athingtoconsider comments on Review: Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids - LessWrong

17 Post author: jsalvatier 29 May 2012 06:00PM

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Comment author: athingtoconsider 11 June 2012 06:31:13AM *  0 points [-]

any abdication on your part will be picked up by developing countries

Having trouble parsing, could you explain what that means, perhaps by example?

Comment author: gwern 11 June 2012 03:20:26PM 4 points [-]

The demand for offspring is sufficiently inelastic that a Westerner refusing to have offspring is replaced by a developing country kid (or multiple kids, inasmuch as a Westerner kid consumes so many resources).

Comment author: athingtoconsider 12 June 2012 12:13:27AM *  0 points [-]

I'm having difficulty mapping that line of reasoning for some reason.

How, in practice, might a Westerner couple not having a kid exert influence on a non-Western couple having a kid? By what mechanisms are non-Western births influenced by Western births?

Comment author: gwern 12 June 2012 12:14:46AM 3 points [-]

Prices are the obvious mechanism that comes to mind - prices of things like food or top American universities.

Comment author: athingtoconsider 12 June 2012 05:27:54PM *  0 points [-]

Wouldn't lower prices for top American universities, e.g., lower the number of children born? I am under the impression that poverty is conducive to birthing more children.