Lionel Shriver

Why are you, what happened?

She said, basically, he stalled because I can.

Because I can.

as you were saying, it's been enabled.

His mother's not going to kick him out of the house.

He has a little inheritance from his grandfather.

And there's a way in which that is, the book is full of metaphors, but even that little inheritance from his grandfather is metaphorical.

Like, the

Too many young people are spending their inheritance and not contributing to what they would pass on.

Even this refusal to have children is a spending of your inheritance without amassing another fortune to pass on, a genetic fortune, a social fortune, an economic fortune even.

There is a widespread... I know these are generalizations.

I don't want to trash young people.

Everyone's not like this.

But there is a proportion of young people who...

who are doing what Nico is doing writ large, not embracing a future.

And there's the whole way of thinking behind that, very convenient.

I mean, I think this whole thing of climate change is a big fat excuse, right?

Oh, there is no future.

We're all gonna die.

Well, yeah.