Alicorn comments on The Irrationality Game - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Will_Newsome 03 October 2010 02:43AM

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Comment author: Alicorn 05 October 2010 01:15:56PM 5 points [-]

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?

Comment author: blogospheroid 06 October 2010 10:39:24AM *  0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: wedrifid 06 October 2010 11:26:43AM *  1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: blogospheroid 06 October 2010 04:26:05PM 0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: wedrifid 06 October 2010 04:28:06PM 0 points [-]

In all fairness, that rule does lie on the draconian end of things.

Absolutely, I appreciate the whole 'scale of sanction' thing and with :s/father/mother/ it would fit just fine.

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