Prof. Edna O'Vary, Dr. V Villi-Vinki, E C R Nottabova, Dr Andy Shandy

Oddelek za Napredne Študije Vibrologija

Ljubljana Fakulteta Plenilske Lesbe

Background to the Study

We were curious about the inability of Slovenians to reproduce at a realistic rate.  

Slovenia's population is projected to fall by 13 people a day - and 12.1% by 2060.

We noticed Slovenia has an unusual educational/work system.  Middle class people mostly carry on being students into their thirties.

Most are delaying for as long as they possibly can the awful moment when they must put their talents to the test.  

Students are permitted to earn a pathetic wage tax-free, and employers can hire low wage students without the usual burdens of regular employees.  

So everyone loves students.  Or, as social engineers see them, predictably-behaved, easily-exploited obedient groups of captive consumers desperate for beer money.

We wondered if the low birth rate was simply due to social routine - you don't have children until you've finished school.  Or whether something else was inhibiting the usual drives found in people.

That would be strange.  Perhaps school itself is exerting a physiological effect.  Using common sense and a little biology we were able to formulate an explanation in time to leave the lab early and doss around drinking coffee.

Educational Extinction in Action: How It Works

To see how prolonged education reduces fertility we used a variation of the Reverse Cowgirl Method⁽¹⁾, working backwards from the result we had already got to the original data we ended up with.

So, finally, dysregulation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis increases emotionality and disrupts reproduction.

Penultimately, stress effects on reproduction result from multilevel interactions between the hormonal stress response system, i.e. the HPA, and the hormonal reproductive system, i.e. the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal (HPG) axis.

Looking further backwards, experimentally induced synthesis of Corticotrophic Releasing Factor (CRF) in the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) mimics the consequences of chronic stress exposure and causes dysregulation of the HPA axis. 

Before that, we knew CRF expression in the CeA is important in adaptation to chronic stress. 

And prior even to that, that "chronic stress" means a fear which is reinforced over time.  Teachers and parents are particularly effective sources.

What we feel as fear is a set of physiological responses mediated by CRF.

According to modern educational theory, you will be unsuccessful at competing as a potential employee with other allegedly educated people for an allegedly limited supply of allegedly higher-paid jobs if you do not go to school and pass allegedly difficult exams, and you should be afraid of this.

Allegedly.  And for years and years.

Human fears: hunger, lack of shelter, being poor, being a failure, being unattractive.

Teachers' fears: hunger, lack of shelter, being poor.

Societal and governmental fears: unrestrained population growth versus finite resources; teenage street gangs; families devoted to child-rearing instead of tax-raising activities during the next 4-5 years of the winning party's political administration.

So here we are, at the beginning.  The source of negative fertility rates in overgrown Slovenian schoolchildren has been identified as Poli Politicus, a parasitic organism of the class Taksus Laško (var. Kvikbuk Kikbak).

Conclusions and Recommendations

Slovenian schoolgirls up to the age of 37 are difficult to get into bed.  Gradually their vanity declines to realistic levels, but by then Slovenian schoolboys have student-lifestyled too much to be able to get it up.  

Education should be redesigned to include reality. 

Specimens of disappointed, overqualified, childless Slovenians aged 30-37 should be displayed in secondary schools while the teacher is locked in a cupboard.

Young people could then see what it looks like to think that you are a Professor of Car Park Management - or whatever is the next fashionable subject with a surplus of teachers available. 

Teasing of the graduates by the children should be encouraged so they can observe and learn early how the specimen behaves when it is sure it must, after all that work, be too good for a job handing out parking tickets.

(1) Ha, E and Spot, G: Facial Or Faithful.  Catholic Eye Contact Reduction and the Reverse Cowgirl Methodology.  Journal of Theoretical Bonking, Vol. 36, 7, 741-737.