Malcolm from the article here: Thanks for writing this! This is actually a pretty good policy suggestion. (One of the best we have seen.)
That said, I don't see how it could get through congress before the situation is too critical for it to matter. Keep in mind that the 22K Korean policy only just now passed and they are at fertility def…
Malcolm from the article here: Thanks for writing this! This is actually a pretty good policy suggestion. (One of the best we have seen.)
That said, I don't see how it could get through congress before the situation is too critical for it to matter. Keep in mind that the 22K Korean policy only just now passed and they are at fertility def con 1 (a sub 0.8 TFR, falling 11.5% last year, and with a pop 60% over 40). If Korea can't pass something even close to what you are describing in terms of cost and fertility is a big political issue there that most people agree on how could we realistically get anything done in the US?
As you pointed out, even a mostly sane altruistic community like EA can not be convinced this is an important issue. How are we going to convince Joe Schmo? This is why we got the religion/culture rout. Not because there are not awesome ideas like the one you propose here but I don't see how we realistically change the political Overton window. (That said, we are trying our hardest and do seem to have made some headway.)
Thanks, Malcolm! I agree that there’s a very low chance of actually getting something like this passed, but I still think putting numbers on how much children are worth to us is a good idea. Some see children as a societal positive but the actual value they’d say they provide is vague, and others actually see having kids as a selfish way for parents to feed their egos. Spelling out the massive value that we should actually place on them might cause some people to rethink this. And I think pushing for policy solutions is a secular-friendly way to raise awareness of the issue and build political support which is another avenue for cultural change. Like when Andrew Yang was campaigning on UBI, I doubt he or anyone else thought it would happen, but I think it was helpful for bringing discussions of AI and automation into the mainstream.
Malcolm from the article here: Thanks for writing this! This is actually a pretty good policy suggestion. (One of the best we have seen.)
That said, I don't see how it could get through congress before the situation is too critical for it to matter. Keep in mind that the 22K Korean policy only just now passed and they are at fertility def con 1 (a sub 0.8 TFR, falling 11.5% last year, and with a pop 60% over 40). If Korea can't pass something even close to what you are describing in terms of cost and fertility is a big political issue there that most people agree on how could we realistically get anything done in the US?
As you pointed out, even a mostly sane altruistic community like EA can not be convinced this is an important issue. How are we going to convince Joe Schmo? This is why we got the religion/culture rout. Not because there are not awesome ideas like the one you propose here but I don't see how we realistically change the political Overton window. (That said, we are trying our hardest and do seem to have made some headway.)
Thanks, Malcolm! I agree that there’s a very low chance of actually getting something like this passed, but I still think putting numbers on how much children are worth to us is a good idea. Some see children as a societal positive but the actual value they’d say they provide is vague, and others actually see having kids as a selfish way for parents to feed their egos. Spelling out the massive value that we should actually place on them might cause some people to rethink this. And I think pushing for policy solutions is a secular-friendly way to raise awareness of the issue and build political support which is another avenue for cultural change. Like when Andrew Yang was campaigning on UBI, I doubt he or anyone else thought it would happen, but I think it was helpful for bringing discussions of AI and automation into the mainstream.
The worse the situation gets, the harder it is to pass.
"Free money if you have kids" has a bigger constituency when lots of people have kids versus when few have kids.
Good point.