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Konkvistador comments on Equality and natalism - Less Wrong Discussion

10 [deleted] 24 October 2012 03:53PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 25 October 2012 12:29:15PM *  -1 points [-]

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?

Comment author: CarlShulman 25 October 2012 05:43:14PM *  3 points [-]

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.