Ill Conceived
A podcast about natalism, hosted by Josh Boerman and June Sternbach. Josh is known for The Worst of All Possible Worlds and Traditional Scrench, while June has worked on Kill The Computer and The Onion.
Episodes
James Orr & Reform UK: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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
James Orr & Reform UK
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 nat
South Korea & Online Anti-Natalism: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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,
South Korea & Online Anti-Natalism
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
The Golden Pig Presents: Babies' Choice
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 cons
Aporia / The Human Diversity Foundation: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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
Aporia / The Human Diversity Foundation
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—
Vladimir Putin: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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
Vladimir Putin
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 g
Natalism and The New York Times: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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:
T
Natalism and The New York Times
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
Viktor Orbán: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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 mecha
Viktor Orbán
***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'
Simone & Malcolm Collins: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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 homesc
Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 TIC
JD Vance: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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.
JD Vance
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 i
Ballerina Farm / Hannah Neeleman: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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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Fox News has reported on the "problem" of teenagers not getting pregnant anymore. We're talking about it, and reading your letters because it turns out that a lot of you had a lot to say about Hannah Neeleman, in
Ballerina Farm / Hannah Neeleman
Natalists have an ideal life and an ideal wife: rugged, individualistic, and dedicated to self-sufficiency. Perhaps nothing epitomizes this ideal better than Ballerina Farm, the popular social media account of dancer and pageant queen Hannah Neeleman that is growing into an influential direct-to-consumer food and lifestyle brand that no longer sells raw milk. This week, Josh and June look at the h
BONUS - The Worst of All Possible Worlds: Beast Games StrongSmart feat. Kill The Computer
Beast Week continues as the gang from The Worst of All Possible Worlds join with June and Caleb to dig into season 2 of Beast Games. This is the first half of a full-length episode; to get the whole thing head over to Patreon.com/worstofall!
BONUS - Kill The Computer: The Smile Merchant feat. The Worst of All Possible Worlds
We're so back. The next Ill Conceived, about Ballerina Farm, has been recorded and will drop this coming Friday.
To tide you over until then, we've brought you some extra goodies. Our other shows, Josh's The Worst of All Possible Worlds and June's Kill The Computer, are doing a full crossover collaboration that we're calling Beast Week, dedicated to celebrating Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson. And it ki
Tucker Carlson: The End of Men: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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 try to clarify some of our thoughts last week on weight and health, then dig a bit more into some claims made by the Bro Scientists. Plus, June gets a bit loopy and we spend a solid 10+ minutes on ball tanning
Tucker Carlson: The End of Men
Testosterone is lowering. Sperm counts are shrinking. Men, a once proud and noble half of the human race, are accelerating down the road to extinction. So say many natalists, who tie their fear of demographic decline into their anxieties about gender. But how much of what they claim has any basis in truth whatsoever? This week, June and Josh take a look at Tucker Carlson's 2022 Fox Nation short "T
Jeffrey Epstein: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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 new CEO of Xbox is worried about birthrates and thinks AI might have the solution. We're talking about it, plus we read your letters from the Jeffrey Epstein episode regarding:
How "pregnant people" provide
Jeffrey Epstein
On January 30, the U.S. Department of Justice released over 3 million pages of new information about Jeffrey Epstein. Among these documents are thousands of new emails detailing Epstein's links to technologists and academics in the world of evolutionary biology, eugenics, and artificial intelligence. This week, Josh and June dig into the history of Epstein's connections with these people and discu
Surrogacy: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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 didn't get a lot of mail about surrogacy this week. But you wanted to hear more about weird Silicon Valley Christians and we wanted to talk about them, so we read from an interview with the founder of a Peter
Surrogacy
An increasingly popular childbirth option for couples who cannot easily naturally conceive is to utilize a surrogate who gestates and births the pregnancy on behalf of the intended parents. And as of late, surrogacy is also being used by some especially wealthy people, particularly in the tech industry, as a way for them to avoid pregnancy altogether. This week, June and Josh look at the history o
Peter Thiel: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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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Palantir employees are in their feels about their company's complicity with ICE and we're talking about it. We also issue a couple corrections about the Peter Thiel episode (28 is the number of days in a menstrua
Peter Thiel
Big data controls our lives like never before, and few people are more responsible than Peter Thiel, the billionaire cofounder of Palantir who made the bulk of his fortune by investing early in Facebook. But it turns out that beyond his obsession with data, Thiel is equally fixated on the end times, the rise of the Antichrist, and the recent trend of declining birth rates in the West. This week, J
Masturbation & Pornography: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is now going to allow young women to go on their mission starting at the age of 18 in the hopes of getting young Mormons married even younger. We're talking about i
Masturbation & Pornography
Moral panic about masturbation and pornography is nothing new, but in the wake of Donald Trump's re-election, numerous conservative groups—many of whom have deep ties to the natalist movement—have started to ring the alarm bell once again. This week, June and Josh take a look at the early history of fear of masturbation, then jump forward to the present day to see how the Kids Online Safety Act (K
I'll Be Mailbag For Christmas
Josh was really sick the past couple weeks so we haven't been able to get new episodes out. But we wanted to get you something before the end of the year, so we talked about sperm racing and read some more mail.
New episodes in the standard format will resume on a biweekly schedule starting Friday, January 2. Thank you for being our wonderful babies and we'll see you in the new year.
***REMINDER:
Eugenics, IQ, and The Bell Curve
Charles Murray & Richard Herrnstein's 1994 book The Bell Curve caused tremendous controversy on its publication by positing a link between intelligence and race. But this certainly wasn't the first time someone had made this argument, nor would it be the last. This week, Josh and June take a look at the foundation of the eugenics movement in North America, track its close relationship with the
Balaji Srinivasan: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other weekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived
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NYC Subway's Broadway-Lafayette station is now full of apparently eugenicist ads for an IVF and genetic testing company called Nucleus. We're talking about it, plus:
The parallels between Balaji Srinivasan's ideas
What is Childhood?
The White House will likely soon release a large set of documents about convicted pedophile and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein further detailing the depths of his crimes. Alongside this, a line of rhetoric seems to be developing in certain right-wing circles: although what Epstein did was morally abominable, not all of it was criminal, and it's certainly categorically different from preying on "
Matthew Yglesias: One Billion Americans: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
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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Dr. Oz expects a Trump baby boom in 2026. We're talking about it.
Plus, we read your mail from the Matt Yglesias episode, including:
Regional visas in Australia and how they compare to Matt Yglesias's city visa
Balaji Srinivasan & Network Natalism
Natalcon 2025 featured a number of high profile speakers whose speeches weren't recorded. One of these speakers was Balaji Srinivasan, a technologist who made his fortune in pre-pregnancy genetic testing and now preaches the gospel of cryptocurrency and decentralized "Network States" to anyone who will listen. This week, Josh and June discover what Balaji's whole deal is and end up deeply confused
Matthew Yglesias: One Billion Americans
In 2020, Vox cofounder Matt Yglesias published a book entitled One Billion Americans which ostensibly sought to lay out a liberal argument for dramatically increasing the population of the United States. This week, June and Josh read the book. Hoo boy, do we have thoughts about it.
***BIG NEWS: WE HAVE A PATREON NOW! We'll be recording bonus mailbag episodes that will release at the beginning of e
Natal Conference 2025
In March 2025, 200 natalists and their closest friends assembled in Austin, Texas for the second gathering of NatalCon, a convention intended to discover the core causes of declining birthrates and come up with solutions to address those problems. This week, Josh and June watched videos recorded from that convention to see what they were cooking. Turns out that it was mostly fascism.
***WE WANT YO
The Good, the Bad and the Mailbag
Next week we're recording our first in-person episode together and Josh is still prepping, so it's time for another mailbag episode. This week's topics include Elon Musk's super-sperm, Warhammer 40K, adoption as a tool of natalism, the pitfalls of accelerated home learning, and how we've discovered the flow and format of the podcast as we've gone along.
***COME SEE JOSH IN CHICAGO THIS MONDAY... J
Elon Musk
Elon Musk was once hailed as one of the brightest wealthy Americans who was standing up for progressive causes like climate change. Then he threw away that reputation as he rapidly shifted rightward and publicly embraced white nationalist conspiracy theories. This week, June and Josh explore Elon Musk’s under-discussed but high-priority views on birth rates, natalism, the Great Replacement theory,
Homeschooling
It's no secret that large families tend to homeschool their children. But why is this their approach of choice, and how does it work? This week, Josh and June take a look at the origin of homeschooling and discover how the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), an advocacy organization founded by homeschool parents, has effectively created a parallel education system in the United States wi
Moms for Liberty
The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown created an online ecosystem ripe for misinformation and radicalization. One of the new right wing movements that got its start during this time was the "Parents' Rights" movement, and the group that has pushed this the hardest is Moms For Liberty, who portray themselves as moms standing up for freedom. This week, June and Josh dig into Moms For Liberty to unravel
Oh No! More Mailbag
We dug into the mailbag again for thoughts on how natalists pass that shit on, fulfilling or shirking your family’s desires for your life, TeenPact, being a T4T tradwife, the natural gendered division of labor, the impact of benevolent sexism, daddy/daughter dances vs. father/son camping trips, and handing your daughter off to her husband. Our programming will resume as usual next week with an epi
Quiverfull
Quiverfull is an evangelical Christian philosophy that takes the Biblical command to "be fruitful and multiply" extremely literally by refusing to use any contraception, including natural family planning. It rarely sees coverage in the mainstream media, so this week, Josh and June look into the principles and practical lifestyle of Quiverfull and discover why it holds such a strong appeal to a cer
Tradwives
Within the last few years, women portraying themselves online with a “trad wife” aesthetic have skyrocketed in popularity. This new trend embraces long dresses, traditional gender roles, cooking homemade meals, and raising massive families. Josh and June take a look into what the Trad Wife life experience is all about, what’s so appealing about it to some women, and the aspects that make it more t
Purity Balls & Daddy-Daughter Dates
Purity is a load-bearing concept in the conservative Christian ideal of family and reproduction. From as young as five years old, Christian girls are told to guard their hearts and bodies against men with bad intentions. But what about a positive model of masculine pursuit? This week, Josh and June take a look at the men who believe the best way to teach their daughters about their worth is to tak
Oops! All Mailbag
Josh is still really tired from his trip to Europe so we talked about James Dobson for a bit and then read some listener mail. Our regular programming will resume Friday, and we thank you for all of your thoughtful feedback!
***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***
FURTHER READING:
"AI: The New Aesthetics
Project 2025 and the Future of Sex Education
The era of the Christian political agenda and conservative cultural hegemony took a backseat after Obama ushered in a time of progressive social optimism. For a moment, it felt like conservatives would never win again, especially on social issues.
But they did.
This week, June and Josh explore how the Obama administration rolled back abstinence-only sex education while advancing liberal social c
Abstinence-Only Sex Education
There's one guaranteed way to never get pregnant or contract a sexually transmitted infection: not having sex. In the 1990s, the United States government expanded efforts to fund programs that taught adolescents this fact. Unfortunately, that funding came with a few restrictions—most notably, the programs weren't allowed to promote or demonstrate any type of contraception whatsoever. This week, Ju
Lyman Stone, Marriage Defender
With natalism coming to the forefront of American politics in recent years, people who have long been writing about the declining birth rate have begun to take center stage in the larger political discourse. Many of these thinkers skew toward a conservative ideology. This week, Josh and June read through the writings of a modern conservative natalist writer, Lyman Stone, to get a better picture of
James Dobson & Focus on the Family
In the history of the evangelical Christian family movement, one figure stands tall above the rest: a children's psychologist from Louisiana named James Dobson. For three decades, Dobson built up his media empire, Focus on the Family, on the back of his plain-spoken traditionalist approach to child rearing. Then, as the broader cultural tide shifted in favor of normalizing homosexual relationships
Catholics, Evangelicals, and the In Vitro Fertilization Debate
When the first human baby was born through the use of a blossoming treatment called in vitro fertilization in the late 1970’s, society largely viewed this as a miracle of science that gave those struggling with fertility a chance to start a family. Catholic leadership, believing that taking procreation out of pregnancy went against God’s will, aligned themselves against the practice. Evangelicals,
How Evangelicals Came to Oppose Abortion
Opposition to legal abortion wasn't always a consensus matter across the Christian Right. In fact, as recently as the early 1970s, Protestants mostly considered it a "Catholic issue." But against a backdrop of paranoia about government overreach into religious affairs and fear of demographic decline, a Catholic named Paul Weyrich and an evangelical named Jerry Falwell joined hands to turn abortion
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Health & Human Sicko
Josh and June look into the past of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current Health and Human Services secretary, and how his history led to him getting involved with the MAGA movement. Once a liberal and advocate for environmental issues, Kennedy took a turn into anti-science and pseudo-health political movements later in life and gained notoriety within Trumpworld. Now that this conspiracy theorist ho
Promise Keepers: 700,000 Dicks Out for Jesus
Josh and June take a look at Promise Keepers, the organization that massed 700,000 men on the National Mall in Washington, DC for a 1997 rally that promised to bring spiritual renewal to its attendees and a new order to the social health of the country. While they didn't quite pull off the fundamental transformation they were hoping for, Promise Keepers left a significant impact on the evangelical
Ill Conceived launches on June 20. Here's what we're all about.
Ill Conceived is a new podcast about natalism—the ideology that sees declining birthrates as the most important issue in modern American politics—and how it's a skeleton key to understanding both the MAGA movement and reactionary conservatism more broadly. Hosted by Josh Boerman of The Worst of All Possible Worlds and June Sternbach of Western Kabuki, each week the show will take a look at the act
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