Public Response To The Birth Gap: With Stephen Shaw

In this interview, we are joined by Stephen Shaw, creator of the acclaimed documentary "The Birth Gap," to discuss the global fertility crisis.

Stephen shares his experiences making the film, including surprising reactions from anti-natalists. We cover the roots of demographic collapse, dating challenges today, and policy ideas like educating on fertility windows.

Stephen argues most childlessness is unplanned, caused by cultural factors that mislead people. He sees community-level solutions as most promising, though warns coercive state interventions could happen. We also touch on environmentalism, gender conflicts, and the profound grief of involuntary childlessness.

Overall an urgent call to action on demographic collapse, focused on the very real human impacts.

Stephen Shaw: [00:00:00] I mean, what we're seeing is back in the 60s.

you know, anti natalists or, you know, I call them anti natalists. Natalism to me is clear, though some people define it in different ways. It's simply, you know, it's wanting fewer children or no children. So this was to do with the world running out of food. And then the world didn't run out with the Green Revolution and then we came up with the environment.

Maybe that was appropriate, but let's not get into that conversation because it's complicated. But my point is, right now they're shifting again. I can see the shift. The problem now is the patriarchy. And, you know, they're subtly moving away from blaming the environment because they know we're all going to see that the population is maximizing right now.

So they're preparing, you know, they're being smart from their point of view about preparing their argument that, oh, it's no longer about the environment, it's about men forcing themselves. We've got to be really careful and call these guys out because you know, they, they have an agenda. They are [00:01:00] ideologists.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Hello, everyone. We are extremely excited today to be joined by Stephen Shaw, who is the creator of the Birth Gap documentary, which we consider to be the seminal documentary on demographic collapse that covers the stats, but also the personal fallout from Demograph Collapse already.

He interviews quite a few people. It's, it's really great. The first half of it is available for free on YouTube. There is no excuse for you to not check it out. And welcome. We're so glad to see you

Stephen Shaw: here.

Simone Collins: What we'd really love to ask you to start at least because there's so many things we'd like to discuss is after birth cap came out did you encounter any surprises in terms of who was really excited about it? Who resonated with and who didn't like it? Because we found in our own journey with prenatal advocacy that or demographic collapse awareness advocacy that sometimes like surprising groups either really.

appreciate it and also really don't. We'd love to hear what you've experienced.

Stephen Shaw: I've [00:02:00] experienced everything. And I don't think I was prepared for it at all. I knew I would get pushback. I'd actually warned my kids several years ago that, hey, your dad's gonna get some pushback. You know, just, just, just be ready for it.

I thought it was mainly going to come from environmentalists. And I was, you know, preparing rightly so it's part of a healthy discussion about population and the environment. And it's, it's an argument I have had many times. And I think I feel confident to explain that reducing births is not exactly a very efficient way to help the environment.

It would take decades to have any impact being one of those, but, but actually, no, the main pushback. came from what I can only describe as anti natalist groups who have been vocal, extreme, relentless, and it's interesting. Maybe we can pursue that. But on the other side, the optimistic side also surprised me.

I made the documentary. Feeling frankly quite pessimistic that this is a, you know, a [00:03:00] reality that we have to simply prepare for a world with fewer and fewer people and the inevitable, you know, consequences of that personally to communities and to societies, but actually looking into the eyes of so many young people who watch this who are frankly shocked.

I mean, anger is what's being used that, you know, society is preparing them for a life of education first, career second. And then what do you mean we're going to run out of time to start a family? What do you mean we might end up childless when we want families? Those people give me confidence despite their frustrations and anger, because I see in their eyes, very likely many of them will, will do things differently.

Malcolm Collins: Can you talk a bit more about what is motivating, like ideologically or dispositionally, the antinatalist groups? I assume many of them are in the negative utilitarian sort of David Benatar sphere of antinatalism. Or are there other things that are motivating them, more just like general human pessimism?

There's part,

Stephen Shaw: there's part of that, and [00:04:00] actually, I mean, there's one or two very few people who come out and say that they believe in extinction. And relatively speaking, I respect them speaking relatively, because they're saying what they believe, and you can discuss that, and not many people think that, so that's fine.

What worries me is that many people who perhaps think that, I don't know, but they cloak their arguments. In many different ways and it's so easy to see so just just to maybe answer your question in terms of what the rationale is, these are clearly ideologists who are threatened by the idea that people, women in particular, actually want children and that many who end up childless have regrets or more rather grieve and that's why I show in part two of the documentary, there's a lot of deep grief That is felt by, by these organizations and so in some ways I've realized that, you know, by challenging the premise that women [00:05:00] don't really want children and that if they don't, it's, it's fine actually goes to the heart of their own ideology.

So I think, I think they have to argue against it because otherwise their ideology is finished. Oh, continue. Well, I was just going to say, so in a sense, it's a compliment, in other words, to me, that, you know, they're being forced into that position.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I to, to put, like, reword what you said, because I think it's really interesting, it's, the, the lifestyles, a lot of large groups in our society right now are promoting lead to people not being able to have kids.

And when I say lifestyles, I mean like college degree and independence before you marry a man. I'm not, you know, like, like just generic mainstream lifestyles and groups. What you're saying is an aspect of this is a cognitive dissonance. They don't want to take responsibility for the pain that this advocacy that they're pushing causes.

And so to do that, they're sort of denying. Or, or punishing anyone who brings up that there are negative consequences of this. [00:06:00]

Stephen Shaw: Well, I think cognitive dissonance is a big element, but it's not the entire story. I think there are people who are persuaded to focus on those things, persuaded perhaps indeed that children aren't that important.

And I have seen twice in screens, my documentary in Tokyo where women have. Breakdowns in the fifties, who made one of them, um, argued that the documentary wasn't fair on women, that no one didn't need their children, then spent a weekend, I later found out with her curtains closed, didn't come out of her apartment, remembering that she had one of the kids one day fin