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Efforts to reduce single motherhood probably serve to reduce welfare expenses more than most other efforts
by cdot2 3y ago
Efforts to reduce single motherhood probably serve to reduce welfare expenses more than most other efforts
- eru 3y agoOn those grounds, you can probably argue that any spending anywhere reduces the deficit in the long run. EDIT: to clarify, an argument that providing dad-jokes leads to less single motherhood (which then leads to less spending) is so tenuous, that if you accept it, you can accept almost any kind of mental gymnastics. I agree that reducing single motherhood would probably lead to less spending. It's the connection to dad-jokes that tenuous (at least without any further evidence).
- callalex 3y agoCan you explain how your statement follows from the parent? To me it reads like a slippery slope type statement.
- eru 3y agoAlmost any kind of spending that anyone, including the government, does is coupled with some arguments about the benefits it brings. For most claimed benefits, it doesn't require a lot of mental gymnastics to find some arguments why they would reduce some spending in the long run. If you give me an example as a challenge, I can (most probably) spin you the argument of how it reduces spending.
- callalex 3y agoI still don’t understand why that’s an argument against government spending.
- eru 3y agoIt's not an argument against government spending, nor was it intended as one. What makes you think so? It's an argument against this specific argument for government spending. Making bad arguments is excessively easy, independent of whether the thing argued for is good or bad, or true or false. To give a simple example: consider a faulty proof of Pythagoras' theorem. See eg https://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/FalseProofs.shtml https://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/FalseProofs.shtml Pointing out flaws in these purported proofs is not an argument against Pythagoras' theorem; it's still true after all. It's merely an argument against the faulty arguments.
- User23 3y agoHow does that follow?
- cdot2 3y agoMy comment was in response to the comment above mine. Not to the article directly.
- eru 3y agoOh, I wasn't even complaining about using government money for dad jokes. I don't know whether it's a good use of tax money (probably not), but it's such a minuscule amount in the grand scheme of things, that it doesn't really matter. Eg repealing the Jones act would do a lot more, if one wanted to get riled up about something. It's basically a very inefficient re-distribution from Hawaiians to a few domestic ship owners.
- asah 3y agoThese jokes contribute to single motherhood.