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AspiringRationalist comments on Equality and natalism - Less Wrong Discussion
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It's because when you say "eugenics," most people hear "Nazism." The Nazis are the most mentally available example, and then the affect heuristic kicks in, causing people to despise the whole concept.
Sweden's social-democratic government pursued eugenics policies throughout much of the 20th Century, but that fact has fallen down the Memory Hole because it conflicts with progressives' propaganda in the U.S., based on a blank slate model of human nature, about Sweden as an advanced society and an example for Americans to emulate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Sweden
So I have to ask: Did Sweden turn out better than average because the government restricted the pool of people who could become the ancestors of the current population?
Obviously not. The number of people mentioned as affected in that article is tiny relative to the population, tens of thousands of people affected over a century in a country with a population of almost ten million today, and millions at the policies' peak. Fluctuations in immigration policy, nutrition, education, pollution, subsidized childcare, and gender equality would collectively dwarf any effect of those policies on Sweden's population composition.
What small effect = no effect? I'm pretty sure that on average their welfare state would have been burdened by those children. Cost wise it was probably a win even with the later paied reparations. Are you willing to take a small effect = no effect position in general for say welfare state policies?
Read advancedatheist's comment. It wasn't about benefits exceeding costs, or the fact that successful Sweden adopted a policy providing Bayesian evidence for the quality of the policy. It explicitly offered the hypothesis that Sweden turned out better than average because of the policy, i.e. that it was a but-for cause rather than a tiny irrelevant effect in that direction.
There is no straw-man here, the difference is important. Policies with small maximum benefits are not individually worth huge political efforts or fixed costs. Policies with large benefits can be.