More than One Way to Live a Principled Life

250 Years and I'm Just Getting Started

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a group of imperfect people signed a document that changed everything. They didn't agree on everything. They signed it anyway. Today I have some news that fits the moment.

The Fertility Crisis Is Already Here | Lyman Stone on Fertility, Forecasting, and the Future America Isn't Ready For

Lyman Stone is a demographer and senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. He is also the founder of Demographic Intelligence, which produces fertility and population forecasting models for organizations that need to plan beyondwhat government reports are willing to model.   His headline finding: the Social Security trustees are not modeling the worst-case. Their baseline assumes the US returns to near-replacement fertility in the 2040s. Their worst-case holds flat at 1.6 children per woman. Lyman believesfertility could go lower. He has tried to notify them. They haven't changed the model.   In this conversation Lyman and Dee Dee talk about the low fertility trap — what it looks like when a society loses its muscle memory for having children, and how hard it is to climb back out. About what the iPhone did to socialization, and why marriage and fertility are just two items on a long list of social activities that are declining. About the girl boss myth — why women's labor force participation is not the primary driver of low fertility. About what actually shapes whether a young person wants children: not policy, not economics, but the rating they give their friends.   They also talk about the crowbar model of pronatal policy, why he wants to pay Taylor Swift a billion dollars to make a lullaby album, and what four moms in his basement sounded like while they were recording. Lyman Stone on X @lymanstoneky Lyman Stone on Substack lymanstonky.substack.com Institute for Family Studies ifstudies.org Demographic Intelligence https://www.demographicintel.com/ IFS Survey: Supportive Friends and Fertility Intentions ifstudies.org IFS Report: What Makes Parents Feel Supported? https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-makes-parents-feel-supported-money-not-babysitting IFS Report: Open Floor Plans and Family-Friendly Housing https://www.city-journal.org/article/family-homes-real-estate-bedrooms-apartments Lyman's appearance on Christopher Rufo's podcast https://christopherrufo.com/p/whats-fueling-americas-fertility   Topics:Demography  |  US Fertility Crisis  |  Social SecurityProjections  |  Pronatal Policy  |  Low FertilityTrap  |  Institute for Family Studies  |  Marriage andFamily  |  Religious Community  |  Housing Design |  Gen X Women  |  Principled Living   More Than One Way to Live a Principled Life  |  Fort Collins, CO

AI Has Principles. Do You? | Anthony Franco on Frameworks, Failure, and Building AI That Works

Anthony Franco has started eight companies and sold six of them. One sale — a user experience agency calledEffective — went to WPP, the largest advertising conglomerate in the world. He also helped develop Airstrip, one of the first iPhone apps, which Steve Jobs introduced at an Apple developer keynote.  He is now the founder of First Strategies AI and the author of The Wiser Method Master Playbook — a design thinking framework for organizations that want to move AI from pilot project to actual operation. He focuses on companies with 50 to 500 employees. He says enterprise is where good ideas go to die slowly. In this conversation Anthony and Dee Dee talk about the twelve principles of AI that every organization needs before it touches a model. About what it actually means to use AI as a thoughtpartner. About why AI gives you a C+ on the first pass and what you have to do to get to an A. About why English majors are currently outperforming engineers at prompting, and what that says about the moment we are in.   He also talks about the time he used ChatGPT to resolve an argument with his wife — and realized, an hour in, that he was wrong.   Topics: AI Frameworks  |  The Wiser Method  |  12 Principles of Operational AI  | Entrepreneurship  |  CoBuilder |  UX Design  |  AI Adoption  | Principled Leadership | AI operationalization principles | The Wiser Method framework | AI in political campaigns and organizations AI in customerservice and ethics | Resource consumption and environmental impact of AI | Principles for responsible AI use | AI in political campaigns and marketing | Practical steps for AI adoption in business Resources * The Wiser Method Book -https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXYZ1234 * AI First Principles GitHub Repository -https://github.com/AI-First-Principles * Anthony Franco's LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyfranco * First Strategies AI Website -https://firststrategiesai.com * Wiser: The Wiser Method Master Playbook -https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0XXXXXX * FirstStrategy.ai - https://firststrategy.ai * Cursor Tool for Knowledge Management -https://cursor.com    Guest links LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyfranco LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/anthonyfranco

Why Your Marriage Has to Die First | Virgil Walker on Faithful Husbands, Fatherlessness, and the Quiet Cost of Leading Well

Virgil Walker spent a decade inpharmaceutical sales on track to become a vice president. He noticed that mostof the men ahead of him had been through at least one divorce. Something got sacrificed along the way. It was not always an affair. More often, it was the job. He made a different choice. Virgil is now a pastor and theologian at Redeemer Bible Church in Phoenix, co-host of Fearless with JasonWhitlock on Blaze Media, and host of the Just Thinking podcast. He has been married to Tamika for thirty years. He will tell you it nearly did not happen that way. In this conversation Virgil and Dee Dee talk about what it costs to lead a family well, why fatherlessness isthe crisis no one is being honest about, what the word submission actually meant before the culture got hold of it, and what happens when a woman finally reaches the end of her rope. Virgil also talks about the man in Augusta who waited in line at a men's conference until the room was empty,just to ask: I am doing everything right and nothing is working. What do I do now? And he answers. Topics: Marriage and Covenant  |  Faithful Leadership  | Fatherlessness and the Church  |  Submission in Ephesians 5  |  Holy Ambition  |  Generational Legacy  | Pharma to Pastoring More Than One Way to Live aPrincipled Life  |  Fort Collins, CO

Broken but Brave: More Than One Way to Save a Life. Cree Knighton on Foster Care, Sacrifice, Recovery, and the Love That Waited Thirty Years

Thirty-three years ago, Dee Dee Vicino was assigned as a guardian ad litem to a thirteen-year-old girl in the Florida foster system. Necrecha Knighton, known to everyone who loves her as Cree, was the first child Dee Dee ever represented. They lost touch for three decades. In 2022, Cree found her again. This is the most personal episode of More Than One Way to date, and Dee Dee is part of the story. Cree talks about growing up in foster care, the wrenching choice she made at seventeen to give her infant son a safe home, the generational addiction she has fought and is now in recovery from, forgiving her mother, raising six children, and reuniting with Tim, the boy she fell for at thirteen, after thirty years apart. A note for listeners: this conversation includes honest discussion of addiction, recovery, and a moment of suicidal crisis. If you are struggling, you can call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.