QUESTION: Dear Mr Armstrong
I was in a discussion with a friend about current affairs – me, against Bill Gates and the likes and him, taking a more neutral stance. He asked if I watched some or anything he actually said. I said yes, well at least what you have posted I have watched in its entirety. I remember when you wrote about how to consider the position of the other side, even (or especially) when one it is opposed as to being the perceived enemy, be it Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump or Kim Jong Un. Now for me it Bill Gates these days. So my friend challenged me when he said that Bill’s view is that „a certain health standard (e.g. Through vaccination) would help less developed countries having to rely on large families for existential (= security) reason, therefore it would solve overpopulation…”. That certainly is way that I could not really argue against, was I to remember my Polish grandmother and siblings and how they had to essentially survive those days making their number count and work hard today to even make ends meet the next.

So I looked into this, what Bill Gates said about this (and luckily found a short video) where says precisely what I got to hear from my friend:
What is your view about this – would a certain level (albeit not reached via the almighty Socialism) of health and wealth globally make an end to the debate of overpopulation (which I anyway think is absurd for that matter, basing on that book by Malthus) and would that actually constitute a viable/true „thing” Bill Gates is pursuing (Here he comes, the savior of the poor and overpopulating)?

I am just trying to figure out how would I behave in such a position….
Thank you for all your work that driven NOT by profit and personal gain!

JL

ANSWER: Either Bill Gates is amazingly ignorant, or he is engaging in sophistry to sell his population-climate change agenda. The mistake people are making here is they are judging the third world on our own. What he is saying is that vaccinating everyone will mean they have a healthier child so they will need fewer children, which is absolutely a joke. The population naturally declines ONLY with economic advancement.

This has been the case from ancient times when the Roman Emperor Augustus (27 BC-14 AD) passed family laws to force men to marry because the Latin population was declining. The birth rates have declined substantially in Japan, Europe, and America with the rise in the economy. Russia was paying $9,000 for women to have children because the population declines only with economic advancement.

The reason is very simple. In an agrarian society, you have more children for they are your retirement and they take care of you in your old age and allow the farm to keep producing. You would typically have several children because also the mortality rate was high. The man was typically twice the age of his bride before 1800 because he had to FIRST prove himself by getting the farm, chickens, and house to show he could afford a family.

The age difference declined with the industrial revolution to the point it was only 50% older by 1900, dropping to perhaps 10-15 years older by 1930. It was after the Great Depression with the introduction of socialism that the age difference fell to near zero because the boy no longer needed to prove himself – we just love each other became the justification.

Postwar (1945), the government was there, not just for social benefits, but the introduction of Social Security also relieved the children of the burden of having to take care of their parents — that became the government’s job. This changed the very structure of families in the United States as was the case in Europe.

Where Gates’ proposition falls apart is that these third world countries are still in the agrarian stage and they lack the economic development that reduces the population. They need the children to run the farm and they need them for retirement for they lack such pension schemes. Just look at what happened in China with the one-child rule. The boy left for the economic lure of the big city, leaving the parents alone without support. Back in 2013, China had to pass a law that the children must visittheir parents. Elderly couples began importing girls from Southeast Asia to take care of them and they would leave them the property.

Sorry, I cannot believe Gates is that stupid. I believe it is merely his excuse for the depopulation of the earth and his father was a member of Eugenics which believed in the superiority of the Nordic-Anglo-Saxon Race genetically and were actively seeking to reduce the population of darker skinned people where Gates has focuses – India & Africa.

There is absolutely no support whatsoever for his claim that vaccinating children will make them healthier so they will have less. Donate food if that is really the issue – but there is no profit in that.

Their economic conditions in the third world do not support that conclusion. If he was really serious about that, then help them become industrialized and provide free food. Or wait, let me see, that would impact his climate change.