= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
MattMahoney comments on The Irrationality Game - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (910)
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.
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.
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.