3 ms·

Parents would find a way to pay to stay out of jail, same way they do today in finding food to buy their children, or housing, or insurance for their car. Livi

by sneak 2y ago

Parents would find a way to pay to stay out of jail, same way they do today in finding food to buy their children, or housing, or insurance for their car. Living in our society is not free. Reproduction isn’t either. Socializing the costs of an individual choice to have a child or 8 is not morally defensible. Not everyone in society cares about and values the supply of labor for the functioning of the next generation. It is fundamentally immoral to use force to compel us to fund your genetic and demographic objectives. If you think that socializing the costs of children is morally correct, why stop at education? Children need clothing and food, why do we not use tax money to provide free clothing and food to all children (instead of just the poor ones)? Education could work similarly if you believe that; people able to afford to pay for their children’s education should have the obligation to do so, critically, just like every parent does now for food and clothing. Those that are legitimately unable to pay for their child’s education could then be subsidized. There is a real problem in our society of people having children (and pets) they cannot reasonably afford to appropriately care for. Forcing other people to subsidize their poor decisions is morally repugnant; which is completely independent of the suffering of children. In fact, if you believe children going hungry or uneducated is bad, you are also invested in solving the problem of people having children they cannot afford to support. (Support of course including the costs of education.)

vidarh 2y ago
Plenty of people would find ways to hide what's going in instead, and plenty would try but fail. And the notion of imprisoning people instead of simply covering a minor cost, and then harming their children further by taking them out of homes unless there are more serious reasons to that can't be trivially mitigated just comes across as brutally cruel and demonstrating a wildly irrational willingness to harm your own interests just to harm others. You're not forced to fund anything - you can leave, and find a society that won't make you. If you disapprove of being asked to contribute to society as a whole, I'd be all for giving you the right to excuse yourself from society, including all it provides. What you can't expect is the ability to selectively opt out of responsibilities and still be free to enjoy the benefits of that society - it goes two ways - it'd be immoral to force society to provide you with benefits and access if you're not prepared to accept the responsibilites that comes with that. > If you think that socializing the costs of children is morally correct, why stop at education? Children need clothing and food, why do we not use tax money to provide free clothing and food to all children (instead of just the poor ones)? If parents don't, most civilized countries that can afford to does in fact provide assistance to cover these things, because in most places people find it deplorable to let children go without.
- sneak 2y ago
  No, you’re conflating two things: subsidizing the poor (eg food stamps) and subsidizing education. We don’t subsidize the education of children for just the poor - we subsidize the education of children for EVERYONE, including families that can afford to pay for their own luxury choices like having children. This isn’t about letting children go without. This is about who out of two families, one with kids and one without, both of whom can afford what is needed, pays for the choices of the family that opted to have children. It’s all too easy to obscure the moral issue here, which is that people who don’t have or want children are being forced to pay for the education of the children of parents who very well can pay for their own children. That’s like making everyone in a city, regardless of car ownership, pay into a public automobile insurance fund that covers anyone with a car (including luxury cars).
  - vidarh 2y ago
    I'm not conflating anything. We subsidize the education of everyone because it is important to society and to the children to ensure that all children are educated. Because society then mandates it because an educated workforce is essential to the functioning of society that you too depend on, it is natural that society also shares the burden of paying for it. That you want to opt out of participating in meeting a critical need in society is indeed a moral issue. You should be free to opt out. But then society should be equally free to deny you access to use all resources funded by society, like public roads, and anything else tax funded. Letting you pick and choose would be equally morally fraught as denying you an out. But you have an out: You can move somewhere with different policies.
    - sneak 2y ago
      It is important to society that cars be insured and that buildings be built to safety standards, also. We don’t subsidize those things, we make the people driving the cars and building the buildings pay for it. Everyone in society benefits from those requirements. Your arguments here as to why the childfree must pay for the education of children they did not produce doesn’t really hold water. I benefit from the hotel I’m in being built to fire code, yet it doesn’t make sense to build private hotels with tax money. Why does it make sense for children to be educated with tax money? Children need food, too, and we don’t buy their food with tax money. Why education?

by sneak 2y ago

vidarh 2y ago

Plenty of people would find ways to hide what's going in instead, and plenty would try but fail. And the notion of imprisoning people instead of simply covering a minor cost, and then harming their children further by taking them out of homes unless there are more serious reasons to that can't be trivially mitigated just comes across as brutally cruel and demonstrating a wildly irrational willingness to harm your own interests just to harm others. You're not forced to fund anything - you can leave, and find a society that won't make you. If you disapprove of being asked to contribute to society as a whole, I'd be all for giving you the right to excuse yourself from society, including all it provides. What you can't expect is the ability to selectively opt out of responsibilities and still be free to enjoy the benefits of that society - it goes two ways - it'd be immoral to force society to provide you with benefits and access if you're not prepared to accept the responsibilites that comes with that. > If you think that socializing the costs of children is morally correct, why stop at education? Children need clothing and food, why do we not use tax money to provide free clothing and food to all children (instead of just the poor ones)? If parents don't, most civilized countries that can afford to does in fact provide assistance to cover these things, because in most places people find it deplorable to let children go without.

sneak 2y ago
No, you’re conflating two things: subsidizing the poor (eg food stamps) and subsidizing education. We don’t subsidize the education of children for just the poor - we subsidize the education of children for EVERYONE, including families that can afford to pay for their own luxury choices like having children. This isn’t about letting children go without. This is about who out of two families, one with kids and one without, both of whom can afford what is needed, pays for the choices of the family that opted to have children. It’s all too easy to obscure the moral issue here, which is that people who don’t have or want children are being forced to pay for the education of the children of parents who very well can pay for their own children. That’s like making everyone in a city, regardless of car ownership, pay into a public automobile insurance fund that covers anyone with a car (including luxury cars).
- vidarh 2y ago
  I'm not conflating anything. We subsidize the education of everyone because it is important to society and to the children to ensure that all children are educated. Because society then mandates it because an educated workforce is essential to the functioning of society that you too depend on, it is natural that society also shares the burden of paying for it. That you want to opt out of participating in meeting a critical need in society is indeed a moral issue. You should be free to opt out. But then society should be equally free to deny you access to use all resources funded by society, like public roads, and anything else tax funded. Letting you pick and choose would be equally morally fraught as denying you an out. But you have an out: You can move somewhere with different policies.
  - sneak 2y ago
    It is important to society that cars be insured and that buildings be built to safety standards, also. We don’t subsidize those things, we make the people driving the cars and building the buildings pay for it. Everyone in society benefits from those requirements. Your arguments here as to why the childfree must pay for the education of children they did not produce doesn’t really hold water. I benefit from the hotel I’m in being built to fire code, yet it doesn’t make sense to build private hotels with tax money. Why does it make sense for children to be educated with tax money? Children need food, too, and we don’t buy their food with tax money. Why education?