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Harry Tuttle

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #75 on: April 26, 2009, 03:41:16 PM »

At least Alex isn't so small minded to obsess over "what about the roads", but he is even worse in that he sees all of nature and humanity as fodder for government intervention.

Liberty is living without a net.
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Richard Garner

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #76 on: April 27, 2009, 08:50:00 AM »

Secondly, whether or not you are injured by my inaction is irrelevent:  [...]

In a free society, statements like this would have very serious consequences to your reputation.  You are responsible for the harm you cause, whether it is through action or inaction.  If you store tires on your property, it is your obligation to make sure they don't catch on fire and pollute your neighbors.  If you promise to spot someone while he's bench-pressing, that creates an obligation to at least try to help and not leave that person trapped under a barbell.  Etc.  And there are some natural obligations you are born into, the foremost of which is to reproduce.

At least one of these examples, pollution, involves a violation of rights. It would be the fact that I violated rights that I get punished for, not the fact that I harmed somebody. Take another example: Suppose I open up a shop over the road from you, offering a similar product, at a better price, and so successfully attract much of your business away from you. Plainly my action has harmed you. But we wouldn't say that i should be punished, because, even though my action has harmed you, it has not violated your rights - you had no right that the customers I attract away from you do business with you and not me.

Take another example, suppose you deeply loathe the colour blue, and I walk in front of you whilst wearing a blue shirt. Clearly this has harmed you again - you are worse off than you were when you view didn't include me in a blue shirt. But we don't say this should be punishable, because you had no right that I refrain from wearing blue or walking in front of you whilst doing so.

It is violations of rights, or risks of violations of rights, that are the offense here, not the harming, or risk of harming.

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[...]  But that doesn't mean that taking an extra day's weekend is a crime, or a rights violation, because you have no right that people work when they have not agreed to.

Nature does not dictate how many hours people should work, that is an individual decision incentivized by the reward you get in exchange for working.  We have a little thing called money to make sure everyone pulls their economic weight.  

Nature does dictate the realities of reproduction, there is no sufficient reward for it.  That's why we need to create a means of exchange to encourage people to pull their demographic weight.  Failure to do so is demographic communism, and that simply does not work - the lazy benefit from the hard work of others, the incentive to be productive declines, and so does the output.

OK, so the "lazy" benefit from the hard work of others. Big deal. What is wrong with benefitting from the hard work of others? When has benefitting from the work of others been something that libertarians think should be punishable?

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Food production is necessary for survival. Self-owners may well decide not to produce any more food. Civilisation would collapse, and humanity die out. Does that mean that it would be OK to force people to work on plantations?

That cannot happen - when the price of food goes high enough, more people will be willing to produce it.

This is false, since my example involved people who valued their leisure time more than money (they were willing to take a pay cut in order to get an extra day's holiday).

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Yes, all these terrible things could happen. But that still doesn't alter the fact that forcing people to have kids, or provide for those that are having them, is a violation of their rights.

Could?  Given the current trend, what would prevent them?

And the arguments you are making are identical to the arguments of the people who fail to recognize property rights.  "Boo hoo hoo, forcing us to work for our money and pay for stuff is theft."  They fail to understand the incentives behind economic production, and you fail to understand the incentives behind biological reproduction.

It has nothing to do with incentives, and all to do with property rights. In fact, it is you that is being the communist here, since it is you that is advocating violating property rights, nationalising people, on the grounds that doing so ensures or increases the economic wellbeing of all.

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There are no positive rights.

Only if you base your understanding of rights on wishful thinking rather than reality.

No, on coherence. The notion of positive rights entails a contradiction, because positive rights clash both with each other and with other rights, creating incompossibilities of rights and their correlative duties. Since contradictions cannot exist, then, positive rights cannot exist.

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They are inherently contradictory, generating incompossibility problems, both with negative rights, and with each other.

Failure to comply with your wishful thinking is not a contradiction.  Failure to comply with the reality of nature is.

I'm not sure how this even addresses my point. Look, take a commonly claimed positive right, a "right to a decent home." Now suppose that there is a decent home, but it can only house one family at a time. Plainly one family excercising their "right to a decent home" entails violating the other family's "right to a decent home," since the former deprives the latter of their "decent home." But if the latter got the home, the former would be deprived of it. Plainly it is impossible for either rightholder to exercise their right without violating the rights of the others. In fact, merely having asuch a right would be a violation of the identical right in others.

This is why positive rights are an incoherent nonsense. They cannot exist.

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They also can only exist at a given time and under given circumstances, and so cannot be considered human rights, as they cannot exist at all times and places that humans can exist.

Says who?  Just because a certain circumstance isn't perpetual doesn't mean it isn't a part of human nature.  Emergencies happen.  Things change.  And don't forget that on a long enough time-line, there's no such thing as human nature.  We evolve.  Things that are true of us aren't true of primate ancestors, or of the primordial goo from which we ultimately originate.  Absence of rights among monkeys is what made it possible for them to compete and evolve into man!

Rights are based on the collective competitive advantage that arises from cooperation - which is only true once a certain level of civilization is reached.  The cavemen, who could not possibly grow enough food for everyone, did not have rights as we do today, even though they were almost identical to us genetically.  If a hypothetical a super-human force were to put human feral children onto an other Earth-like planet, thus creating an isolated culture of human beings whose level of development is similar to cavemen, the reality of their existence would make rights harmful and unnatural.  They'd need to figure out how to build simple tools, hunt, domesticate animals, grow food, utilize fire, and all other civilization advances from scratch, which won't happen overnight.  In the meantime, every day will be a struggle for survival.  They would have the opposite situation with birth rates than we're having, more children than can possibly survive, thus creating competition within the species for the limited resources available.  This competition, which initially is very violent, is what drives civilization forward.

When all human beings lived in tribal "gift economies" there was no need for money, but that need gradually emerged as societies became more sophisticated, and it is downright impossible to have a stable society beyond the hunter-gatherer level without explicit "property rights" and some recognized means of exchange.  The same applies to post-industrialized societies and the "childless tax".

All this just proves that these positive rights you have made up only purtain to particular humans at particular times, and so are not rights that all humans have by virtue of being human. It would be odd to call them human rights, then.

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No. Actively preventing you from leaving would constitute false imprisonment. Failure to help you leave wouldn't.

That's kind of like putting a plastic bag over someone's head and saying "you have the right to live, but not to breathe the air on my property".

It isn't, because putting a plastic bag on your head involves me actively doing something. You wandering onto my land doesn't.

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That isn't to say that you'd owe me a limo ride off your property, I may have to call someone or pay for the taxi myself, but then you'd be obligated to let that taxi get to me and leave with me on board,

No I wouldn't. Because...

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which is still a limitation of your property rights for the sake of my positive right to free exit.

Ta da!

Plus, suppose there were only room in the taxi for you, but both you and somebody else were lost on my land, in advertdly. If you took the taxi, wouldn't you be preventing the other person from leaving? And isn't preventing their leaving a violation of their "positive right to free exit"? But if they were to prevent you from violating their right to free exit by taking the taxi yourself, wouldn't they be violating your "positive right to free exit"? How does either of you exercise this right without violating the righ of the other, or prevent their right being violated without also violating the right of the other? It seems that your "positive right to a free exit" would entail a "right to violate a positive right to free exit," as well as a right to violate my property rights against trespass. Contradiction upon contradiction!

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And you could be asked to yield your property rights further by a subpoena duces tecum, so that evidence about that plane crash can be effectively gathered.

I can be asked to yield my property, sure. But if I say "no," coming onto my property anyway, or forcing me to provide it, would still be a violation of my property rights.

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You didn't ask some retard to rob a convenience store, killing the clerk and leaving you as the only witness, yet you have an obligation to appear at his trial,
I certainly do not. Forcing me to do so would be forced labour.

Yes, forced labor.

And, as a self-owner, I have rights against forced labour.

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Which I'm in favor of in this circumstance, just like I'm in favor of a person with no money naturally being "forced" to work if no one is willing to feed him for free.

Somebody who works to get money for food because nobody else will feed him is not being "forced to work."

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You can always choose death, but if you choose to live then you must live within the context of reality and its requirements, both individual and collective.

The difference is that if nobody will feed me, then my alternatives are that I either work or die, whilst under forced labour I must either work, or somebody does something to me. My starving doesn't involve somebody doing something to me, just refraining from doing something for me.

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A legal system that forces people to turn up in court is not based on fundamental natural rights, but on violating them. You will find precisely this issue discussed in Rothbard's For a New Liberty.

I'm a huge fan of Rothbard's theories, but they're just that - theories.  Capitalist Minarchism is pretty much a proven fact at this point, but Anarcho-Capitalism still needs to be experimented with, and that won't happen overnight.  We need to take one step at a time, conduct voluntary experiments, and adjust our theories as needed.  If we fail to apply rational fallibilism to our ideas, then we're hardly much better than Marxist thugs or Jihadists!

The section in For a new Liberty referred to doesn't relate to anarchism, but to the implications of observance of man's rights, one of which is that it is unjust to force a person to testify in court.
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Ghost of Alex Libman

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #77 on: April 27, 2009, 10:07:45 AM »

(Still filling the gap with older posts.)


For instance - actually, I don't know if you have them in the US - but in the UK we have pelican crossings, where pressing a button sets off a timer at the end of which the lights will change colour and allowing pedestrians to cross. Anyway, if there is a crowd of people at the crossing, they all benefit if somebody presses the button, and pressing the button means going out of one's way, over to the light post, and pushing it. But free-riding doesn't happen, since it doesn't cost that much to go over and press the button.

Yes, we have those in New Jersey, but that analogy is completely irrelevant.  A better analogy would be every person has to press that button at least once or a big truck runs everyone over.


The benefit of free-riding from other people's reproduction is so insignificant that nobody is going to do it. I mean, how much to you gain from somebody 3,000 miles away dropping a sprog?

If you want to be taken seriously in this discussion, you really need to put more mental effort into this.  Re-read the thread a couple of times.  Do some research.  You're spouting utter nonsense - which I've already addressed.

We are talking about total human population and its total economy, of which you are a part.  It doesn't really matter who has the babies as much as it matter that enough babies are born and raised.  If there were human beings flying back and forth to Mars, then the human birth rates on Mars would affect you too.


[...]  So that, if you enjoy the sight of a well maintained yard, and your neighbour spend on maintaining his yard, but you don't pay him for doing so, you are stealing from him?

Yet again I have to repeat the obvious - yard maintenance does not constitute an economic emergency!  You were not born through your mother mowing her lawn!  No civilization in history has fallen into dark ages for lack of yard maintenance!


Benefitting from people is not sufficient to claim that you have stolen from them.

Then, according to you, everyone should be able to get into debt and refuse to pay it back.  You are born indebted to reproduce.


If I (and sufficient others) do not reproduce, everybody suffers. But this suffering is not cause by our violating rights  [...]

As I have already explained, your concept of rights is illogical and based on nothing but wishful thinking.  What you're saying is indistinguishable from "screw those suckers who planted this vegetable field, I'm going to eat from it without compensating them".  Absence of property rights discourages production.  Absence of parental benefits discourages reproduction.


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Force can be natural or artificial.  You are a part of the human race.  Is that force? 

Huh?

Is the government forcing you to be its citizen, use its currency, and suffer the effects of inflation?  The answer is yes - that constitutes artificial force, that is aggression.  You should be able to choose which voluntary organizations you belong to and which currency you choose to use.

Is anyone forcing you to be a part of the human race?  The answer is no.  You cannot choose to be born into a different civilization on another planet somewhere!  Maybe living in that other civilization would have some benefits: no need to eat, spend money on medicine, or reproduce.  But in this civilization those things are necessary for survival.  The fact that reality requires you to do those things is natural force.


I'm a very big fan of South Asian girls, but it takes at very least $10,000 a year to raise a child (including education).  I don't think this problem can be solved by a few rich guys taking on some third world wives.

I'm sure we could manage to do it for far less.  Many of them make far less than this where they are.  They would help us make do.  I'm suggesting poorer countries because many of us don't have a lot as it is and it would be more workable.

Well, that argument isn't relevant because I'm not advocating any specific numbers, just bring up examples.  The free market would decide which charities that you pay your "childless tax" to use the most cost-efficient and otherwise most desirable methods.  If/when society evolves closer to Anarcho-Capitalism, even more flexibility would be possible.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2009, 10:18:08 AM by the ghost of Alex Libman »
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Richard Garner

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #78 on: April 27, 2009, 10:34:55 AM »

(Still filling the gap with older posts.)


For instance - actually, I don't know if you have them in the US - but in the UK we have pelican crossings, where pressing a button sets off a timer at the end of which the lights will change colour and allowing pedestrians to cross. Anyway, if there is a crowd of people at the crossing, they all benefit if somebody presses the button, and pressing the button means going out of one's way, over to the light post, and pushing it. But free-riding doesn't happen, since it doesn't cost that much to go over and press the button.

Yes, we have those in New Jersey, but that analogy is completely irrelevant.  A better analogy would be every person has to press that button at least once or a big truck runs everyone over.

Why is that a better analogy? In your analogy it is impossible to free-ride, but the possibility of free-riding is key to your argument. The only reason you seem to think that it is necessary to force people to have kids, or contribute to those to do, is because you think that people have an incentive to free ride off other people having kids, to benefit from reproduction without reproducing oneself.

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The benefit of free-riding from other people's reproduction is so insignificant that nobody is going to do it. I mean, how much to you gain from somebody 3,000 miles away dropping a sprog?

If you want to be taken seriously in this discussion, you really need to put more mental effort into this.  Re-read the thread a couple of times.  Do some research.  You're spouting utter nonsense - which I've already addressed.

We are talking about total human population and its total economy, of which you are a part.  It doesn't really matter who has the babies as much as it matter that enough babies are born and raised.  If there were human beings flying back and forth to Mars, then the human birth rates on Mars would affect you too.

No, the marginal increase in the human population, or a decrease, for that matter, barely affects me at all. The effect of one more birth on my income or purchasing power is pretty much nonexistant.

You are making the same mistake that socialists do when they talk about the injustice of a football player being paid so much when "teachers are so much more important." Sure, if we were asked to give up all teachers or all footballers, we would probably say, "OK, let there be no football players," but wages and prices aren't determined like that; they are determined at the margin. So instead of choosing how much we would pay to have all teachers compared to all football players (we would pay more to have all teachers), we choose how much to pay for one more teacher, or or more football player. The same goes for one more child as opposed to all children.

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[...]  So that, if you enjoy the sight of a well maintained yard, and your neighbour spend on maintaining his yard, but you don't pay him for doing so, you are stealing from him?

Yet again I have to repeat the obvious - yard maintenance does not constitute an economic emergency!  You were not born through your mother mowing her lawn!  No civilization in history has fallen into dark ages for lack of yard maintenance!

The issue is not emergencies, the issue is benefitting. You are saying that if you benefit from somebody's work, then you have a debt to that somebody. If this is true, then you have a debt to your neighbour if he maintains a yard that is nice for you to look out upon.

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Benefitting from people is not sufficient to claim that you have stolen from them.

Then, according to you, everyone should be able to get into debt and refuse to pay it back.  You are born indebted to reproduce.

No, this has it ass backwards. According to me, benefitting from somebody is neither necessary nor sufficient to have a debt to them. So I am not saying that everybody should be able to get into debt and then refuse to pay it back. I am saying that merely benefitting from somebody is not enough to say that I have a debt to them in the first place.

And I am born owing nothing to anybody. How can I be liable for costs I have no control over?

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If I (and sufficient others) do not reproduce, everybody suffers. But this suffering is not cause by our violating rights  [...]

As I have already explained, your concept of rights is illogical and based on nothing but wishful thinking.  What you're saying is indistinguishable from "screw those suckers who planted this vegetable field, I'm going to eat from it without compensating them".

No it is not. Eating from somebody's vegetable patch, whether I compensate them or not, without their consent violates their property rights. causing universal suffering by failing to reproduce doesn't.

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Absence of property rights discourages production.  Absence of parental benefits discourages reproduction.

Perhaps, but absence of parental benefits (nice to know that you think there are no benefits to having kids unless you are being paid! What a lovinh parent!) is not a violation of property rights.

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Force can be natural or artificial.  You are a part of the human race.  Is that force? 

Huh?

Is the government forcing you to be its citizen, use its currency, and suffer the effects of inflation?  The answer is yes - that constitutes artificial force, that is aggression.  You should be able to choose which voluntary organizations you belong to and which currency you choose to use.

Is anyone forcing you to be a part of the human race?  The answer is no.  You cannot choose to be born into a different civilization on another planet somewhere!  Maybe living in that other civilization would have some benefits: no need to eat, spend money on medicine, or reproduce.  But in this civilization those things are necessary for survival.  The fact that reality requires you to do those things is natural force.


Its not force at all, at least not in any sense comparable to being forced to pay taxes so that somebody who otherwise doesn't drops a sprog.
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Ghost of Alex Libman

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #79 on: April 27, 2009, 10:39:38 AM »

(Still filling the gap with older posts.)


[...]  I just don't have time to read every post in this thread  [...]

Reading is fundamental.  Without knowing the facts, pretty much everything you've said is irrelevant.


[...]
Besides, Dan Carlin addressed this in his "Population is Destiny" episode, citing that our lack of population growth is due to our prosperity.

That episode [MP3] mostly dealt with immigration from one country to another, which I am in favor of (but with some temporary limits).  That doesn't apply to the human race as a whole - there are no other planets we can accept immigrants from.


[...] People without children pay property taxes (which mostly fund schools) and pay much more in income taxes than people with children.  [...]

Under the current socialist system, yes, but it is very ineffective at encouraging natalism and has all the other harms associated with government - brainwashing through public schools, altruism, inefficiency, and so on.  What I am proposing is a much better market-based alternative.


Alex, you know nothing about the complexities of humanities interactions and what the potentials are for what humanity can achieve. Neither do I, only I actually know it. Taking a few figures, calling them trends and announcing some great revelation does not signify anything. Your bad habit of trying to get everyone together to solve one of humanities problems is exactly why liberty has such a hard time.

I am very reluctant to advocate coercion, and I only do so as an alternative to an even more coercive outcome.  And I am very reluctant to make any projections about the future, but in this case it's a matter of basic arithmetic.


1) The statists do not have those answers either

Um, I'm not a statist, but this thread does present an answer.


Social engineering = FAIL!

Communist retards will claim that money and property rights is "social engineering".  What I'm doing is taking the capitalist philosophy one stem further, commoditizing value and providing a means to reward people for their labor.


[...]  what fills the "god-shaped hole" in their hearts  [...]

For me it's reason.


At least Alex isn't so small minded to obsess over "what about the roads", but he is even worse in that he sees all of nature and humanity as fodder for government intervention.

This thread is all about reducing the current government force.  And natalist incentives can exist without government.


Liberty is living without a net.

That's a very shallow and juvenile understanding of it.  Liberty is a consequence of the economic benefits derived from cooperation.  It does not trump survival.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2009, 10:43:06 AM by the ghost of Alex Libman »
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Harry Tuttle

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #80 on: April 27, 2009, 10:09:01 PM »


Quote from: Alex Libman
Alex, you know nothing about the complexities of humanities interactions and what the potentials are for what humanity can achieve. Neither do I, only I actually know it. Taking a few figures, calling them trends and announcing some great revelation does not signify anything. Your bad habit of trying to get everyone together to solve one of humanities problems is exactly why liberty has such a hard time.

I am very reluctant to advocate coercion, and I only do so as an alternative to an even more coercive outcome.  And I am very reluctant to make any projections about the future, but in this case it's a matter of basic arithmetic Assumptions.

Fixed.

Quote from: Alex Libman
Social engineering = FAIL!

Communist retards will claim that money and property rights is "social engineering".  What I'm doing is taking the capitalist philosophy one stem further, commoditizing value and providing a means to reward people for their labor.

It is the centralized planning that constitutes the "engineering". I am noticing more and more how few people really get the concept of the "invisible hand".

Quote from: Alex Libman
At least Alex isn't so small minded to obsess over "what about the roads", but he is even worse in that he sees all of nature and humanity as fodder for government intervention.

This thread is all about reducing the current government force.  And natalist incentives can exist without government.

As long as it is voluntary and I can opt out. I just think you are wasting your time with this bizarre fantasy that somehow civilization is doomed if human reproduction is not managed.

Quote from: Alex Libman
Liberty is living without a net.

That's a very shallow and juvenile understanding of it.  Liberty is a consequence of the economic benefits derived from cooperation.  It does not trump survival.

If the cooperation is not voluntary than it is not liberty.
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Karrde188

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #81 on: April 27, 2009, 11:52:04 PM »

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[...]
Besides, Dan Carlin addressed this in his "Population is Destiny" episode, citing that our lack of population growth is due to our prosperity.

That episode [MP3] mostly dealt with immigration from one country to another, which I am in favor of (but with some temporary limits).  That doesn't apply to the human race as a whole - there are no other planets we can accept immigrants from.

My mistake, I was thinking about the "two Cars for China" one. That episode talked about how Dan felt that there were too many people on  the planet, & how he thinks economic prosperity will eventually lower, or keep in check, the overall world population, citing that prosperous people don't want to have more than 2 or 3 kids tops, whereas people in 3rd world countries have 6 to 8 or even more kids.

Where is your evidence that world population is either stagnant or shrinking? Because people are still breeding like rabbits in the 3rd world, & those countries are, well, most of the countries on this planet. Despite wars, poverty, & disease, those populations are still growing for the most part.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2010, 09:51:11 AM by Karrde188 »
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Ghost of Alex Libman

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #82 on: April 28, 2009, 02:24:41 PM »

I'll continue filling "the Richard Garner gap" a bit later.

In the mean time, an announcement:


It's unfortunate that I have to point this out, but apparently I do.  Use your mouse.  That little device next to your computer that fits in your hand.  Roll it across a surface to get the little arrow on your screen over those blue letters.  Then click the left button.  Then read.

Thank you.





Oh, and ...

... here's what you append to all your forum posts if you want every person viewing them to hammer maqs.com for ~8MB of bandwidth: 




:twisted:
« Last Edit: April 28, 2009, 03:12:30 PM by the ghost of Alex Libman »
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Ghost of Alex Libman

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #83 on: April 28, 2009, 02:25:51 PM »

It is the centralized planning that constitutes the "engineering".

Like I've said, I'm brainstorming this idea as a potential step toward avoiding "central planning" by transitioning from the current state of government tyranny to a lesser and decentralized one, and hopefully someday none at all.


I am noticing more and more how few people really get the concept of the "invisible hand".

The economic "invisible hand" works through the "violence" of property rights, which is good.  The demographic "invisible hand" needs to work the same way, through the "violence" of parents' rights, including this Zakat-like obligation to pull your demographic weight.


As long as it is voluntary and I can opt out.

You can't opt out of government programs yet, but this would be a step in the right direction.  Rome wasn't built in a day.


I just think you are wasting your time with this bizarre fantasy that somehow civilization is doomed if human reproduction is not managed.

It doesn't have to be "managed" indefinitely, it just has to be within a reasonable range.  It can never go too high in a post-industrialized society because people have a choice when it comes to reproduction and they understand that having a baby requires a lot of time and money.  It can, however, go too low, which results in a crisis: aging population, shrinking population, falling IQ rates, decline of the total economy, instability, skyrocketing prices, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.  Etc.

So if it's above ~2.2 kids per woman on average, there's no need to "manage" anything.  At 2.1 there's cause for concern, but the effects would probably only eat up a fraction of the economic productivity gains.  At 2.0 there's more cause, and social pressure for people to pull their demographic weight becomes relevant.  At 1.9 economic decline is pretty much inevitable, thus more pressure is justified.  Etc.  But all secular post-industrialized counties seem to settle at around 1.5, and that's in spite of their governments' existing natalist policies, which are far more tyrannical than what I'm proposing!


If the cooperation is not voluntary than it is not liberty.

You can't base your philosophy on wishful thinking.  If you do, what's to stop everyone else from doing the same?  Some people out there don't recognize your property rights, and consider you not sharing your house and the contents of your refrigerator with them an "involuntary" limitation that you impose on them through force!

You have to base your philosophy on reason.  (See above.)


That episode talked about how Dan felt that there were too many people on  the planet, [...]

Too many according to whom?  Biased government scientists with an agenda?  The reality is that agricultural efficiency continues to increase, and we've barely scratched the surface of the technologies that are already developed: cheap meat substitutes, fish farming, etc, etc, etc.  The carrying capacity of this planet is hundreds of billions, and it's a very big universe out there.  But, from the highest projections, the human race will peak at 9 billion mid-century and then decline indefinitely.


[...]  & how he thinks economic prosperity will eventually lower, or keep in check, [...]

They don't "keep in check", they just keep falling.  Some countries have farther to go toward this post-industrial condition than others, but the fertility rate in all countries is declining toward unsustainable levels.


citing that prosperous people don't want to have more than 2 or 3 kids tops

If that was true we wouldn't have this problem, but we do.  The EU average is 1.50 children per woman, the US (aka Jesusland) is no longer an exception at 2.05, and Japan is at 1.22.  And that's in spite of religion, government intensives, family pressure, and so on.  And in all those cases, most of the children are born to the poorest / most rural segments of society.


[...]  whereas people in 3rd world countries have 6 to 8 or even more kids.

That's not true.  Sure, there are exceptionally large families, but you have to look at the averages.  The highest freak exception is Mali with the fertility rate of 7.34 children per woman, but their death rate is very high as well.  Fertility rates have fallen very substantially in just the past few years, and there's no reason why Mali should be any more fertile in 50 years than Barbados is today.


Where is your evidence that world population is either stagnant or shrinking?  [...]

See above.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2009, 03:11:36 PM by the ghost of Alex Libman »
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Harry Tuttle

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #84 on: April 28, 2009, 03:14:04 PM »

Look Alex, I'm not an anarchist. I just think that something more like common law can be brought about as the power of the state is curtailed. Getting a significant portion of humanity to accept my position is no more of an unnattainable goal than convincing people to accept somebody else's guidelines on childbirth needs.

Still, I have seen the tables and think it is all a bunch of shit. You can sometimes aggregate a bunch of historical info on humans and describe a trend, but to think that you will predict some sort of static model of human reproduction, development and economics is just wrong. No individual or group is capable of grasping what possible solutions there are to any perceived problem. Top-down solutions just create limitations and unintended consequences.

A looter-state is unsustainable so worrying about how to deal with the poor, underfed, violent masses of the world is a losing proposition.
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"If you're giving up your freedom to have freedom you don't have freedom, dummy."              - Mark Edge (10/11/08 show)

Ghost of Alex Libman

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #85 on: April 30, 2009, 01:23:01 AM »

From Slashdot -- Elderly To Get Satellite Navigation To Find Their Way Around Supermarkets --

Quote
Three government centers in the UK have been working on a way to use digital technology to help the elderly and the disabled. One of their ideas is a supermarket satellite navigation system to help elderly people who get confused by changing layouts in the aisles. Professor Paul Watson, of Newcastle University, said: "Many older people lack the confidence to maintain 'normal' walking habits. This is often due to worries about getting lost in unfamiliar, new or changing environments." A kitchen for Alzheimer's patients packed with hidden sensors and projectors is also in the works.

When, due to low birth rates, we end up with more people over age 70 than under 50, we're gonna need a lot of innovations like this to keep society functional...  I wonder if speed limits on highways will be lowered to 25.  :lol:
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Alex Libman 14

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #86 on: May 23, 2009, 07:55:58 PM »

So, did this thread persuade anyone to get pregnant yet?

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Richard Garner

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #87 on: May 24, 2009, 08:33:52 AM »

So, did this thread persuade anyone to get pregnant yet?



Yes, I am now pregnant.

Give me money.
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libertylover

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #88 on: May 24, 2009, 09:02:31 AM »

No Taxes for ANYTHING, and there is no problem with low birth rates the government gives free money to poor people who shouldn't have children, and even if everyone only had 1 child and population declined slowly, advances in science would solve the Depopulation problems which we would have several generations to fix.

and of course there will be the Mormons who have like 10 kids to make up for the rest of the people

Yep what he said.
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Alex Libman 14

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Re: Childless Tax
« Reply #89 on: May 24, 2009, 10:30:26 AM »

Yes, I am now pregnant.

Proof?  Are you sure it's not just constipation

« Last Edit: May 24, 2009, 10:34:25 AM by Alex Libman 17 »
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