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Should young children be empowered to touch hot stoves, or restricted in doing so? Empowerment to do whatever you want is not a priori good; rather, it is a pre

Should young children be empowered to touch hot stoves, or restricted in doing so? Empowerment to do whatever you want is not a priori good; rather, it is a prerequisite to enable other goods. But it’s important to recognize that the power to choose means the power to choose wrongly. Shouldn’t then our goal to be the creation of structures that help us make better choices?

toomuchtodo 3y ago
We’re talking adults, not children. If you’re old enough to go to war and be treated as an adult by society, you can choose whether to have children. Children regretted is far worse than children not had regretted, in my opinion. ~40% of annual US and global pregnancies are unintended (the percentage that are unintended and unwanted is unknown). Choices have consequences, but humans have the right to make their choices, hopefully fully informed. Who are we to tell someone their reproductive choice was wrong? That’s their decision. You can do everything right and still lose. That’s life.
- skissane 3y ago
  Different cultures prioritise different things. Some cultures prioritise individual choice over reproduction, others prioritise reproduction over individual choice. What's going to happen in the long-run? The culture that prioritises individual choice will shrink, the culture that prioritises reproduction will boom. A good example of this is Israel - the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), roughly 13% of Israel's population, prioritise large families over individual choice, and are booming; secular Jews, (by and large) do the opposite, and while currently around 40% of Israel's population, are slowly shrinking; it is predicted that in 2065, close to 50% of all Israeli children will be from Haredi families, only 35% from non-Haredi Jewish families (secular or moderately religious). https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-05-22/ty-article-opinion/.highlight/2065-when-the-ultra-orthodox-abyss-finally-swallows-secular-israelis/00000188-3f77-d805-a7c9-ffffda520000 https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-05-22/ty-article-opinio...
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    Over time, everyone becomes atheistic. Not having children is a function of a society's wealth (which is then correlated to education which is the correlated to non-religiosity), not (necessarily) their religiosity. It is not that most of the children who are born from reproduction-heavy religions will continue the practice, as we have seen in human history, when people have been much more religious than now. In fact, I see this attitude so often online that I believe it's some sort of logical fallacy akin to the Malthusian trap, that "they" (for some definition of "they" as chosen by the doomer) will eventually take over lest we reprioritize having kids, when in reality the entire world's population is dropping, and it's distributed mostly equally, even in areas where there are some of the highest birth rates in the world historically, like India, China, and Nigeria.
    - skissane 3y ago
      > Over time, everyone becomes atheistic. It isn't universally true. There is no evidence the Haredim are becoming atheistic, nor the Old Order Amish. Yes, there are defectors from both (mostly not to atheism, mostly to more moderate versions of the respective religion), but not enough to counteract the high birth rates. > Not having children is a function of a society's wealth (which is then correlated to education which is the correlated to non-religiosity), not (necessarily) their religiosity. The Exclusive Brethren [0] are notoriously well-off, yet they continue to have large families, and there's no evidence of a high defection rate of their children. > when in reality the entire world's population is dropping, and it's distributed mostly equally, even in areas where there are some of the highest birth rates in the world historically, like India, China, and Nigeria. According to OECD data, [1] in 2005, Israel's TFR was 2.84. By 2017, it had grown to 3.11. From there, it declined to a low of 2.90 in 2020 (probably in part COVID-related), but by 2021 had rebounded to 3.00, and I expect it will probably be above 3.00 when the 2022 data is released. Israel's TFR in 2017 (3.11) was higher than its TFR in 1981 (3.06). So Israel is at least one counterexample to the narrative of a uniform global population decline. [0] https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-great-brethren-migration-church-in-mass-exodus-from-windsor-20221214-p5c6ew.html https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-great-brethren-migr... [1] https://data.oecd.org/pop/fertility-rates.htm https://data.oecd.org/pop/fertility-rates.htm

toomuchtodo 3y ago

We’re talking adults, not children. If you’re old enough to go to war and be treated as an adult by society, you can choose whether to have children. Children regretted is far worse than children not had regretted, in my opinion. ~40% of annual US and global pregnancies are unintended (the percentage that are unintended and unwanted is unknown). Choices have consequences, but humans have the right to make their choices, hopefully fully informed. Who are we to tell someone their reproductive choice was wrong? That’s their decision. You can do everything right and still lose. That’s life.

skissane 3y ago
Different cultures prioritise different things. Some cultures prioritise individual choice over reproduction, others prioritise reproduction over individual choice. What's going to happen in the long-run? The culture that prioritises individual choice will shrink, the culture that prioritises reproduction will boom. A good example of this is Israel - the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), roughly 13% of Israel's population, prioritise large families over individual choice, and are booming; secular Jews, (by and large) do the opposite, and while currently around 40% of Israel's population, are slowly shrinking; it is predicted that in 2065, close to 50% of all Israeli children will be from Haredi families, only 35% from non-Haredi Jewish families (secular or moderately religious). https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-05-22/ty-article-opinion/.highlight/2065-when-the-ultra-orthodox-abyss-finally-swallows-secular-israelis/00000188-3f77-d805-a7c9-ffffda520000 https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-05-22/ty-article-opinio...
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Over time, everyone becomes atheistic. Not having children is a function of a society's wealth (which is then correlated to education which is the correlated to non-religiosity), not (necessarily) their religiosity. It is not that most of the children who are born from reproduction-heavy religions will continue the practice, as we have seen in human history, when people have been much more religious than now. In fact, I see this attitude so often online that I believe it's some sort of logical fallacy akin to the Malthusian trap, that "they" (for some definition of "they" as chosen by the doomer) will eventually take over lest we reprioritize having kids, when in reality the entire world's population is dropping, and it's distributed mostly equally, even in areas where there are some of the highest birth rates in the world historically, like India, China, and Nigeria.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > Over time, everyone becomes atheistic. It isn't universally true. There is no evidence the Haredim are becoming atheistic, nor the Old Order Amish. Yes, there are defectors from both (mostly not to atheism, mostly to more moderate versions of the respective religion), but not enough to counteract the high birth rates. > Not having children is a function of a society's wealth (which is then correlated to education which is the correlated to non-religiosity), not (necessarily) their religiosity. The Exclusive Brethren [0] are notoriously well-off, yet they continue to have large families, and there's no evidence of a high defection rate of their children. > when in reality the entire world's population is dropping, and it's distributed mostly equally, even in areas where there are some of the highest birth rates in the world historically, like India, China, and Nigeria. According to OECD data, [1] in 2005, Israel's TFR was 2.84. By 2017, it had grown to 3.11. From there, it declined to a low of 2.90 in 2020 (probably in part COVID-related), but by 2021 had rebounded to 3.00, and I expect it will probably be above 3.00 when the 2022 data is released. Israel's TFR in 2017 (3.11) was higher than its TFR in 1981 (3.06). So Israel is at least one counterexample to the narrative of a uniform global population decline. [0] https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-great-brethren-migration-church-in-mass-exodus-from-windsor-20221214-p5c6ew.html https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/the-great-brethren-migr... [1] https://data.oecd.org/pop/fertility-rates.htm https://data.oecd.org/pop/fertility-rates.htm