Transcript
00:00:00What is the truth around happiness, marriage, and kids?
00:00:04Parents are happier, you get happier when you get happier.
00:00:07No, not true.
00:00:08Especially women take a happiness hit
00:00:10when they have kids in diapers.
00:00:11They do not.
00:00:12Yes, they do.
00:00:12No, intentional fertility causes a rise in happiness.
00:00:16The problem is we mix unintentional
00:00:17and intentional fertility in the data.
00:00:19It's very difficult to separate
00:00:20because you don't have preferences.
00:00:21I guarantee you in longitudinal data,
00:00:24happiness rises short-term.
00:00:26In the long run, it's a little more ambiguous
00:00:28because happiness scales reset over time.
00:00:31Happiness rises with engagement.
00:00:33That is, it rises before marriage basically,
00:00:35but then marriage locks it in.
00:00:37If you don't get married,
00:00:38the happiness of a cohabiting union
00:00:40rapidly returns to baseline.
00:00:42The happiness of a married union
00:00:44tends to remain above baseline
00:00:46as long as you remain married,
00:00:47which people don't always.
00:00:49But widowage and divorce tend to return you
00:00:51to your premarital happiness level.
00:00:53There's three different longitudinal surveys
00:00:55I can demonstrate all this in.
00:00:57Having kids that you want to have,
00:00:59which is a big stipulation.
00:01:00Unwanted kids, unintended kids is a different dynamic.
00:01:03Having kids you want to have increases happiness
00:01:07in the most robust models we know of.
00:01:09Unintended fertility is a different beast.
00:01:12And it is true that in almost every survey,
00:01:15unless you add like a million controls
00:01:17where you're basically controlling away
00:01:19the effect of having kids,
00:01:21people with kids are happier.
00:01:22And one reason is 'cause happier people have more kids.
00:01:24Yeah, especially when there's like abundant childcare
00:01:26in that country.
00:01:27But women do in places where there's less social support,
00:01:30which is like the modern developed country,
00:01:32like in the United States,
00:01:33where you're not really getting a lot of help,
00:01:34especially if you're a middle class or above woman.
00:01:37Women especially do take a short-term hit
00:01:39per the research that I've seen.
00:01:40And then it goes up over the long run.
00:01:42But I think this focus on hedonistic happiness is overwrought.
00:01:46And again, it's cultural.
00:01:47You have to look for meaning beyond that.
00:01:49And I mean, we also have to look at really problematic solutions.
00:01:51Yeah, I agree with that for what it's worth.
00:01:52I would say meaningfulness is more important.
00:01:54We can talk about broken dating markets,
00:01:55but like what are we, we can't fix it.
00:01:57I mean, my husband and I literally have an index
00:01:59of other parents with kids close to our age
00:02:01and we're gonna intermarry our children.
00:02:02My new way of skeezing on people is like,
00:02:04I want our children to intermarry.
00:02:05Like we're, we, parents used to be very involved
00:02:07in matchmaking their children.
00:02:09And so we had to talk about what are we actually gonna do?
00:02:11'Cause we can't fix the swipe-based dating model.
00:02:14That's gone, it's done.
00:02:16What we're trying to do now is just manually matchmake again.
00:02:19Maybe bring back the London scene.
00:02:21Oh, matchmaking is coming back.
00:02:22It is totally coming back.
00:02:23Arranged marriages.
00:02:24People are like, I mean, Zoomers are like,
00:02:25sign me, where do I sign up
00:02:27for the arranged marriage group you guys have?
00:02:28Like, it is, it is a real-
00:02:30Mine is called church.
00:02:32Church is a big thing.
00:02:33Honestly, like Catholic colleges,
00:02:35religious colleges are like the new hottest place
00:02:37to find a spouse.
00:02:38I mean, we need to look at what practically to do.
00:02:41'Cause we can talk about this big problem,
00:02:42but the whole thing is like, so what?
00:02:43I guess I'm gonna like die alone and without any sort of support
00:02:47or I'm never gonna marry.
00:02:48There are many things that people can do now.
00:02:50And that's what's important too,
00:02:51is this is a wicked problem.
00:02:53It's very scary.
00:02:54But like with every endemic and existential problem,
00:02:57there are manageable things that you can do.
00:02:59Like if you're worried about, you know, changing sea levels,
00:03:01like maybe we should look at like managing a mass migration
00:03:06and getting people off coastlines
00:03:07and shifting the home insurance market
00:03:09and shifting regulation expecting it to happen.
00:03:11We need to look at how we on a micro and macro level
00:03:15are going to manage falling and declining fertility rates
00:03:18and our own personal lives based on the expectation of that.
00:03:22And I think too much of the discussion
00:03:23around demographic collapse is like,
00:03:25is this a real problem?
00:03:26Like how bad is it?
00:03:27Let's all like ruminate on that.
00:03:28When really it's like, okay, well, what are we gonna do?
00:03:30And some of the solutions are very radical,
00:03:31like literally arranged marriages sounds kind of crazy,
00:03:34but this is what we've come to.
00:03:36And I think very similar to COVID, people are like,
00:03:38oh, this is like blow over in a couple months
00:03:40and like the world shuts down.
00:03:42This is another COVID.
00:03:43You think this can't possibly get super bad.
00:03:46It's not gonna be so crazy.
00:03:48It's going to be profoundly more crazy than COVID.
00:03:51This is cities crumbling.
00:03:52This is pension funds falling apart.
00:03:54This is people dying on mass.
00:03:55Millions and millions of people.
00:03:58We need to realize that,
00:03:59but then also just actually plan for that.
00:04:01No more performative prenatalism, actual prenatalism.
00:04:03- Can we comment on the dying on mass?
00:04:05- I just wanna mention it,
00:04:06'cause I don't know if all listeners will get this.
00:04:09In industrialized countries,
00:04:11our social support systems are probably good enough,
00:04:14probably, that for the most part,
00:04:16most old people will kind of get through.
00:04:19It's places like Thailand,
00:04:22where fertility is below one,
00:04:24and the money is not there
00:04:26to support a big social security system for old people.
00:04:29That's in where the health system is not as strong.
00:04:31Or like India or increasingly African countries.
00:04:34Those are the places
00:04:35where the death toll will become apocalypse.
00:04:38- Well, I agree.
00:04:39Places like Thailand are in for an extraordinary level
00:04:43of old age, loneliness, and challenges.
00:04:45India, my gosh, my worry about India population right now
00:04:48is it's aging population two, three decades from now.
00:04:51No one's thinking about that.
00:04:52- Yeah, that's a humanitarian crisis.
00:04:55It's a ticking time bomb.
00:04:57But in terms of happiness,
00:05:00I think one of the things we have to isolate out here
00:05:02is the 10% of people who don't want children.
00:05:07Now, in making the "Birth Gap" documentary,
00:05:09I interviewed five, six women, 40s, 50s,
00:05:13who had never wanted a child, ever.
00:05:17- Yeah.
00:05:18- And they're completely happy.
00:05:19- Yep.
00:05:20And--
00:05:21- That's why I emphasize wanted children.
00:05:23- Right.
00:05:25So when you average happiness across women
00:05:27and don't separate those out,
00:05:29you're kind of missing something.
00:05:30Now, those people who don't want women,
00:05:33who don't want children,
00:05:37I believe it's almost binary.
00:05:41Now, you change from not wanting kids--
00:05:42- It's highly conditional.
00:05:43Everyone has a price.
00:05:45But a life that's hedonistic and single and childless
00:05:48can be perfectly fun.
00:05:49And we should design around that.
00:05:51- Super fun.
00:05:52- I mean, it's incredibly fun.
00:05:53- I think, though, that the people
00:05:56who never, ever, ever have the desire,
00:05:59there is something that means
00:06:00that they will be happy.
00:06:02- Yeah.
00:06:03- Whether they have kids or not.
00:06:03- Yeah.
00:06:04- That does not manifest itself.
00:06:05- And those people who are just postponing it.
00:06:06- Well, in a post-AI age,
00:06:07they're gonna be super happy.
00:06:08Like, we're big pronatalists.
00:06:10All of our time now is in developing,
00:06:11we're doing, like, we're building an AI platform.
00:06:13It's called RFAB AI.
00:06:14We're trying to replace humans,
00:06:16replace employees, replace husbands and wives.
00:06:18Like, you can see this all happening
00:06:19with other people who are in AI as well,
00:06:21who are also pronatalists.
00:06:22They're investing in all this reprotech.
00:06:24They're having a lot of kids themselves.
00:06:25Meanwhile, they're also replacing humans
00:06:28for all the people who choose to not create
00:06:30new humans, to not own the future.
00:06:32And those, I think AI can be this literal deus ex machina
00:06:36that's coming in and going to correct for a lot of this.
00:06:39A lot of the loneliness, a lot of the lack of happiness.
00:06:42These people are going to die in their little pleasure pods
00:06:45with their fake families or their fake realities.
00:06:47And they're gonna be happy.
00:06:48And I want them to be happy.
00:06:49And we're literally trying to build things
00:06:50to make them happy.
00:06:51Are you, do you want them to be happy?
00:06:54I was going to say, I don't necessarily want to be happy.
00:06:55There's a note of glee with them.
00:06:57I think it's gross when people aren't happy.
00:06:58It's very disruptive.
00:06:59Their cries are annoying.
00:07:00So I do.
00:07:01I want them.
00:07:02I believe in, for example, euthanasia.
00:07:04I love this.
00:07:04I love euthanasia.
00:07:05No, I think it's terrible.
00:07:07It's, oh, it's beautiful, made is the smartest thing
00:07:09Canada ever did.
00:07:10No.
00:07:11That's gonna be the solution to healthcare in the future.
00:07:14No, but I think it creates a society where,
00:07:17I already see it, I've heard it from young people in Japan
00:07:20who are looking at older people saying,
00:07:22why are they still here?
00:07:23No, really, they need to, we need made in Japan.
00:07:25We need made in, we need all of it.
00:07:26Without debating euthanasia,
00:07:28I think it's worth noting, like just a second ago,
00:07:31I was saying, well, kids might make happiness.
00:07:33And you said, well, we shouldn't prioritize happiness so much.
00:07:35Yeah.
00:07:35But when it comes to euthanasia,
00:07:37well, people shouldn't be unhappy.
00:07:39But I would say, no, people, you know,
00:07:40suffering people, their unhappiness is not a problem.
00:07:43Meaningfulness is ultimately the greatest value.
00:07:47And I think we can argue, is suffering meaningful or not?
00:07:50But earlier you said, you know, suffering,
00:07:52the avoidance of negative utilitarianism,
00:07:55the avoidance of suffering is a kind of bankrupt view.
00:07:58And I would agree, I would just strongly agree and say,
00:08:00whatever the broader wisdom of euthanasia,
00:08:03and I think that's a whole debate,
00:08:05which we can do if you want to.
00:08:06I want to see that book be written, the wisdom of euthanasia.
00:08:09But whatever it is, I would just say that
00:08:11it's not about suffering or happiness,
00:08:13because ultimately what truly makes human lives worthwhile
00:08:17is not the quotient of their suffering
00:08:19or the number of their utils.
00:08:21It is meaningfulness, and it is the things that they build of benefit for others.
00:08:25Well, then let the ones who lack meaning get out of the way.
00:08:28All right, and this is not like, I will die by my own hands if I'm lucky enough to live long enough.
00:08:33When I'm no longer useful, I will end myself.
00:08:35I just want to stipulate happiness is probably not the metric.
00:08:36It's not, but...
00:08:37But look, so one of the problems that I see with that, again,
00:08:39is that there are certain people who have, not through really any fault of their own,
00:08:45had 90% of women want to have kids, right?
00:08:48Around about four in five childless women who breach the top of their reproductive threshold,
00:08:53say, that didn't have kids, say that they wanted to.
00:08:5710% can't, 10% don't want to, 80% did.
00:09:01It seems to me that we kind of have a duty to try and help people live the better lives that they can.
00:09:08It's the same reason that we tell people that smoking's bad for them.
00:09:10It's the same reason that they tell people that they should moderate their alcohol.
00:09:13It's the same reason that we tell people they should get seven to eight hours of sleep a night.
00:09:16And that, to someone that's in a health desert or someone that's in the equivalent of an information desert,
00:09:23this is the same for 80% of women who reach menopause, can't have kids, and didn't have kids.
00:09:3180% of them, is this still correct, this data?
00:09:33Yes, so, and to me, even if we were to solve this phenomenon through, let's say,
00:09:41people having larger families, those who do have families, and we still have this contingent,
00:09:45large contingent, of people who dreamed of having families and end up childless for life.
00:09:50That's still a major crisis to me that we still need to address.
00:09:53They don't want it bad enough.
00:09:54Look, there are ways.
00:09:55No, I don't agree.
00:09:56There are ways.
00:09:57I'm super infertile.
00:09:58I have five kids.
00:10:00How does that work?
00:10:01We made it work.
00:10:02We slept on a mattress on a floor for a year.
00:10:03But you had someone to do that with.
00:10:05You can do it by yourself, and we've met so many people who have.
00:10:08No, no, no, no.
00:10:09Hold on, you can do it by yourself, but let's go back to this.
00:10:12People don't just want kids.
00:10:14They want a specific kind of family.
00:10:16They might want it very, very badly.
00:10:18So what you'll have is beautiful for you all, but it's not what everyone is going to want.
00:10:22Then they can go out and get it.
00:10:23But my point is, some people's version of Family Day is not something you can just take.
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