I recently used cost-benefit analysis, and estimates of the dollar value of life, to consider the sensitive issue of covid masks, lockdowns, etc. While it can be emotionally hard to compare money and lives, we must do so if we are to think carefully about such things. Hey, as long as you and I have already paid that cost, why don’t we continue on to deal with another even more sensitive topic: abortion.
One interesting question is what is the value of the positive externality of having an additional member of the society?
The most controversial point of the proposal is to endow the children with personal debt. But, as you said, it is socially permissible for the govt to take on public debt.The second controversial point is to pay foster parents for the task of raising the children. But, we already have families that want to do that for free, and either can't have children on their own, or can't find healthy toddlers for adoption.The third controversial point is to pay the parents of existing children - and the problem it creates with having more (genetically) low-quality people. But, we already have laws in place for the surrogacy (and the overton window is shifted to view is as socially permissible).
Thus, I would say the most practical version of the proposal would be for the govt to completely subsidize the in-vitro + surrogacy + raising children cost for willing (and vetted) prospective parents, funded by public debt - if the answer to the question at the beginning is that this value is substantial.
The economic value of a child ranges from moderate negatives to large positives, with the mean being equal to lifetime economic productivity. I am abstracting here from any value the child might ascribe to its own existence, and I disregard other measures of human life value, such as the spiritual value of a soul, in this analysis.
Clearly, an efficient policy should take these inhomogeneities into consideration. The child of two borderline psychopathic morons, likely to grow up into a psychopathic moron, is less economically valuable than the child of two highly intelligent persons with high conscientiousness, high H-factor, moderate agreeableness and low neuroticism.
I am not sure how to construct a market-based mechanism to assure efficient creation of children, both regarding the number of children, and their quality. Still, as an initial, simplified approach, I would think it would be efficient to require (e.g. through a government levy) each person to pay a certain percentage of their income into a general human infrastructure fund. The fund would be used to purchase children from prospective parents, i.e. to pay prospective parents to conceive and raise children. For now let's leave aside how the exact number of children to be bought would be determined. In order to be efficient, the fund might pay some people to not have children, e.g. by paying them to agree to be sterilized. The fund would also pay some parents much more than average, in accordance with the expected value of their children. Payments might take the form of milestones, for the birth of a healthy child but not a deformed child (to encourage prenatal testing, eugenic abortion and prenatal vitamins), for the attainment of various educational milestones and for joining and staying in the workforce (to encourage imparting socially productive attitudes to children). The obligation to pay into the fertility fund would not end with the death of one's parents, to discourage parricide.
This system of transfers would counteract the trend towards childlessness that is hollowing out many modern societies. It would have beneficial eugenic effect. It would assure that a person's contribution towards creating the human component of the economy (i.e. labor) would bring a financial return, similar to the returns from one's contribution towards capital (from savings and investments).
Now, I am bit hesitant to state such views in a public forum, since most of the modest proposals I make here are likely to be vehemently condemned from many quarters, from pro-life to pro-abortion, and from socialist to free-market libertarian sides. Still, whatever one's feeling might be, it's a clear fact that modern societies are dying out, diverse traditional societies encounter dramatic fertility declines in contact with modernity, and that something needs to be done about it, if there are any humans to be around in the developed world in the next 200 years.
The alternative of course is for AIs and EMs to take the torch of civilizational progress from the faltering hands of biological humans, but this is a whole another interesting subject.
If you check the context, I was talking about the mother and the father of a fetus at risk of abortion. If the mother doesn't want the abortion it simply doesn't happen. Conflicts over the issue typically arise when the mother wants the abortion and the father does not.
Many women disapprove of abortion - but it seems as though they are mostly thinking about abortion of the fetuses of other women - their rivals. Easy access to abortion means those other women are more likely to engage in sexual behavior with less risk.
Re: "Future are not people [...] they get no vote. They're non-people as least as much as a fetus is, so bring on the short-sightedhedonism, no?"
That's how democracy works. Non-people only get their wishes respected to the extent that existing people care about them. If you want to change that situation, then one fairly obvious approach is to get voters to age slower and live longer. Another approach is to try and manipulate voters so that they act or vote against their preferences. Or a third approach is to overthrow the democratic system - and perhaps install a dictator whose views match your own personal preferences about unborn and not born people.
You say this is as if you or anyone else here are in any position to change anything later. With a bigger population, especially through immigration, you are beholden to wishes of the future electorate, who are by no means likely to agree with your assessment of things.
It's like saying we increase immigration until some point at which the author deems things are having a distinctly negative impact. Well, by then, the immigrants and their descendants control the ballot box and we have to do what they want.
By your logic, there should be no policy made that doesn't maximize the welfare of currently existing persons. Which means doing nothing about climate change or any other environmental issue that isn't going to materialize in the currently existing population's lifetimes, and it means consuming all capital for benefit of those who currently exist. Future are not people, therefore they have no prefereces, no needs, they get no vote. They're non-people as least as much as a fetus is, so bring on the short-sightedhedonism, no?
They don't consider their children getting money equal to getting money themselves, so that would not be a good reason for them to accept a dollar payment for dying.
For the few who would consider it equal, yes they would accept such a payment. Those are probably the people who buy life insurance and then commit suicide after the time limit runs out.
As for 16 million being absurd, it is just as easy to claim anything less is absurd.
Normally parting with your life is inconsistent with receiving a dollar payment at all, so that says nothing about the value people place on their life. It says you cannot pay someone to part with their life for the simple reason that if they part with their life, they cannot be paid, not because it wasn't worth the payment.
On the other hand, there are few people, if any, who would not accept a 1% chance of death for a dollar payment, and for many that payment would not even have to be very high. This shows that their life is not priceless to them.
One interesting question is what is the value of the positive externality of having an additional member of the society?
The most controversial point of the proposal is to endow the children with personal debt. But, as you said, it is socially permissible for the govt to take on public debt.The second controversial point is to pay foster parents for the task of raising the children. But, we already have families that want to do that for free, and either can't have children on their own, or can't find healthy toddlers for adoption.The third controversial point is to pay the parents of existing children - and the problem it creates with having more (genetically) low-quality people. But, we already have laws in place for the surrogacy (and the overton window is shifted to view is as socially permissible).
Thus, I would say the most practical version of the proposal would be for the govt to completely subsidize the in-vitro + surrogacy + raising children cost for willing (and vetted) prospective parents, funded by public debt - if the answer to the question at the beginning is that this value is substantial.
The economic value of a child ranges from moderate negatives to large positives, with the mean being equal to lifetime economic productivity. I am abstracting here from any value the child might ascribe to its own existence, and I disregard other measures of human life value, such as the spiritual value of a soul, in this analysis.
Clearly, an efficient policy should take these inhomogeneities into consideration. The child of two borderline psychopathic morons, likely to grow up into a psychopathic moron, is less economically valuable than the child of two highly intelligent persons with high conscientiousness, high H-factor, moderate agreeableness and low neuroticism.
I am not sure how to construct a market-based mechanism to assure efficient creation of children, both regarding the number of children, and their quality. Still, as an initial, simplified approach, I would think it would be efficient to require (e.g. through a government levy) each person to pay a certain percentage of their income into a general human infrastructure fund. The fund would be used to purchase children from prospective parents, i.e. to pay prospective parents to conceive and raise children. For now let's leave aside how the exact number of children to be bought would be determined. In order to be efficient, the fund might pay some people to not have children, e.g. by paying them to agree to be sterilized. The fund would also pay some parents much more than average, in accordance with the expected value of their children. Payments might take the form of milestones, for the birth of a healthy child but not a deformed child (to encourage prenatal testing, eugenic abortion and prenatal vitamins), for the attainment of various educational milestones and for joining and staying in the workforce (to encourage imparting socially productive attitudes to children). The obligation to pay into the fertility fund would not end with the death of one's parents, to discourage parricide.
This system of transfers would counteract the trend towards childlessness that is hollowing out many modern societies. It would have beneficial eugenic effect. It would assure that a person's contribution towards creating the human component of the economy (i.e. labor) would bring a financial return, similar to the returns from one's contribution towards capital (from savings and investments).
Now, I am bit hesitant to state such views in a public forum, since most of the modest proposals I make here are likely to be vehemently condemned from many quarters, from pro-life to pro-abortion, and from socialist to free-market libertarian sides. Still, whatever one's feeling might be, it's a clear fact that modern societies are dying out, diverse traditional societies encounter dramatic fertility declines in contact with modernity, and that something needs to be done about it, if there are any humans to be around in the developed world in the next 200 years.
The alternative of course is for AIs and EMs to take the torch of civilizational progress from the faltering hands of biological humans, but this is a whole another interesting subject.
Meaning not actually intending to have an abortion but trying to receive the nonabortion subsidy anyway.
Why would any mother be illegitimate?
How does the government, NGO, or counterparty locate a legitimate mother to be? Identification seems a moderately difficult problem?
If you check the context, I was talking about the mother and the father of a fetus at risk of abortion. If the mother doesn't want the abortion it simply doesn't happen. Conflicts over the issue typically arise when the mother wants the abortion and the father does not.
Many women disapprove of abortion - but it seems as though they are mostly thinking about abortion of the fetuses of other women - their rivals. Easy access to abortion means those other women are more likely to engage in sexual behavior with less risk.
I see what you mean. It is a fair assessment - I didn't know about the scale of the "pro-life" support among women.
Re: "Future are not people [...] they get no vote. They're non-people as least as much as a fetus is, so bring on the short-sightedhedonism, no?"
That's how democracy works. Non-people only get their wishes respected to the extent that existing people care about them. If you want to change that situation, then one fairly obvious approach is to get voters to age slower and live longer. Another approach is to try and manipulate voters so that they act or vote against their preferences. Or a third approach is to overthrow the democratic system - and perhaps install a dictator whose views match your own personal preferences about unborn and not born people.
Do you know that? If immigration is coming from overpopulated places, then it becomes more feasible for people there to have more kids.
You say this is as if you or anyone else here are in any position to change anything later. With a bigger population, especially through immigration, you are beholden to wishes of the future electorate, who are by no means likely to agree with your assessment of things.
It's like saying we increase immigration until some point at which the author deems things are having a distinctly negative impact. Well, by then, the immigrants and their descendants control the ballot box and we have to do what they want.
>I am not an "opponent of abortion"
He didn't say you were. He's saying you cannot accuratively represent the views of the people you disagree with.
> As far as I can tell, men are usually the ones pushing back against the woman's right to choose.
This is trivially false. Why would you assume something that's so easy to verify with empirical data?
By your logic, there should be no policy made that doesn't maximize the welfare of currently existing persons. Which means doing nothing about climate change or any other environmental issue that isn't going to materialize in the currently existing population's lifetimes, and it means consuming all capital for benefit of those who currently exist. Future are not people, therefore they have no prefereces, no needs, they get no vote. They're non-people as least as much as a fetus is, so bring on the short-sightedhedonism, no?
They don't consider their children getting money equal to getting money themselves, so that would not be a good reason for them to accept a dollar payment for dying.
For the few who would consider it equal, yes they would accept such a payment. Those are probably the people who buy life insurance and then commit suicide after the time limit runs out.
As for 16 million being absurd, it is just as easy to claim anything less is absurd.
Some people have wills and would bequeath their winnings to their surviving offspring. Anyway, 16M for a newborn is absurd accounting.
Normally parting with your life is inconsistent with receiving a dollar payment at all, so that says nothing about the value people place on their life. It says you cannot pay someone to part with their life for the simple reason that if they part with their life, they cannot be paid, not because it wasn't worth the payment.
On the other hand, there are few people, if any, who would not accept a 1% chance of death for a dollar payment, and for many that payment would not even have to be very high. This shows that their life is not priceless to them.