Remarkable. I never wanted to have kids, because the economics don't make sense. But at this point the government may have to pay people to have kids, just to keep the wheels of capitalism turning.
Not at all - it's a sign of an economic system that finally accounts for ecological externalities. If we want to save the planet, human population needs to stop growing. So, on average, a person should only be able afford one child. And when you remember that wealth inevitably follows a pareto distribution, it's obvious that most families won't be able to afford any children at all.
Any society that does not structure itself such that each adult can be biological parent to at least two children without significant penalty to their own quality of life is not going to be stable in the long term. That's not even a full replacement rate.
I can see a case for "People without f(N) money shouldn't be allowed to have an Nth child, for N>2." It would be quite the intrusion on liberty, but I understand how people who act as K-strategists wouldn't want their offspring to be overwhelmed by r-strategists.
The way to stop downward wage pressure is for people to control how many offspring they have. I hear a lot of utopian talk here about leisure economies and basic incomes, but how about some utopian talk about a world where no child is ever born into a family without a plan for that child's future?
> how frustrating must it be that manufacture of the most important product of all — new human beings — cannot be scaled up or digitised; can only happen slowly and organically within the bodies of individual women?
Frustrating to whom? A few religious zealots who take "be fruitful and multiply" to its extreme? Shrinking countries like Russia, perhaps. Pregnancy is cosmetically inconvenient and occasionally life-threatening (and C-sections sever lots of interesting things) so it's easy to imagine the wealthy going for pregnancy-free reproduction. But after your 14th kid or so, it gets to be a bit much, and all 14 in diapers at the same time would be a bit overwhelming?
> With an efficient, centralised source of new workers, governments can continue positioning having a family as an unaffordable luxury without staring down the barrel of demographic collapse. You’re thirty years old and spend all your salary renting a box room in a flat you share with four strangers? That used to be at least partly the state’s problem as well as your own — but not anymore.
First, what government suggests that families are an unaffordable luxury? Societal expectations of music lessons,summer camp and non-second-hand clothing are what make child-rearing expensive.
As I read it, it implies that families springing from wombs would become eccentric, while people emerging from vats would become the norm.
But the vat people would still have adolescence, hormones, all the standard causes of rebellion and instability, and would have only state workers as their comrades/family. "You're grounded, no car keys" becomes "You're incarcerated" so I suspect the revolution won't take long to start.
I suppose the cost side of raising all the children to be productive drones isn't prohibitive? It costs a fair amount to raise a child to productive adulthood, but of course all the rich countries have lots of extra housing lying around to house the kids and the state workers raising them. Or just raise them in barracks, by legions of nannies?
After all, in this picture, the state is the parent and family for the vat people. But the vat people will live, work with and have hormonal overflows with standard family people who still exist. The picture is a lot more complicated than just "set up a baby factory and run it".
I share the same sentiment. In my opinion, having children is a huge responsibility, and should not be treated as a default right. If one cannot get themselves into a stable position financially, they shouldn't be raising children. And certainly not four. Having four children without substantial financial security is outrageously irresponsible - people I know that are very well off would hesitate to have even three despite having the technical ability to afford that life.
The entire economy is manipulated. People have zero surplus. That's why they can barely afford to have a single child. It was my dream to have 2 children. I could only just barely afford 1.
you're welcome to your opinion, and can support & promote this position, but you had better be prepared for me to make arbitrary limits around things you covet as well: no one needs more than one child / car / computer, $XXX retirement savings, n years of education, etc.
For the most part free societies don't dictate directly but shape with the carrot and the stick.
Same. I don't want to birth a human into a life of slavery. If I secure enough wealth that I don't have to work, and my children wouldn't have to work, only then would I have kids.
Of the various ideas you could come up with "only the rich should be allowed to have more than one child" doesn't strike me as "the right thing to do."
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