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Personally, I think we should reject this “freedom” to have more children or to have children at all. Of course, the individual should make the choice to not ha

by mcny 8y ago

Personally, I think we should reject this “freedom” to have more children or to have children at all. Of course, the individual should make the choice to not have children but the fact that community doesn’t want to pay people to have and raise children makes me think all children are unwanted children. People laugh at the idea of it takes a village to raise a child. I thought the idea was so painfully obvious that it doesn’t need to be said. Clearly not. I say this to everyone: in order to effect change, we must strike. Don’t have children. Speaking of obvious things: my child is no more precious than anyone else’s child. I think the compromise will be some kind of a one child policy here as well. I think this is more humane alternative to what we have now. My proposed new one child policy is to incentivize people to have a child or to adopt one child with additional taxpayer money. The compromise is to limit it only to the first child. You’re on your own if you want more. I think it is worth considering.

derefr 8y ago
> the fact that community doesn’t want to pay people to have and raise children makes me think all children are unwanted children In a globalized world with the ability to move for work, children might still be an economic net-positive for the parents (once you account for how much they’d be willing to pay to replicate their genes into the next generation) but they’re probably a net-negative for the community they’re raised in. What benefits does introducing a new human being, as a baby, into a community provide said community, these days?
- ericd 8y ago
  It provides the continuation of that community and its values.
  - derefr 8y ago
    No, that’s what you get when a young, productive adult joins a community and enculturates to it. It’s why universities are happy to “adopt” new human beings into their communities: they can charge you for your net-negative production years at the university (undergrad), turning them into net-zero years; and then they will begin getting net-positive returns from you (either through TAing during graduate studies; or researching for your Ph.D and then having your IP confiscated and profited off of; or just going into industry and then making large alumni donations.) Your community will only get net-negative returns when a human is raised through their teenage years in your community, and then leaves, gets enculturated by some other community, and never comes back. This usually breeds resentment—think lower-class urban youth who go on to university and enculturate to the upper-middle-class culture there. If they come back to visit their old family and friends, they will see them as “acting as if they’re too good for us.” The resentment is usually for a good reason: once you’ve enculturated away from your home culture, you don’t tend to care much about it any more! So, unlike people who retain their home culture in another community, you won’t do things like sending money home to family, or coming back to help build or lead the community, once you have acquired the resources to do so.
    - AstralStorm 8y ago
      Please do not invent new meanings for words like enculturate. The right word is assimilate. Enculturation is an active process as opposed to a passive one which is not what actually happens. The migration is mostly for economic reasons, and those are because businesses prefer centralized scale at all levels, including education.
      - derefr 8y ago
        Sorry, I learned the term from this essay (https://siderea.livejournal.com/1159765.html https://siderea.livejournal.com/1159765.html) and assumed it was a correct usage. To be clear, though, while moving to a new society will cause quite gradual, passive assimilation, I wasn’t really talking about that case. In such cases, you still tend to think of your old community as “your community”, and might e.g. seek out an association of expats from your old society to hang out with, since you still share their mores. But moving to a university, or joining the military, or joining a cult, or going to prison, or marrying into money—these are communities, not societies. They actively “digest” you. In all these cases, you are given new connections who serve as both direct role-models for, and judges of, your current degree of assimilation; and, further, you are usually striving to assimilate as quickly as possible (whether you’re there voluntarily or not) because your lack of cultural awareness is one of the things keeping you back from having status and power in your new community. Would you not call what any/all of these entities do—one of the major roles they perform for their members—enculturation? If not, then it seems that I have misunderstood the term. (Tangent/side note: I didn’t make the connection of prison-as-community-that-assimilates until I was writing this. Isn’t the whole goal of reducing recidivism better expressed as “reducing the potential for prison to serve as an enculturating/assimilating force upon prisoners”?)
- baybal2 8y ago
  I'm greatly disturbed by the logic expressed through this thread
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    One of the malign changes that neoliberalism/libertarianism has wrought is societal attitudes to children. Prior societies understood that children are fundamental to society. If the children die, the community dies with it. Modern business thoery and economics see children as extraneous. That's cultural poison and it's everywhere now.
  - posting2fast 8y ago
    Agreed. I don't know exactly between what poles this valley is, but I know this is the uncanny area of it.
adrianN 8y ago
There used to be (or still are?) programs that paid addicts if they choose some form of permanent birth control, like an IUD [1]. Those programs were extremely controversial, even though children of addicts have it really hard in life. I really doubt that we'll be able to enact any legislation touching reproductive rights. The historical ballast (eugenics!) is just too heavy in the West. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drug-addicts-paid-to-get-birth-control/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drug-addicts-paid-to-get-birth-...
moomin 8y ago
Governments/societies in general have a split personality when it comes to children these days. They don't seem to want to spend any money on them, but expect the population to be self-sustaining and well-educated. You can't really be pro-economy, anti-immigration and anti-child support. It's not a position that makes any sense in the real world.

by mcny 8y ago

derefr 8y ago

> the fact that community doesn’t want to pay people to have and raise children makes me think all children are unwanted children In a globalized world with the ability to move for work, children might still be an economic net-positive for the parents (once you account for how much they’d be willing to pay to replicate their genes into the next generation) but they’re probably a net-negative for the community they’re raised in. What benefits does introducing a new human being, as a baby, into a community provide said community, these days?

ericd 8y ago
It provides the continuation of that community and its values.
- derefr 8y ago
  No, that’s what you get when a young, productive adult joins a community and enculturates to it. It’s why universities are happy to “adopt” new human beings into their communities: they can charge you for your net-negative production years at the university (undergrad), turning them into net-zero years; and then they will begin getting net-positive returns from you (either through TAing during graduate studies; or researching for your Ph.D and then having your IP confiscated and profited off of; or just going into industry and then making large alumni donations.) Your community will only get net-negative returns when a human is raised through their teenage years in your community, and then leaves, gets enculturated by some other community, and never comes back. This usually breeds resentment—think lower-class urban youth who go on to university and enculturate to the upper-middle-class culture there. If they come back to visit their old family and friends, they will see them as “acting as if they’re too good for us.” The resentment is usually for a good reason: once you’ve enculturated away from your home culture, you don’t tend to care much about it any more! So, unlike people who retain their home culture in another community, you won’t do things like sending money home to family, or coming back to help build or lead the community, once you have acquired the resources to do so.
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Please do not invent new meanings for words like enculturate. The right word is assimilate. Enculturation is an active process as opposed to a passive one which is not what actually happens. The migration is mostly for economic reasons, and those are because businesses prefer centralized scale at all levels, including education.
    - derefr 8y ago
      Sorry, I learned the term from this essay (https://siderea.livejournal.com/1159765.html https://siderea.livejournal.com/1159765.html) and assumed it was a correct usage. To be clear, though, while moving to a new society will cause quite gradual, passive assimilation, I wasn’t really talking about that case. In such cases, you still tend to think of your old community as “your community”, and might e.g. seek out an association of expats from your old society to hang out with, since you still share their mores. But moving to a university, or joining the military, or joining a cult, or going to prison, or marrying into money—these are communities, not societies. They actively “digest” you. In all these cases, you are given new connections who serve as both direct role-models for, and judges of, your current degree of assimilation; and, further, you are usually striving to assimilate as quickly as possible (whether you’re there voluntarily or not) because your lack of cultural awareness is one of the things keeping you back from having status and power in your new community. Would you not call what any/all of these entities do—one of the major roles they perform for their members—enculturation? If not, then it seems that I have misunderstood the term. (Tangent/side note: I didn’t make the connection of prison-as-community-that-assimilates until I was writing this. Isn’t the whole goal of reducing recidivism better expressed as “reducing the potential for prison to serve as an enculturating/assimilating force upon prisoners”?)
baybal2 8y ago
I'm greatly disturbed by the logic expressed through this thread
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  One of the malign changes that neoliberalism/libertarianism has wrought is societal attitudes to children. Prior societies understood that children are fundamental to society. If the children die, the community dies with it. Modern business thoery and economics see children as extraneous. That's cultural poison and it's everywhere now.
- posting2fast 8y ago
  Agreed. I don't know exactly between what poles this valley is, but I know this is the uncanny area of it.

adrianN 8y ago

There used to be (or still are?) programs that paid addicts if they choose some form of permanent birth control, like an IUD [1]. Those programs were extremely controversial, even though children of addicts have it really hard in life. I really doubt that we'll be able to enact any legislation touching reproductive rights. The historical ballast (eugenics!) is just too heavy in the West. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drug-addicts-paid-to-get-birth-control/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drug-addicts-paid-to-get-birth-...

moomin 8y ago

Governments/societies in general have a split personality when it comes to children these days. They don't seem to want to spend any money on them, but expect the population to be self-sustaining and well-educated. You can't really be pro-economy, anti-immigration and anti-child support. It's not a position that makes any sense in the real world.