Have Sex For Your Country

The declining birth rate in developed countries is a well-known problem. Now some of their governments are trying to come up with ways to get their respectable (and otherwise) citizens to breed. Crazy ways, more often than not.

This is not a new problem, of course. The Romans ran into the same issue. An increasingly urban population, with distractions and round-the-clock entertainments for tastes subtle and gross, saw a sharp decline in birthrate among citizens in the mid to late empire period. Increasing femininity and an aversion to physical labor among the male citizens forced the empire to rely on foreign troops and auxiliaries to fill the ranks of their legions. Some historians have estimated that as many as two in three of the legions during the late empire period were composed entirely of troops who had never even seen Rome. The result, of course, is obvious: social rot and collapse.

The good news: this isn't a new problem. The bad news? There's no solution. It's a symptom of cultural decay, a malaise which is invariably lethal to the patient. All you can do is inject more morphine and lie to them about their chances. Sorry to be the Debbie Downer, but that's the ugly truth, and everyone who has bothered to actually study history -- always a minority in any civilization -- knows it with a depressing certainty. Why the hell do you think I drink so much?


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Hat-tip to Vizigoth