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This logic makes no sense. What about no smoking spaces? Basically every nation implements these and it benefits everyone (including smokers, more reasons to qu

This logic makes no sense. What about no smoking spaces? Basically every nation implements these and it benefits everyone (including smokers, more reasons to quit). Are you going to try and tell me "no smoking in front of the building" is the new apartheid? Smoking and parenthood are lifestyle choices, which have consequences. Skin color is not, and shouldn't. It is not relevant to the conversation.

ivan_gammel 3y ago
Childfree is a lifestyle choice which must be taxed (and already is in some countries like Germany). Parenthood is a matter of survival of our species and our economy.
- anonym29 3y ago
  Childfree absolutely isn't a choice for everyone. The idea that we should punish those who are too unattractive, disfigured, or disabled to attact potential mates, or those with medical conditions preventing them from having offspring, or those with highly heritable diseases that would negatively impact the quality of life of their offspring, is as inhumane and cruel of an idea as I could think of. There is no justification for punishing those who already have a hard enough life as-is, give them a break FFS!
clktmr 3y ago
Parenthood isn't always a lifestyle decision and being a child certainly never is.
- anonym29 3y ago
  I'm gonna take a stand here and say that up until extremely recently in the US, parenthood almost invariably was a deliberate decision. When abortion was legal in all 50 states and programs were available that offered free family planning services (contraceptives and abortions) to low-income households who might not otherwise have the means to access these services, parenthood became almost ubiquitously optional. In any case, the woman has, at minimum, several months of time between the moment she becomes aware of a pregnancy and the moment a viable, live birth occurs. Since the 70's, PP could get you in same week for an abortion. It didn't matter what the pregnant woman's skin color, income/wealth, zip code, age, disability, national origin, religious views, or any other bit of demographic data was - this was something rapidly and easily accessible to anyone with thousands of locations across the U.S. Granted, this has regrettably changed in recent times, so I'll give you that. On a tangent - it's so bizarre to me that when the conservatives who can almost incessantly be found talking about the importance of "small government" finally seized a modicum of real power in the US via SC majority, some of their very first actions were increasing the scope of the rules and regulations of big government. :|
Dma54rhs 3y ago
Parenthood is necessary so your nation doesn't go extinct and hopefully you get a paid pension from a new generation. As the other commenter said many nations tax having a child free lifestyle just like they tax smoking.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  "Breed for the good of the nation" isn't the compelling argument it once was.
  - Dma54rhs 3y ago
    You might apply to that anything if you want to go full individualism - from taxes to vaccines but that is not how societies work. Only on paper for the libertarian types.
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      I don't think making choices about child-bearing in a world with 8 billion humans in it counts as either "full individualism" or libertarian adjacent. If you want to help the world in a concrete way, breed less.
    - anonym29 3y ago
      I will say this in defense of libertarian individualism: I think you should have a right to opt-out of being a citizen of any given country. The ability to do so, in practice, varies from totalitarian states where you physically cannot leave without risking being killed to western liberal democracies where you're allowed to renounce citizenship with just one condition - get another citizenship first. While the latter is certainly extremely reasonable and humane relative to the former, that condition is still an insurmountable barrier for lower income, cognitively impaired, or otherwise vulnerable folks. If you lack the means to obtain another citizenship, you are more or less the partial property of the government you were born into (given they are legally entitled to a portion of all your earnings), and you have no way of leaving. That we more or less "trap" the vulnerable into partial financial servitude wherever they're born makes me mildly uncomfortable in the same manner that the concept of chattel slavery makes me deeply uncomfortable - no person or institution ought to have such dominion over another living, breathing person that the latter cannot disassociate from former. We wax and wane about the necessity of such resulting from the social contract, but the social contract is the only contract I know of that is both serious and enforced (even if not literally defined), whilst not being one that you enter into voluntarily. A key component of what renders a contract valid in contractual law in the US (stemming from common law) is that all parties to the contract must enter into it voluntarily, with full knowledge of it, free from coercion or deception. We at least ought to stop calling it a "contract" and start calling it what it really is - Demands for involuntary tributes to the ruling elites (who benefits more from taxpayer dollars - the poor and needy, or Lockheed Martin executives?), that you must comply with under threat of force, up to and including lethal if you resist the wrong way. I'm not saying the alternative is simple, but it seems unjust to me that human societies force their most vulnerable people into subservient economic relationships with governments (that have lengthy track records of using those very same tax dollars to perform horrific and flagrant atrocities against humanity, like drone bombing weddings, abducting and torturing innocent people, etc), based purely on where they're born. Animals don't engage in this kind of depravity - why must we? I hope the societies of the distant future look back on our current system of government and see it for the barbaric, medieval, and inhumane institution it really was.
alvarezbjm-hn 3y ago
"Smoking and parenthood are lifestyle choices, which have consequences. Skin color is not, and shouldn't. It is not relevant to the conversation" You are mixing up many different unrelated topics here. Smoking is [mostly] a choice. You used it for an analogy. You explained why it is good to have smoking laws. Then you act like this is part of the conversation on the same level as childfree zones. Smoking is a personal and a public health issue. You getting cancer is expensive for everyone, your non smoking flatmate getting smoking derived cancer is a tragedy (and expensive for everyone) Definitely not in the same level as ruckus, dirt and destruction of property. Parenthood as in "how many children will someone have" is [mostly] a choice. But there are many reasons for society benefitting parenthood in spite of exclusionists (How to call them NIMBYS?) -> Children are expensive for parents. CONVERSELY, they are fantastic for economy. Parents are forced to work because they MUST SPEND. Not that they want, they MUST pay for food, care, health, education, clothing, entertaiment. -> Housing is a very important current issue. Not only in the US. In the few countries I have cared to pay attention, there is the pertinent mafia who has (unofficially exclusive) permission to build, and they naturally build less than required: it is obvious, less supply, better prices. Then add the "investors", buying all property to rent it. Now add the NIMBYS to that humanitary tragedy. -> There comes a point when the rich country population is unsustainable, and the immigration floodgates are opened. (Cheap labor, anyone?) US and Canada are there already. If not done correctly, that creates many more social issues for everybody (even the immigrants)
- mecsred 3y ago
  I [mostly] don't disagree with what you've written here. I think you misinterpreted my point. I'm not trying to say smoking and parenthood are the exact same, I'm trying to say wanting to take a date out for a nice meal with no screaming infants and racial segregation are absolutely NOT the same.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ivan_gammel 3y ago

Childfree is a lifestyle choice which must be taxed (and already is in some countries like Germany). Parenthood is a matter of survival of our species and our economy.

anonym29 3y ago
Childfree absolutely isn't a choice for everyone. The idea that we should punish those who are too unattractive, disfigured, or disabled to attact potential mates, or those with medical conditions preventing them from having offspring, or those with highly heritable diseases that would negatively impact the quality of life of their offspring, is as inhumane and cruel of an idea as I could think of. There is no justification for punishing those who already have a hard enough life as-is, give them a break FFS!

clktmr 3y ago

Parenthood isn't always a lifestyle decision and being a child certainly never is.

anonym29 3y ago
I'm gonna take a stand here and say that up until extremely recently in the US, parenthood almost invariably was a deliberate decision. When abortion was legal in all 50 states and programs were available that offered free family planning services (contraceptives and abortions) to low-income households who might not otherwise have the means to access these services, parenthood became almost ubiquitously optional. In any case, the woman has, at minimum, several months of time between the moment she becomes aware of a pregnancy and the moment a viable, live birth occurs. Since the 70's, PP could get you in same week for an abortion. It didn't matter what the pregnant woman's skin color, income/wealth, zip code, age, disability, national origin, religious views, or any other bit of demographic data was - this was something rapidly and easily accessible to anyone with thousands of locations across the U.S. Granted, this has regrettably changed in recent times, so I'll give you that. On a tangent - it's so bizarre to me that when the conservatives who can almost incessantly be found talking about the importance of "small government" finally seized a modicum of real power in the US via SC majority, some of their very first actions were increasing the scope of the rules and regulations of big government. :|

Dma54rhs 3y ago

Parenthood is necessary so your nation doesn't go extinct and hopefully you get a paid pension from a new generation. As the other commenter said many nations tax having a child free lifestyle just like they tax smoking.

EA-3167 3y ago
"Breed for the good of the nation" isn't the compelling argument it once was.
- Dma54rhs 3y ago
  You might apply to that anything if you want to go full individualism - from taxes to vaccines but that is not how societies work. Only on paper for the libertarian types.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    I don't think making choices about child-bearing in a world with 8 billion humans in it counts as either "full individualism" or libertarian adjacent. If you want to help the world in a concrete way, breed less.
  - anonym29 3y ago
    I will say this in defense of libertarian individualism: I think you should have a right to opt-out of being a citizen of any given country. The ability to do so, in practice, varies from totalitarian states where you physically cannot leave without risking being killed to western liberal democracies where you're allowed to renounce citizenship with just one condition - get another citizenship first. While the latter is certainly extremely reasonable and humane relative to the former, that condition is still an insurmountable barrier for lower income, cognitively impaired, or otherwise vulnerable folks. If you lack the means to obtain another citizenship, you are more or less the partial property of the government you were born into (given they are legally entitled to a portion of all your earnings), and you have no way of leaving. That we more or less "trap" the vulnerable into partial financial servitude wherever they're born makes me mildly uncomfortable in the same manner that the concept of chattel slavery makes me deeply uncomfortable - no person or institution ought to have such dominion over another living, breathing person that the latter cannot disassociate from former. We wax and wane about the necessity of such resulting from the social contract, but the social contract is the only contract I know of that is both serious and enforced (even if not literally defined), whilst not being one that you enter into voluntarily. A key component of what renders a contract valid in contractual law in the US (stemming from common law) is that all parties to the contract must enter into it voluntarily, with full knowledge of it, free from coercion or deception. We at least ought to stop calling it a "contract" and start calling it what it really is - Demands for involuntary tributes to the ruling elites (who benefits more from taxpayer dollars - the poor and needy, or Lockheed Martin executives?), that you must comply with under threat of force, up to and including lethal if you resist the wrong way. I'm not saying the alternative is simple, but it seems unjust to me that human societies force their most vulnerable people into subservient economic relationships with governments (that have lengthy track records of using those very same tax dollars to perform horrific and flagrant atrocities against humanity, like drone bombing weddings, abducting and torturing innocent people, etc), based purely on where they're born. Animals don't engage in this kind of depravity - why must we? I hope the societies of the distant future look back on our current system of government and see it for the barbaric, medieval, and inhumane institution it really was.

alvarezbjm-hn 3y ago

"Smoking and parenthood are lifestyle choices, which have consequences. Skin color is not, and shouldn't. It is not relevant to the conversation" You are mixing up many different unrelated topics here. Smoking is [mostly] a choice. You used it for an analogy. You explained why it is good to have smoking laws. Then you act like this is part of the conversation on the same level as childfree zones. Smoking is a personal and a public health issue. You getting cancer is expensive for everyone, your non smoking flatmate getting smoking derived cancer is a tragedy (and expensive for everyone) Definitely not in the same level as ruckus, dirt and destruction of property. Parenthood as in "how many children will someone have" is [mostly] a choice. But there are many reasons for society benefitting parenthood in spite of exclusionists (How to call them NIMBYS?) -> Children are expensive for parents. CONVERSELY, they are fantastic for economy. Parents are forced to work because they MUST SPEND. Not that they want, they MUST pay for food, care, health, education, clothing, entertaiment. -> Housing is a very important current issue. Not only in the US. In the few countries I have cared to pay attention, there is the pertinent mafia who has (unofficially exclusive) permission to build, and they naturally build less than required: it is obvious, less supply, better prices. Then add the "investors", buying all property to rent it. Now add the NIMBYS to that humanitary tragedy. -> There comes a point when the rich country population is unsustainable, and the immigration floodgates are opened. (Cheap labor, anyone?) US and Canada are there already. If not done correctly, that creates many more social issues for everybody (even the immigrants)

mecsred 3y ago
I [mostly] don't disagree with what you've written here. I think you misinterpreted my point. I'm not trying to say smoking and parenthood are the exact same, I'm trying to say wanting to take a date out for a nice meal with no screaming infants and racial segregation are absolutely NOT the same.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]