Natal Conference

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The Natal Conference was a far-right pro-natalist eugenics conference which took place in Austin, Texas on December 1 and 2, 2023.

Conference

The conference largely revolved around Malcolm and Simone Collins, minor celebrities on the internet who have been described as an "elite breeding couple". The Collinses are self-described "pro-natalists" (a philosophy they derived from the effective altruism movement) and owners of the website "pro-natalist.org". The Collins misleadingly claim to have founded the first pro-natalist organization in the world (though there are countless conservative and religious institutions and organizations that promote natalism and the nuclear family). The conference has recieved praise from a few conservative and anti-abortion groups including American Life League, but nearly all promotion of the conference has been by white nationalists (see below), since they were allowed to attend. While the Collinses did not organize the Natal Conference they did attend it as guest speakers, sponsoring and promoting the event. They also posted a video discussing the conference. According to an article in the Austin Chronicle, most speakers at the conference (held at Line Hotel in Austin) were right-wing political activists – including individuals who are part of the HBD blogsphere. Also, many more are affiliated with Claremont Institute, a conservative think-tank:

...the caliber of the conference's "brightest minds" – an odd mash of pseudoscientists, anti-democratic agitators, and sworn enemies of the left. Its organizer is Kevin Dolan, a prominent voice in the far-right bro culture on X, who has said that natalism aligns with eugenics, the 20^th-century racist pseudoscience used by the Nazis to rationalize the murder of Jews, people of color, queers, and those with disabilities.

As we reported last month ("The Eugenic Circus Comes to Town," Nov. 3) the conference also includes several speakers affiliated with the Claremont Institute, the pro-Trump think tank that The New York Times Magazine calls the "nerve center of the American right." These include Michael Anton, one of Claremont's senior fellows; Raw Egg Nationalist, a pseudonymous pusher of raw egg consumption; and Charles Haywood, an anti-democracy catastrophist who enjoys speculating about his future as a warlord after our country's collapse. Other speakers, like Malcolm and Simone Collins, are less provocative, mainly extolling the value of large families. Still others, like Razib Khan, are science enthusiasts who associate with right-wing personalities to discuss race as a biological reality, despite broad scientific consensus that race isn't genetic, but "a social category invented to justify slavery," as a 2021 article in the journal of Evolution, Med­i­cine, & Public Health put it.

Natal Conference 2023

For a purported conference about the supposed glories about childbirth, the conference attendees were mostly reactionary men.

Eugenics

The Collinses have been widely criticised for espousing eugenics. The majority of individuals who spoke at the conference are eugenicists including the conference organizer, Kevin Dolan. The Collinses have been quoted as saying they want to "optimize the sort of children being born" and they used "genetic testing for their own embryos" that were used in their in vitro fertilisation pregnancies, screening the embryos for purported traits like IQ, future happiness, and future income. The Collinses believe that this is somehow not eugenics; instead, they prefer to call this approach polygenics, in which parents use technology to give parents the choice over which traits they value most. In their words:

It's completely different (from eugenics)... different cultural groups will choose different things to optimise around. Eventually, that will lead to genuine human diversity.

It is unclear at this time how they have reconciled this viewpoint with some serious problems in the past that have occurred when parents chose which traits they value most, as in the case of sex-selective abortion.

Speakers

List of confirmed speakers include:

• Kevin Dolan — a sexist, racist, misogynistic Mormon associated with DezNat whose offensive social media posts are well documented. Dolan claimed that he came up with the idea for NatalCon after watching Tucker Carlson's much-ridiculed bullshit "documentary" The End of Men.
• Malcolm and Simone Collins — a weird couple who have been described as "hipster eugenicists". Linked to the Silicon Valley version of the pro-natalism movement, as epitomized by Elon Musk. In May 2024, they generated social media outrage when, during a Guardian interview, in response to a small transgression, Malcolm smacked the face of their two year old son right in front of the reporter. Malcolm defended the punishment as being logically chosen after observing "animal parenting models", and bizarrely accused those who were outraged at the Collinses support of corporal punishment of having a "racist position".
• Razib Khan — HBD pseudoscientist.
• Indian Bronson — self-described "shitposter" who supports eugenics.
• Peachy Keenan — far-right so-called "tradwife" who is an anti-feminist and author of the book Domestic Extremist. Supports the notion of white genocide.
• Jonathan Anomaly — outspoken eugenicist and racialist.
• Brit Benjamin — self-described "futurist" who supports artificial wombs. For a time, Benjamin was married to Patri Friedman, grandson of economist Milton Friedman, who is a staunch advocate of seasteading.
• Benjamin Braddock (Ben Braddock) — calls himself a doctor, but is not a qualified medical doctor. He gives a lot of quack medical advice on his substack but with Quack Miranda Warnings ("Disclaimer: this is not medical advice, see a trusted and competent doctor about any serious health issues you may have"). The COVID symptom advice includes eating cow hearts, ivermectin, various herbs and dietary supplements (e.g. green tea, quercetin, curcumin, probiotics). Braddock is the editor of a far-right magazine IM—1776.
• Michael Anton — senior fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute think tank, and research fellow at the far-right Hillsdale College.
• Raw Egg Nationalist — anti-vegan activist who supports consumption of raw eggs and conspiracy theorist who thinks there is human fetal tissue in Pepsi.
• Diana Fleischman — evolutionary psychologist and Associate Research Professor at the University of New Mexico. "Her research has focused on evolutionary psychology, disgust research, sex differences, animal rights, and eugenics."
• Charles Haywood — far-right activist who supported the 2021 U.S. coup attempt and has strong ties to white nationalists, arguing conservatives should cooperate with them.

Non speakers

• Edward Dutton was formerly listed as a speaker but was later removed from the Natal Conference website. In June 2023, Dutton interviewed the conference organizer, Kevin Dolan. Both Dutton and Dolan sympathize with eugenics; Dolan is quoted as saying: "I think that the pro-natalist and the eugenic positions are very much not in opposition, they’re very much aligned.”
• Alex Kaschuta (not a speaker but planned to attend the conference) — far-right podcaster who has interviewed white nationalists including Emil Kirkegaard and Anatoly Karlin. Kaschuta has appeared on the Aporia podcast.

Links to the far-right

The Natal Conference website denies it was a political event and states:

Natal Conference has no political or ideological goal other than a world in which our children can have grandchildren. If you are concerned about collapsing fertility, the economic challenges of having children, the increasing difficulty of dating for men and women, we want to hear from you.

Despite this, the conference was almost exclusively promoted on far-right websites such as The Unz Review, American Renaissance and VDARE. Numerous speakers at the event are known to be far-right political activists. Paleoconservative blogger Steve Sailer has promoted the conference. Diana Fleischman has defended white nationalist coverage of the conference by American Renaissance.

The conference was attended by white nationalists including a self-described "pro-white advocate" named Marian Evans. Simone Collins has admitted some white nationalists and racists attended the conference but has downplayed their presence by arguing they were like the "sad guy in the corner". Although the Collins insist they are not themselves white nationalists, their own website talks about "preserving cultural diversity" and the Natal Conference uses Great Replacement conspiracy terminology such as "unique cultures and populations will be snuffed out".

The Collinses and the Natal Conference have been promoted by the far-right Aporia Magazine.

Natal Conference's official X account reveals it is followed by the white nationalist VDARE and dozens of alt-right accounts. National Conference is a mutual follower of far-right accounts including Tucker Carlson, Steve Sailer, and Eva Vlaardingerbroek (a former member of the radical right party Forum for Democracy).

White supremacist Jared Taylor attended the conference via a phone call for VIP ticket holders on the second day.

Criticism

Anti-natalism

The Natal Conference has been criticised by anti-natalists who held an anti-natalism conference on the same two days.

See also

• London Conference on Intelligence