peter_hurford comments on Why I'm Skeptical About Unproven Causes (And You Should Be Too) - Less Wrong

31 Post author: peter_hurford 29 July 2013 09:09AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (102)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: peter_hurford 16 August 2013 06:47:27PM 0 points [-]

The demand-side interventions are obvious, but are not seriously considered or even discussed because of religious/political/cultural stigma.

What interventions would you consider?

Comment author: bokov 16 August 2013 07:10:13PM 1 point [-]

The final outcome involves people choosing to reproduce less, obviously. The means to get there in a way that's broadly acceptable is the tough problem. But perhaps not the same order of tough as AI.

  • Many religions are hostile to family planning and no mainstream ones I know of are actively in favor of it.

  • People who choose to have large numbers of children have the advantage of numbers (insofar that their large-family values get passed onto their children).

  • Civil libertarians are uncomfortable with population control because of it being a cover for racist policies in the recent past.

  • Economic libertarians are uncomfortable with population control because they have come to associate that goal with intrusive government policy and this prevents them from even considering free-market means to achieve that goal.

  • Many, maybe most people like to leave the option of having more-than-replacement levels of children for emotional reasons that were perhaps shaped by evolution.

It's a lot to overcome. Perhaps the first step is at least separating the actual issue from misguided solutions that have been attempted and make it less taboo of a topic for public debate. I don't know, though. It's easier to see the destination than how to get there.