Taiwan's fertility rate just hit 0.695. That's the lowest of any country on Earth, passing even South Korea. Only 107,812 babies were born in all of Taiwan last year, the fewest since the government started counting. In 1961, the government launched one of the most aggressive family fertility campaigns of the twentieth century. The slogan was: two children is just right, boys and girls equally good. It ran through pamphlets, radio dramas, posters, and elementary school textbooks. And it worked. Fertility dropped from 5.59 births per woman in 1961 to 2.46 by 1981. Population Action International ranked Taiwan first in family planning among 95 developing countries three separate times. The campaign didn't just change a number. It installed a worldview: that being modern and responsible meant treating reproduction as a calculation. Two generations absorbed that logic. But now the calculation runs against conditions nobody planned for. Taipei's price-to-income ratio hit 15.79. There are over 54,000 cram schools in the country. The cost of raising one optimized child is so high that most couples conclude they can't afford to be parents at all. The state that installed the worldview is now panicking about the worldview. The citizens are still following it. Taiwan succeeded so completely that nobody can find the right new slogan to install over it. - @samuelszuchan