Natal Conference

The Natal Conference was a far-right pro-natalist eugenics conferencehttps://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-11-03/the-eugenic-circus-comes-to-town/https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/17/eugenics-austin-texas-natal-conference-women-misogyny/ 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".https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy3v5m/the-elite-breeding-couple-are-terminally-online-redditors-whove-gone-viral-before The Collinses are self-described "pro-natalists" (a philosophy they derived from the effective altruism movement)"America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’" by Jenny Kleeman, Guardian, 2024 May 25 and owners of the website "pro-natalist.org".https://pronatalist.org/ The Collins misleadingly claim to have founded the first pro-natalist organization in the worldhttps://pronatalist.org/aboutus/ (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 https://www.all.org/ 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.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WARO2rLcX9g 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 a conservative think-tank: 
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.https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/elite-breeders-humankind-twitter_uk_643fa007e4b039ec4e7b6998https://www.businessinsider.com/pronatalism-elon-musk-simone-malcolm-collins-underpopulation-breeding-tech-2022-11 The majority of individuals who spoke at the conference are eugenicists including the conference organizer, Kevin Dolan.https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2488918 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 pregnancies, screening the embryos for purported traits like IQ, future happiness, and future income."‘Hipster eugenics’: why is the media cosying up to people who want to build a super race?" by Arwa Mahdawi, Guardian, 2023 April 21 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 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 
==Speakers==
List of confirmed speakers include:https://www.natalism.org/
* Kevin Dolan — a sexist, racist, misogynistic Mormon associated with whose offensive social media posts are well documented.https://exposedeznat.noblogs.org/kevin-michael-dolan-exposed-racist-antisemitic-homophobic-deznat-mormon/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/09/deznats-religious-extremists-mormon-vision 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".https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/apr/20/pro-natalism-babies-global-population-geneticsSamantha Cole (April 19, 2023). "The 'Elite' Breeding Couple Are Terminally Online Redditors Who've Gone Viral Before". Vice. 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"."'Pronatalist' parents are under fire after the dad publicly slapped his toddler — and they think the criticism is racist" by Katie Balevic, Business Insider, 2024 May 27
* Razib Khan — HBD pseudoscientist.
* Indian Bronson — self-described "shitposter"https://archive.is/Fig9A who supports eugenics.https://archive.is/16lBd
* 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.https://www.instagram.com/tv/CeTcW44NdjM/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D For a time, Benjamin was married to 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.Dr. Benjamin Braddock Twitter (archived from August 25, 2023). 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).Covid Post-Infection/Jab Protocol (archived from December 11, 2022). Braddock is the editor of a far-right magazine IM—1776.Who We Are. im1776.com.
* 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.https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-01-27/bill-of-the-week-eating-fetuses-the-legal-way/
* 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."#257 - Polyamory and Eugenics: A Dialogue with Diana Fleischman (Aug 30, 2023) Converging Dialogues.
* — far-right activist who supported the 2021 U.S. coup attempt and has strong ties to white nationalists, arguing conservatives should cooperate with them.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/22/charles-haywood-claremont-institute-sacr-far-righthttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/30/conservative-christopher-rufo-florida-twitter-debate
Non speakers
* Edward Dutton was formerly listed as a speaker but was later removed from the Natal Conference website.https://web.archive.org/web/20230515135742/https://www.natalism.org/ 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.”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/04/natal-conference-austin-texas-eugenics
* Alex Kaschuta (not a speaker but planned to attend the conference)[https://twitter.com/natalismorg/status/1679923592522354688 — far-right podcaster who has interviewed white nationalists including Emil Kirkegaard and Anatoly Karlin.https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/emil-kirkegaard-science-outside-the-overton-window/id1547129171?i=1000552016401https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWlyyzOzGQM Kaschuta has appeared on the Aporia podcast.What comes after liberalism? | Alex Kaschuta. aporiamagazine.com.
==Links to the far-right==
The Natal Conference website denies it was a political event and states:
Despite this, the conference was almost exclusively promoted on far-right websites such as The Unz Review, American Renaissance and VDARE.https://archive.ph/Foepghttps://www.amren.com/features/2023/12/how-to-have-more-and-better-children/https://vdare.com/posts/guardian-let-s-cancel-a-conference-on-boosting-birth-rates 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.https://archive.is/pHnCz
The conference was attended by white nationalists including a self-described "pro-white advocate" named Marian Evans.https://archive.is/xHLzR 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".https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WARO2rLcX9g [timestamp: 4: 27]. 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". https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/natalism-and-hipster-eugenics
The Collinses and the Natal Conference have been promoted by the far-right Aporia Magazine.https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/pluralistic-pronatalism-simone-collins
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 (a former member of the radical right party ).https://twitter.com/natalismorg/
White supremacist Jared Taylor attended the conference via a phone call for VIP ticket holders on the second day.The Far Right’s Campaign to Explode the Population. politico.com.
==Criticism==
===Anti-natalism===
The Natal Conference has been criticised by anti-natalistshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l43RRUKSgVE who held an anti-natalism conference on the same two days.https://bioedge.org/public_health/population/two-opposing-conferences-on-population-this-weekend-one-proudly-pro-natalist-one-dismally-pro-extinction/
==See also==
* London Conference on Intelligence
==References==
Category:Eugenics supporters
Category:Pseudoscience
Category:Racialism