Ill Conceived

Since its establishment in 1999, the organization Taglit-Birthright Israel has taken hundreds of thousands of young Jews on an all-expenses-paid trip to the Holy Land, encouraging them to settle down and have children in a country with the highest birth rate in the Western-aligned world. This week, June and Josh take a look at how Birthright functions, both as a natalist project and a backstop for The Most Moral Army In The World™ ...

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

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The Financial Times has published an article that sees falling birthrates as a form of social contagion. We're talking about it, plus reading your letters from the World Famous Mailbag about:

• The status of trans healthcare, both government-sa...

It's Brit Week here on Ill Conceived and the subject is the born-again Christian, recently deposed Reform UK policy head, and long-time friend of J.D. Vance known as James Orr. From his meteoric ascendance at Cambridge University and Reform UK to his equally precipitous recent crashout (and probable crimes), Josh and June try to figure out how Orr's attempt at bringing American-style Christian nationalism to the UK failed in the sh...

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

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A report from this past June found that South Korea's birthrate and marriage rate both appear to be on the rise. Slutcon has unveiled its full schedule and final lineup of presenters. We're talking about it all, plus reading your letters about:

Over the course of the past decade or so, South Korea has become a country where men and women occupy completely different political perspectives and landscapes. It's also one of the countries with the lowest fertility rates in the world. This week, June and Josh look at how South Korea's history of patriarchy and male conscription have collided with a restive and extremely online female populace to create a massive breakdown in ge...

We’re cooking up a super-sized serving of Ill Conceived goodness for next week, so in the meantime we decided to dig back into the World Famous Mailbag to read and answer the stuff you’ve been wondering about but we haven’t found space to cover on the main show or the B-sides, including:

• Personal experiences with Aporia’s Noah Carl
• Parsing the hypocrisy of female right-wing talking heads
• The conservativ...

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

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If Nathan Cofnas is to be believed, he’s going to retain his position at Ghent University, in no small part thanks to a petition of support that was signed by nearly 1,000 academics. We’re talking about it, plus digging into the work o...

Back in December 2025, when we talked about the book The Bell Curve, we kept running into the Human Diversity Foundation. This organization, which disseminates bunk pseudo-science through its journal Mankind Quarterly and its blog Aporia, has long been dedicated to advancing the white nationalist cause. This week, two news stories broke—one fairly minor and silly, the other devastating and tragic—that fin...

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

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Balaji Srinivasan's Network School got kicked out of Malaysia, so they're picking up stakes and moving to Kazakhstan while making a hard pivot into being a natalist compound. We're talking about it, plus we read your letters on:

• The shape of ...

Under President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federation managed for a time to greatly slow the population and fertility decrease that the country experienced in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. However, things stalled out in the mid-2010s, and the escalation of the war in Ukraine has only made matters worse. This week, Josh and June take a look at Putin's attempts to engineer demographic growth in Russia over the years and ...

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

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Wouldn't you know it, right after we put out our episode about the Times, they published yet another weird soft-focus profile of an anti-feminist woman. We're talking about it, plus we read your letters about:

• The tragedy of Andrea Yates
• Vani...

As part of the national push by natalists to roll back the clock on gender policy in the United States, recent articles about birth rates have started popping up in the country's paper of record. One of those articles, published just last week, was written by someone we've covered quite a bit on the show already. This week, Josh and June check it out alongside four other articles about birth rates in The New York Times to get a sen...

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

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This one's mostly about Rod Dreher. We also read your letters about:

• Performing sex live on stage (this is a reminder to get your tickets to Thursday's Chicago live show!)
• Why grandparents can't retire
• The mechanics of Orbán's Home Building A...

***TICKETS TO OUR JULY 2 SHOW IN CHICAGO ARE ON SALE! GET YOUR TICKETS NOW BY CLICKING HERE!!!!***

While natalism as a political project has its proponents, few heads of state have been willing to attempt to use the full force of the state to raise birth rates. However, one leader does stand out: Hungary's recently-ousted prime minister, Viktor Orbán. This week, June and Josh take a look at Orban's 16-year term as PM, the effects o...

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

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We weren't able to cover everything we wanted to discuss about the Collins family in the main episode, so this week we dug in for a look at the Based Camp Discord community, the Collins Institute's bespoke homeschool learning management system Par...

In mainstream media coverage of natalism, one specific couple keeps popping up. Their eccentric appearance and apparent ironclad commitment to the principles of tech natalism make them catnip to curious reporters, who have profiled them exhaustively. But who are Simone and Malcolm Collins, and what are they actually trying to sell you? This week, Josh and June do their best to find out.

***GET TICKETS TO JOSH'S SHOW IN CINCINNATI H...

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

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The natalist arguments of people like JD Vance are increasingly being used to defend new laws rolling back bodily autonomy, and in Wyoming, a newly signed "fetal heartbeat" bill has made this connection explicit. We're talking about it, plus we re...

The Vice President of the United States and his wife Usha are expecting their fourth baby, setting an apparent example for their fellow natalists. But just how intertwined is JD Vance with the natalist movement overall and what does it have to do with Usha’s new podcast about children’s books? This week, June and Josh dig into JD Vance’s history with conservatism and Catholicism to try to figure it out.

***WANT MO...

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

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• The cultural specific...