dad who used a surrogate and anonymous egg donors to have his five children.

• Arthur chose white (Caucasian) egg donors because he “felt his children would benefit from a diverse gene pool” and multicultural upbringing.

• Alysa later asked her father: “Why do I look different? Why don’t I look Chinese?”

“Preimplantation genetic testing market research and global forecast report 2025-2030” (Research & Markets)

• The global preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) market is projected to grow from $690.2 million in 2025 to $1.13 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5%.

• Key growth drivers include rising genetic disorder prevalence, increased awareness of early genetic diagnosis, and widespread IVF procedures.

• Demand is supported by advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that enhance testing accuracy and efficiency.

• High costs and ethical challenges remain obstacles to growth.

• The U.S. market expects the fastest growth rate, driven by advanced healthcare infrastructure and supportive policies.

• Trends toward delayed pregnancies and rising risk of chromosomal abnormalities in embryos are contributing to market expansion.

• Detection of aneuploidy (an abnormal number of chromosomes) is expected to grow at the highest rate.

• Growing awareness of genetic screening benefits and the rising adoption of assisted reproductive technologies are contributing to strong growth.

“New book highlights fertility tourism in North Cyprus” (PET)

• Journalist Alev Scott has written a book on the fertility industry: Cash Cow: How the maternal body became a global commodity – and the hidden costs for women.

• The book investigates the murkier aspects of cross-border reproduction in Europe, including questionable practices in egg donation and surrogacy.

• An excerpt of the book published in the London Times highlights UK couples’ using fertility services in Northern Cyprus (occupied by Turkey) to engage in sex selection of their future children.

• The book is available at HarperCollins.

Reproductive self-determination and regulation of abortion in Germany: Current controversies and developments” (JoME)

• Abortion is still formally illegal in Germany due to Catholic and Kantian emphasis on embryonic human dignity.

• However, there is no punishment for abortion performed within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

• A Federal Commission on Reproductive Self-Determination and Reproductive Medicine, appointed in 2023, recommends decriminalizing early-stage abortion.

• Germany also has highly restrictive laws on stem-cell research.

More on repro/genetics:

• Podcast: “Polygenic risk, polygenic scores, polygenic indices: What are they? What should be done with them?” (PET)

Population Policies & Trends

“Discounted IVF drugs now available via TrumpRx website” (PET)

• U.S. President Donald Trump’s drug-discount programme TrumpRx is now live, offering reductions on some widely-used IVF drugs.

• The website, launched on 5 February, offers discounts on 43 drugs, including those for weight loss, diabetes, menopause, and fertility treatment.

• Four IVF medications are listed on the site. The U.S. Centres for Medicare and Medical Services estimates that fertility patients could save up to $2200 per cycle.

• “For very niche populations and very specific medication, at least in the case of infertility, it looks like this might be a good deal,” said Dr. Rena Conti, associate professor of markets, public policy, and law at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

• A single IVF cycle can cost as much as $30,000 in the U.S. and fertility treatment is often not covered by medical insurance.

• “We are pleased to see fertility medications included in the TrumpRx portal,” said Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer, American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). “This move alone does not make IVF attainable for most patients. ASRM urges President Trump and Congress to move beyond incremental steps and focus on solutions that truly make fertility care accessible and affordable for all patients who need it.”

“French 29-year-olds urged to start families” (PET)

• The French government is sending a letter to all 29-year-olds in the country to encourage them to think about when they will have children.

• In response to falling birth rates, President Emmanuel Macron has approved the implementation of a new 16-measure fertility plan by the Ministry of Health.

• “Fertility is a shared responsibility between women and men,” said Health Minister Stéphanie Rist. She added that the government’s role is “not to dictate whether or not to have children,” but to remind people of their options.

• Scientifically validated information about reproductive and sexual health will be available through a new national reference portal called Ma Fertilité.

• The letter highlights the availability of state-funded egg-freezing for 29- to 37-year-olds. To meet rising demand, the plan includes measures to open 30 additional egg-freezing centres by 2028 and improve regional access.

• The plan will also addresses the surge in demand for donor gametes following the enactment of the 2021 bioethics law granting single French women and those in same-sex partnerships access to state-funded IVF.

• Treatments using donated sperm have increased 8.5-fold compared to the period before the legislation was passed.

• The plan also includes funding to continue research into treatments for

  endometriosis and strengthening care for polycystic ovarian syndrome, which can affect fertility.

• France’s birth rate has fallen below the death rate

• France’s 2025 fertility rate of 1.56 children per woman, on average, is one of the highest in Europe. In 2024, the European average was 1.4, and the UK’s 1.41.

U.S. birthrate is plunging: Some say it’s a good thing (New York Times)

• The U.S. birthrate has fallen over 25% since 2007, driven largely by declines among teenagers and women in their early 20s, especially those without college degrees.

• Many young women from working-class backgrounds are delaying or avoiding children to achieve financial stability and avoid the stress and hardship they saw in their own childhoods.

• Teen birthrates are down 70% and unmarried birthrates down 30%, which some researchers see as a success story of greater control and planning rather than social decline.

• Changing adulthood patterns—later marriage (around 29–30), increased female employment, housing costs, better contraception, and shifting relationship dynamics—contribute to delayed family formation.

• Most American women still want about two children, but the U.S. fertility rate has fallen to 1.6.

Small Hokkaido town announces prefecture’s biggest baby bonus (population.news)

• Yoichi Town in Hokkaido will double its birth bonuses in FY2026, paying ~$6,600 from the third child onward—the highest municipal birth bonus in the prefecture—amid Japan’s record-low fertility (1.15 nationally, 1.01 in Hokkaido).

• Research covering all 1,741 Japanese municipalities finds huge variation in “desired birth rates” and shows that sustained child welfare spending—not one-time cash bonuses—is the strongest predictor of higher fertility.

• Successful cases like Akashi and Nagareyama municipalities boosted fertility through ongoing investments (free childcare, medical care, school meals, commuter-friendly daycare systems), not lump-sum payments.

• Structural factors such as commuting time, housing constraints, childcare access, and community networks matter, and are largely shaped at the municipal level.

• Yoichi faces severe demographic headwinds (aging population, shrinking base of women 20–39).

Genetic Studies

“Biogeographic ancestry and socioeconomic status: A meta-analysis of epidemiological findings” (Evolutionary Psychology Science)

• This study examines correlations between biogeographic ancestry (African, European, and Amerindian admixture proportions) and socioeconomic status (SES) in the Americas.

• Across aggregated samples, European ancestry is positively correlated with SES (about r = +0.16), while African and Amerindian ancestry are negatively correlated with SES (about r = −0.13 and r = −0.11, respectively).

• Moderator analyses (U.S. vs. non-U.S., local vs. multi-region samples, self-identified race/ethnicity subgroups, composite vs single SES measures…) generally do not eliminate the pattern.

• The authors argue that omitting genetic-ancestry measures can create omitted-variable bias in social-science models of inequality, while emphasizing that correlations do not by themselves identify mechanisms (e.g., cultural transmission, discrimination, genetics).

More on genetic studies:

• “NHS launches national cancer gene register” (PET)

• 556 genes asociated with uterine receptivity, may explain why embryo implantation fails in some fertility patients (PET)

• “First cell-level gene maps created for Alzheimer’s disease” (PET)

• “Continental genetic ancestries as predictors of socioeconomic and cognitive variation across the Americas” (OSF)

Further Learning

More on human nature, evolution, and biotech:

• Gennady McCracker, “Moral enhancement increases freedom” (JoME)

• “Some genes predate the last universal common ancestor of all life” (PET)

• “China leds Asia in its slow embrace of genetically modified crops (GLP/World Grain)

Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.

In a new book entitled Prosperity, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever calls on his countryman to take inspiration from Singapore as an economic and social model.

According to media reports, the book outlines the history of the West’s economic rise—De Wever is a historian who likes to pepper his speeches with quotes from personalities as diverse as Cicero and François Mitterrand—right up to Belgium and Europe’s current economic malaise.

De Wever praises Lee Kuan Yew—the founder and longtime Prime Minister of Singapore—for having instituted a culture of “order and respect,” created a “healthy national sentiment,” and “fought against communism, corruption, and drugs.”

Believe it or not, De Wever is an interesting chap, though “selling” Belgian politicians abroad usually not straightforward. He rose in conservative Flemish politics as an advocate for the dismantling of Belgium and for an independent Flanders. He has since moderated his message and, remarkably, now governs the country he sought to abolish in a coalition which notably includes the Reform Movement (MR), the most right-wing and classically liberal Francophone Belgian party.

The ruling coalition—the so-called “Arizona coalition,” so named because the colors of the participating parties correspond to the flag of Arizona—has been in charge for a year. Their agenda includes reducing public debt (107% of GDP as of 2025), cutting taxes (42.6% of GDP as of 2023, fifth-worst in the OECD after France, Denmark, Italy, and Austria), eliminating lifetime unemployment benefits (achieved, drawing much hatred from the Left), and restricting economically unproductive immigration (asylum and family reunification).

De Wever’s cat Maximus has become something of a hit on social media.

De Wever is quite aware of the tremendous challenges facing Belgium and Europe, including demographic aging and rising social spending, which are massive uphill struggles. In addition to the priorities mentioned above, he wants reforms to facilitate business and invest more in innovation. He argues: “The pillars of our welfare state must be sculpted by eliminating the abuses. The resulting gravel can be used to consolidate the foundations of our prosperity. This is the only possible way forward if we do not want to end up as a continent without power and without hope.”

In short, De Wever has an agenda grounded in interlocking demographic, economic, and geopolitical realism. However, there is no doubt that acting on these insights is extremely challenging in any country. Look at what Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan went up against; or how unpopular Gerhard Schröder’s economic reforms were (despite laying the foundations of later German prosperity under Merkel); or how French President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity has crumpled to nothing.

De Wever recently also got attention in Davos, arguing that Europeans had to stand up to U.S. President Donald Trump’s economic and military threats against Greenland, if only for their “self-respect.” Shortly thereafter, financial markets collapsed given the likelihood of European trade retaliation (the “trade bazooka”) in the event of U.S. aggression, leading Trump to back down. (Stock market traders have coined an expression: “TACO,” for Trump Always Chickens Out.)

De Wever praises the 16th century Golden Age of the former Low Countries—corresponding to today’s Benelux—during which the region generated astonishing art, textiles, trade, and industry. He concludes: “Let us give birth to a new golden century so that this region can again become a beacon of progress and be able to guide the history of the world. For Flanders. For Wallonia. For Europe. For prosperity.”

Heady stuff. The book, written in Dutch, is being translated into French, so I may try to have a read.

I am myself a Lee Kuan Yew aficionado, having written my second MA thesis on his demographic thought and policies (an academic article going on this is also in the works). Lee was probably the single most successful politician of the twentieth century, scaled for the size of his country. As I have previously written, the Right’s growing interest in Lee Kuan Yew ought to be a healthy antidote to populist incompetence and delusion which is only too common nowadays.

In all modesty, and in line with De Wever’s stated ambitions, here are 10 ways Belgium could take inspiration from Singapore:

10 points to Singaporianize Belgium:

1. Make English an official language of Belgium, starting with the Brussels Region.

2. Cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes.

3. Drastically reduce the Belgium’s labor laws (as of 2023 these apparently run to over 344 pages).

4. Zero tolerance for crime, drugs, filth, and Islamist extremism (all major problems in Brussels and Antwerp, with drugs and gun violence notably increasing).

5. An emphasis in policy and academia on expertise, facts, and pragmatic solutions, not ideology or moralistic passion.

6. Radically simplify administrative requirements and procedures for multinational corporations and freelancers (latter face high costs and few benefits).

7. Brain gain: strictly condition immigration on economic contribution with high salary and skill thresholds for citizenship.

8. Run Brussels like a city-state: E.g., merge the urban development authority of Brussels’ 19 (sic!) communes into a single agency to enable coherent transport and housing development (taking inspiration from Singapore’s Housing and Development Board (HDB)).

9. YIMBY: simplify permitting for development by foreign investors with a single industrial permit authority assigning a single case officer per project (inspired by the Singapore’s Economic Development Board).

10. Gradually reduce welfare provision and tie healthcare and pensions to mandatory private plans (this, no doubt, would be the most difficult, but would help Belgium escape the fiscal-demographic death spiral affecting much of Europe).

In Prosperity, Prime Minister De Wever has set a very high bar for Belgium. At the very least, after years of watching Europe sleepwalk into decline, it is gratifying to see European leaders finally recognizing and working to address the underlying problems. And, as President Macron pointed out in a meme-worthy moment at Davos, Europe also has powerful assets: above all a culture of predictability and of keeping promises, two virtues essential to the rule of law and secure property rights. Those are precious things in a world increasingly marred by erratic (would-be) autocrats.

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Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Highlights from this week’s edition:

• Repro/genetics

  • The Guardian reports on scientists who have “rejuvenated” human eggs for the first, potentially enhancing IVF success rates in older women.

  • The Wall Street Journal reports that Russian Telegram billionaire Pavel Durov has had over 100 children by covering IVF costs for mothers and promising the children a share of his wealth.

• Population Policies & Trends

  • China’s population fell by 3.38 million in 2025; births fell to the same levels as 1738, when the population was about 10 times smaller.

  • Survey in Chinese city shows no correlation between support for Confucian family values and actual desire to have children.

• Genetic Studies

  • The New York Times reports on a study suggesting that lifespan in over 50% heritable, with less influence of lifestyle than previously thought.

  • Genetic study of Mexicans shows significant racial heterogeneity of the population and differences in prevalence of genetic variants linked to various diseases depending on Native America, European, or African ancestry.

  • Largest study of schizophrenia in people of African ancestry finds over 100 new regions of the genome linked to the disease, highlighting the value of including broader genetic diversity in studies.

  • Qatari study maps genetic diversity of Arabs, highlights impact of inbreeding in disabling genes.

• Further Learning

  • Francisco Ceballos writes in Quillette on the societal and health aspects of inbreeding, a phenomenon affecting 20-50% of marriages in certain societies.

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Repro/genetics

“Human eggs ‘rejuvenated’ in an advance that could boost IVF success rates” (Guardian)

• Scientists say they have “rejuvenated” human eggs for the first time, a procedure which could radically enhance IVF success rates for older women.

• The research suggests that an age-related defect that causes genetic errors in embryos could be reversed by supplementing eggs with a protein. Eggs given microinjections of the protein were almost half as likely to show the defect.

• Most women in their early 40s still have eggs, but most of these have an incorrect number of chromosomes.

• Declining egg quality is the main reason IVF success rates fall sharply with female age and is why the risk of chromosome disorders such as Down’s syndrome increases with age.

• “Overall we can nearly halve the number of eggs with [abnormal] chromosomes,” said Professor Melina Schuh, a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen and a Co-Founder of Ovo Labs, which aims to commercialize the technique. “That’s a very prominent improvement.”

• In older eggs, chromosome pairs tend to loosen at their midpoint, becoming slightly unstuck or detaching entirely before fertilization. The X-shaped structures fail to align and instead move around chaotically in the cell. When the cell divided, this results in an embryo with too many or too few chromosomes.

• In Britain, for patients under 35, the average birthrate for each embryo transferred in IVF treatment was 35%, compared with just 5% for women aged 43-44.

• The average age of fertility patients starting treatment for the first time is over 35.

• “Currently, when it comes to female factor infertility, the only solution that’s available to most patients is trying IVF multiple times so that, cumulatively, your likelihood of success increases,” said Dr. Agata Zielinska, a Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Ovo Labs. “What we envision is that many more women would be able to conceive within a single IVF cycle.”

• The research must be confirmed in more extensive trials.

“A Russian billionaire fights global infertility—with 100 of his own children” (Wall Street Journal)

• Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder of messaging app Telegram, has been covering IVF costs for women under 37 who want to use his donated sperm, promising his offspring a share of his fortune.

• “The patients who came, they all looked great, were well-educated and very healthy,” said a former doctor at the IVF clinic offering the service, AltraVita. “They wanted to have a child from, well, a certain kind of man. They saw that kind of father figure as the right one.”

• The women had to be unmarried to avoid legal complications.

• Durov, now 41 and based in Dubai, said he has over 100 children in at least 12 countries, not counting six other children conceived with three different mothers.

• “As long as they can establish their shared DNA with me, someday maybe in 30 years from now, they [the children] will be entitled to a share of my estate after I’m gone,” Durov has said. He plans to open source his DNA so that his biological children can find each other.

• Forbes estimates Durov’s net worth at $17 billion.

• Durov has framed his sperm donations as an effort to alleviate a shortage of healthy sperm and incentivize other men to do the same. He has attributed a “rapid drop in sperm concentration in men in many regions of the world” in part to plastic pollution, calling it a threat “to our survival.”

• AltraVita also offers “selective” embryo screening for genetic diseases.

• Anna Panina, a 35-year-old from Moscow, said she has considered participating in the program: “It’s a wonderful opportunity to become the mother of a beautiful and intelligent human being.”

More on repro/genetics:

• “IVF embryo transfer: Natural ovulation proves as effective as hormone treatment, with fewer maternal complications” (Medical Xpress)

• “Fertility and the workplace: Can employers help? Should they?” (PET)

• Why these Indian women are breaking the law to sell their eggs for IVF (NPR)

• “Consumer DNA test reveals truth about heritage” (PET)

• “Bring on the clones: Conception and misconception” (Roger Gosden)

Population Policies & Trends

“China’s population drops for fourth year as fewer babies born” (Reuters)

• China’s birth rate fell to a record low of 5.63 per 1,000 people in 2025.

• The population fell for the fourth consecutive year, shrinking by 3.39 million.

• In 2025, births were “roughly the same level as in 1738, when China's population was only about 150 million,” said Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

• The number of people aged over 60 has reached around 23% of the population, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

• By 2035 the number of over-60s will reach 400 million, about the same as the populations of the United States and Italy combined.

• China has increased retirement ages, with men expected to work until they are 63 rather than 60, and women until they are 58 rather than 55.

• Marriages in China fell by 20% in 2024, the largest fall ever recorded.

• Marriages are considered a leading indicator for births in China.

• A May 2025 decision allowing couples to marry anywhere in the country rather than only their place of residence is likely to lead to a temporary boost to births. Marriages rose 22.5% from a year earlier to 1.61 million in Q3 2025.

• Chinese authories are promoting “positive views on marriage and childbearing.”

• China’s urbanization rate was 68% in 2025, up from 43% in 2005.

• Population planning is central to China’s economic strategy. This year Beijing faces a total potential cost of around $25.8 billion to boost births, according to Reuters estimates.

• Key costs are the national child subsidy, introduced for the first time last year, and a pledge that women throughout pregnancy have “no out-of-pocket expenses” in 2026, with all medical costs, including IVF, fully reimbursable.

• The number of Chinese women of reproductive age—defined by the UN as women aged 15 to 49 —is forecast to fall by over two-thirds to less than 100 million by 2100.

“High Confucian Familism Adherence but Low Fertility Intentions: Evidence From the Lowest Fertility Rate City in China” (JoFI)

• Yalei Zhai, a researcher at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, found that in an ultra-low-fertility Chinese city, support for Confucian family values did not correlate with intention to have children.

• The study estimates the impact of Confucian familism on fertility intention drawing from Tianjin Citizen Fertility Willingness Survey (n = 655 women, aged 15–49).

• Although Confucian ideals that encourage childbearing are widely accepted, fertility intentions (i.e., the expected number of children) remain low.

• Despite controling for fertility burdens and policy changes, stronger adherence to Confucian familism does not significantly predict greater fertility intentions.

• Zhai concludes: “The results suggest that the inclination to have a single child, even under incentive-based birth policies, arises from an ultracompetitive society that lacks comprehensive social welfare guarantees.”

More on population policies and trends:

• “I am a pronatalist” (Richard Hanania)

• “Trump’s fertility care initiative: A step forward or a missed opportunity?” (PET)

Genetic Studies

“Genes may control your longevity, however healthily you live” (New York Times)

• According to a study by the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), the human lifespan is about 50% heritable.

• The New York Times writes: “You can lengthen [your lifespan] a bit with a healthy lifestyle. But if your genetic potential is to live to be 80, for example, it is unlikely that anything you do will push your age at death up to 100.”

• The researchers used data from three sets of data from pairs of Swedish twins, including one set of twins that was reared apart, and data from a study of 2,092 siblings of 444 Americans who lived to be over 100.

• The goal was to identify outside factors that can affect how long someone lives, like infections or accidents, but found a significant role for genes.

• “If you are trying to gauge your own chances of getting to 100, I would say look at the longevity in your family,” said Dr. Thomas Perls, Director of the New England Centenarian Study.

• “This paper has a pretty powerful message,” said S. Jay Olshansky, Emeritus Professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois. “You don’t have as much control as you think.”

• The study’s conclusions that genes are powerful drivers of lifespan is consistent with what is known about other species, said Daniela Bakula of the University of Copenhagen.

• Dr. Uri Alon, one of the study authors, calculated that certain healthy or unhealthy habits can add or subtract 5 years or so from genetically expected life expectancy.

“Clinically relevant variants from the Mexican biobank show striking diversity across Hispanic people” (Nature Medicine)

• Researchers at Cinvestav Research Center (Mexico City) analyzed genome-wide data for 6,011 people from Mexico and found that disease-relevant genetic variants were not uniformly distributed across ancestries, but differed according to European, African, or Native American genetics.

• Te frequency distribution of gene variants that affect the metabolism of fentanyl (rs2242480) or statins (rs4149056) showed ancestry-specific patterns, being most prevalent in Native America ancestry chromosome segments.

• The authors note: “The emerging population subgroups at risk could not have been detected without the incorporation of local ancestry in the analytical pipeline.”

• There was also variation in disease risk within these broad ancestral categories, e.g. between northern and southern Mexican Indigenous groups.

• The authors conclude: “This study illustrates genetic heterogeneity across Hispanic populations and demonstrates that disease risk varies widely within admixed populations. Thus, a ‘one size fits all’ population descriptor does not capture genetic differences in such populations, and a case-by-case approach should be used when investigating the genetic risk and distribution of clinically relevant genetic variants.”

• The genetic risk patterns could inform public health measures and targeted genetic tests. Many of the differentiated variants show increased prevalence in Native American backgrounds.

“Largest genetic study of schizophrenia and African ancestry reveals shared biology across global populations” (Medical Xpress)

• Schizophrenia and related psychoses occur in all human populations but have the highest rates of diagnosis among people of sub-Saharan Africa ancestry.

• Decades of research have established a highly heritable and polygenic basis for schizophrenia, which is mostly shared across populations.

• Electronic health records linked with genomic data from the Million Veteran Program (MVP)—a U.S. research program that looks at the effects of genes, lifestyle, military experiences, and exposures on the health and wellness—enable a comprehensive assessment of schizophrenia genetics in populations of African ancestry in the U.S.

• The researchers found over 100 new regions in the genome linked to schizophrenia that had not been clearly identified before. Many of these genetic differences are more common in people of African ancestry.

• People of African ancestry have been under-studied in genetic research.

“Qatari genetic map reveals over 150,000 structural variants” (Medical Xpress)

• Research by King’s College London and Sidra Medicine, Qatar, has produced the most detailed map of large-scale genetic differences in the Qatari population, revealing providing a clearer picture of the genetic diversity of Arabs and the relationships between genetic variations and health.

• People of Arab ancestry remain significantly underrepresented in large global databases of human genomes.

• The research looks at structural variants—large-scale changes in DNA that affect long stretches of genetic material that can be missing, duplicated, or rearranged. Because of their size, structural variants affect much more of the genome, making them relevant to human health.

• The researchers analyzed more than 6,000 Qatari genomes. allowing them to see where variants occur, how common they are across the five main Qatari sub-populations, and their relationship to health information from the Qatar Biobank.

• The analyses revealed over 150,000 structural variants. Many affected genes are involved in biological processes related to cardiometabolic health and diabetes, aligning with the high prevalence of related diseases in the population.

• “Structural variants have an important impact on human biology, but they’ve been largely understudied in global genomics because they’re hard to detect,” said Dr. Mario Falchi, Reader in Computational Medicine at King’s. “We’ve created the most detailed map of these variants in the Arab population. This gives us a much clearer view of genetic diversity in the region and paves the way for precision medicine.”

• High levels of consanguinity (inbreeding) enables examination of the impact of inheriting deletions of pieces of DNA from both parents. The researchers uncovered more than 180 genes that had lost their function completely or been “knocked out” as a result of inheriting the same deletion from both parents. This means the protein associated with the gene is not produced at all.

• There were certain regions of the genome where the loss of both copies of DNA was not seen, despite the frequency of people in the population who carried the same deletion, suggeting having at least one copy is essential for human survival,

• “This work is presented both as a unique global resource for anyone studying the genetics of Arab ancestries around the world, and as a demonstration of the importance of consanguineous populations in improving our understanding of the human genome,” said Professor Khalid Fakhro, Chief Research Officer and Lead Principal Investigator of the research study at Sidra Medicine. “We look forward to expanding these studies to tens of thousands of Qatari genomes in the next phase, and to contribute to global efforts in genetic mapping and population-scale health discovery.”

• The Qatar Genome Program has played a pioneering role in including Arab genomes in global genomic databases with detailed health information from more than 40,000 Qataris collected through the Qatar Biobank.

More on genetic studies:

• “Large study identifies more than 100 genetic regions linked to schizophrenia” (News Medical)

• “Maternal genetic factors may reveal why pregnancy loss is so common” (Medical Xpress)

• “Big data make hidden genetic drivers of type 2 diabetes visible” (Medical Xpress)

• “Genetic variants associated with rare inherited growth disorder identified in two prehistoric individuals” (News Medical)

• “National genomic screening program could save thousands of Australians from preventable cancer and heart disease” (Medical Xpress)

• “Genomic screening uncovers hidden cancer and heart disease risk in young adults” (News Medical)

Further Learning

Francisco Ceballos, “A brief history of inbreeding” (Quillette)

• Biologist Francisco Ceballos writes that while inbreeding can provoke strong moral and cultural reactions, but it is a biological reality that can be measured precisely with modern genomics.

• The main forms of inbreeding are:

  • Endogamy by isolation: small, geographically isolated populations intermarry out of necessity (genetic drift).

  • Consanguinity by choice: deliberate marriage between relatives for social, economic, or symbolic reasons (property, lineage, trust).

• Many societies practised consanguinity for political or social reasons (royal dynasties, clans, religious communities), often to preserve status or cohesion.

• Genomics revealed a key marker of inbreeding: runs of homozygosity (ROH) — long stretches of identical DNA inherited from both parents.

• Everyone has some ROH because humans ultimately descend from small ancient populations. The longer the ROH, the closer the parental relatedness.

• Ancient humans were often highly inbred due to small, scattered populations. With agriculture, trade, and migration, human genetic diversity increased and inbreeding declined. Some cultures reintroduced consanguinity deliberately.

• Inbreeding increases the risk of congenital diseases: while everyone carries hidden recessive mutations, children of relatives have a higher chance of carrying the same mutation in their chromosome pair.

• This results in higher rates of recessive genetic diseases and inbreeding depression (reduced overall vitality affecting height, fertility, immunity, cognition, and survival).

• Darwin first demonstrated inbreeding depression experimentally in plants.

• Historical examples like the Habsburg dynasty illustrate how repeated consanguinity weakens populations over generations.

• Modern genomic studies show measurable health impacts of cousin marriage: Higher child mortality, more learning disabilities and developmental delays, greater healthcare use, and higher rates of congenital disorders.

• These effects are observed even in wealthy societies with good healthcare, indicating the cause is genetic, not environmental.

• About 10% of people worldwide descend from consanguineous unions. In some regions 20–50% of marriages are between relatives.

• Ceballos argues this makes consanguinity not only a private or cultural matter, but a public-health and economic issue due to higher medical and social costs.

• The topic is politically sensitive, often leading to reluctance to discuss risks openly. Genetics is about probabilities, not moral judgment.

• Ceballos concludes that just as genetic inbreeding reduces biological resilience, intellectual or cultural inbreeding reduces societal resilience. Diversity—genetic or intellectual—supports robustness.

More on human nature, evolution, and biotech:

• “The mysterious eugenics of aesthetic taste” (Los Angeles Review of Books)

Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.

Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Highlights from this week’s edition:

• Repro/genetics

  • British couples are legally able to genetically select embryos for health and intelligence by using the services of U.S. firms.

  • Births to unmarried American women in their 40s has quadrupled since 1993, largely through IVF. Highly educated women are the most likely to use. IVF births have increased 50% over the past decade.

  • Over half of IVF fertility cycles in the U.S. now take place in clinics affiliated with private equity firms.

• Population Policies & Trends

  • Gerontocracy: Vox discusses the rising numbers, power, and policy privileges of America’s elderly population.

  • Providing genetic services in wartime Ukraine.

  • Experiment with the Total Fertility Rate Simulator.

• Genetic Studies

  • Variants of a single gene linked to over 90% of Alzheimer’s cases.

  • First comprehensive study of Kazakh genetics finds the population is a genetic bridge between East and West Eurasia. Many population-specific genetic health risks identified.

• Further Learning

  • Personality and intelligence: Two meta-analyses find intelligence is linked to openness to experience and (modestly) lower neuroticism.

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Repro/genetics

UK IVF couples use U.S. services to rank embryos based on potential IQ, height and health (Guardian)

• Couples undergoing IVF in Britain are legally able to rank their embryos based on genetic predictions of IQ, height, and health by using U.S. firms.

• While polygenic screening is not allowed in British clinics, patient can, under data protection laws, demand embryos’ genetic data and analyze these abroad.

• The U.S. company Herasight reportedly charges $50,000 to assess an unlimited number of embryos. The Guardian notes: “There is no suggestion Herasight is in breach of any regulations.”

• “People are willing to spend loads of money and heartache to give their kids slightly better lives after they’re born,” said one patient. “This seems the best bang for your buck; it’s less per year than private school.”

• In Britain, tests performed on embryos are legally restricted to a list of serious health conditions, such as Huntington’s, sickle cell disease, or cystic fibrosis.

• Herasight said: “We can confirm that Herasight has been working with parents from across the globe, including families who have undergone IVF treatment in the UK, by transforming routine PGT-A [preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy, an abnormal number of chromosomes] data that parents have legally obtained and provided to us. This data can be accessed by clients under applicable data protection laws in the UK, Europe, and the rest of the world.”

“How IVF has led to a record number of single moms in their 40s” (NPR)

• IVF enables 2% of all births in the United States. That accounts for almost 100,000 births every year, up 50% from 10 years ago.

• Women opting for IVF via sperm donor may choose based on factors such as race, health, height, and education. “I cared about some physical attributes to look like me,” said one IVF mother. “And I cared about family health history.”

• The chances of conceiving a child with just one try of IVF are below 50% after a woman turns 35 and this probability decreases every year.

• Each attempt at IVF typically costs $15,000-30,000 in the U.S.

• Women with higher education are the top users of IVF, enabling 6.4% of births among women with doctorate or professional degrees (as opposed to only 1.8% of births among the general population).

“Private equity firms now oversee over half of US IVF cycles” (Medical Xpress)

• A study has found massive expansion in fertility clinics affiliated with private equity firms in the U.S. since 2013, rising from 3% to 32%.

• In 2023, over half of IVF cycles in the U.S. were done at clinics affiliated with private equity firms.

• Commenting on the tend, study lead James Dupree said: “It might be good for patients; it costs a lot of money to modernize IVF laboratory equipment and perform outreach to patients, and private equity firms can provide capital to hopefully improve quality and patient care.”

More on repro/genetics:

• “Denmark launches national sperm donor register” (PET)

• “Men’s Health Strategy for England includes infertility” (PET)

• “Australia should (carefully) permit compensation for donors of surplus frozen eggs” (PET)

• “Could egg defect breakthrough help stop the ‘horrible IVF rollercoaster’?” (Guardian)

• “Engineered womb lining model opens a window into embryo implantation” (News Medical)

Population Policies & Trends

“Older voters are gaining power: Young people are paying the price” (Vox)

• Vox argues that US public policy disfavors the young, offering relatively meager support to families with children while providing retirees with benefits.

• The US is undergoing a demographic transition that will define much of American life in the 21st century: The drift towards gerontocracy—government of, by, and for the old—threatens the prosperity of America as a whole.

• Between 1960 and 2024, the share of Americans over 65 doubled from 9% to 18%. Within a decade, America’s seniors will outnumber its children for the first time in history. By 2060, those over 65 are expected to make up about one quarter of the population.

• The political implications are profound: seniors already accounted for 29% of the U.S. electorate in 2024. Older voters have always exerted disproportionate political influence due to their exceptionally high turnout rates.

• Programs for the elderly will consume an ever-larger share of the federal budget , burdening younger Americans with higher tax rates or borrowing costs.

• States have recently shifted tax burdens away from older generations and toward younger ones. Since 2022, Texas, Colorado, Iowa, and Pennsylvania have all slashed property taxes specifically for homeowners 65 or older. A slew of states have begun exempting retirement income from taxation. Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and West Virginia ended taxes on Social Security benefits, while Iowa abolished the taxation of all forms of retirement income—from 401(k) withdrawals to pension benefits—for residents over 55.

• Federal rules already shield indigent retirees from income taxes.

• The current rebellion against property taxation has been remarkably widespread. Texas has enacted especially steep cuts, reducing property taxes by $18 billion in 2023. Less sweeping reductions have passed in Georgia, North Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Idaho, among other places.Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has floated a plan to eliminate all property taxes in his state.

• Some recent property tax cuts massively favor longtime homeowners over first-time buyers. In 2024, Georgia and Alabama both capped the amount that a homeowner’s assessed property value can rise in a given year.

• According to a report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a young family purchasing a Miami townhouse in 2024 would owe three times as much in property taxes as an older neighbor occupying an identical unit since 2006.

• In 2021, the United States spent just 0.6% of GDP on benefits for children and their parents—far below the OECD average of 2.3%.

• President Joe Biden oversaw a permanent expansion in elder benefits. At the end of 2024, Congress passed a bill increasing Social Security payments to public-sector workers, at an annual cost of nearly $20 billion.

• President Donald Trump’s GOP has largely embraced social spending that is explicitly earmarked for seniors. Republicans have forsworn cuts to Social Security and Medicare—and created new tax benefits for the old—combined with large spending cuts to programs that primarily benefit Americans under 65.

• The GOP did finance tax cuts this year with large reductions in Medicaid spending, which will adversely impact many older Americans.

• The vast majority of voters will remain under 65 for decades to come. The young could organize in defense of their own interests.

• The Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY), composed largely of young renters, has agitated against zoning policies that privilege homeowners over tenants. YIMBYs’ fundamental aim—to make housing abundant and affordable—would benefit renters of all ages and make America as a whole more prosperous.

• Vox concludes: “If younger voters stand up for their broader material interests in a similar fashion, America’s political economy just might age gracefully.”

“‘Heroes deserve to go home’: The need for genetics in wartime Ukraine” (PET)

• A Kyiv genetics lab, Genecode Diagnostics, continues operating despite war damage, focusing on DNA identification amid severe resource constraints.

• Genotyping is crucial to identify fallen soldiers. The lack of a centralized military DNA database makes identification slower, costlier, and difficult for families.

• The lab handles ~400 human identification cases monthly, alongside prenatal, embryo, and cancer genomic tests, despite having far greater unused capacity.

• War conditions have disrupted family structures and reproduction, with sharp rises in unregistered fathers, demand for paternity testing, and increased detection of severe genetic conditions via limited prenatal screening.

Total Fertility Rate Simulator (tfrsim.com)

• The Fertility Policy Simulator lets you experiment with different policy mixes in the hope of achievement a replacement level fertility rate (2.1 per woman).

• Policy options cover fertility policies, “illiberal” policies like abortion bans or a childlessness tax, welfare, taxes, and immigration.

More on population policies and trends:

• “Estonia is linking a super genome database to patient records. Is it safe?” (Politico)

Genetic Studies

“Just one gene may be responsible for over 90% of Alzheimer’s cases” (Science Alert)

• A study by University College London (UCL) researchers has found 9 out 10 Alzheimer’s cases could be driven by specific variations in a single gene.

• Based on four genetic datasets covering almost 470,000 people, the researchers identified variations in the APOE gene as implicated in most Alzheimer’s cases.

• “Without the contributions of APOE ε3 and ε4 [variants], most Alzheimer’s disease cases would not occur, irrespective of what other factors are inherited or experienced by carriers of these variants throughout life,” said genetic epidemiologist Dylan Williams.

• Individuals’ Alzheimer’s risk significantly depend on which two variants of the APOE gene they have received from their mother and father.

• Alzheimer’s risk is also increased by factors such as obesity, social isolation, and lack of sleep.

“First comprehensive Great Steppe genomic dataset uncovers unique variants” (Medical Xpress)

• Researchers from Nazarbayev University’s National Laboratory have created the first large-scale, high-quality genotyping dataset of healthy Kazakh individuals.

• The study presents a detailed analysis of genetic diversity across 224 participants representing Kazakhstan’s major regions and tribal groups.

• Central Asian populations remain largely underrepresented in global genome databases.

• Kazakhs are revealed to be a genetic bridge between East and West Eurasia. “Our goal was to build a genomic foundation for precision medicine and population studies in Kazakhstan,” says Professor Ulykbek Kairov, the project’s principal investigator. “The genetic landscape of Kazakhs reflects centuries of interaction along the Silk Road, and now we have data to explore that scientifically.”

• The study identifies 74 population-specific variants with potential biomedical implications, particularly in genes linked to metabolism and drug response, including associations with alcohol metabolism, aerodigestive cancers, lipid metabolism (nomadic Kazakh populations had a historically high-fat diet), glucose regulation, and type 2 diabetes risk.

• The research found low levels of inbreeding and exceptionally low homozygosity, confirming cultural practices that discourage consanguineous marriages.

• All genotyping data are publicly available through the European Variation Archive (accession PRJEB89820) and associated code is accessible on GitHub.

• “This dataset positions Kazakhstan within the global genomic map,” notes Dr. Dos Sarbassov, co-author and project supervisor. “It will help develop population-specific health care solutions and strengthen international cooperation in genomics.”

More on genetic studies:

• “More than two-thirds of the genetic risk across major mental health conditions appears to be shared,” according study of 1 million people (The Hindu)

• “Schizophrenia and osteoporosis share 195 genetic loci, highlighting unexpected biological bridges between brain and bone” (Medical Xpress)

• “Brazil’s genetic treasure trove: Supercentenarians reveal secrets of extreme human longevity” (Medical Xpress)

• “How a rare genetic variant protects some people from developing blood cancers” (Medical Xpress)

• “Genomic map linking complex trait genes” (PET)

• “Cognitive evolution in Western Europe” (Aporia)

• “Non-coding gene discovered to be a cause of blindness” (PET)

Further Learning

“Prsonality and intelliegence are more closely linked than we thought” (Nature-Nurture-Nietzsche)

• Two new metanalyses (studies synthesizing multiple studies) explore the relationship between intelligence and personality.

• Psychologists have traditionally thought intelligence and personality are largely unrelated. Among the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness), intelligence had only been linked to openness to experience.

• One study synthesizes 200 studies covering more than 162,000 people, while the other synthesizes 1,235 studies covering more than two million people from more than fifty nations.

• Both studies examined personality-intelligence links not just at the broad trait level, but also at lower levels of the personality hierarchy, i.e. sub-traits. Both studies explore crystallized intelligence (knowledge and skills) and fluid intelligence (ability to process information quickly and solve novel problems, independent of acquired knowledge).

• Openness and neuroticism were found to be the two traits most closely linked to intelligence. Openness was positively correlated with intelligence, while neuroticism was slightly negatively correlated with intelligence.

• Both studies concluded that personality-intelligence links are much stronger at the sub-trait level than the trait level.

• Crystallized intelligence was found to be more strongly linked to personality than is fluid intelligence.

• Perhaps intelligence helps cultivate openness, and especially its intellectual facets. Smarter people are better equipped to undertake cognitively demanding tasks and obtain more benefits from doing so. As a result, they enjoy these tasks more and develop a stronger interest in them. Smarter people are also better equipped to entertain and evaluate unconventional ideas, and thus may come to enjoy those more too.

• Depression and anxiety were negatively correlated with intelligence in both studies.

• Intelligence is a useful resource for dealing with the challenges of everyday life, enabling better occupational and financial outcomes, which may help insulate people from the kind of stressful emotions associated with neuroticism.

• Steve Stewart-Williams concludes: “[P]ersonality and intelligence are more intertwined than once believed. The key to unlocking their relationship is to look deeper than broad traits, into the rich and nuanced world of personality facets.”

More on human nature, evolution, and biotech:

• “The four principles in Islamic and Western medical ethics” (New Bioethics)

Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.

Baby births by country worldwide: Have you updated your priors? Do you understand that India has almost three times as many births as China? That Pakistan has almost 10 times more births than Japan? That Nigeria has more births than all of Europe (including Russia) combined? The future belongs, in the first instance, to those who show up. I have discovered during my studies that the demographic sustainability of societies—which was of keen interest ancient political philosophers like Aristotle—is of essentially no interest to virtually all the great contemporary political philosophers. A curious thing, that.

China vs. India working populations: The collapse of China’s working-age population is well underway. China must sustain almost 25% productivity growth over the next 25 years just to make up for demographic shrinkage. The Chinese Communists’ pronatalist policy efforts—pivoting sharply away from the One-Child Policy—have so far yielded no discernible results. Admittedly, China still has significant scope for “catch-up” growth because per capita wealth still isn’t that high. In addition, I think the Chinese public pension system is ungenerous, which may prevent rising pension costs from reaching catastrophic Franco-Italian levels. Downside risks to economic growth include China’s relative closure under Xi Jinping, the politicization of large parts of the economy, and their authoritarian system’s tendency to hide rather than address emerging problems. It is striking that Chinese economic growth in recent years has only slightly above U.S. growth. India will benefit from continuing demographic growth for some decades, though it remains an open question whether the nation’s scale can be translated into power-projection abroad (Brazil offers the best precedent for answering in the negative).

Disconnected: One of my pet theories is that access to smartphones craters fertility even in less developed countries. That might explain why very high fertility is only persisting in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and most of Sub-Saharan Africa. I can’t think of anything else that would explain the simultaneous fertility collapse across Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and much of North Africa and the Middle-East in recent years.

WW2 baby boom: Why did the Baby Boom start before the end of World War II? Beat me. In France, it even started under German occupation and the Vichy Regime. The latter had some pronatalist policies that doesn’t seem enough to explain.

Twins: IVF leads to more twins as more eggs are implanted to increase the chance of successful pregnancy. The numbers seems to be going down as single embryo transfer—which reduces the chance of birth defects—becomes the norm.

Emigrants: Noteworthy that lower-middle countries—not the poorest—tend to have the most emigrants; that Ukraine, Syria, and Venezuela have among the highest absolute numbers of emigrants; and the significant Indian and Chinese diasporas are likely to continue to have impact.

Life expectancy: Past pretty middling level of national wealth, life expectancy largely decouples from the economy.

Wild land mammals

Humans and our livestock make up 95% of mammal biomass: The above fits in just two squares below. Mammalian life is essentially made up of self-reproducing humans and the industrialized rearing and processing of various life-forms for our consumption. And a few pets. Very Samsaric.

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Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Highlights from this week’s edition:

• Repro/genetics

  • Tech billionaires Sam Altman and Brian Armstrong are backing Preventive, a startup aiming to use gene editing to eliminate hereditary diseases in embryos.

  • Danish sperm bank becomes first to set minimum IQ requirement for donors.

  • WHO releases first global guideline against infertility, calls for expanding access to fertility care like IVF.

  • Richard Hanania discusses studies suggesting IVF does not cause genetic damage in newborns.

• Population Policies & Trends

  • China taxes condoms for first time in 30 years, removes VAT on childcare to fight collapsing fertility.

  • European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) study says aging and shrinking workforces will lower living standards in Eastern Europe, with 0.4 percentage points less annual per capita growth to 2050, warns of looming fiscal-demographic death spiral.

  • Map: Fertility rate by region across the EU, average fertility fell to 1.38 in 2023.

  • How Trump gave up on his free IVF promise to please the pro-life movement.

• Genetic Studies

  • Study shows genetic correlations and underlying common intelligence factor between six cognitive-related traits.

• Further Learning

  • Filipe Nobre Faria and Sandra Dzenis argue nations are “natural families” whose cohesion arises from “genetic relatedness, culturally evolved institutions, and intergroup competition.”

  • Graphics: Humans and livestock make up 95% of mammal biomass (wild animals only 5%).

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Repro/genetics

Tech titans are trying to make a genetically engineered baby (Wall Street Journal)

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Coinbase Co-Founder and CEO Brian Armstrong each back Preventive, a startup working towards gene editing of embryos to prevent hereditary disease.

• Preventive is searching for places to experiment where gene editing is allowed, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is prohibited by federal law from reviewing applications for human trials involving editing of embryos.

• Armstrong argues that gene editing could reduce risk of heart disease, lower cholesterol, and prevent osteoporosis.

• Armstrong posted that he is “[e]xcited to be an investor in Preventive! More than 300 million people globally live with genetic disease. … It is far easier to correct a smaller number of cells before disease progression occurs, such as in an embryo.”

• Preventive has raised $30 million in investment to explore embryonic gene editing.

• The company pledges not to avance to human trials “if safety cannot be established through extensive research.”

• Earlier this year, Armstrong said that IVF clinics of the future will include a “Gattaca stack” of technologies including in vitro gametogenesis (IVG) to create ovules; preimplantation genetic testing; embryo editing for disease prevention or enhancement; and artificial wombs to eliminate the risks and burdens of pregnancy. He believes such technologies can address declining birth rates and “accelerate evolution.”

• The Wall Street Journal also released a podcast discussing these issues: “The Secret Plan to Create Genetically Engineered Babies.”

“No more dumb sperm: Danish sperm bank sets IQ bar” (Danish Dream)

• Donor Network, a Danish sperm bank, has become the first sperm bank in the world to require a minimum IQ of 85 from donors. About 18% of applicants fail the standard.

• The bank also excludes people with a criminal record.

• Donor Network provides clients with a 25-30 page profile for each donor, including psychometric information on cognitive abilities and personality.

• Denmark is a major sperm exporter and Donor Network says the new screening standards aim to meet demanding global consumer expectations.

• Screening of sperm donors for medical diseases is routine.

“WHO issues first global guideline on infertility” (WHO)

• The WHO has released the first global guideline for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infertility.

• Infertility is estimated to affect 15% of people at some point during their lives.

• The guideline calls for integration of fertility care into national health strategies, services and financing.

• In some countries, a single round of IVF treatment can cost double the average annual household income.

• The guideline advises on preventing lifestyle and environmental causes of infertility and urges a rights-based approach to foster reproductive agency.

“Should all parents consider embryo selection?” (Richard Hanania)

• Considering that parents have “a moral obligation to do what we can to create the healthiest, smartest, and best-looking children possible,” blogger Richard Hanania examines the safety of IVF and embryo selection procedures.

• While studies show IVF-conceived children are more likely to have health problems such as birth defects, much of the statistical variance is likely due to the older age of parents or their subfertility, rather than the procedure itself.

• A Finnish study found people conceived through assisted reproduction had better long term educational and employment outcomes than the general population.

• Hanania concludes that the peculiarities of the IVF procedure, such as massively reduced competition among sperm to fertilize the egg, have few negative effects.

• “Overall, IVF lets people who are less healthy have more kids,” he writes. “Age and subfertility status are major contributors to negative outcomes, but the IVF process itself isn’t.”

More on repro/genetics:

• “The world’s oldest baby: A 30-year old frozen embryo is now a child” (The Conversation / GLP)

• “‘They treat men like vending machines’: Inside the hidden world of social media sperm selling” (The Guardian)

• Berenice Cera argues that Argentina should have coverage for preimplantation genetic testing on grounds of human rights, scientific progress, and reproductive autonomy (Health & Human Rights)

• “Embryo selection: A guide for the curious” (Quillette)

• “My family’s embryo selection process”: Discussing use of Herasight to select an embryo for pregnancy (Anfei Larkin)

• “Guidelines for management of male infertility published in Australia” (PET)

• “‘The odd throuple’: Accuracy and authenticity in the IVF film Joy” (PET)

• AquaWomb: “This machine could keep a baby alive outside the womb. How will the world decide to use it?” (The Guardian)

Population Policies & Trends

“China to tax condoms for first time in 30 years as demographic crisis deepens” (Euronews)

• For the first time in 30 years, condoms will no longer be VAT-free in China, due to a new law aiming to boost birth rates.

• Condoms will now be subject to a 13% tax levy.

• Simultaneously, the government is removing VAT on childcare providers, elder-care institutions, and marriage-related services.

• China is now in deep demographic crisis with a fertility rate of about 1 per woman, leading to a collapsing workforce.

• Critics warn taxing condoms may contribute to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

• According to a 2024 report by the YuWa Population Research Institute, the average cost of raising a child in China until the age of 18 is 538,000 yuan ($76,165), making it one of the most expensive countries for parents.

EBRD study: Aging populations will lead to lower living standards (Financial Times)

• A study by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has found that, due to population aging and shrinking workforces, annual GDP per capita growth will fall almost 0.4 percentage points yearly in eastern Europe and the Caucasus between now and 2050.

• “Emerging Europe is aging,” said EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik. “Low fertility and a shrinking workforce will increasingly weigh on its growth prospects.”

• Per capita growth will fall even harder in other countries due to demographic factors, namely South Korea (1.1 points yearly), Italy and Spain (over 0.7 points), and China and Japan (0.5-0.6 points).

• An EBRD survey in Europe found that 42% of the over-65s want governments to prioritize public spending on healthcare and 25% on pensions.

• “The time to act is now before demography closes off your options,” said Javorcik. “Because there may be this spiral that’s being created as voters get older, as leaders get older, they care more about issues of interest to the elderly, in particular pensions, and therefore it becomes harder to do any pension reforms.”

“‘The pro-life movement still has some real juice’: How Trump’s promise of free IVF fizzled” (Politico)

• Social and religious conservatives have spent more than a year lobbying the Trump campaign and administration to not mandate insurance coverage for IVF.

• These conservatives oppose IVF as akin to abortion, due to the creation (and often destruction) of surplus embryos.

• While President Donald Trump has moved to lower the cost of some IVF medicines, these represent a small part of the cost of the procedure.

• Social conservatives celebrated the fact Trump did not designate IVF an “essential health benefit” under the Affordable Care Act, which would require insurers to cover it.

• “No one’s really talking about [Trump’s IVF initiative],” said Flory Wilson, CEO of the Reproductive & Maternal Health Compass. “It’s a nothingburger. I just don’t see how this is moving the needle in any meaningful way.”

• During the 2024 campaign, Trump called himself “the father of IVF.”

Genetic Studies

“Multivariate genome-wide analysis: Shared genetic architecture and brain structural correlates of cognitive abilities” (Scientific Reports)

• Researchers estimated potentially causal genetic variants associated with cognitive ability.

• The study identified 3,842 genome-wide significant loci, including 275 new loci.

• Analysis found a common cognitive factor representing shared genetic variance common to six cognition-related phenotypes—namely processing speed, educational attainment, executive function, memory performance, reaction time, and intelligence.

• This common factor reflects fundamental neural processes—synaptic efficiency, neural connectivity, and neurotransmitter regulation—that enable cognitive performance across diverse tasks.

More on genetic studies:

• “Within-family heritability estimates for behavioural and disease phenotypes from 500,000 sibling pairs of diverse ancestries” (medRxiv)

• “Human genome structure mapped at base-pair resolution” (PET)

• “AI model predicts rare, disease-causing genetic variants” (PET)

Further Learning

“Nations as natural families: From kin selection to multilevel selection” (Nations & Nationalism)

• Political scientists Filipe Nobre Faria and Sandra Dzenis argue for the sociobiological view of nations as “natural families” or extended kin groups, not as purely artificial constructs.

• The authors use multilevel selection theory—an evolutionary framework modeling competition and selection occurring at different levels in the hierarchy of life, e.g., both at the level of individuals and groups—to argue that “nations function as extended kin groups whose cohesion arises from genetic relatedness, culturally evolved institutions, and intergroup competition.”

• “Traits that may appear individually costly—such as loyalty, altruism and conformity—can enhance the survival and competitiveness of groups. Multilevel selection does not replace kin selection [whereby genes shared by different family members are perpetuated through familial solidarity]; it extends it. Our multilevel selection approach shows how symbolic, kin-like identities enable group-level adaptations at the national scale.”

• The authors argue their “biocultural” conception of the nation “helps bridge evolutionary reasoning with constructivist theories of nationhood.”

• “Nations are not random products of history; they are recurring formations that emerge under specific evolutionary conditions. As humans spread into new environments, they tend to organise themselves into larger and more cohesive groups. Across time and place, we see nations arise, develop and sometimes collapse. This recurring pattern is driven by fundamental dynamics: cooperation, conflict, kinship, and cultural adaptation.”

More on human nature, evolution, and biotech:

• Study of Swedish lottery winners finds wealth gains minimally decrease risk of criminal behavior (National Bureau of Economic Research)

• Study finds CEOs with daughters on average lead companies with 9.1% higher corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings (Journal of Financial Economics)

• “Low cognitive ability estimates in developing countries: A statistical analysis of their credibility” (Human Evolution)

• “National IQs: Measurement and defense” (OpenPsych)

• “How ancient humans bred and traded the first domestic dogs” (Nature)

• Perry Hendricks, “Organ markets are always the best option” (JoME)

Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.

I came to the American Founders rather late in my life, particularly for an American citizen and someone with a passion for history and politics. Being raised in France, I did not get the basic high-school introduction to the American Founding and the Constitution that high-schoolers in the U.S. get. Nor, in my university studies in Great Britain, was there much focus on U.S. politics before 1900.

I cannot recommend enough that you both read the American Founders and about the American Founding. It is a profoundly enlightening experience. You cannot understand the course of American history, evolving American values, or the exercise of American power—which affects just about everyone across the world—without understanding America’s founding constitutional and cultural DNA. While path dependency is not absolute, there is no doubt that the American Founding set the “self-evident” moral grammar and deliberate constitutional structure for all subsequent U.S. history. As Princess Irulan of David Lynch’s Dune says: “A beginning is a very delicate time,” one which can be highly determinant for all subsequent evolution.

As such, all U.S. citizens have a duty to understand their nation’s Founding, including the “Second Founding” represented by Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the Civil War, which profoundly reshaped the country at a critical turning point. This is needed to understand what America promises, what it does not, what it (rightly or wrong) critically assumes, and to give some sense of how the nation has evolved, for good and for ill. Foreigners should also try to understand America’s Founding, if only to get a better sense of what kind of power they are dealing with and what are the roots of its undeniable, enduring, and, indeed, often overbearing demographic, economic, technological, military, diplomatic, and cultural power.

And I rather feel like the ancient Greco-Roman historian Polybius who, in the opening to his Histories of the Roman Republic, asked: What could be more interesting than understanding how a great empire rose to unite, for the first time, the entire known world into a common nexus of interdependence? I find studying the rise of United States to be equally fascinating and useful.

Understanding America’s Founding and Constitution is especially important at a time when constitutional nihilism1 is rapidly rising—and this is a novelty—on the Right. Popular tweep Hunter Ash asks on X:

What is the [American] creed? And can we deport people who don’t believe in it? If not, what does it do?

A cursory knowledge of the American tradition would help answer the latter question. There is no doubt that shared values and symbols, albeit always contested and often changing in content, have been one of the most distinctive components of America’s political stability and moral power. As Abraham Lincoln said in one of his earliest political speeches “let [reverence for the Constitution and the laws] become the political religion of the nation.” As the French absolute monarchy learned in 1789 and the Soviet Union learned in 1989, a great state does not exist by brute force alone, but also by the moral legitimacy and appeal that commands willing adherence and makes violence unnecessary most of the time.

Yet one often equally hears from right-wingers these days that the Constitution is a phantom, no longer exists, and (more plausibly) cannot be “restored.” It is obvious the actual constitutional practice (let’s call it the Practiced Constitution) has evolved constantly and massively, and that it no longer corresponds to the Founders’ Constitution (however that might be reconstructed) and has an often tenuous relationship with the Written Constitution (the actual text of the document).

All this however does not make the Constitution meaningless or worthless. The Practiced Constitution continues to structure American politics in profound and unique ways. To understand this, you need only compare the practice of American government with virtually any other advanced democracy.

Most pointedly, the Practiced Constitution gives an astonishing degree, virtually unlimited, of legal freedom of speech to all citizens—including and perhaps especially politically-incorrect right-wingers. This does not especially derive from the Founders’ Constitution: many Founders endorsed censorship with the Alien and Sedition Acts; freedom of speech was often understood as in the English common law tradition, meaning the government could not impose prior restraint on publication, not lack of legal accountability post-publication. Nor is extraordinary free speech protection grounded in the literal text of the Constitution, which only speaks of limiting Congress’ ability to censor the press, not the states’ ability. Rather, America’s treasured free speech protection was born in the early twentieth-century with the evolutionary judicial philosophies of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Louis Brandeis, who affirmed the value of the “marketplace of ideas” as the test of truth and the need for free speech for civic debate. (See the eloquent and “canonical” dissents of Holmes in Abrams v. United States and Brandeis in Whitney v. California.)

Whatever one makes of America’s astonishing free-speech protection—and broadly this continues to be a great source of pride to Americans—one cannot deny the Practiced Constitution’s significance and impact in this area.

One could extend the discussion of the Practiced Constitution’s impact to all sorts of areas—the relative strength of American federalism, the arguments on regulation of abortion and gun rights, the various constraints on the growth of federal government (because of checks and balances, the Senate filibuster…), the prerogatives and limitations of the presidency, the scope for freedom of association, and on and on. All this makes engaging in constitutional learning and argument deeply meaningful, at least so long as Americans try to live together in a shared Republic. Living in the same polity requires citizens to have least some shared constitutional understanding, but the content of that understanding is something which is being constantly co-created through legal, political, and democratic argument.

I will also say this: the Founders and Lincoln are also worth reading because their political thought is of an unusally high intellectual and moral level. I don’t say they were morally perfect or that there aren’t more profound political thinkers elsewhere; I say it is rare for politicians not only to explicitly articulate the rationale of their actions and state-building in a sustained and holistic way, but also that their thought is remarkably sophisticated, cogent, realistic, and high-minded. Foundational American thought is surely very much worth reading alongside the classics of Greco-Roman, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, or modern European political thought.

I would even go a step further: the Founders are a wonderful entry point to the whole Western tradition of a political thought. This is because the Founders were astonishingly cultivated and well-read by later standards, reflecting the Enlightenment ideal of the educated gentleman. When you are reading the Founders, you are also getting a taster of Greek, Roman, Christian, and modern European moral and political thought.

Case in point: in developing their own political views, John Adams and James Madison basically read up on all known previous political history. In The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton considers the successes and failures of all then-existing European republics and confederations (e.g., Venice, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Holy Roman Empire…). The Founding was also deeply informed by the colonists’ Christian (mostly Protestant) faith and culture, profound engagement with the successes and failures of Greek and Roman republican history and political thought, and more recent political history. However, unlike earlier classics (say those of the Reformation or the Middle Ages), the Founders’ concerns are largely our own and they share much of our vocabulary: freedom, equal rights, republican self-government. This makes them, notwithstanding late 18th Century purple prose, more immediately intelligible than, say, Aquinas or Plato.

This makes America’s Founding Canon the great intertext of the Western political tradition, being relevant to we moderns while engaging with the early modern, medieval, Christian, Roman, and Greek layers of Western political thought.

With all that said, I invite readers to check out the National Constitutional Center’s (NCC) Constitution 101 course on Khan Academy and browse the following classics of foundational American political thought (which, I hope, may serve as good a selection as any):

• John Winthrop, “A Model of Christianity Charity” (1630)

  • A Puritan vision of what the Massachussetts Bay Colony would become. It introduces the memorable idea of making America a model to the world as “a city on a hill” (Ronald Reagan would add “a shining city on a hill”).

• William Perkins, A Treatise of the Vocations (1605; especially p. 6)

  • A muscular case for following one’s Calling as a divine duty, whose moral urgency arguably continues to resonate in surprising places, such as Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

• Benjamin Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind” (1751)

  • A short but remarkable essay that keenly identifies demographic dynamics and predicts the steady rise of Anglo-American power. Would influence Thomas Malthus who would in turn influence Charles Darwin. Podcast.

• George Washington, “110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior” (1748)

  • Technically this text was not authored by Washington, but by French Jesuits. All the same, the sixteen-year-old Washington copied it out and it gives a sense of the ethos and daily discipline of more aristocratic colonial Americans.

• Thomas Paine, Common Sense (January 1776)

  • Paine’s 47-page pamphlet was the best-selling book of the American Revolution, with perhaps 150,000 sales for a population of just 2.5 million. At once down-to-earth and radical, Common Sense helped make independence from Britain thinkable.

• John Adams, “Thoughts on Government” (April 1776)

  • Adams’ response for advice on how to set up a viable republican government is remarkably concise, rich, and cogent, highlighting democratic dilemmas that continue to be relevant today.

• Declaration of Independence (July 1776)

  • “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”: Probably the most famous political sentence in the English language, whose contested meaning has influenced all subsequent American history. (First objection overcome: the phrase “created equal” refers to equality in rights, not equality of character or talents.) See the NCC’s Annotated Declaration of Indepedence as contextualized by constitutional scholars.

• George Washington, “Circular to the States” (1783)

  • On resigning his commission at the conclusion of the War of Independence, General Washington allows himself a rare expression of political opinions. In measured words, reflecting both America’s uniquely positive circumstances and his deep frustration with the political ineffectiveness of the pre-Constitution U.S. government, he calls for an indissoluble Union, “sacred regard” for repaying debts, a minimal peacetime military capacity, and friendliness and moderation among citizens.

• Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785)

  • A series of letters to an inquiring Frenchman on America’s geography, political organization, wildlife, demographics, and other topics. Probably most notable for Query XIV’s extensive discussions of race and slavery including a tentative—almost embarrassed—claim of black inferiority and the denial of the possibility of biracial democracy. Also noteworthy is Jefferson’s statement on American slavery in Query XVIII: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.”

• Congress of the Confederation, Northwest Ordinance (1787)

  • The inauspiciously-titled Northwest Ordinance is one of the lesser known foundational American documents. However, having been adopted by Congress before the Constitution and in defining how new states are to join the Union, the Ordinance is one of the foundational texts of the American regime. Besides enabling the steady expansion of the Republic on the basis of equal states, the Ordinance notably has important provisions banning slavery in these territories (later much-cited by Lincoln), guaranteeing religious liberty, and promoting religion and education.

• James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention (1787)

  • Essential reading for understanding the genesis of the Written Constitution, including its more peculiar features such as the Three-fifths Compromise granting states representation for slaves, the Great Compromise’s granting equal representation to states in the Senate, and the constitutional Rube Goldberg machine known as the Electoral College.

• The United States Constitution (1787, and subsequently amended)

  • The U.S. Constitution was remarkably short as originally drafted at 4,400 words, since extended with 27 amendments to almost 7,600 words. Drafted in Philadelphia over three months in the sweltering summer of 1787, the Written Constitution set the foundations for the U.S. to be a coherent military-fiscal state, able to maintain domestic stability and guarantee external security, while—it was hoped—preserving law, liberty, and republican self-government. This document must be engaged with to understand the structure and textual foundations of the U.S. federal government, although its meaning in practice certainly cannot be reduced to the text. You also need historical and political awareness of the drafters’ background assumptions, the changing meaning of terms, and evolving constitutional interpretation and practice as a result of changing public opinion and constant institutional battles. Check out the NCC’s Interactive Constitution to learn more.

• Alexander Hamilton, John Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (1787-88)

  • Written to convince New Yorkers to ratify the new Constitution, The Federalist Papers is a classic statement of political science and the single most-cited work in all American constitutional debate. Essays #1-9 and #11-13 alone should be mandatory reading for learning basic power-political realities (which, to my perpetual bafflement, escape many people who are highly politically engaged) and make a realist case for a continental union defined by a virtuous circle of external security, domestic stability, liberty, and growth. Other key essays include Madison’s famous #10 on liberty, inequality, and faction in an extended republic, #51 on checks and balances (“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”), #78 on judicial review and independence, and more. While morally earnest, The Federalist shows the Founders to be republican, geopolitical, and indeed psychological realists with a keen sense of human nature and political conflict. I recommend starting with the more famous esssays rather than the “flyover country” of The Federalist Papers.

• George Washington, “First Inaugural Address” (1789)

  • The first president’s first address to Congress is a model of republican humility.

• George Washington, “Farewell Address” (1796)

  • Washington’s Farewell Address offers an influential vision of how to ensure the American Republic’s success, including limiting faction, respecting the Constitution, promoting religion and morality, embracing trade, and avoiding foreign entanglements.

• Thomas Jefferson, “Natural aristocracy” (1813)

  • A remarkable letter to John Adams in which the author of the Declaration of Independence endorses “natural aristocracy” founded on merit and muses about the possibility of eugenic polygamy.

• Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835-40)

  • The Frenchman’s Democracy in America is an “American” political classic for a reason. While his description of 19th Century American politics is sometimes incorrect, Tocqueville remains one of the most insicive observers of the strengths and weaknesses of American society and government, and indeed of democratic society in general (including materialism, individualism, radicalizing egalitarianism, and middle-class conformism).

• Abraham Lincoln: Many.

  • Finally, Lincoln practically stands in a class of his own as the refounder of the American regime during the Civil War. His moral and political vision—grounded in abhorence of slavery, a mobile democratic and industrial society, and reverence for the Constitution, even as this was being transformed—resonated profoundly with Yankeedom and in many ways has profoundly influenced all subsequent growth and deployment of American power.

  • Lyceum Address on “the perpetuation of our political institutions” (1838)

    • A classic statement of the American “political religion.”

  • Temperance Address (1842)

    • Lincoln brings all his rhetorical prowess and moral appeal to bear against the scourge of alcoholism, a major problem then and since.

  • First Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions (1858)

    • A lucid exposition of the power of literacy to enable communication between minds—across time and space— and the accumulation of knowledge, as well as the power of technological innovation.

  • Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)

    • The debates on slavery that made Lincoln a national figure and articulated the importance equal rights and individual liberty to America’s moral foundations.

  • Cooper Union Address (1860)

    • An overview of Lincoln’s explorations of the opinions on slavery of the 39 signers of the Constitution, finding that restricting slavery’s expansion was both constitutional and morally imperative.

  • Abraham Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address” (1861)

    • Lincoln’s measured but decisive position at the eve of the Civil War, pledging respect for the then-Constitution (and therefore of slavery where it existed and his duty to preserve the Union) and his pleas for reconciliation.

  • Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address” (1863)

    • At a mere 271 words, Lincoln expressed what become the credo of American democracy, vindicating the sacrifice of the 700,000 soldiers who died in the Civil War.

  • Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address” (1865)

    • Lincoln’s conciliatory appeal at the end of the Civil War: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.”

• Reconstruction Amendments (13th 1865; 14th 1868; 15th 1870)

  • In abolishing slavery and guaranteeing citizenship and equal rights to former slaves and the descendants of slaves, the Reconstruction Amendments transformed the nature of the American regime. All subsequent debates on issues such as birthright citizenship, civil rights, and discrimination are grounded in these amendments.

Naturally, the American political story does not stop with the Civil War. American political thought and the regime continued to evolve in subsequent generations—often in fundamental ways, as with the rise of pragmatists like Holmes and Brandeis, progressives like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and later struggles over desegregation, constitutional Originalism, healthcare, ever-growing executive power, and beyond. Notheless, a familiarity with Foundational American political thought remains essential for framing and appreciating all subsequent developments, the great adventure of American political history.

More useful sources:

• Alin Fumurescu and Anna Marisa Schön (eds), Foundations of American Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2021). A very useful collection of primary texts with introductory context).

• Joseph Kobylka, The Cycles of American Political Thought (The Great Courses). An audio lecture series.

• Thomas West, The Political Theory of the American Founding (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

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Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Highlights from this week’s edition:

• Repro/genetics

  • “IQ is 50% genetic,” “Have your best baby”: Nucleus Genomics posts embryo selection ads in New York City.

  • Report: Adverse events occur in less than 1% of UK fertility treatments.

• Population Policies & Trends

  • Ruxandra Teslo in the New York Times calls for a “fertility abundance agenda” broadening access to IVF and other fertility services to expand women’s reproductive choices and increase population growth.

• Genetic Studies

  • Major Nature study finds genetic influence accounting for most known heritability for height, fluid intelligence, and other traits.

  • Jenny Graves writes on differential genetic activity in male and female human brains.

  • Massive Taiwanese study discovers genes associated with diabetes, heart disease, and other conditions among East Asians.

  • Study of Greenlanders finds ancient Arctic adaptations may influence modern disease risk.

• Further Learning

  • Phoebe Arslanagić-Little discusses birth rate decline and pronatal measures on the Looking for Growth podcast.

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Repro/genetics

“IVF ads urge you to ‘have your best baby’ through genetic optimization” (Ad Age)

• Embryo selection startup Nucleus Genomics has taken ads in New York City with headlines such as “Have your best baby,” “Have a healthier baby” and “IQ is 50% genetic.”

• The ads point to the campaign side pickyourbaby.com with links to genetic testing services either to “Preview” one’s baby or to select embryos as “IVF+.” Preview probabilistically predicts the baby’s future traits, while “IVF+” enables polygenic selection for reduced chances of illnesses or traits like height and IQ.

• “Not that long ago, IVF-1 sparked fear and the stigma of test tube babies,” Nucleus Embryo Founder Kian Sadeghi in a launch video. “What was once controversial is now an everyday practice. The same is true with genetic optimization. The technology is now here, and it’s here to stay.”

• Critics have raised questions about Nucleus Genomics’ science and business practices.

Adverse events occur in less than 1% of UK fertility treatments (PET)

• A report from the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) found that the number of incidents in British fertility clinics increased last year, but remains low.

• Incidents occurred in less than 1% of the over 100,000 fertility treatments cycles which took place in licensed clinics.

• The report also found that interest in egg donation has increased, with no cases of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) being reported among donors.

More on repro/genetics:

• Dutch hospital pioneers whole-genome testing to diagnose rare conditions (Medical Xpress)

• “First-of-its-kind provincial registry opens to build Ontario’s hereditary cancer database” (News Medical)

• Mice pup conceived via IVF have slightly higher DNA mutations (Medical Xpress)

Population Policies & Trends

“Here’s what Trump should actually do on fertility” (New York Times)

• Dr. Ruxandra Teslo, a genomics researcher at the Sanger Institute, calls for a “fertility abundance agenda” to “help women build the families they want, and on their own terms, by expanding access to fertility care and modernizing the systems that support it.”

• Dr. Teslo urges increasing federal funding in reproductive science, expanding insurance coverage for IVF and fertility preservation, requirng consistent lab accreditation and quality standards, and ensuring more rigorous reporting on clinical outcomes.

• “A society that claims to value families shouldn’t treat the ability to have one as a test of luck or wealth,” Teslo writes. “It shouldn’t force women to reorganize their entire lives around a biological deadline while offering little support when that deadline approaches.”

• She believes such an agenda can unite broad swathes of Americans: “For conservatives, it would reinforce pro-family values and respond to their growing alarm about declining birth rates. For progressives, it would advance the goal of making high-quality reproductive health care more affordable and accessible.”

• A Pew poll found that 70% of Americans say access to IVF is a good thing.

• While President Donald Trump has signaled his support and taken some measures for fertility treatment, Teslo argues that stronger actions have been lacking due to his governing style and hostility to IVF’s use of embryos among part of his conservative base.

Genetic Studies

“Whole genome sequencing reveals how much human heritability we can finally explain” (News Medical)

• A major study in Nature has sequenced the whole genomes of about 348,000 unrelated people of European ancestry in UK Biobank and looked at 34 common traits and diseases (like height, fluid intelligence, cholesterol, smoking, fertility).

• Overall, genetic variants measured in these genomes explain about 88% of the heritability that you would estimate from family studies, so most of the “missing heritability” from earlier work is now captured. This includes capturing around 80% of the heritability of fluid intelligence.

• Common variants (present in at least 1% of people) explain about two-thirds of this heritability (~68%), and rare variants (present in less than 1%) explain about one-fifth (~20%).

• Among the rare-variant contribution, roughly 21% comes from coding variants (in protein-making parts of genes) and 79% from non-coding variants (regulatory and other regions of DNA).

• For 15 traits, there was no meaningful difference between heritability estimated from the genomes and from family relationships, suggesting that for these traits, genetic heritability is essentially fully accounted for by the measured variants.

• Some heritability is still unexplained (about 12% on average), likely due to ultra-rare variants, structural variants, gaps in the current reference genome, and non-additive effects.

• The results imply that polygenic scores and mapping of rare, especially non-coding, variants can be substantially improved with WGS in cohorts under ~500,000 people.

“Hundreds of genes act differently in the brains of men and women” (The Conversation)

• Jenny Graves, Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University (Australia), writes that hundreds of genes show sex-biased activity in human brains, though the functional implications remain uncertain.

• Around one-third of all human genes show sex-biased expression across tissues

• In the brain, a study found 610 genes more active in males and 316 in females.

• Most sex-biased brain genes are on non-sex chromosomes, suggesting regulation beyond X/Y differences, often via sex hormones.

• These differences emerge early in fetal development, with thousands of genes already showing sex-biased activity before reproductive organs form.

• Female-biased genes tend to involve neuronal processes, while male-biased genes relate more to cellular structures and membranes.

• RNA differences do not always produce protein or functional differences, and some developmental pathways may diverge but converge on similar outcomes.

• Sex-biased gene expression may contribute to different disease risks (e.g., Alzheimer’s higher in women; SRY-linked effects in Parkinson’s).

• Similar patterns exist in other primates and animals, indicating ancient evolutionary origins of sex-biased brain gene activity.

“Population-specific genetic risk scores advance precision medicine for Han Chinese populations” (Medical Xpress)

• A study in Nature analyzed genomic and health data from over half a million Taiwanese participants of the Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative (TPMI), achieving “achieving unprecedented accuracy in predicting risks for common diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disorders.”

• The study identified 2,656 genetic associations, including 95 previously unreported variants, and found that the genetic risks collectively explain up to 10.3% of total health variation in the Taiwanese population.

• “This project marks a milestone for precision medicine in East Asia,” said Dr. Cathy S.-J. Fann, at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica. “By integrating large-scale genomic and clinical data, we are building predictive models that truly reflect the real genetic architecture of our population.”

• Despite representing almost a quarter of the global population, East Asians account for under 4% of participants in past genome-wide studies. It is hoped that ancestry-specific genetics will improve precision medicine across East Asia.

“Ancient Arctic adaptations may influence modern disease risk” (Medical Xpress)

• Researchers have identified 251 genetic variants in native Greenlanders significantly affecting bloodstream protein levels.

• Genetic control over certain proteins was found to be significantly stronger in Greenlanders than in Europeans, showing how isolated populations can develop high-impact genetic variants.

• “By understanding how genetic variants regulate proteins in the blood, we can identify new drug targets and understand why certain populations are more susceptible to specific diseases,” said Professor Torben Hansen of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research. “This is especially important for populations like Greenland, where unique genetic adaptations that once provided survival advantages now contribute to elevated disease risks,”

• The research contributes to understanding Greenlanders’ risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes.

• “Indigenous and underrepresented populations have been largely excluded from genomic research,” said Dr. Sara Stinson, who carried out the research at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center. “Without studying diverse populations, we miss critical pieces of human biology and perpetuate health disparities.”

More on genetic studies:

• “Life without sex: Large-scale study links sexlessness to physical, cognitive, and personality traits, socioecological factors, and DNA” (PNAS)

• “Overlooked layer of DNA may explain disease risk, severity” (Medical Xpress)

• “Longevity gene offers clues to extending life without restrictive diets” (News Medical)

• “DNA discovery could help identify mothers at risk of pre-eclampsia” (Medical Xpress)

• “Landmark Japanese genome cohort reveals best practices for managing massive DNA databases” (News Medical)

• “New approach revives DNA from historic medical tissues” (News Medical)

Further Learning

“Baby booms, growth, and decline” (Looking for Growth)

• Phoebe Arslanagić-Little, Co-Director of pro-fertility advocacy group Boom, spoke on the Looking for Growth podcast on birth rate decline and how to make life better for parents.

More on human nature, evolution, and biotech:

• “DNA reveals the secret history of dogs” (TIME)

• “New gene-editing strategy could help development of treatments for rare diseases” (New York Times)

• “‘Biotech Barbie’ says the time has come to consider CRISPR babies. Do scientists agree?” (Nature)

• “Health Canada opens grocery stores to cloned animal foods. Is the nation ready?” (Castanet/GLP)

• boom

Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.

James Watson, the co-discoverer with Francis Crick of the double-helix structure of DNA, recently died at age 97. The Nobel Prize winner was no stranger to controversy. In his 2003 book DNA: The Secret to Life, Watson discusses how his advocacy for reprogenetic choice led to controversy in German media. He makes an earnest case for looking genetic realities in the face and using genetic enhancement motivated by love for future generations.

Below are some extracts from the book’s conclusion, entitled “Our Genes and Our Future.”1 Watson’s thoughts on genetic enhancement can profitably compared to those of CRISPR co-developer and fellow Nobel Prize-winner Jennifer Doudna. My bolding.

Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. Life, we now know, is nothing but a vast array of coordinated chemical reactions. The “secret” to that coordination is the breathtakingly complex set of instructions inscribed, again chemically, in our DNA.

But we still have a long way to go on our journey toward a full understanding of how DNA does its work. In the study of human consciousness, for example, our knowledge is so rudimentary that arguments incorporating some element of vitalism [the idea that organisms are defined by non-materialist forces or qualities] persist, even as these notions have been debunked elsewhere. Nevertheless, both our understanding of life and our demonstrated ability to manipulate it are facts of our culture. Not surprisingly, then, Mary Shelley [author of Frankenstein] has many would-be successors: artists and scientists alike have been keen to explore the ramifications of our newfound genetic knowledge.

Many of these efforts are shallow and betray their creators’ ignorance of what is and is not biologically feasible. But one in particular stands out in my mind as raising important questions, and doing so in a stylish and compelling way. Andrew Niccols’s 1997 film Gattaca carries to the present limits of our imagination the implications of a society obsessed with genetic perfection. In a future world two types of humans exist—a genetically enhanced ruling class and an underclass that lives with the imperfect genetic endowments of today’s humans. Supersensitive DNA analyses ensure that the plum jobs go to the genetic elite while “in-valids” are discriminated against at every turn. Gattaca’s hero is the “in-valid” Vincent (Ethan Hawke), conceived in the heat of reckless passion by a couple in the back of a car. Vincent’s younger brother, Anton, is later properly engineered in the laboratory and so endowed with all the finest genetic attributes. As the two grow up, Vincent is reminded of his own inferiority every time he tries, fruitlessly, to best his little brother in swim races. Genetic discrimination eventually forces Vincent to accept a menial job as a porter with the Gattaca Corporation. …

Few, if any, of us would wish to imagine our descendants living under the sort of genetic tyranny suggested by Gattaca. Setting aside the question of whether the scenario foreseen is technologically feasible, we must address the central issue raised by the film: Does DNA knowledge make a genetic caste system inevitable? A world of congenital haves and have-nots? The most pessimistic commentators foresee an even worse scenario: Might we one day go so far as to breed a race of clones, condemned to servile lives mandated by their DNA? Rather than strive to fortify the weak, would we aim to make the descendants of the strong ever stronger? Most fundamentally, should we manipulate human genes at all? The answers to these questions depend very much on our views of human nature.

Today much of the public paranoia surrounding the dangers of human genetic manipulation is inspired by a legitimate recognition of our selfish side—that aspect of our nature that evolution has hardwired to promote our own survival, if necessary at the expense of others. Critics envision a world in which genetic knowledge would be used solely to widen the gap between the privileged (those best positioned to press genetics into their own service) and the downtrodden (those whom genetics can only put at greater disadvantage). But such a view recognizes only one side of our humanity. …

Disposed though we might be to competition, humans are also profoundly social. Compassion for others in need or distress is as much a genetic element of our nature as the tendency to smile when we’re happy. …

Even those who accept that the urge to improve the lot of others is part of human nature disagree on the best way to go about it. It is a perennial subject of social and political debate. The prevailing orthodoxy holds that the best way we can help our fellow citizens is by addressing problems with their nurture. Underfed, unloved, and uneducated human beings have diminished potential to lead productive lives. But as we have seen, nurture, while greatly influential, has its limits, which reveal themselves most dramatically in cases of profound genetic disadvantage. Even with the most perfectly devised nutrition and schooling, boys with severe fragile X disease will still never be able to take care of themselves. Nor will all the extra tutoring in the world ever grant naturally slow learners a chance to get to the head of the class. If, therefore, we are serious about improving education, we cannot in good conscience ultimately limit ourselves to seeking remedies in nurture. My suspicion, however, is that education policies are too often set by politicians to whom the glib slogan “leave no child behind” appeals precisely because it is so completely unobjectionable. But children will get left behind if we continue to insist that each one has the same potential for learning.

We do not as yet understand why some children learn faster than others, and I don’t know when we will. But if we consider how many commonplace biological insights, unimaginable fifty years ago, have been made possible through the genetic revolution, the question becomes pointless. The issue rather is this: Are we prepared to embrace the undeniably vast potential of genetics to improve the human condition, individually and collectively? Most immediate, would we want the guidance of genetic information to design learning best suited to our children's individual needs? Would we in time want a pill that would allow fragile X boys to go to school with other children, or one that would allow naturally slow learners to keep pace in class with naturally fast ones? And what about the even more distant prospect of viable germ-line gene therapy? Having identified the relevant genes, would we want to exercise a future power to transform slow learners into fast ones before they are even born? We are not dealing in science fiction here: we can already give mice better memories. Is there a reason why our goal shouldn’t be to do the same for humans?

One wonders what our visceral response to such possibilities might be had human history never known the dark passage of the eugenics movement. Would we still shudder at the term “genetic enhancement”? The reality is that the idea of improving on the genes that nature has given us alarms people. When discussing our genes, we seem ready to commit what philosophers call the “naturalistic fallacy,” assuming that the way nature intended it is best. By centrally heating our homes and taking antibiotics when we have an infection, we carefully steer clear of the fallacy in our daily lives, but mentions of genetic improvement have us rushing to run the “nature knows best” flag up the mast. For this reason, I think that the acceptance of genetic enhancement will most likely come about through efforts to prevent disease. …

All over the world government regulations now forbid scientists from adding DNA to human germ cells. Support for these prohibitions comes from a variety of constituencies. Religious groups—who believe that to tamper with the human germ line is in effect to play God—account for much of the strong knee-jerk opposition among the general public. For their part, secular critics, as we have seen, fear a nightmarish social transformation such as that suggested in Gattaca—with natural human inequalities grotesquely amplified and any vestige of an egalitarian society erased. But though this premise makes for a good script, to me it seems no less fanciful than the notion that genetics will pave the way to Utopia. …

My view is that, despite the risks, we should give serious consideration to germ-line gene therapy. I only hope that the many biologists who share my opinion will stand tall in the debates to come and not be intimidated by the inevitable criticism. Some of us already know the pain of being tarred with the brush once reserved for eugenicists. But that is ultimately a small price to pay to redress genetic injustice. If such work be called eugenics, then I am a eugenicist.

Over my career since the discovery of the double helix, my awe at the majesty of what evolution has installed in our every cell has been rivaled only by anguish at the cruel arbitrariness of genetic disadvantage and defect, particularly as it blights the lives of children. In the past it was the remit of natural selection—a process that is at once marvelously efficient and woefully brutal—to eliminate those deleterious genetic mutations. Today, natural selection still often holds sway: a child born with Tay-Sachs who dies within a few years is—from a dispassionate biological perspective—a victim of selection against the Tay-Sachs mutation. But now, having identified many of those mutations that have caused so much misery over the years, it is in our power to sidestep natural selection. Surely, given some form of preemptive diagnosis, anyone would think twice before choosing to bring a child with Tay-Sachs into the world. The baby faces the prospect of three or four long years of suffering before death comes as a merciful release. And so if there is a paramount ethical issue attending the vast new genetic knowledge created by the Human Genome Project, in my view it is the slow pace at which what we now know is being deployed to diminish human suffering. Leaving aside the uncertainties of gene therapy, I find the lag in embracing even the most unambiguous benefits to be utterly unconscionable. That in our medically advanced society almost no women are screened for the fragile X mutation a full decade after its discovery can attest only to ignorance or intransigence. Any woman reading these words should realize that one of the important things she can do as a potential or actual parent is to gather information on the genetic dangers facing her unborn children—by looking for deleterious genes in her family line and her partner’s, or, directly, in the embryo of a child she has conceived. And let no one suggest that a woman is not entitled to this knowledge. Access to it is her right, as it is her right to act upon it. She is the one who will bear the immediate consequences.

Two years ago, my views on this subject received a very cold reception in Germany. The publication of my essay, “Ethical Implications of the Human Genome Project,” in the highly respected newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), provoked a storm of criticism. Perhaps this was the editors’ intent: Without my knowledge, let alone consent, the paper had given my essay a new title devised by the translator as “The Ethic of the Genome—Why We Should Not Leave the Future of the Human Race to God.” While I subscribe to no religion and make no secret of my secular views, I would never have framed my position as a provocation to those who do. A surprisingly hostile response came from a man of science, the president of the German Federal Chamber of Medical Doctors, who accused me of “following the logic of the Nazis who differentiate between a life worth living and a life not worth living.” A day later, an editorial entitled “Unethical Offer” appeared in the same paper that had published mine. The writer, Henning Ritter, argued with self-righteous conviction that in Germany the decision to end the lives of genetically damaged fetuses would never become a private matter. In fact, his grandstanding displayed a simple ignorance of the nation’s law; in Germany today, it is solely the right of a pregnant woman, upon receipt of medical advice, to decide whether to carry her fetus to term.

The more honorable critics were those who argued openly from personal beliefs, rather than exploiting the terrifying specter of the German past. The respected German president, Johannes Rau, countered my views with an assertion that “value and sense are not solely based on knowledge.” As a practicing Protestant, he finds truths in religious revelation while I, a scientist, depend only on observation and experimentation. I therefore must evaluate actions on the basis of my moral intuition. And I see only needless harm in denying women access to prenatal diagnosis until, as some would have it, cures exist for the defects in question. In a less measured comment, the Protestant theologian Dietmar Mieth called my essay the “Ethics of Horror,” taking issue with my assertion that greater knowledge will furnish humans better answers to ethical dilemmas. But the existence of a dilemma implies a choice to be made, and choice to my mind is better than no choice. A woman who learns that her fetus has Tay-Sachs now faces a dilemma about what to do, but at least she has a choice, where before she had none. Though I am sure that many German scientists agree with me, too many seem to be cowed by the political past and the religious present: except for my longtime valued friend Benno Müller-Hill, whose brave book on Nazi eugenics, Murderous Science (Tödliche Wissenschaft), still rankles the German academic establishment, no German scientist saw reason to rise to my defense.

I do not dispute the right of individuals to look to religion for a private moral compass, but I do object to the assumption of too many religious people that atheists live in a moral vacuum. Those of us who feel no need for a moral code written down in an ancient tome have, in my opinion, recourse to an innate moral intuition long ago shaped by natural selection promoting social cohesion in groups of our ancestors. …

With its direct contradiction of religious accounts of creation, evolution represents science’s most direct incursion into the religious domain and accordingly provokes the acute defensiveness that characterizes creationism. It could be that as genetic knowledge grows in centuries to come, with ever more individuals coming to understand themselves as products of random throws of the genetic dice—chance mixtures of their parents’ genes and a few equally accidental mutations—a new gnosis in fact much more ancient than today’s religions will come to be sanctified. Our DNA, the instruction book of human creation, may well come to rival religious scripture as the keeper of the truth.

I may not be religious, but I still see much in scripture that is profoundly true. In the first letter to the Corinthians, for example, Paul writes:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Paul has in my judgment proclaimed rightly the essence of our humanity. Love, that impulse which promotes our caring for one another, is what has permitted our survival and success on the planet. It is this impulse that I believe will safeguard our future as we venture into uncharted genetic territory. So fundamental is it to human nature that I am sure that the capacity to love is inscribed in our DNA—a secular Paul would say that love is the greatest gift of our genes to humanity. And if someday those particular genes too could be enhanced by our science, to defeat petty hatreds and violence, in what sense would our humanity be diminished?2

In addition to laying out a misleadingly dismal vision of our future within the film itself, the creators of Gattaca concocted a promotional tag line aimed at the deepest prejudices against genetic knowledge: “There is no gene for the human spirit.” It remains a dangerous blind spot in our society that so many wish this were so. If the truth revealed by DNA could be accepted without fear, we should not despair for those who follow us.

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Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Highlights from this week’s edition:

• Repro/genetics

  • Chinese researchers have removed an extra set of chromosomes from an embryo, eventually resulting in a health birth.

  • U.S. President Donald Trump will enable access to cheaper IVF drugs and encourage employers to offer fertility insurance.

• Population Policies & Trends

  • The OECD has issued guidelines for all levels of government to better manage demographic change.

• Genetic Studies

  • Embryo selection startup Herasight has published a study on polygenic prediction of intelligence.

  • 13 obesity-related genes have been identified in a multi-ancestry study.

  • Better understanding of the genetics of food cravings and aversions could lead to personalized nutrition plans to improve health.

• Further Learning

  • James Watson, the co-discover of the double-helix structure of DNA, has passed away: his comments on genetic enhancement and love.

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Repro/genetics

“Baby born from embryo that originally had three sets of chromosomes” (PET)

• A Chinese study reports how an embryo with originally three pronuclei resulted in a healthy baby after one pronucleus was microsurgically removed.

• After fertilization, a normal zygote has two pronuclei, one from the egg and one from the sperm, each containing chromosomes.

• The mother’s eggs were fertilized and produced seven embryos each with three pronuclei.

• Tripronuclear embryos would normally be discarded. However, the mother was offered the technique of microsurgical enucleation. This involves removing one of the pronuclei in a procedure similar to how pronuclei are transferred to the donor cell during mitochondrial donation.

• The researchers performed enucleation on six zygotes. Two of the enucleated embryos progressed to the blastocyst stage of development.

• The blastocysts underwent non-invasive genetic testing to check for chromosomal abnormalities. One was selected for transfer and developed into a healthy baby boy, who showed normal health and development after birth.

• The authors write: “The removal of one [pronuclei] from a [triponuclear] zygote is not a routine procedure in assisted reproductive technology. It should only be considered as an experimental rescue measure.”

• The researchers hope the technique may be used more widely in future “for cases where oocytes are extremely precious, such as patients with poor ovarian response,” or for those who cannot undergo further egg collection cycles for medical or financial reasons.

“Trump unveils plan to expand access to ‘fertility insurance’ and IVF drugs” (TIME)

• President Donald Trump has announced that his administration will encourage employers to offer fertility benefits to their employees, similar to dental or vision coverage.

• He also revealed an agreement with EMD Serono to provide cheap fertility medications at “massive discounts” through the government website TrumpRx.

• “We’ll dramatically slash the cost of IVF and many of the most common fertility drugs for countless millions of Americans,” Trump said.

• New Labor Department guidance aims to make it easier for companies to add fertility coverage for their employees. The White House is neither mandating participation, nor subsidizing employers that choose to offer the coverage.

• Trump said the fertility coverage “will reduce the number of people who ultimately need to resort to IVF, because couples will be able to identify and address problems early.” He added: “The result will be healthier pregnancies, healthier babies, and many more beautiful American children.”

• Currently around one in four large employers in the U.S. provide IVF coverage.

• Drugs are only one component of IVF procedures. Patients also pay for ultrasounds, anesthesia, laboratory work and embryo storage, which together can exceed $20,000 per round.

• During the 2024 campaign, Trump had pledged to require insurers to cover fertility treatment.

• Sean Tipton, Chief Advocacy and Policy Officer at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), said an “executive action cannot, on its own, ensure every patient who needs IVF—which for some represents the only option to have a child—can access it,” but the announcement is a “crucial first step.”

• RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association, said the announcement “sends a signal to policymakers and employers that infertility is deserving of coverage – a necessity rather than a luxury. However, the potential impact for patients depends on what happens next.”

More on repro/genetics:

• “An egg economy: In vitro maturation (IVM)” (Roger Gosden)

• Matt Ridley, “CRISPR gave humans the ability to edit the genes of any animal, plant, fungus or microbe. What will we do with it?” (Globe & Mail)

• LSE/Vienna study: “Many women over 43 need donor eggs for IVF success” (PET)

• Policy Paper: For Inclusive Fertility Care for All (Fertility Europe)

• “Information about elective egg freezing on Instagram reels: a content review” (JARG)

• “The AI genetics revolution is coming: We’re worrying about the wrong arms race with China” (The New Atlantis)

• A review of Dr. Anna Molas’ Taming Egg Donors: The Egg Donation Reproductive Market in Spain (PET)

• “IVF inequality highlighted in British Parliament” (PET)

Population Policies & Trends

“OECD guidelines on the multi-level governance of demographic change” (OECD)

• The OECD has issued guidelines to for governments to manage demographic change, notably to ensure that “shrinking and ageing regions are not left behind, but supported through strategic adaptation, innovation and solidarity.”

1. Integrate demographic projections and foresight tools into strategic planning to ensure policies and investments are future-proof.

2. Territorialize sectoral policies to promote integrated, place-based responses to demographic change within and across regions.

3. Coordinate across levels of government and functional areas to adapt services and investments efficiently, especially in small or shrinking municipalities.

4. Strengthen participatory governance to revitalize communities and enhance trust.

5. Attract, retain and develop public sector capacity in shrinking areas to maintain essential services and institutional resilience.

6. Ensure fiscal frameworks are responsive to demographic change.

7. Adjust infrastructure and service delivery systems to reflect evolving demographic needs.

More on population policies and trends:

• “Rationality of women in fertility decisions: An intergenerational study in rural Indonesian contexts” (International Journal of Population Studies)

• “The ethics of population policy for the two worlds of population conditions” (Health Care Analysis)

• “Make American procreate again: Among the MAGA fertility fanatics” (The Economist)

• “Communist pronatalism” (Aporia)

Genetic Studies

“A new polygenic score for intelligence” (Aporia)

• Herasight, an embryo selection company, has published a validation study on within-family polygenic prediction of general cognitive ability, i.e. predicting intelligence based on the contribution of many genes.

• Their polygenic score (PGS) claims to predict 16% of variance in intelligence in a sample of the UK Biobank.

• According to the paper: “Our PGS predicts higher educational attainment, occupational status, and family income within families, and retains good performance in non-European ancestry samples, with the correlation retaining 64% of its magnitude in [an] African American subset.”

• The polygenic score for intelligence was found to also be partially correlated with other traits, such as reduced likelihood of ADHD, sleep problems, type 2 diabetes, and some cardiovascular diseases.

“Obesity-related genes revealed in multi-ancestry study” (PET)

• A study in Nature Communications has identified 13 obesity-related genes.

• Five of these genes had not been previously associated with diabetes and were discovered thanks to the inclusion of non-European genomes.

• “Obesity is a complex trait that is influenced by many genetic and lifestyle factors,” said Professor Santhosh Girirajan. “Studies in a single population can lead us to miss important genes that are shared across populations but may not rise to statistical significance in any one of them, even if they are clinically important in that population.”

• The study used data from the UK Biobank and the U.S.-based All of Us biobank, with participants of African, American, East Asia, European, Middle Eastern, and South Asian ancestry.

• “Some of the previously discovered obesity genes appear to only have significant association to obesity in Europeans, which could limit their potential as therapeutic targets for a global population,” said Professor Girirajan.

“The genetics of food cravings and aversions” (GLP/University of Colorado)

• Geneticist Dr. Joanne Cole of the University of Colorado has identified hundreds of regions of the human genome associated with liking food.

• Some of these genetic variations influence how strongly taste receptors bind to different food compounds.

• “Each person is genetically at risk for a different set of conditions,” said Dr. Cole. “We should be targeting each individual’s genetic disease risk with disease-tailored lifestyle interventions.”

• The research may pave the way for genetically-informed personalized nutrition plans.

More on genetic studies:

• “Male and female human fetuses show distinct patterns of gene activity” (PET)

• “Genomics of pregnancy loss” (JARG)

Further Learning

DNA pioneer James Watson passes away at 97

• James Watson, the co-discoverer of the double-helix structure of DNA together with Francis Crick, has passed away at the age of 97.

• The Nobel Prize-winner attracted controversy in his later years.

• In his 2003 book DNA: The Secret of Life, Watson recounted how he was attacked in German media for suggesting using reproductive technologies for genetic health and enhancement.

• He wrote: “My view is that, despite the risks, we should give serious consideration to germline gene therapy. I only hope that the many biologists who share my opinion will stand tall in the debates to come and not be intimidated by the inevitable criticism. Some of us already know the pain of being tarred with the brush once reserved for eugenicists. But that is ultimately a small price to pay to redress genetic injustice.”

• He concluded: “Love, that impulse which promotes our caring for one another, is what has permitted our survival and success on the planet. It is this impulse that I believe will safeguard our future as we venture into uncharted genetic territory. So fundamental is it to human nature that I am sure that the capacity to love is inscribed in our DNA—a secular Paul would say that love is the greatest gift of our genes to humanity. And if someday those particular genes too could be enhanced by our science, to defeat petty hatreds and violence, in what sense would our humanity be diminished?”

• Watson came under particular fire in recent years for suggesting there are genetic causes for racial differences in intelligence.

More on human nature, biotechnology, and evolution:

• Interview with Steven Pinker, “Humor, the causes of war, and everything in between” (Richard Hanania)

• “Republican states win case striking down rule protecting transgender health care rights” (Washington Blade/GLP)

• U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-IN), Chair of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB), “How America can win the biotech race” (Foreign Affairs)

• “A liver extracted from a genetically modified pig transplanted into a 71-year-old man” (New York Times/GLP)

• “AI chip-powered retinal implant shown to help blind victims see again” (Science Daily/GLP)

• “Britain’s landmark agricultural gene editing law kicks in next month. Here’s what to expect” (MSN/GLP)

Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.

I have written a report on the future of Horizon Europe—the European Union’s research and innovation program—for the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, the think-tank of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the European Parliament.

Entitled Horizon: Competitiveness, the report looks at how Horizon Europe’s next “Framework Programme” (FP10) for the years beyond 2027 should look like, especially given the context of geopolitical volatility, declining European competitiveness, and the emergence of key enabling technologies in fields such as AI and biotech.

For reference, Horizon’s ninth Framework Programme (FP9) for 2021-2027 had a budget of €95.5 billion. The European Commission has proposed almost doubling this budget in FP10 to €175 billion for 2028-2034. Over the decades, the EU’s agricultural and later regional distribution funding have tended to relatively decline, while science funding has increased.

Overall, I argue for a less prescriptive approach to R&I funding, in favor of projects which grant more autonomy to top scientists, enable market mechanisms favoring innovation, and foster strategic autonomy vis-à-vis unreliable great powers.

Here’s a selection of the specific recommendations that may speak to people outside the Brussels Bubble, as well their rationales:

• Act upon the pro-competitiveness recommendations of the Draghi report. These include eliminating barriers within the single market for innovation-intensive sectors such as data, capital markets, pharmaceuticals and biotech, and defense.

  • Rationale: Even the best-funded and most expertly-planned science policy cannot restore European competitiveness and strategic autonomy if the broader framework is debilitating. The EU needs to not only fund basic science but ensure there is an enabling economic framework in which investors can profitably develop and deploy technologies meeting societal demand. The U.S. and China’s superior virtuous circles of technocapitalist accumulation and capabilities are the main reason the EU has fallen progressively behind in more and more areas.

• Empower scientists by maintaining Horizon as a standalone program, supporting curiosity-driven science by the best research teams, making calls less prescriptive for basic research, and simplifying reporting requirements.

  • Rationale: There is a strong case for funding basic scientific research whose future applications cannot be predicted. Those most knowledgeable about the potential next great breakthroughs along the scientific frontier are scientists. As such, funders should provide them with significant leeway and not hamper their work with unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles.

• Enable dual-use (military/civilian) R&I by not labeling research areas as dual-use within Horizon Europe, while giving the European Commission discretion to limit cooperation with particular countries for sensitive projects.

  • Rationale: In the current geopolitical context—in particular the Russian threat and U.S. unpredictability—EU science funding must also support European nations’ military autonomy and capabilities.

• Empower business and better reflect market demand by enhancing co-financing mechanisms to ensure private actors have skin in the game; ensuring research infrastructures serve both academia and industry, with modulated fees for services to enable price mechanisms while facilitating access for small and medium-sized enterprises and startups; and increasing the share of industrial fellowships and encouraging industry placements in key technological sectors within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (the EU’s doctoral and postdoctoral training and exchange program).

  • Rationale: These aims to increase Horizon Europe projects’ economic and industrial applications and, where possible, ensure these correspond to real economic needs through private co-financing and price mechanisms.

• Unify markets through standardization by embedding standardization in R&I calls, such as through standards impact assessments and work packages funding participation in standardization bodies, and by maximizing the Brussels Effect by setting standards that can be emulated by third-country actors, and, where relevant, making standardization projects open to third-country participation.

  • Rationale: Standardization and enabling seamless trade among diverse nation-states are perhaps the EU’s greatest technical achievement. Horizon projects can enable the multi-stakeholder collaboration needed to set standards in complex fields like health data or telecomms not only within the EU, but across other countries as well, setting potential global standards.

• Securing multilateralism by developing and deepening Horizon Europe partnership agreements with friendly states, including those with different political systems provided these are stable, lawful, and respectful of EU interests, and developing mega-projects and infrastructure open to contributions and usage by friendly states (such as supercomputers or biomedical research infrastructure).

  • Rationale: Partnership agreements enable third-country researchers to participate in Horizon projects. The EU should increase alignment and cooperation with scientific middle powers who have a shared interest in a predictable, rules-based international order and in reducing dependence on unpredictable great powers. Relevant countries include the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and perhaps the Gulf states.

• Maximize brain gain by upgrading the EU’s top-10 universities to be competitive in global rankings and establish a ‘Sakharov Fellowship’ encouraging scientific refugees from systemic rivals and dysfunctional autocracies.

  • Rationale: Human capital—brains and talent—are the most basic ingredient needed for techno-scientific innovation and competitiveness. Reception of rivals’ scientists, innovators, and educated class generally kills two birds with one stone: weakening the rivals’ capabilities, while strengthening one’s own (see the U.S.’s Operation Paperclip). Spy risks aside, I continue to be surprised that EU nations have not encouraged mass immigration of educated people from Russia: the EU’s superior quality of life, wages, and research institutions could be highly attractive to many Russians, all while weakening Putin’s power base and strengthening the EU economy.

• Fund ethics and foresight activities in relevant Horizon calls.

  • Rationale: We need to explore the ethical, legal and, social implications of transformative technologies such as AI, virtual reality, and biotech to ensure these foster human flourishing.

Read the whole thing!

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Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Highlights from this week’s edition:

• Repro/genetics

  • The Washington Post reports on how AI and robotics are being used to automate human conception.

  • Jonathan Anomaly makes a conservative case for reprogenetic technologies, arguing these are needed to stem the accumulation of harmful mutations.

• Population Policies & Trends

  • 53% of Americans now say having fewer children is bad for the country, but 56% also say the federal government should not try to increase births.

  • Research suggests declining religiosity and the costs of housing and childcare are driving U.S. fertility decline.

  • The UN Population Fund calls for “greater reproductive agency” by supporting access to contraception and fertility services.

• Genetic Studies

  • Large study of African Americans discovers numerous genes involved in Alzheimer’s disease.

• Further Learning

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Repro/genetics

“Robots are learning to make human babies: 20 have already been born” (Washington Post)

• AI-enabled robotics are being trialed to automate IVF procedires, using computer-vision to select sperm and robotic arms to perform fertilization.

• At least 20 babies have reportedly been born via such automated protocols in clinical trials over the past three years. Early results generally match average manual IVF performance.

• Reprotech startups are commercializing automation modules for IVF and egg freezing in parts of Latin America and Turkey. These are often not yet FDA-approved in the U.S.

• The WHO estimates 1 in 6 people experience infertility globally. Access to fertility care is limited and underfunded, especially outside wealthy countries.

• Proponents argue automation can reduce variability between embryologists, increase throughput, and lower costs by standardizing lab work.

• Widespread adoption of AI automation in reprotech hinges on regulatory approvals, real-world cost reductions, and larger, independent clinical validations.

Jonathan Anomaly, “The radical conservative case for genetic enhancement” (Genetic Literacy Project)

• Philosopher Jonathan Anomaly argues that “the conclusion of the sexual revolution is about to be written.” After the contraceptive pill and IVF, new forms of reproductive technology “will further separate sex and reproduction.”

• “As IVF becomes cheaper and polygenic prediction more accurate, many parents will do IVF electively, so they can consciously select among genetically diverse embryos. Others will continue to do things the old-fashioned way, even if it’s riskier.”

• Anomaly argues that in the future, when gene editing is safer and genetics better understood, using gene editing to “spell check” an embryo for negative mutations may become routine.

• “Chesterton’s fence” is a metaphor highlighting the risks of unnecessarily destabilizing existing customs, institutions, and limits. These may serve purposes we are unaware of. This suggests caution in use of reprogenetic technologies.

• However, Anomaly notes that modern medicine and welfare have reduced natural selection, meaning that harmful mutations now accumulate in every generation. Darwin warned this might harm human fitness.

• The evolutionary psychologist John Tooby argued that without use of reprogenetic technology, humanity may eventually suffer a “genetic meltdown.”

• Anomaly suggests the metaphor of “Chesterton’s post”: that doing nothing can lead to the decay of existing systems. He urges use of reprotech to prevent genetic decline and sustain well-being in a human world without natural selection.

• He concludes: “Those who reject radical enhancement may need to embrace some amount of genetic engineering simply to stay where we are now. We may need to keep repairing the post just to preserve the parts of it that we cherish.”

More on repro/genetics:

• EFW2025: Sign up for Fertility Europe’s 2025 European Fertility Week webinar on 6 November (Fertility Europe)

• “Sperm selection for assisted reproductive technology: Do we have a winner?” (JARG)

• “IVF innovation: What you need to know about global regulatory pathways in 2025” (FemTech World)

• “Hidden evolution in sperm raises disease risk for children as men age” (Medical Xpress)

• “Push for military coverage of IVF faces challenge in Congress” (New York Times)

• From June: “EU ministers propose international limits on sperm ‘super donors’” (Euronews)

Population Policies & Trends

“Growing share of Americans say fewer people having kids would negatively impact the U.S.” (Pew Researcher Center)

• Over half of Americans (53%) say fewer people choosing to have children in the future would negatively impact the U.S. This is up 6 points since last year.

• A majority (56%) say the federal government should have no role in encouraging people to have children. A third (32%) say it should have a major or minor role.

• Most women within each party are more likely to say the federal government should play no role in increase natality.

• Among people supporting a federal role in increasing the birth rate, Democrats more likely than Republicans to say they would support requiring employers to provide paid family leave (85% vs. 67%), providing free child care (84% vs. 48%), requiring health insurance companies to cover the cost of fertility treatment (71% vs. 48%), and giving parents of minor children a monthly payment (56% vs. 31%).

“The two reasons Americans aren’t having babies, according to data” (Washington Post)

• Analysts suggest the two main drivers of declining fertility in the U.S. are cultural shifts away from traditional family life, notably declining religiosity, and the growing cost childcare and housing.

• Research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has found that a two-parent household must earn 39% more (≈$26,900/year) to maintain its living standard after the first child—much higher than the 24% increase required a decade ago.

• Birth rates are lowest in U.S. counties where raising children takes a larger share of household income, suggesting local cost-of-living pressures are a key factor.

• Counties with higher births often feature cheap housing and subsidized childcare (such as Onslow County, NC), notably via military family benefits, and/or have a pronatalist religious culture (as in significantly Jewish Rockland County, NY and majority-Mormon Utah County, UT).

• Regular attendance of religious services tends to be higher in high-fertility counties.

• Data journalist Youyou Zhou argues that that the U.S. could raise fertility not by one-time bonuses but through consistent family support and pronatalist cultural reinforcement—citing initiatives like Oklahoma’s universal pre-kindergarten care and education, which has helped sustain higher fertility in the state.

UN Population Fund flags fertility aspirations gap in India (BWHW)

• In its 2025 State of the World Population report, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) argues that the “real fertility crisis” is not overpopulation or population decline, but the gap between the number of children people want and what they have.

• UNFPA points out that millions of people are still unable to reach their desired family size due to infertility, lack of contraceptives, financial constraints, or social pressures. The report calls for “greater reproductive agency.”

• India’s fifth National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) for 2019-2021 has found that the world’s most populous country now has a fertility rate of 2 per woman.

• 31 Indian states and territories now have a fertility rate below 2.1, the replacement level.

• UNFPA is skeptical of blanket pronatalist measures such as cash incentives. Instead it calls for:

  • Expanding reproductive health services, including for contraceptives and infertility treatment.

  • Addressing adolescent fertility and contraceptive needs among youth.

  • Tackling structural barriers like housing, job insecurity, and childcare access.

  • Ensuring inclusiveness, notably for unmarried people and gay people.

  • Improving accountability and data beyond fertility alone, to fertility satisfaction and bodily autonomy.

  • Supporting community-led behavior change and engaging men and boys to reduce stigma.

More on population policies and trends:

• NHS England pulls blog noting “benefits” of cousin marriage and warning against “stigmatizing certain communities” (Washington Examiner)

• From July: China rolls out $500 annual subsidy for small children to boost birth rate (Reuters)

• From June: “Vietnam scraps two-child policy as it tackles falling birthrate” (Guardian)

• “€2,000 bonuses and free parties: Hotels enter Poland’s fertility fight” (Financial Times)

Genetic Studies

“Largest study of African American brain tissue reveals key Alzheimer gene activity” (News Medical)

• A study by researchers at the Boston School of Medicine have identified many new genes involved in Alzheimer’s disease among African Americans.

• The researchers say this is a step towards deciphering the genetic architecture and underlying mechanisms of Alzheimer’s risk in black Americans.

• The study notes “nearly all of the established [Alzheimer’s disease] risk variants are population-specific or have divergent frequencies across populations.”

• Alzheimer’s is about twice as common in black Americans compared to white Americans. This is partially due to social determinants of health such as disparities in healthcare access and higher rates risk factors such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

More on genetic studies:

• NHS whole genome sequencing to breast cancer patients can identify unique genetic features to guide immediate treatment or match patients with relevant clinical trials for over 15,000 women in the UK every year (Cambridge University)

• “Local ancestry inference method could improve accuracy of genetic testing and patient diagnoses” (Medical Xpress/Texas Children’s Hospital)

• “Study provides genetic evidence why women possibly twice at risk of depression than men” (The Hindu)

Further Learning

More on human nature, evolution, and biotech:

• “Beyond general intelligence: The genetics of specific cognitive abilities” (Steve Stewart-Williams)

• Harvard geneticist David Reich suggests non-Africans may be 10-20% Neanderthal: “You might argue that non-Africans today are Neanderthals who just have waves and waves of modern humans from Africa mixing with them.” (Dwarkesh Podcast)

• “Why do we need seed banks? 75% of plant genetic diversity has been lost since the early 20th century, and its losses are accelerating” (Seed World/GLP)

Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.

Carl Schmitt—the onetime-Nazi German legal theorist—has been receiving increased attention in recent times. Economic historian Phil Magness has pointed out how Schmitt is a popular namedrop among American “post-liberals” today. Commentator Richard Hanania has pledged: “Having seen that he is by far the favorite thinker of the stupidest people on X, I’ve decided to start reading Carl Schmitt. Will report back.”

One doesn’t need to be a Nazi or even a right-winger to engage with Schmitt’s thought. His work is a fairly popular subject of study in academia, particularly among critics of liberalism, including left-wing critics. For instance, Oxford University Press released an 874-page Handbook of Carl Schmitt a few yearsback. “Carl Schmitt” yields 154,000 hits on Google Scholar, as against 179,000 for “Noam Chomsky” or 585,000 for “Hannah Arendt.” So he is a definitely a thinker that scholars engage with.

I can’t claim to understand the whole (alleged) profundity of Carl Schmitt’s political thought, but I have read some of his (rather dense) work and have a sense of “the popular Carl Schmitt,” i.e. how Schmitt is actually used by political activists today.

People generally retain two major concepts in Schmitt’s thought:

1. The friend-enemy distinction: For Schmitt, efforts to neutralize politics through procedure or democratic norms are futile. The essence of “the political” is the irreducible conflict between the political order’s friends (“us”) and its enemies. Once enmity becomes existentially threatening to a political order, normal rules and conventional morality are typically suspended until enemies are neutralized. Liberalism can at best only mask this reality of existential conflict.

2. The sovereign and the state of exception: For Schmitt, a political order’s real sovereign is whoever “decides on the exception” when ordinary rules are suspended. For him, such episodes—which are common enough during war, crises, and other emergencies—are not just a temporary divergence from regular procedure, but can be moments of “constituent power,” when a regime’s fundamental constitutional order is reformed. This reform does not follow regular legal procedure, but necessarily exceptional sovereign power.

Schmitt seems to reveal the dark, power-political underbelly of liberalism. Sure, it may seem to be about neutral procedures and universal rights, but when push comes to shove, politics is (legitimately and inevitably) about force: some winning, others losing, through exclusion and if necessary through violence. Liberals may try to dress things up in moral or legal terms, but in the key moments, that is what politics is about.

There is something to this, though I don’t know how original these insights are. At the least, liberal philosophers as far back as John Locke have acknowledged that exceptional executive power can be necessary in times of crisis and that use of such power is necessarily chancy.

Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction perhaps does give us a sense of the intolerance that (necessarily?) accompanies the foundation of political orders, including liberal ones. The American Revolution led to the ostracism and persecution of Loyalists, with up to 100,000 people fleeing the newly-formed USA (most of them to Canada). Similar observations could be said of the U.S. after the Civil War, the Liberation of France during World War II, or indeed the day-to-day operation of the Federal Republic of Germany, whose judicial system is always debating which political groups need to be banned, spied upon, or otherwise restricted from participating in democratic life.

There is also something to Schmitt’s account of the state of exception and regime reform. According to the old Roman republican ideal, a virtuous leader like Cincinnatus might be appointed temporary dictator with emergency powers for the time of a crisis, on the understanding that he would later retire and restore the old system. In practice, leaders wielding emergency powers often do not simply bend or suspend the rules, but fundamentally and permanently change the underlying system.

Abraham Lincoln conducted the Civil War, suspended habeas corpus, and emancipated slaves in the Confederacy on the understanding that such actions were needed to preserve the Union and safeguard the Constitution. Lincoln’s rhetorical and intellectual commitment to the Constitution was tremendous. But as historians like Eric Foner have argued, the Civil War did not simply restore the Constitution but was a “second founding” that fundamentally changed the U.S. regime. This process was formalized in the Reconstruction amendments, notably empowering Congress to enforce civil rights in the states. The passage of these amendments was arguably coercive, with the Fourteenth Amendment in particular adopted during military occupation of the Southern states, with state ratification of the amendment being made a condition for regaining representation in Congress.

A more recent example of sovereign power is offered by the Eurozone Crisis. Within the European Union, monetary policy is arguably the only area where core “regalian” sovereign state power has been federalized, in the hands of the European Central Bank (ECB). During the crisis, when international investors refused to lend further to finance government deficits in indebted countries, ECB Presidents Jean-Claude Trichet and Mario Draghi became something like Schmittian sovereigns.

By conditioning its financing of national banking systems, the ECB could control or topple the governments of Ireland, Greece, or even Italy. The ECB also conditioned a looser monetary policy on reform of the Eurozone’s fiscal rules to better enforce deficit limits. Once these were in place, President Draghi was able to calm financial markets by famously declaring:

Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.

Thus the ECB used its sovereign monetary power not only episodically, but to permanently change the Eurozone’s macroeconomic “constitution.”

Schmitt seems to overstate the sovereign’s reform power in constitutional regimes. Lincoln and Draghi did wield exceptional powers, but neither was alone in changing the nature of their respective systems. Certainly, the use of exceptional power creates “facts on the ground” which can heavily distort procedures or simply impose material changes, but all the same these procedures are not wholly meaningless and certainly cannot be reduced to the will of the executive.

Schmitt will always be tainted by his association with the Nazi regime and his notorious defense of the Night of the Long Knives with an article entitled “The Führer Protects the Law.” Ironically, prior to 1932, he advocated that Weimar Republic’s presidency use its exceptional powers to overcome parliamentary impotence and exclude Nazis and Communists from power. In that sense, I would say there is nothing inherently Nazi about Schmitt’s thought. In fact, from 1936 Schmitt became marginalized within the Third Reich, as he was criticized for being an opportunist whose thought was not really grounded in Nazism. Schmitt as an authoritarian Catholic seems more in tune with the conservative, steady dictatorship of António Salzar in Portugal than the hysterical racial nationalism of the Third Reich.

As far as I know, Schmitt has little to say on how to prevent abuse of power by the executive or how to create an actually functioning legal order after the state of exception. Whatever the need for executive power in crises, the rule of law is superior in predictability and regularity to permanent executive autocracy, with its inevitable caprice and abuse (both in terms of corruption and of suppression of truth-telling). In my view, a good regime is flexible enough to wield necessary power in crisis, to some extent to change nature in crisis, but ultimately to revert to a regular legal order, however imperfect in day-to-day operation.

What of “popular Schmittians” today? For the most part, Schmitt seems cited by political activists mainly as advocacy for ad hoc autocracy: that “our” government leaders need to be realist, hard-headed, and thus do away with procedures and persecute the libs. After all, beneath the veil of the rule of law, the libs are just persecuting you in accordance with the friend-enemy distinction. I don’t know that there is anything more to it than that. One ought only to trust the sovereign dictator: After all, he and I are part of “us,” are we not?

Case in point:

Indefinite and unlimited sovereign autocracy—particularly in large autarkic nations—has disadvantages too numerous and obvious to mention. This obviously isn’t very helpful, even for good-faith attempts to develop viable positive alternatives to contemporary liberalism, which after all is showing many signs of breaking down. If you think any popular Schmittians have made thoughtful attempts at articulating such alternatives, do point their work my way.

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Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! Due to lack of bandwidth, this newsletter has become more irregular. I will however continue to publish when there is major news in the areas of reprotech and demographic trends.

There has been a lot of coverage in leading Anglo media in recent months of “designer babies” and fertility collapse/ aging, as journalists have become more aware of reprotech breakthroughs and the socioeconomic and even political implications of demographic trends. This newsletter offers a few highlights:

• Repro/genetics

  • U.S. researchers create functonal human eggs from skin cells, offering long-term hope for infertile people.

  • Herasight decloaks: reprotech startup openly offers polygenic embryo selection for reduced risk of diseases and higher intelligence.

  • Dr. Thanos Papathanasiou argues that with public funding of IVF, 1 in 10 births in Britain could be achieved through assisted reproduction.

• Population Policies & Trends

  • François Valentin highlights the adverse socioeconomic consequences of fertility collapse in Europe; U.S. births now outnumber the EU’s.

  • The Financial Times reports on ballooning elderly spending and associated political instability in Britain and France.

• Genetic Studies

  • Some Denisovan DNA was adaptive and positively selected for in Native Americans.

• Further Learning

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Repro/genetics

“Researchers produce human eggs from skin cells in scientific first” (ABC)

• A U.S. research team has succeeded in taking DNA from skin cells to create functional human eggs.

• The technique involves somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)—transferring skin cell DNA into a functional ovary—and then halving the number of chromosomes through an experimental process call mitomeiosis.

• Professor Paula Amato of Oregon Health and Science University said: “In addition to offering hope for millions of people with infertility due to lack of eggs or sperm, this method would allow for the possibility of same-sex couples to have a child genetically related to both partners.”

• After fertilization, one in 10 of these eggs continued to developed after six days, the traditional moment when an embryo would be implanted during IVF.

• The researchers stress that the procedure is only a proof-of-concept at this stage and that years of research on efficacy and safety will be needed before clinical application.

IVF startup Herasight offers embryo selection for IQ (Herasight)

• The genetic screening startup Herasight went out of “stealth mode” in August, publicly revealing its embryo selection services.

• Herasight offers polygenic selection of embryos according to their reduced probability of developing cancers, type 2 diabetes, schizophrenia, and other diseases, as well as increased probability of higher intelligence.

• The company’s website features an embryo screening tool to simulate outcome probabilities based on number of embryos, ancestry, and selected traits.

• It also features an IVF Calculator to predict prospective parents’ chances of success at each stage of IVF treatment, from egg retrieval to live birth.

• The company’s claims for the accuracy of its polygenic scores for within-family prediction of disease risks is detailed in a white paper.

• The Washington Post reported that some of Elon Musk’s children may have been conceived and selected via Orchid Health, another IVF startup which provides polygenic selection of embryos to reduce risk of diseases.

• The popular blog Astral Codex Ten summarized how polygenic selection works and addressed various ethical objections.

• Dr. Emma Meaburn of Birckbeck, University of London, recently argued that “it seems likely that the predictive power of polygenic scores will grow—especially when combined with other information—but they will never be a crystal ball.”

• Jonathan Anomaly, a philosopher and Herasight’s Director of Communications, discussed the ethics of polygenic embryo screening with philosopher Allen Buchanan.

• Anomaly also joined the Genetic Literacy Project Podcast to discuss “the messy ethics of embryo selection” with Cameron English and Liza Lockwood.

• Anomaly and his Herasight colleages Ivan Davidson and Santiago Munne wrote an article for the American Society of Reproductive Medicine’s (ASMR) journal Fertility and Sterility, making the case for “the polygenic revolution.”

  • They argue that polygenic embryo testing (PGT-P) is a “natural extension” of current practice of genetic testing of embryos.

  • They conclude: “Rather than condemning PGT-P with vague worries about ‘playing God’ or the lack of equal access for everyone—which apply to most scientific breakthroughs—we should focus research on improving the predictive power of polygenic scores for all ethnic groups, and on demanding that providers empirically validate their results.”

“Forget ‘1 in 32 children from IVF’: We should aim for 1 in 10” (PET)

• Dr. Thanos Papathanasiou, CEO and Medical Director of the Bourn Hall Clinic, Britain’s leading IVF clinic, argues for improving access to IVF services.

• British research estimates each IVF-conceived child contributes £100,000 in net lifetime taxes on average, as against a public cost of £13,000–16,000 per live birth. Funding three IVF cycles (£15,000) still yields a strong return on investment. A U.S. study similarly finds a $155,000 return per child.

• Dr. Papathanasiou argues that the share of babies conceived via IVF in the UK can be increased from 1 in 32 to 1 in 10 by increasing accessibility of IVF services. This would also help raise Britain’s low fertility rate of just 1.41 per woman.

• Reportedly, almost 1 in 10 births in Denmark and Israel are achieved through assisted reproductive techniques such as IVF and artificial insemination, “showing what is possible when access is treated as a national priority.”

• To increase the accessibility of IVF, Dr. Papathanasiou argues for increased funding, long-term planning, expert input, consistent standards, elimination of postcode inequalities, and streamlined administration.

• He concludes: “This is not just about numbers and policies—it is about fairness, hope, and the belief that everyone who wants to build a family should have that chance.”

More on repro/genetics:

• “Gene editing is being sold on the promise of healthier babies—But what are the ethical concerns?” (ABC)

• “Inside Silicon Valley’s growing obsession with having smarter babies” (Wall Street Journal)

• “The quest to create gene-edited babies gets a reboot” (NPR)

• “How far is the clinic? Urbanicity and sociodemographic variation in the distance to assisted reproductive technology clinics in the USA” (JARG)

• “Brussels fertility clinic investigated for exceeding donor limits” (PET)

Population Policies & Trends

“Europe is doomed: This chart shows why” (The Telegraph)

• Political analyst and noted tweeter François Valentin argues that fertility collapse will have lasting negative effects on Europe’s economy, society, and security.

• He notes that in 2024, for the first time, the U.S. had more live births than the EU, despite America having 110 million fewer inhabitants.

• The EU’s fertility rate has fallen to 1.35 per woman.

• Valentin argues that ecological anxiety about having children is misplaced.

• Falling fertility undermines growth as the share of the working-age population shrinks and poses a serious medium-term security threat as mobilizable manpower dwindles.

• In addition, large and high-voting elderly populations will “distort out democracies” and will contribute to “impossibly toxic political conversations about the trade-offs of immigration.”

• While British women say in survey that they want 2.35 children on average, the fertility rate in 2024 was only 1.41.

• Valentin concludes: “a childless continent will not just be smaller, poorer, and older; it will also be lonelier and sadder.”

“France and Britain are in thrall to pensionsers” (Financial Times)

• John Burn-Murdoch argues that politicians who spoke honestly about aging-related costs—such as Britain’s Theresa May and France’s Emmanuel Macron, Michel Barnier, and François Bayrou have been punished by voters.

• He higlights how the British and French pension systems are unsustainable, squeezing out other spending—such as infrastructure and defense—and destabilizing governments.

• Pensioners’ incomes have grown faster than workers’ in both countries. In France, pensioners now earn more than workers.

More on population policies and trends:

• “A contracting population need not be a catastrophe” (The Economist)

• Renaud Foucart, “The global economy has a boomer problem” (TIME)

• “Brain drain as geopolitical strategy” (Not With a Bang)

• “Israel’s future-oriented natalism: A Q&A with Daniel Kane” (Public Discourse): Reflects on Israel’s child-friendly culture, family subsidies, extended family support networks, less neurotic approach to parenting than the U.S., and the social normalization of large families.

Genetic Studies

Study finds Denisovan DNA was adaptive for Native Americans (Science)

• Modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans, leaving small archaic DNA segments in our genomes.

• Some archaic variants became adaptive under local environmental pressures.

• An archaic version of MUC19, which encodes a protein involved in immunity, was found to be positively selected for among Native Americans.

• The researchers believe the genetic material was first in Denisovans, then passed on to Neanderthals, and then to Homo Sapiens.

• The exact adaptive function of the gene is not clear, but may be related to immunity.

More on genetic studies:

• “Multiomic study of world’s longest-lived person gives insights into aging” (PET)

Further Learning

• “12 things everyone should know about evolutionary theory” (Steve Stewart-Williams)

• “Brain editing now ‘closer to reality’: The gene-altering tools tackling deadly disorders” (Nature)

• Study of 20,000 Finns finds smarter people commit less crime (Steve Stewart-Williams)

• “Genetic enhancement technologies: Navigating ethical, political, and commercial frontiers in a rapidly evolving market” (AInvest)

• “Javanese ethical concepts in health and healing” (JoME)

• “Cultural challenges to the adversarial cooperation framework in bioethics: A Confucian critique” (JoME)

Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.

Underlying hard power capabilities tend to follow a relatively simple formula. Assuming a polity has a certain minimal State capacity—I mean the ability to raise taxes and mobilize for war—national power will tend to correspond to its aggregate economic and technological capacities.

In terms of great-power competition, economic and technological prowess will tend to determine overall outcomes (though not necessarily specific campaigns or local conflicts). In peace, people, especially brainy people, want to move to the more prosperous country and flee the poorer country. Economic and cultural elites in the poorer power often resent their poverty and urge regime change to the more prosperous system if possible. In war, the application of the latest economic, especially industrial, and technological capabilities to organized violence has been critical to military victories througout the modern era. In this sense, the story of modern geopolitics is the story of the triumph of technocapital.

Hierarchical and “hyperthymotic” regimes—for example, the Confederate States of America, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, or Nazi Germany—often emphasize manliness, martial virtues, and self-sacrifice as the key to military victory. While these are clearly important, in practice democracies, when feeling sufficiently threatened, have generally been quite good at military mobilization and the adoption of martial virtues. The decisive factor then becomes industrial production and technology. During War War II, Italy’s mediocre organization and economic-technological performance meant—all Fascist propaganda, posturing, and parading aside—that the country was if anything a military liability for Germany.

There’s a notable pattern where these honor-loving hierarchical regimes dare to pick fights with massive demographic-economic superiors. During the American Civil War, the South’s free white population was less than three times the size of the North’s. Northern industrial production was five times greater than the South’s. While it was not impossible that the North would be demoralized by early defeats and sue for peace, the odds were heavily stacked the power relying especially Southern chivalry. As Abraham Lincoln said on what generally determines the outcomes of wars: “I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon.”

There was a similar situation when Japan chose to attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, instead of accepting Washington’s demand to withdraw from China. Japan’s population was about half the U.S.’s and its industrial capacity was an order of magnitude smaller. No wonder then that, given enough time, the U.S. could churn out far more naval ships and aircraft than Japan could. Ultimately, even the greatest samurai spirit—witness young Japanese men’s willingness to sacrifice themselves in kamikaze suicide attacks—was no match for the atom bomb. And I won’t even get into Adolf Hitler’s decision to go after the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the USA all at once.

As a rule then, the greater economic and technological power tends to win. Not always of course. In a premodern times, virile barbarians often conquered emasculate peasants and urban-dwellers. Sparta defeated Athens, although that seems a bit of a fluke.1 More recently, Nazi Germany did beat the Anglo-French on the Continent in May-June 1940, albeit in a Blitzkrieg campaign, before the greater resources of the Allies could be fully mobilized. The general pattern is unmistakable: the power combining the most scale, wealth, and technological prowess tends to win out.

What then are the sources of economic and technological power, which underpin broader national power? I would argue:

national power ≈ economic-technological power ≈ population size * human capital * marketness

Population size, or more precisely working-age population size, is self-explanatory. Human capital refers to a population’s cognitive, social, and other skills that make humans effective in a modern industrial or knowledge economy.

By “marketness” I mean basic market institutions that enable private investment, creative destruction of industries, and (re)allocation of resources, notably to invest in and deploy technology. Marketness is undermined among other things by instability, market fragmentation, and corruption, and requires at least enough social trust to ensure honest exchange and secure property.2

So, assuming basic military-fiscal State capacity to mobilize resources for warfare and foreign policy, national power will tend to converge according to these demographic and market-institutional criteria. We can then make predictions about future national power trends, with varying degrees of certainty, in the following areas.

1. Demographic trends: High certainty

Demographic trends are among the “stickiest” and most predictable. Today’s babies are tomorrow’s workers, while today’s workers are tomorrow’s pensioners. The brutal dents left in a nation’s population pyramid by events like World War II in Germany or the famine of the Great Leap Forward in China remain visible decades later.

All else being equal, population equals power. On this simple basis, Benjamin Franklin in 1751 (!) could predict English-speaking North America would surpass the British imperial motherland within a century. Alexis de Tocqueville could say in Democracy in America—in 1835, just over a century before the Cold War—that the United States and Russia each seemed “marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.”

Of course, there is more to national power than simply a large population. India and Brazil have large populations but are not superpowers. However, for a given nation, you can usually project that your current power (absolute and relative) will evolve proportionally to your demographic growth or decline. If your number of workers grows (as in the U.S. over the past decades), you will likely be that much more powerful. As your number of workers declines (and especially as your share of elderly dependents grows), your underlying power will proportionally decline (as in Japan and Italy today).

In most cases, it is reasonable to project your previous long-term average socioeconomic performance into the future. Really, nations’ relative socioeconomic performance is remarkably stable. For the most part, it’s when a nation’s economic performance is artificially depressed—as in cases of prolonged civil war or communism—and that these conditions are removed, that we see lasting changes in the rankings (as in the case of China and much of post-communist Europe).

Very long-term demographic projections should be taken with a grain of salt, especially as forecasters do not know exactly how fertility trends will evolve. So far, fertility rates in most countries have fallen much more than UN demographers expected and the trend shows no sign of abating. Still, overall, you should at least integrate the default demographic forecast as your baseline scenario for who will make up future humanity and what will be changing demographic weight of nations.

All in all, the sheer predictability of sub-replacement fertility’s consequences—in terms of national finances, power, vitaly, and innovation—is the main reason I advocate techno-natalism to mitigate the problem.

2. Long-term economic trends: Moderate certainty

Short term, one cannot predict the boom-and-bust cycles of the economy. Medium term, the performance of nations also tends to fluctuate according to decade-long cycles of industrial decay and renewal (yesterday’s cutting-edge industries become uncompetitive, time is required to shift to new sectors). Long term however, economic performance seems to track a nation’s human capital and marketness pretty closely.

Again, and some fluctuation aside, the rankings since the 1960s haven’t change all that much, except when caused by marketness: East Asia rose when rejecting communism, post-communist Central-Eastern Europe rose when integrated within the European Union (partly because of EU aid, but I think mainly because of the security implied for domestic and international investors3), and the United Kingdom escaped uncharacteristic economic underperformance after the reforms of Margaret Thatcher undid much of the postwar socialist consensus. If you are lucky enough to be ruled a Lee Kuan Yew, you may even overperform your human-capital fundamentals, but that is a rare thing.

On the basis of current human capital and historical performance, Latin America, Africa, and India are unlikely to fully converge economically with the West, and thus remain relatively marginal powers.

“Marketness” is the most uncertain variable here. It can change due to policy choices, political upheaval, or sociocultural changes. These changes are hard to predict. Will Russia overcome its debilitating corruption with 50 years? To what extent does the Chinese political system distort the economy and mask dysfunctional behavior in damaging ways? Hard to say, for me at least.

3. Technological transformation: Certain, yet unpredictable

World history, human life, and geopolitics have been repeatedly transformed by technological breakthroughs and their deployment. Think of the printing press, gunpowder, the steam engine, electrification, automobiles and armored tanks, aviation, the atom bomb, or the computer and the Internet.

Each of these technological breakthroughs had sociopolitical consequences. The printing press enabled the Protestant Reformation, leading to the bloodiest wars of religion in European history, and to broader transformations of European culture with rising literacy. Social media has led to an explosion of innumerable subcultures of highly uneven value, including the enabling of left- and right-wing populisms. Tanks, aviation, and atomic weapons transformed warfare and geopolitics. Etc.

There is no doubt future innovations will continue to transform our world. However, much is uncertain: Which innovations will actually work? When will the breakthroughs occur? And what will be the nature and scale of their impact?

Friends of mine are sometimes very confident in their technological predictions: this epic transformation will happen, and very soon! All I can say: maybe; and: we’ll see!

Certainly, AI, biotechnology, fusion power, and/or many other technological breakthroughs will transform our lives this century. But it is hard to be much more specific than that. We can be reasonably certain the innovations will take place in the most economically/technologically competitive powers—today this is the United States and China—which will further entrench their dominance, at least until other powers can replicate their innovations. Over time, people will claim the benefits of many of the innovations made by the pioneers are a human right and these should be spread equitably across the planet.

4. Local geopolitical / military conflicts: Unpredictable, often overrated

Great powers often compete in proxy wars or in bids for influence in other countries. The outcomes of particular military campaigns and games of influence are often difficult to predict.

I think the impact of such events on overall power-political trends is often overstated. The U.S. defeats in Vietnam or the War on Terror didn’t matter nearly as much for long-term American power as did America’s demographic, economic, and institutional fundamentals. As Paul Valéry said: “Events are the foam of things; the sea is what interests me.”

5. Regime change and world wars: The least predictable

The advent of major political upheavals and military conflicts is arguably the least predictable, and one of the most critical, variables. No one in 1900 could have confidently predicted World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Great Depression, and the rise of Nazi Germany. And even if you predicted one of these events, the timing and implications would be beyond forecasting.

One might have predicted, as some people did, the fall of the French Ancien Régime or the collapse of the Soviet Union, based on their economic difficulties and their elites’ growing lack of belief and confidence in their official ideology. However, the timing and nature of such developments—necessarily depending on individual leaders, mass unrest, and often messy contingent circumstances—are essentially unpredictable.

So, on the scale of 50 or 75 years, we cannot predict:

• Will the U.S. and China engage in a major war? (Still by far the most plausible great-power war scenario.)

• Will the EU break apart, federate, or continue to muddle through?

• Will U.S. economic, technological, and geopolitical capacities significantly deteriorate because of a lasting shift towards Argentine-style populism, incompetence, and corruption?

• Will the U.S. break apart through hyper-polarization?

• Will the Chinese Communist Party lose power?

• Will the Putin regime be replaced by a liberal, Western-oriented regime at some point?

I might have my own guesses on these questions, but they remain mere guesses. So, in forecasting, I say: look to demographics and to nations’ long-term economic performance for your baseline scenario. Political thinkers and policymakers can and should plan on that realistic basis. For the rest—namely precise technological breakthroughs and military-political upheaval—I think things are necessarily uncertain. Hedging may be smart.

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PS: I did not include soft power, including cultural power, as this does not seem amenable to long-term prediction.

Cultural power seems to depend partly on one’s general power factor (basically economy and scale, enabling a large domestic cultural market, and potentially making your country attractive/prestigious), a minimum of cultural liberalism, and rather idiosyncratic factors, like whether one’s domestic culture can be broadly appealing to (certain) other countries. Beyond that, cultural appeal seem very hit and miss: K-pop, Japan’s anime, Bollywood, telenovelas, and Turkish soap operas are popular internationally. On the other hand, China, Russia, and most of the rest of Europe’s international cultural influence is relatively weak compared to their economic and/or geopolitical weight.

The U.S. seems to be the world’s cultural superpower due to scale, a highly competitive and scale domestic cultural market, English as global lingua franca, and cultural industries oriented towards multicultural / global audiences. For similar reasons, and in no small part by leveraging the legacy of the British Empire, Britain is able to massively punch above its weight culturally. The impact of Anglo-American cultural hegemony in shaping other countries’ perceptions of what is “normal” or “prestigious” should not be underestimated: shows like The Simpsons, Friends, and Sex and the City shaped non-Americans’ (especially young people’s) view of reality; films like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List have recentered narratives on World War II on the U.S. perspective and the Holocaust, and Anglo-American academia largely sets the tone of scholarly research agendas, frameworks, and pecking orders.

Soft power generally seems to broadly track the general power factor—especially economic weight—but is heavily modulated by regime type and foreign policy strategies. The U.S. and the EU pioneered a model of soft power characterized by the appeal of liberal norms, a predictable international order, trade, and aid, institutionalized through elaborate international organizations. The Trump administration is largely abandoning this soft-power tradition. China for its part has a narrower form of soft power defined by a relatively restrained foreign policy (compare China’s wu wei-like approach to foreign affairs with America or Russia’s foreign policy hyperactivism) and aid deals lacking the normative strings of Western donors. Today, Russia’s soft power is tending towards zero, but for much of the Cold War the Soviet Union had significant appeal to socialists and anticolonialists across the world, providing many allies in the form of spies, opposition parties, revolutionary movements, and postcolonial states. How will soft power dynamics evolve into the distant future? I sure don’t know.

PPS: A reader highlights that I completely ignored natural resources and land in this post. Natural resources are indeed an important component of national power, as these may enable both wealth and, perhaps more importantly, autarky. This has certainly been an important factor of European dependence since the collapse of the colonial empires. Land is historically an important component of national power but arguably less so over time as the share of agriculture in the economy has fallen. As time goes on, national power tends to more and more reflect human capital and institutions, rather than land.

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