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Your argument is so convoluted that you were probably better off not saying anything at all.

It seems like you're starting from a conclusion and providing all of the things that support your conclusion. Instead, consider all the data and see what conclusions are revealed.

You haven't conceded a single merit to the counterargument.

I started from a conclusion (that one year parental leave is a good thing) and then argued it leads to a number of outcomes which I deem unsatisfactory. Thus, I reject the initial conclusion.

This is a form of argument by contradiction, or reductio ad absurdum. Part of it, is actually assuming the conclusion and then showing that it contradicts itself or leads to other unsavoriness.

One criticism of reductio ad absurdum is if the arguer sets up a straw man, but I'm not sure you've successfully pointed out any straw man in my argument.

Using Latin terms doesn’t change the fact that your argument is intellectually dishonest.

Name a single, unqualified societal benefit to a one year leave.

> Using Latin terms

Reductio ad absurdum is an English phrase. Derived from Latin certainly, but it does not require understanding Latin (a language which I do not speak) to comprehend.

> Name a single, unqualified societal benefit to a one year leave.

You are demanding I argue against my argument as evidence for my own argument? That seems to me the height of intellectual dishonesty.

A single unqualified social benefit is that people like me would be able to take many years off work, which I think would just be grand, because I'm rather lazy and other people paying for tathougies to play with babies sounds great! Is that a social benefit?

> Intellectual honesty is an applied method of problem solving, characterized by an unbiased, honest attitude, which can be demonstrated in a number of different ways:

> One's personal faith does not interfere with the pursuit of truth;

> Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis;

> Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another;

> References, or earlier work, are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is avoided.

This seems like you could copy and paste it in response to just about any comment. His post seems like a relatively straightforward one: "I don't like this policy. Look at all these things this policy does that are dumb." Does your post concede a single merit to the counterargument? Posts aren't required to do that.

> I am against one-year parental leaves. My wife and I want ten children. That means ten years off work?

You are an outlier in terms of how many children you want. This sort of benefit is intended to help with people who have the median number of children (1.9 in the US today) [1].

The way to deal with outlying cases like yours is to rapidly phase out the benefit as you move far above the median, so you only get the benefit for the first N children.

We already do this today with income-based tax-credit phaseouts for tax mechanisms like the investment and education tax credits.

That's not at all to say that you shouldn't have that many children, but rather that after a certain number of children, it's only in your personal interest to have them, and not in society's.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/718084/average-number-of...

A phase out benefit makes a lot of sense if the reasoning behind parental leave is that the government wants to encourage a certain number of children. That is almost never the stated reasoning behind these kinds of laws. Usually, the justification is 'family-friendliness' or for the benefit of the child. In that case, there is no justification for a phase out. If the justification is 'family friendliness', then a phase out for certain kinds of families seems rather unfriendly. If the justification is the benefit to the parent-child relationship, which is shown to reduce certain societal ills , then it's not clear why only the eldest children ought to benefit while leaving the younger children to suffer a host of social issues, like susceptibility to crime, teen pregnancy rates, etc.

> Usually, the justification is 'family-friendliness' or for the benefit of the child. In that case, there is no justification for a phase out

Family-friendliness absolutely is a policy goal that encourages people to have children, but any such policy has a target population and also has limits. The objective of these policies is usually to assist median income and median sized families, not outliers.

An example of this today is the Child and Dependent Care Assistance Plan (DCAP) [1] which parents in the US use to pay for childcare with pre-tax dollars.

This benefit is restricted to around $5,000 a year, regardless of how many children you have. It also cannot be claimed unless all parents are either employed or are full-time students.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p503

the point of perks is to attract talent. if you want 10 kids it'll take you about 20 years. if the company got someone to stay for 20 years, the perk worked

and no one has any incentives to make things better for working parents. the only incentives are to make things better for top talent. it just so happens that more experienced people tend to be that top talent. and more experienced people are older, and older people tend to have more kids. the company should try to make things better for top talent and if that is being more flexible on schedules, or vacation, then they should do it (and most companies do both of these)

> and no one has any incentives to make things better for working parents. the only incentives are to make things better for top talent. it just so happens that more experienced people tend to be that top talent. and more experienced people are older, and older people tend to have more kids. the company should try to make things better for top talent and if that is being more flexible on schedules, or vacation, then they should do it (and most companies do both of these)

Correct, which is why these government mandates are rubbish.

On the other hand, say you and your wife each work for 40 years each. Take 10 years out, and that leaves 70 years. Take one parent out, and that leaves 40 years. You've just earned 30 years of skilled labour by granting parental leave.

Why would we want both of us to work full-time (rather than as a form of passion) if one of us is capable of supporting the family and buying appropriate life insurance? That seems to be working for the wrong reasons.

Assuming the surplus is socialized via taxes, one would want a high degree of work force participation,to pay for schools, health care, infrastructure etc.

Sure the government and society would want a high degree of work force participation, but I would I want to participate?

> it would force companies to adopt policies that overall reduce the reproduction rate of society. This can hardly be said to be a good thing.

I've heard that said many times. I'm surprised to hear someone imply the opposite.

You dont need to take the whole year.

Yes, but the fact that he could creates a strong incentive for the company to identify such people and not hire them in the first place.

I mean, yeah. If this were the policy mandated by the state, I certainly wouldn't hire me.

I don't see why anyone in his/her self-interest would not. If I could take all the time in the world to play with babies and be paid my current salary to do it, that's honestly my dream life.

> I don't see why anyone in his/her self-interest would not. If I could take all the time in the world to play with babies and be paid my current salary to do it, that's honestly my dream life.

Because your dream life is not everyone else's dream life. There are a lot of good reasons people want to work. Many people actually enjoy practicing their skill, and want to get back to it when they can.

Any such policy would need to have measures to ensure that it is not used to an extent that it is not intended for, including using it for more than N years in a row, or for more than M children.

> Because your dream life is not everyone else's dream life. There are a lot of good reasons people want to work. Many people actually enjoy practicing their skill, and want to get back to it when they can.

Certainly, but the number of times the leave is taken was not the issue at hand. The commenter said you don't have to take the full leave. However, empirical data in countries and societies that do have long parental leaves show that most people take the full leave. So while not everyone's dream life involves taking out the full term of parental leave, it is most people's.

> So while not everyone's dream life involves taking out the full term of parental leave, it is most people's.

This statement "it is most people's [dream]", not being manifestly obvious, requires a citation to a statistically significant survey of people asked if they would take a full year of paid leave from their jobs, regardless of the tradeoffs (there are always some tradeoffs). Either that or it requires a qualification like "in my opinion".

And that opinion can't be used as a general argument against the benefit of paid parental leave. Just as the existence of people who want to take less than the maximum leave can't be used to argue against the benefit for people who want to take the full amount.

This sort of benefit isn't a "natural" right based on people's individual desires and dreams. It's a practical policy implemented via institutions to deal with the modern reality that often both parents are required to work to maintain a middle-class standard of living.

I have never argued against the benefit of paid parental leave. The claim that it is most people's dream life (A claim which you reject) implies that it provides some benefit to the people receiving it; otherwise, why would they opt to take it.

I made no claim as to the 'naturalness' of this right. I honestly don't really care, because that is completely non-germaine to my argument, which is that a year long leave leaves many companies vulnerable to the possibility of leachers like myself, and many others, for whom it's very straightforward to have a child every year or so. This is not a problem with shorter leaves. Most people cannot have two children in two months.