7 ms·

The straight answer? Because their kids (maybe, just maybe) will have jobs and pay taxes that keep services running when you're retired. It's part of the social

by groby_b 12y ago

The straight answer? Because their kids (maybe, just maybe) will have jobs and pay taxes that keep services running when you're retired. It's part of the social contract[1]. You might make the point that your art benefits society as well. It might, I have no idea. But more importantly, we as society haven't agreed on that benefit (which I think needs to be talked about as well), so you don't get recognized. Like any "standard" contract, the social one does not address everybody's needs equally, but it's the one we arrive at by consensus. And so we are bound by it as long as that consensus stays. (Or we opt out of democracy, which certain SV nutcases are certainly considering) You might make many other points about the social contract that are valid, like e.g. the scarcity of work, the unsustainability of current society, etc. I think we need to address them, and I think the social contract will change significantly in the next 30 years. But as it is right now, that's why employers should support people who have children. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract (You're probably familiar with it, but on the off chance you aren't, here's the link. It's not meant as snark)

dreamdu5t 12y ago
Yes, I'm familiar with the social contract. There is no such thing in the real world. It's a post-facto justification for what is enforced by other means. It has zero legal applicability. There are laws passed by legislators who are elected. The rule of law is established by force, not by any sort of contract or agreement. There is no social contract except in philosophy class and books that have no legal standing.
- bduerst 12y ago
  Not entirely. John Locke's take is that you agree to a rule of law by choosing to live in it, and that you can move to another government if you disagree. Only Thomas Hobbe's take was based purely on force, because he viewed the nature of man as being vile and completely evil, which isn't surprising given the environment he lived in.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - Chinjut 12y ago
    I think you mean Thomas Hobbes. :)
    - bduerst 12y ago
      Derp. Good catch. Was reading the comic yesterday.
- gclaramunt 12y ago
  An aging population is never good for any government. Unless you are a really overpopulated country, having a positive birthrate is a good thing (translates to economic growth). The case for encouraging the population to have children is pretty straightforward...
  - parennoob 12y ago
    Another way to increase younger population is also to encourage immigration in that population group. However, for other reasons, this will never be acknowledged as a reasonable measure :)
    - tsotha 12y ago
      Eh, what? Not only is this acknowledged as reasonable in many countries, it's policy.
      - parennoob 12y ago
        The anti-immigration sentiment often seen in the US (sometimes even on HN), and in a lot of European countries seems to say otherwise.
        tsotha 12y ago
        There isn't much anti-immigration sentiment in the US. What we have in the US is anti illegal immigration sentiment. In terms of European countries there was an article about a week ago regarding Americans going to Germany for free college. The Germans were hoping they'd stay. I think people worry about the quality of immigrants. We want more young Sergei Brins and fewer middle aged guys with a sixth grade education.
        joncrocks 12y ago
        While that may be technically true, AFAIK it's hard for someone to immigrate to the US. If I wanted to move to the US tomorrow, I believe it would involve me having to get a job before I got there. One could argue that saying that you're against illegal immigration and making legal immigration very difficult is the same as saying that you don't really want immigration.
- Crito 12y ago
  Well in that case.... > "I don't get why employers should be forced to pay for someone's choice to have children." Because > "There are laws passed by legislators who are elected. The rule of law is established by force" That's why. The men with the power, who control the men with the guns, have declared that this is the way our society should work. There is your realpolitik answer.
  - sgift 12y ago
    > The men with the power, who control the men with the guns, have declared that this is the way our society should work. Obviously, in this case, that didn't happen or mindfulgeek wouldn't have been let go.
    - Crito 12y ago
      The system these powerful men have set up does not prevent people from breaking the rules the powerful men have set. It does however lay out potential consequences for breaking the rules, should the victim choose to navigate this system in the correct way. They are powerful, but not omnipotent. They are men, not gods.
      - sgift 12y ago
        Good point, now we can get a (for me?) more interesting discussion: - Was something illegal done here? - If yes, why is it (seemingly) so easy to do this? - How can this be changed? - Should it be changed? (In my opinion: Yes, a law which is easily breakable is useless) Note: I only raise questions of legality here, not morality. I will not even start to discuss the morality of this action, because in my opinion anyone who says anything besides "horrible, not tolerable" in his analysis of what happened here has such a fundamental different set of core values from myself that any discussion would be a complete waste of time.
        digikata 12y ago
        It seems relatively easy to rob or murder someone. Does that make the laws against such activities useless?
- phubbard 12y ago
  Groups must persist; therefore a group must sacrifice to ensure that the actual next generation is created and cared for. Schools, parental leave, etc, are all required. Any society that neglects these would seem to be self-limiting.
- hacknat 12y ago
  K, you are more than welcome to go ahead and break our laws. Oh you don't feel like suffering the consequences we've set up for doing so? Then you've agreed to the social contract. Countries that have to reestablish sovereignty with each succeeding generation are failed states.
SovietDissident 12y ago
So, if a person is born into a particular society, you are effectively telling them that they must toil for whatever amount of time is necessary to pay for the policies that preceded his existence. At the very least, this sounds like indentured servitude. Incidentally, the U.S. government was set up in such a way where men were not beholden to others, but were equals, trading value for value with each other absent coercion. A strong but limited government was instituted to protect individual rights---to protect us against internal and external threats with retaliatory force. The expansion of the government over the last 100 years has nothing to do with the protection of individual rights and the original intention of Founders (who were greatly influenced by Locke). The "social contract" is a way for some individuals to justify the abrogation of protecting the freedom of individuals in favor of a gargantuan rights-violating welfare state. Finally, what is the objective measure of how much an individual owes? Do they owe 50% of their time? 70%? To whom specifically do they owe this? How does one come to these conclusions in an objective manner?
- abalone 12y ago
  You are conflating taxation with indentured servitude. The U.S. government has supported taxation from day 1, including for the purposes of funding collective welfare, e.g. collective self-defense. Current citizens pay for the democratic decisions of past generations all the time. Even if you don't drive, you pay taxes to support road and bridge maintenance. This is not "indentured servitude". It is how a democratic society functions. How much do we owe? Answer: it is determined through a democratic decision-making process that weighs costs and benefits to our society. Case in point: This very forum would likely not exist without the aforementioned expansion of government. DARPA and government funding for high-tech research to the tune of billions of dollars has been instrumental in the birth and evolution of Silicon Valley, and continues today (e.g. Siri, self-driving cars).
  - WalterBright 12y ago
    I think it is a stretch to presume that without DARPA there would be no internet (or equivalent). There were many other networks that had nothing to do with the government - FidoNet, BIX, Prodigy, CompuServe, MCINet, innumerable BBS systems, and even I designed one in my head before I'd ever heard of Arpanet. Everyone who had two computers thought of connecting them together (and often did, with existing or ad-hoc protocols).
tsotha 12y ago
I find this argument exceedingly unpersuasive. The "social contract" argument would only be valid if people agreed on its terms. As it is, a company's responsibilities end where the law ends.
- fsloth 12y ago
  The "social contract" is an abstraction to quantify certain elements in human interactions through society. What is real, is the necessity of a human population to procreate. This need has two aspects: does culture in general support procreation and who's procreation does it support? First, companies do not work in a vacuum of financial abstractions. Their operations are always rooted in a very fixed cultural context. This cultural context for the most part is the cultural context of the society where the operations are based. The corporate operations affect the cultural context outside and vice versa. Now, the first part - should there be procreation? Unless the answer is yes we can stop the discussion right here. As for the second part, who should procreate? Let's skip the eugenics part, but, the fact is this: talented kids are usually raised by talented parents. Should the society become more talented? I'm certain this would serve everyones best interests. Well, then, if we accept without proof that talented individuals tend to work in corporations and demanding workplaces, then if those workplaces discourage the procreation of the talented individuals they discourage the population in general of benefitting from their statistically talented offspring. This is what is on the table. Not the happy motherhood of a single mother, or the irritation of single coworkers who begrudge parents their perks, but the future of a society. From a statistical point of view. Human urges will make sure there are kids tomorrow as there are today but the way careers treat potential parents affect directly the total human potential of those kids.
  - tsotha 12y ago
    >The "social contract" is an abstraction to quantify certain elements in human interactions through society. Yes, and we have a concrete implementation of that abstraction in the law. >What is real, is the necessity of a human population to procreate. This need has two aspects: does culture in general support procreation and who's procreation does it support? I don't see any barriers to procreation here. All I see is people who want to have their cake and get other people to pay for it. Go ahead and have children, just like people have always done. But realize you're going to have to make some sacrifices, and that it's not reasonable to expect other people to make sacrifices on your behalf because you want to have children.

by groby_b 12y ago

dreamdu5t 12y ago

Yes, I'm familiar with the social contract. There is no such thing in the real world. It's a post-facto justification for what is enforced by other means. It has zero legal applicability. There are laws passed by legislators who are elected. The rule of law is established by force, not by any sort of contract or agreement. There is no social contract except in philosophy class and books that have no legal standing.

bduerst 12y ago
Not entirely. John Locke's take is that you agree to a rule of law by choosing to live in it, and that you can move to another government if you disagree. Only Thomas Hobbe's take was based purely on force, because he viewed the nature of man as being vile and completely evil, which isn't surprising given the environment he lived in.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Chinjut 12y ago
  I think you mean Thomas Hobbes. :)
  - bduerst 12y ago
    Derp. Good catch. Was reading the comic yesterday.
gclaramunt 12y ago
An aging population is never good for any government. Unless you are a really overpopulated country, having a positive birthrate is a good thing (translates to economic growth). The case for encouraging the population to have children is pretty straightforward...
- parennoob 12y ago
  Another way to increase younger population is also to encourage immigration in that population group. However, for other reasons, this will never be acknowledged as a reasonable measure :)
  - tsotha 12y ago
    Eh, what? Not only is this acknowledged as reasonable in many countries, it's policy.
    - parennoob 12y ago
      The anti-immigration sentiment often seen in the US (sometimes even on HN), and in a lot of European countries seems to say otherwise.
      - tsotha 12y ago
        There isn't much anti-immigration sentiment in the US. What we have in the US is anti illegal immigration sentiment. In terms of European countries there was an article about a week ago regarding Americans going to Germany for free college. The Germans were hoping they'd stay. I think people worry about the quality of immigrants. We want more young Sergei Brins and fewer middle aged guys with a sixth grade education.
        joncrocks 12y ago
        While that may be technically true, AFAIK it's hard for someone to immigrate to the US. If I wanted to move to the US tomorrow, I believe it would involve me having to get a job before I got there. One could argue that saying that you're against illegal immigration and making legal immigration very difficult is the same as saying that you don't really want immigration.
Crito 12y ago
Well in that case.... > "I don't get why employers should be forced to pay for someone's choice to have children." Because > "There are laws passed by legislators who are elected. The rule of law is established by force" That's why. The men with the power, who control the men with the guns, have declared that this is the way our society should work. There is your realpolitik answer.
- sgift 12y ago
  > The men with the power, who control the men with the guns, have declared that this is the way our society should work. Obviously, in this case, that didn't happen or mindfulgeek wouldn't have been let go.
  - Crito 12y ago
    The system these powerful men have set up does not prevent people from breaking the rules the powerful men have set. It does however lay out potential consequences for breaking the rules, should the victim choose to navigate this system in the correct way. They are powerful, but not omnipotent. They are men, not gods.
    - sgift 12y ago
      Good point, now we can get a (for me?) more interesting discussion: - Was something illegal done here? - If yes, why is it (seemingly) so easy to do this? - How can this be changed? - Should it be changed? (In my opinion: Yes, a law which is easily breakable is useless) Note: I only raise questions of legality here, not morality. I will not even start to discuss the morality of this action, because in my opinion anyone who says anything besides "horrible, not tolerable" in his analysis of what happened here has such a fundamental different set of core values from myself that any discussion would be a complete waste of time.
      - digikata 12y ago
        It seems relatively easy to rob or murder someone. Does that make the laws against such activities useless?
phubbard 12y ago
Groups must persist; therefore a group must sacrifice to ensure that the actual next generation is created and cared for. Schools, parental leave, etc, are all required. Any society that neglects these would seem to be self-limiting.
hacknat 12y ago
K, you are more than welcome to go ahead and break our laws. Oh you don't feel like suffering the consequences we've set up for doing so? Then you've agreed to the social contract. Countries that have to reestablish sovereignty with each succeeding generation are failed states.

SovietDissident 12y ago

So, if a person is born into a particular society, you are effectively telling them that they must toil for whatever amount of time is necessary to pay for the policies that preceded his existence. At the very least, this sounds like indentured servitude. Incidentally, the U.S. government was set up in such a way where men were not beholden to others, but were equals, trading value for value with each other absent coercion. A strong but limited government was instituted to protect individual rights---to protect us against internal and external threats with retaliatory force. The expansion of the government over the last 100 years has nothing to do with the protection of individual rights and the original intention of Founders (who were greatly influenced by Locke). The "social contract" is a way for some individuals to justify the abrogation of protecting the freedom of individuals in favor of a gargantuan rights-violating welfare state. Finally, what is the objective measure of how much an individual owes? Do they owe 50% of their time? 70%? To whom specifically do they owe this? How does one come to these conclusions in an objective manner?

abalone 12y ago
You are conflating taxation with indentured servitude. The U.S. government has supported taxation from day 1, including for the purposes of funding collective welfare, e.g. collective self-defense. Current citizens pay for the democratic decisions of past generations all the time. Even if you don't drive, you pay taxes to support road and bridge maintenance. This is not "indentured servitude". It is how a democratic society functions. How much do we owe? Answer: it is determined through a democratic decision-making process that weighs costs and benefits to our society. Case in point: This very forum would likely not exist without the aforementioned expansion of government. DARPA and government funding for high-tech research to the tune of billions of dollars has been instrumental in the birth and evolution of Silicon Valley, and continues today (e.g. Siri, self-driving cars).
- WalterBright 12y ago
  I think it is a stretch to presume that without DARPA there would be no internet (or equivalent). There were many other networks that had nothing to do with the government - FidoNet, BIX, Prodigy, CompuServe, MCINet, innumerable BBS systems, and even I designed one in my head before I'd ever heard of Arpanet. Everyone who had two computers thought of connecting them together (and often did, with existing or ad-hoc protocols).

tsotha 12y ago

I find this argument exceedingly unpersuasive. The "social contract" argument would only be valid if people agreed on its terms. As it is, a company's responsibilities end where the law ends.

fsloth 12y ago
The "social contract" is an abstraction to quantify certain elements in human interactions through society. What is real, is the necessity of a human population to procreate. This need has two aspects: does culture in general support procreation and who's procreation does it support? First, companies do not work in a vacuum of financial abstractions. Their operations are always rooted in a very fixed cultural context. This cultural context for the most part is the cultural context of the society where the operations are based. The corporate operations affect the cultural context outside and vice versa. Now, the first part - should there be procreation? Unless the answer is yes we can stop the discussion right here. As for the second part, who should procreate? Let's skip the eugenics part, but, the fact is this: talented kids are usually raised by talented parents. Should the society become more talented? I'm certain this would serve everyones best interests. Well, then, if we accept without proof that talented individuals tend to work in corporations and demanding workplaces, then if those workplaces discourage the procreation of the talented individuals they discourage the population in general of benefitting from their statistically talented offspring. This is what is on the table. Not the happy motherhood of a single mother, or the irritation of single coworkers who begrudge parents their perks, but the future of a society. From a statistical point of view. Human urges will make sure there are kids tomorrow as there are today but the way careers treat potential parents affect directly the total human potential of those kids.
- tsotha 12y ago
  >The "social contract" is an abstraction to quantify certain elements in human interactions through society. Yes, and we have a concrete implementation of that abstraction in the law. >What is real, is the necessity of a human population to procreate. This need has two aspects: does culture in general support procreation and who's procreation does it support? I don't see any barriers to procreation here. All I see is people who want to have their cake and get other people to pay for it. Go ahead and have children, just like people have always done. But realize you're going to have to make some sacrifices, and that it's not reasonable to expect other people to make sacrifices on your behalf because you want to have children.