There will be a net positive to society by measures of overall health, wealth and quality of life if the government capped reproduction at a sustainable level and distributed tradeable reproductive credits for that amount to all fertile young women. (~85% confident)
How I evaluate this statement depends very heavily on how the policy is enforced, so I’m presently abstaining; can you elaborate on how people would be prohibited from reproducing without the auspices of one of these credits?
I do not expect that the human population has gone so much in overshoot that the sustainable level has gone below 1 child per woman, so the couple will have one child atleast, from the original credit allocation.
Almost any government order has the threat of force behind it. This is no different.
How would it be enforced would depend on the sustainability research and the gap it finds out between the present birth rate and the sustainable level.
Depending on the gap, policy can vary from mild to draconian.
Public appeal on the internet seeking anyone else willing to trade in their credits
Giving incentives for sterilisation
Ceasing of subsidy of school
Ceasing of welfare benefits
Allowing a born child time until the age of 40 to accumulate enough money to pay for their credit.
Fines equivalent to the extra load on the sustainability infrastructure
Ostracisation of couple
Sending away to a reservation where the couple have their share of the sustainable resources and can decide what to do with it.
Denial of legal recourse (making someone an outlaw, but not initiating any force against them)
Imprisonment in a work camp
Forcible sterilization of the offending adults
Forcible sterilization of the children born
Torture of parent
Forced Abortion
Fathers to be killed in exchange for the child to be born
I think we are presently at the level of time allowance and fines and that is the level where I would say my statement about the improved lot of people came from.
Fathers to be killed in exchange for the child to be born
Fathers? Crazy talk. It’s the mother that has the ability to abort the child to prevent transgressing upon the law. Killing the father seems not just innapropriate but also extremely impractical. It means the father should kill any mother who doesn’t abort the pregnancy at his request in order to save his own life. Not a desirable payoff structure.
An even worse implication of that means of enforcement—practical, legally sanctioned assassination.
Paternity is far more difficult to trace than maternity. It is possible the father is not even aware that a child of his is gestating.
Consider either woman with a grudge against a male enemy or a male willing to pay a willing baby-popping pseudo-assassin.
Said woman simply needs to acquire sperm from the male. This is a relatively simple task in many instances. Options include:
Seduce intended victim yourself. Use faulty condoms and or lie about your own birth control status.
Seduce intended victim yourself, intentionally take semen from the used condom or neglect certain practical guidelines of use.
Pay someone to seduce the intended victim and acquire a sample for you.
Invade the victim’s privacy with stealth and acquire semen produce during the victim’s private sex life or even lack thereof. (Presumably just poisoning the guy while doing this would be too suspicious?...)
Identify a willing or clueless cuckold that can think they are the parent until too late for it to matter.
Sell your reproductive credit at the last minute.
If you create a system of rules they will be gamed. That rule is far too easy to game.
In all fairness, that rule does lie on the draconian end of things. I was thinking more on the mild end, because my confidence level is more appropriate at that level of punishment.
You can probably scratch out the last one or replace it with mothers.
I was just ‘following the money’ to work out how market forces would likely play out with respect to mating credits. It looks at first glance like we would end up with surprisingly similar reproductive payoffs to those in the EEA. Guys, have as many children as you can afford or cuckold off on other people. Girls, seek out guys with abundant resources who can buy reproductive credits but if possible get someone with better genes to do the actual impregnation.
I’m thinking that matter-of-course paternity testing would be a useful addition to blogospheroid’s proposal.
Historically, global population increase has correlated pretty well with increases in measures of overall health, wealth and quality of life. What empirical evidence do you derive your theory that zero or negative population growth would be better for these measures from?
The peak oil literature and global climate change is something that has made me seriously reconsider the classic liberal viewpoint towards population control.
Also, The reflective consistency of the population control logic. Cultures that restrict their reproduction for altruistic reasons will die out, leaving the earth for selfish replicators who will , if left uncontrolled, take every person’s living standards back to square one. Population control will be on the agenda of even a moral singleton.
I live in India and have seen China overtake India bigtime because of a lot of institutional improvement, but also because of the simple fact that they controlled their population. People talk about India’s demographic dividend but we are not even able to educate and provide basic hygiene and health to our children to take advantage of this dividend.
I’ve seen the demographic transition in action everywhere in the world and it seems like a good thing to happen to societies.
Setting up an incentive system that rewards altruistic control of reproduction, careful creation of children and sustainability seems to be an overall plus to me.
My only concern is if this starts a level-2 status game where more children become a status good and political pressure increases the quotas beyond sustainability.
Downvote on condition you meant a global cap on reproduction, since that seems like a huge no-brainer to me that population pressures are seriously bad and the demographic transition is good for the nations which undergo it.
If you only meant the US or something… I’d need to think about it more.
There will be a net positive to society by measures of overall health, wealth and quality of life if the government capped reproduction at a sustainable level and distributed tradeable reproductive credits for that amount to all fertile young women. (~85% confident)
How I evaluate this statement depends very heavily on how the policy is enforced, so I’m presently abstaining; can you elaborate on how people would be prohibited from reproducing without the auspices of one of these credits?
I do not expect that the human population has gone so much in overshoot that the sustainable level has gone below 1 child per woman, so the couple will have one child atleast, from the original credit allocation.
Almost any government order has the threat of force behind it. This is no different.
How would it be enforced would depend on the sustainability research and the gap it finds out between the present birth rate and the sustainable level.
Depending on the gap, policy can vary from mild to draconian.
Public appeal on the internet seeking anyone else willing to trade in their credits
Giving incentives for sterilisation
Ceasing of subsidy of school
Ceasing of welfare benefits
Allowing a born child time until the age of 40 to accumulate enough money to pay for their credit.
Fines equivalent to the extra load on the sustainability infrastructure
Ostracisation of couple
Sending away to a reservation where the couple have their share of the sustainable resources and can decide what to do with it.
Denial of legal recourse (making someone an outlaw, but not initiating any force against them)
Imprisonment in a work camp
Forcible sterilization of the offending adults
Forcible sterilization of the children born
Torture of parent
Forced Abortion
Fathers to be killed in exchange for the child to be born
I think we are presently at the level of time allowance and fines and that is the level where I would say my statement about the improved lot of people came from.
Fathers? Crazy talk. It’s the mother that has the ability to abort the child to prevent transgressing upon the law. Killing the father seems not just innapropriate but also extremely impractical. It means the father should kill any mother who doesn’t abort the pregnancy at his request in order to save his own life. Not a desirable payoff structure.
An even worse implication of that means of enforcement—practical, legally sanctioned assassination.
Paternity is far more difficult to trace than maternity. It is possible the father is not even aware that a child of his is gestating.
Consider either woman with a grudge against a male enemy or a male willing to pay a willing baby-popping pseudo-assassin.
Said woman simply needs to acquire sperm from the male. This is a relatively simple task in many instances. Options include:
Seduce intended victim yourself. Use faulty condoms and or lie about your own birth control status.
Seduce intended victim yourself, intentionally take semen from the used condom or neglect certain practical guidelines of use.
Pay someone to seduce the intended victim and acquire a sample for you.
Invade the victim’s privacy with stealth and acquire semen produce during the victim’s private sex life or even lack thereof. (Presumably just poisoning the guy while doing this would be too suspicious?...)
Identify a willing or clueless cuckold that can think they are the parent until too late for it to matter.
Sell your reproductive credit at the last minute.
If you create a system of rules they will be gamed. That rule is far too easy to game.
In all fairness, that rule does lie on the draconian end of things. I was thinking more on the mild end, because my confidence level is more appropriate at that level of punishment.
You can probably scratch out the last one or replace it with mothers.
Absolutely, I appreciate the whole ‘scale of sanction’ thing and with :s/father/mother/ it would fit just fine.
The implications of that on mating payoffs are fascinating.
Explain! Rot13 if necessary.
I was just ‘following the money’ to work out how market forces would likely play out with respect to mating credits. It looks at first glance like we would end up with surprisingly similar reproductive payoffs to those in the EEA. Guys, have as many children as you can afford or cuckold off on other people. Girls, seek out guys with abundant resources who can buy reproductive credits but if possible get someone with better genes to do the actual impregnation.
I’m thinking that matter-of-course paternity testing would be a useful addition to blogospheroid’s proposal.
Historically, global population increase has correlated pretty well with increases in measures of overall health, wealth and quality of life. What empirical evidence do you derive your theory that zero or negative population growth would be better for these measures from?
The peak oil literature and global climate change is something that has made me seriously reconsider the classic liberal viewpoint towards population control.
Also, The reflective consistency of the population control logic. Cultures that restrict their reproduction for altruistic reasons will die out, leaving the earth for selfish replicators who will , if left uncontrolled, take every person’s living standards back to square one. Population control will be on the agenda of even a moral singleton.
I live in India and have seen China overtake India bigtime because of a lot of institutional improvement, but also because of the simple fact that they controlled their population. People talk about India’s demographic dividend but we are not even able to educate and provide basic hygiene and health to our children to take advantage of this dividend. I’ve seen the demographic transition in action everywhere in the world and it seems like a good thing to happen to societies.
Setting up an incentive system that rewards altruistic control of reproduction, careful creation of children and sustainability seems to be an overall plus to me.
My only concern is if this starts a level-2 status game where more children become a status good and political pressure increases the quotas beyond sustainability.
It’s a good idea but upvote because evolution will thwart your plans.
Downvote on condition you meant a global cap on reproduction, since that seems like a huge no-brainer to me that population pressures are seriously bad and the demographic transition is good for the nations which undergo it.
If you only meant the US or something… I’d need to think about it more.