We Must Make More Babies!

Our distributed nation (and the species) cannot survive without them. (DN 3.3)

Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.10 | 1.11 | 1.12 | 1.13 | 1.14 | 1.15 | 1.16 | 1.17 | 1.18 | 1.19 | 1.20 | 1.21 |1.22

(Part II) What: 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 2.9 | 2.10 I 2.11 | 2.12 | 2.13 | 2.14 | 2.15 | 2.16 | 2.17 | 2.XX | 2.18 | 2.19 | 2.20 | 2.21 | | Where: 3.0 | 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3

Chapter 3.3
Organizational units, 1

I have given our next topic a lot of thought, but I have not come to any firm conclusions. As a result, we are about to travel into some uncharted waters. We can, however, set sail from a well-known starting point: the tendency in human nature to sort ourselves into groups headed (for better or worse) by a “leader” of one sort or another.

In the first century CE, the Roman historian Tacitus forged a distinction between two types of leadership: auctoritas (leadership through merit and wisdom) and potestas (rule through force and power). My colleague David G Leeper has, for many years, referred to a quote that admirably expresses this distinction.

As the story goes, a Native American chief was asked about his leadership—about how he commands his people. But the chief corrects the questioner. “If I tell a man to do something he doesn't want to do, I won't be a chief any more.” His leadership is through wisdom, not force.

David and I have looked for the original source of the quote in vain. Quotes like it have been attributed to Chief Joseph. ChatGPT claimed (erroneously) that it is from a John Wayne movie. But at the end of the day, the source doesn’t matter. It represents something we know is true. Something Tacitus knew was true. There are rulers we are forced to obey, and leaders whom we choose to follow because it is in our benefit to do so—because they are good at leading.

All of this is pertinent to our current topic in two ways.

First, and most importantly, it speaks to how we, as human beings, organize ourselves. Are we doing it right? Can our distributed nation find a way to do it better?

Second, and just briefly, it also pertains to what I said at the beginning. Yes, I am, in Balaji Srinivasan’s words, the “recognized founder” of our fledgling nation. However, unlike the many psychopaths that inhabit our governments, I am not so full of hubris as to believe that I have all the answers, or that I can somehow circumvent the natural phenomenon of emergent order.

How much suffering has been produced by intellectuals believing that they know how to run individual’s lives better than those individuals do? How much failure and oppression have resulted from the belief that human nature can be remade, or that economies can be centrally controlled?

That is not how I roll, and it is not how a good nation (distributed or otherwise) should operate. Somehow, we have to move past that.

Our subject now is how we self-organize. Yes, we are individuals who will be united into a nation by a set of principles and values. Yes, we will have the guidance and support of something like the Alliance for Human Independence, as we have already discussed. But what will happen between those? Will there be any layers of organization? Will we form units of some sort or another, based on geography, size, or other factors?

I don’t know yet.

As I mentioned, I have many thoughts on the matter, but no firm answers. Can we develop and apply a system that serves our needs? Or is this an area in which we must let emergent order work its magic?

For the time being at least, I am content simply to have a discussion of possibilities. As we move forward, experience, further exploration, and the miracle of collaborative intelligence will give us the answers we need. Let us for now just have the conversation and see where it takes us.

The reality of groups

We will begin, as we always do—as we must do—with you: the individual. The distributed nation is made up of unique, irreplaceable, non-fungible, sovereign human persons.

But we are a social species. We want to be with each other. Indeed, we must be with each other—to specialize, trade, cooperate, and, of course, to procreate and raise our young.

We here understand that chosen community is more desirable, and more natural, than forced collectivism. But one way or another, groups will form. In the next few installments, we will take a look at some of those different types of groups and modes of social organization.

But first, we must preface that topic with an important discussion…

Civilization and time preferences

Twenty-something years ago, when I got engaged to my wife, I sent out an announcement via email. In that announcement, I said something that at least one person found offensive.

I do not have the exact wording in front of me, but I remember clearly that the problem arose from my statement that by getting married (with the intent of having children and forming a family), I had ceased being a “sub-unit” of society and had instead become a “building block.”

The offended party’s complaint, of course, was that many people contribute to society without being married and having children. He cited the example of priests, among others. At one level of analysis, his complaint was justified.

I had not intended for my words to be insensitive. What I said, I meant in earnest. Whether consciously or not, I really did feel like a sub-unit up until that point. It wasn’t until I got engaged that I fully grasped how much civilizations depend on procreation. All of a sudden, I realized I was no longer just part of the present; I was part of the future.

I realize that I am still at risk of being insensitive here and now…

Many of us have not managed to find that one special someone. Many others have, but too late to have children. (In my case, we were barely in time to have one before the biological door slammed shut.) All of these are part of a broader trend taking place worldwide: lower rates of marriage; marriage later in life; and lower fertility and birth rates. As such, many of those who hear my words now will be single or childless or both. And this may make my words sting a little. I am sorry about that.

Nonetheless, the words need to be said.

This is a subject we will discuss more later, but the global decline in birth rates is a very serious problem. No culture, no nation, can survive without remaining above demographic replacement-rate. No species can either.

The distributed nation we are forming will be born into a world overrun with involuntary governments—governments that are extremely protective of their power and privilege. The road ahead of us will be rocky indeed.

One strategy in our quest for independence will be to OUTLAST said governments.

• The modern nation state is on an unsustainable trajectory. The welfare-warfare state, funded by fiat currency, cannot last forever.

• The people most likely to love, crave, and sustain such states—collectivists, statists, secular cosmopolitans, and leftists of every flavor—are more likely to have unsustainably low birth rates.

In order to outlast all those who would keep us from our rightful independence, we must survive. And survival means having a sustainable birth rate.

Obviously that ship has already sailed for many of us as individuals. But a higher birth rate must be a part of the distributed nation’s overall plan. We must inculcate it as a value and goal for those who are still young enough. And for their children. After all, we are not starting a coffee klatch. We are starting a nation.

Indeed, we might even call it a distributed civilization, and here’s why…

In the years since that one friend criticized me for my impolitic wording, I have come to better understand the distinction I was trying to express:

• Society = a group of people united by some cohering factor (geography, ethnicity, culture, etc.).

• Civilization = a society + low time preferences.

For a magisterial exposition on time preferences, see the first portion of Hans-Herman Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed. In brief…

• High time preferences = Instant gratification. Lack of planning. Abuse of one’s body. Poor use of money.

• Low time preferences = Delayed gratification. Long-range planning. Care for one’s body. Prudential investments for future returns.

Hoppe demonstrates in detail how just about every measure of failure correlates with high time preferences and every metric of success correlates with low time preferences. And the lower the time preferences, the more the success.

People who look to the future tend to win. People who do not think much past the present moment may enjoy the occasional low-rent thrill, but over the medium and long term, they lose.

There is no greater way of looking to the future than to have children, plan for their future, and set them up for success. It is the difference between a mean hovel and a noble house.

Once again, I apologize to those for whom children are no longer possible, or those who have chosen not to have them. My wife and I wanted more than one, but after a difficult miscarriage and a complicated age-40 pregnancy, one was all we got. (We too got caught up in the modern extended-adolescence, late-marriage zeitgeist, to the detriment of the other children we would have had.)

Whatever our challenges and choices as individuals, however, the ethos of the distributed nation as a whole must include low time-preferences and an emphasis on children. Demographics is destiny. Those who have children will survive and inherit the world.

Those who don’t…won’t.

I know they’re a little weird-looking, but I can’t spend all day trying to tweak AI images. Close enough!