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DanielLC comments on Open Thread, July 1-15, 2013 - Less Wrong
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There are some concerns about overpopulation, but I'd say that developed countries are underpopulated. Minimum wage is significantly above subsistence wage, so people are generating more wealth than they must consume.
There is the problem of factory farming. The child is likely to eat meat, which funds factory farming. Since there is little if any concern for the animals, they are not treated well, and I find it unlikely that their lives are worth living.
You want the average wage, not the minimum wage. Germans are worthwhile people, even though their minimum wage is zero. Similarly, raising or lowering the minimum wage (holding employment and output fixed) should not affect our estimation of people's value-add.
What you want is the market wage for untrained labor. Taking the value of trained labor and subtracting the cost of the training should also work and get the same answer.
Minimum wage is legal thing, and doesn't show anything, unless the politicians are consistently setting it just below the market rate for untrained labor. I'm pretty sure they are, but I'd still say you are correct. I shouldn't have said "minimum wage".
The factory farming concern can probably be mitigated by instilling awareness of this situation, as well as effective interventions to the child.
He said that they would raise the child with no help from him. That doesn't seem like it would be easier to get the child to be a vegetarian than any random other person.
But if he knows the parents, he can know whether or not they are likely to raise their kid to be a vegetarian or not.