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jsalvatier comments on Review: Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids - Less Wrong
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Comments (257)
As phrased above, your position seems like a reasonable starting point for a discussion, and I probably would not have made my comment if you had first commented with something closer to that.
I was trying to comment on the way you presented the argument before rather than argue that your object level point is mistaken, since I don't have strong views here. It's not a serious issue, just something I thought you might like to be aware of. The more I think about this, the less 'justifiable' it seems to bring this up.
You used several adjectives with a normative tinge "enormous debt", "edge of solvency" and colorful imagery "precariously holding onto a rope above a pond full of crocodiles", which sound like they're designed to get the reaction "Oy My God! What has America (or pick your favorite country) come to?!", rather than the reaction "buying a house in an expensive area sounds risky".
Does that make things clearer?
On the object level topic, your argument seems very focused on debt, do you think renting a house in a similar area substantially lessens the burden?
I have no problem with your comment, and I'm glad to explain the reason why I made my original comment that way. The reason why I used such emotional imagery is that I wanted to depict the way people feel about their situation, which is the relevant thing in this context, even if the way they feel is unrealistic and biased. (Since the way they feel, and not some ideally objective evaluation of the situation, will ultimately determine their decisions about having kids.)
(By the way, do you really think that "enormous debt" and "edge of solvency" are not perfectly realistic descriptions of how many, if not most people in their child-bearing years live these days?)
I'm probably over-focusing on debt, since I myself consider any serious indebtedness with horror. I would guess that debt by itself is probably a much lesser source of worry to most people.
Now, when it comes to the issue of renting vs. buying, this is one of those things where people, including otherwise smart and successful people, tend to have opinions that seem seriously crazy to me. As far as I can tell, among the North American middle classes, it seems to be near-universal belief that a basic prerequisite for serious family life is owning a house, so the idea of renting is a non-starter. There is also the near-universal belief that renting is somehow a raw deal compared to buying, so that renting sends a strong signal that you're either stupid or, more likely, can't be approved for credit because of some shameful history you're hiding (and all the bad qualities it likely implies).
All this despite the fact that basic economics strongly suggests that renting should be a better deal for nearly everyone. (Unless perhaps the relevant markets are distorted to an enormous degree by subsidies, regulations, and perhaps also status signaling games, but in reality I see only the latter in sufficiently strong form.)
However, this gets us to the more general issue of various other expensive status games that one is supposed to play in order to be accepted among one's social group nowadays. This is a difficult and complicated topic, but on the whole, it seems to me that for a variety of reasons, these signaling requirements tend to expand as one's career and income advance, so in the end, it's difficult to avoid the situation where one is constantly walking on the edge financially. Needless to say, all this certainly isn't conductive to having kids.
So it seems we all agree that your crocodile-pit description does not necessarily reflect reality.
Except for certain child-bearing zoo employees.
It depends on the concrete place and people we're talking about. There are ways to escape falling into the underclass even with very little money, but that requires luck and talent that many (and I'd even say most) people don't have.
Well, in 15 years I'll let you know whether my decision to live and reproduce in a city that has poor people has turned my kids into underclass wrecks.
It would be mere anecdotal evidence. I kind of feel you are trying to tell or signal something other than offering to eventually share with us the results of a long term experiment.
...you're right, I'm not making housing and childrearing decisions with the main goal of providing a useful data point to LW 15 years in the future. And I am trying to signal that I think poor people are not a crocodile pit. Enough so that I am choosing to share a neighborhood with them.
I don't think he was painting it as a crocodile pit, I read him as pointing out that negative effects on life outcomes are to be expected on average. It seems a highly probable hypothesis.
How do you interpret "it means being thrown, together with your kids, right into the dreaded underclass in which all sorts of frightful social pathologies are rampant. It's like precariously holding onto a rope above a pond full of crocodiles" ?
I think you are being unfair when you imply that I identify poor people (i.e. those who are merely not affluent) with the underclass (i.e. those social groups that display high levels of dysfunction). In a place where poor people are generally non-dysfunctional, so that a drastic fall in economic status means only that one will have to live frugally among others doing the same, clearly none of what I wrote applies. However, in a place with a large dysfunctional underclass, a similar fall in economic status is a much more dreadful prospect for someone who is used to the norms and customs of the middle class.
Now, I probably should have omitted the "above a pond full of crocodiles" part in the above quote. It came out when I was looking for a vivid metaphor for the situation of people who struggle to keep themselves above a certain level of economic status below which bad things will happen, with the crocodiles symbolizing a general feeling of fear and danger, rather than being a straightforward metaphor for underclass people. Now I realize that the way I wrote it, the latter reading is natural, but it wasn't my intention. (It also suggests incorrectly that the main problem with falling into the underclass is the physical danger of crime.)
To be fair, maybe this was part sarcasm towards the middle classes' secretly hypocritical and overly fearful social attitude, as Vladimir sees it.
As Julia said, people are offended by the suggestion to treat their own class position with extreme cynicism, and to believe that there's, like, a separate species of people in their country - their compatriots, mostly, not just illegal immigrants - who are dangerous animals to be avoided at all costs. While certainly such a position could increase personal safety, I'm adamantly against it.
For fuck's sake, I grew up in Russia in the 90s - a time of danger, opportunity and rampant inequality/unfairness - and no-one back then had a "bubble" (well, except for the top 0,1% maybe), so I mixed with kids from rough neighbourhoods and not-so-good families, was even friends with one (after we fought for years and then grew up a bit). Our school was an ordinary one, but well-run, with good and savvy teachers, so there was no violence outside of the usual scuffles and playing at gangs; I think that every one of us would be offended were our parents to try and "bubble" us away from the "underclass".
Juliawise said she does not believe that she is throwing her kids into a pit of crocodiles. You seem to be saying that she has an obligation to throw her kids into a pit of crocodiles.
I'm saying that she has an obligation, whatever she does, not to think about her society as a pit of crocodiles (except hypothetically, for abstract arguments, etc - never in semi-conscious daily thinking, as a matter of "attitude"), because that'll only increase the class divide and its problems. Society is affected by its members' perception of it, and if everyone just wanted to maximize safety for themselves and their families... why, that society would be utterly helpless! What's the difference between civic responsibility in the face of war or natural disasters and civic responsibility in the face of social division and alienation?
If the middle class just evacuates from everywhere where they have any contact with the "underclasses", so that the latter are left in utter and visible isolation, like the "Untouchable" castes in India... do you think that spells any hope of survival for the American nation, its culture, its spirit?
This sounds much like a tragedy of the commons. Remind me again what the rational response is if one has little hope of organizing measures to overcome it.
Where is the evidence that living with the underclass benefits the underclass more than it hurts the middle class? In case you haven't notice the underclass has due to social changes nearly fully assimilated the wrecked working class that existed in the United States at one point and its cultural norms and dysfunction are spreading and becoming worse. I believe the non-blue collar middle class is next and nearly all social indicators seem to be moving in that direction.
For a brief overview of just how far the cultural class divides have grown I suggest reading Charles Murray's "Coming Apart". Why group such different cultures under the marker "American culture" in a sense beyond geographical designation?
If my society is a pit of crocodiles, I want to believe my society is a pit of crocodiles! I'm sure German Jews in the 1930s, or Cambodians intellectuals (or short-sighted people) in the 1970s would agree with me.
Nowadays the standard way of solving coordination/tragedy-of-the-commons problems is through the government; for example Singapore has quality public housings that house 85% of the population and have ethnic quotas to prevent self-segregation.
Singaporeans and Americans probably both want to maximize safety for themselves and their families, but the incentives in Singapore mean that sticking to "people like you" is not as attractive a strategy as it is in the US.
A lot of your posts leave me with the impression that you think the right wing has all the facts on its side, but it only means you need to oppose them that much more heroically. This is a terribly perverse point of view, all the moreso because there are some facts that support left wing opinions too.
For instance, you'll note that Vladimir_M is perfectly open about the scarcity of scientific literature supporting his gut feeling about peer effects. A parent came along to say she wasn't worried about peer effects for her own children, not that it was her moral duty to throw their safety to the wind.
How about an obligation to get good evidence about local groups, rather than listening to people who make a habit of scaring each other?
Your comment has some similar features to what I commented earlier in this discussion (http://lesswrong.com/lw/col/review_selfish_reasons_to_have_more_kids/6onl?context=1#6onl). We both grew up in late communist era. Non-elitarianism was both an official moral value, and it also was enforced by mixing up people geographically. The good neighbourhoods and bad neighborhoods were not so strongly different from each other as they are now. I started wondering for a while, if my attitude is caused by the regime I grew in... Maybe in some countries or areas there is almost nothing in the middle between good and bad neighborhoods. But people describing schools in Cambridge, where profesors' kids mix up with the low class kids seem to have the similar experience as I have.
To summarize my opinion: Creating the bubble is usually unnecessary and deforms the mental image of the world for the child. The child chooses his peers as long as there is some variety available. If the child instinctively wants to go out with little criminals and do wrong things together, it is time to sit together at the table and discuss it in the family. One day the child will grow up and will have to choose his peers on his own, as well as make his own moral decisions. Of course, if reasoning would not work, I would probably proceed to creating a bubble eventually, as a last and desperate measure. But in most cases this stage will never happen, and I would not ruin myself financially to do the bubble thing as the first step.
Nice thoughts, thanks.
The important thing is the neighborhood not the city. I think it also depends on the type of poor people.
Cambridge, MA. Lots of lefty professorial and computer types, also lots of Haitian and Cape Verdean immigrants in housing projects.
In different neighborhoods. Specifically, would your children be playing with the children in the projects?
Probably. They'll certainly be going to school with them. We haven't bought a house yet, but all the areas we're considering have projects nearby.
I'm willing to assign significant probability that when you actually have kids and see them experience first hand the actual quality of the school, you'll arrange for them to go to a charter and/or private school (or possibly even home-school).
At least in the US, there is a big subsidy for homeowning in that you can deduct the interest on you mortgage (I think this only applies to your first home ).
I wasn't aware that the tax breaks on mortgage interest were so straightforward in the U.S. Here in Canada nothing similar exists.
There seems to be an interesting natural experiment here -- in Canada, even though there is no such deduction, people's attitudes and behavior with regards to renting vs. buying are still more or less the same as in the U.S. (In fact, the recent crash has probably left Americans less eager to buy on average.) So while the tax break changes the math in favor of buying significantly for people in high tax brackets, it looks like this isn't the crucial factor motivating people to buy in practice.