I believe Caplan’s reply is basically that choosing to have kids affects the margin very little because any abdication on your part will be picked up by developing countries, and that having a kid is a net benefit because the more people there are, the more innovations and whatnot are created (positive externalities).
The demand for offspring is sufficiently inelastic that a Westerner refusing to have offspring is replaced by a developing country kid (or multiple kids, inasmuch as a Westerner kid consumes so many resources).
I’m having difficulty mapping that line of reasoning for some reason.
How, in practice, might a Westerner couple not having a kid exert influence on a non-Western couple having a kid? By what mechanisms are non-Western births influenced by Western births?
Wouldn’t lower prices for top American universities, e.g., lower the number of children born? I am under the impression that poverty is conducive to birthing more children.
That sounds like what he might say, but I agree with Waveman. For one thing, the overall economic and environmental impact of one child in the developing world far outweighs that of one child born in poorer countries. Furthermore, if there’s any detrimental impact of the bloated world population, then we need as many people as possible encouraging self-restraint, even if any one group of citizens can afford to indulge themselves.
Also, the claim that the percentage of innovators born to each generation is enough to offset the overall negative externalities is dubious at best. I’d say that our pace of innovation is still very obviously struggling to keep up with the pace our reproduction.
For one thing, the overall economic and environmental impact of one child in the developing world far outweighs that of one child born in poorer countries.
This also holds true for their positive impacts too. Not much good science is conducted by Africans in Africa.
Okay, so it’s not obvious to you. But do you think there’s enough evidence for the opposite opinion to warrant encouraging people to stop thinking about the impact of how many children they might have?
I don’t know if there is enough evidence, looking up what evidence exists requires significant work, and making up my mind without doing that would be irresponsible.
I strongly object to throwing around “it’s obvious that” lightly, except when you really expect everybody to agree that yes, it is obvious (which includes pretty much nothing in discussions of macroeconomics, technical progress, and history). Otherwise it just comes off as an attempt to make people who disagree look stupid.
I respect your emphasis on trying to avoid hyperbole, but there’s got to be some room for speaking loosely (even in the hyper-vigilant Less Wrong community). And notice I prefaced that sentence with “I’d say that” which I think is a pretty good indication that it was more of an opinion than a bold assertion of fact. I haven’t made up my mind about anything, but I can have strong opinions about an issue without getting a degree in the relevant field.
If you disagreed with me, why not skip the reprimand, and instead shame me (and enlighten me) by offering a strong counter-argument to my perspective?
The reprimands and downvotes mean that people don’t think what you’ve written is useful. It doesn’t matter whether you’re giving your opinion or asserting a fact. Either way, you’re expected to support your claims, because Less Wrong is all about that. *
* Except somewhat in the Discussion subsite, where sociability and the fun of conversation itself are given more weight.
I believe Caplan’s reply is basically that choosing to have kids affects the margin very little because any abdication on your part will be picked up by developing countries, and that having a kid is a net benefit because the more people there are, the more innovations and whatnot are created (positive externalities).
Having trouble parsing, could you explain what that means, perhaps by example?
The demand for offspring is sufficiently inelastic that a Westerner refusing to have offspring is replaced by a developing country kid (or multiple kids, inasmuch as a Westerner kid consumes so many resources).
I’m having difficulty mapping that line of reasoning for some reason.
How, in practice, might a Westerner couple not having a kid exert influence on a non-Western couple having a kid? By what mechanisms are non-Western births influenced by Western births?
Prices are the obvious mechanism that comes to mind—prices of things like food or top American universities.
Wouldn’t lower prices for top American universities, e.g., lower the number of children born? I am under the impression that poverty is conducive to birthing more children.
That sounds like what he might say, but I agree with Waveman. For one thing, the overall economic and environmental impact of one child in the developing world far outweighs that of one child born in poorer countries. Furthermore, if there’s any detrimental impact of the bloated world population, then we need as many people as possible encouraging self-restraint, even if any one group of citizens can afford to indulge themselves.
Also, the claim that the percentage of innovators born to each generation is enough to offset the overall negative externalities is dubious at best. I’d say that our pace of innovation is still very obviously struggling to keep up with the pace our reproduction.
This also holds true for their positive impacts too. Not much good science is conducted by Africans in Africa.
That’s not “very obvious” to me at all.
Okay, so it’s not obvious to you. But do you think there’s enough evidence for the opposite opinion to warrant encouraging people to stop thinking about the impact of how many children they might have?
I don’t know if there is enough evidence, looking up what evidence exists requires significant work, and making up my mind without doing that would be irresponsible.
I strongly object to throwing around “it’s obvious that” lightly, except when you really expect everybody to agree that yes, it is obvious (which includes pretty much nothing in discussions of macroeconomics, technical progress, and history). Otherwise it just comes off as an attempt to make people who disagree look stupid.
I respect your emphasis on trying to avoid hyperbole, but there’s got to be some room for speaking loosely (even in the hyper-vigilant Less Wrong community). And notice I prefaced that sentence with “I’d say that” which I think is a pretty good indication that it was more of an opinion than a bold assertion of fact. I haven’t made up my mind about anything, but I can have strong opinions about an issue without getting a degree in the relevant field.
If you disagreed with me, why not skip the reprimand, and instead shame me (and enlighten me) by offering a strong counter-argument to my perspective?
The reprimands and downvotes mean that people don’t think what you’ve written is useful. It doesn’t matter whether you’re giving your opinion or asserting a fact. Either way, you’re expected to support your claims, because Less Wrong is all about that. *
* Except somewhat in the Discussion subsite, where sociability and the fun of conversation itself are given more weight.