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Comment by xionon | Hacker News Reader

Is this sarcasm? Population controls are a massive change to quality of life for most people.

It depends what sort of population control is being suggested. Already, most people live in countries with less than replacement fertility (i.e. with a total fertility rate (TFR) below 2.1 births per woman).[0]

That means if someone wants developed countries to reduce their population, they are really arguing for stricter limits on immigration, and possibly for those developed countries to use economic pressure to make people in poorer countries have fewer children.

Even if the people advocating for that aren't motivated by racism, colonialism, or eugenicism, it might be difficult to convince people of their good intentions.

[0] https://ifstudies.org/blog/half-the-worlds-population-is-rea...

> Even if the people advocating for that aren't motivated by racism, colonialism, or eugenicism, it might be difficult to convince people of their good intentions.

It's enough to let them starve.

I am thinking out loud here but I am imagining a simple tax. If someone wants to have a child they pay a massive offset fee. Put another way people have to give up spending on other things or create more value for society (earn more income) to have that right. Perhaps this cutoff can be decided on a per country basis to get every country on board. It’s either that or we rely on a very complex series of technological and policy changes that are potentially not going to work out and will cause everyone to live more limited lives of restraint rather than live freely.

It is already expensive to raise a child, which puts off many of the people[0] who would otherwise make great parents, so I think you need to consider whether your simple tax would in practice mean that only the rich could have children (and whether those people would be too busy "creating more value for society" to focus much on their children's upbringing).

[0] https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2021/10/10709356/women-fert...

> in practice mean that only the rich could have children

Yes that is what it might mean, but that also seems like the right incentive to me. I would argue the rich are more deserving of having children in a world with constraints. Wealth is money accumulated by getting others to voluntarily give it to you in return for valuable goods or services. Therefore it is very literally a measure of value to society. It seems morally justified to let those who produce more value to have the privilege of raising children if we have to limit it. Also, I don’t think those parents would necessarily be too busy - most probably work 9-5 like anyone else.

I don't even know where to begin, so instead I am going to pose a question that will hopefully lead to you re-evaluating your views:

How do you reconcile the concept of land ownership, inheritance, and rent-seeking with your world view?

Can you be more direct about your point instead of posing this question? I’m not sure what you’re getting at. If your point is that some people inherit wealth, then I see no problem with that both because the vast majority of the rich are self made and because it is completely valid for someone to work hard to leave their descendants with a better situation.

You literally said "Wealth is money accumulated by getting others to voluntarily give it to you in return for valuable goods or services.", so are you saying that being the child of a billionaire means you are providing them the valuable service of being an heir? It seems like the barrier to entry to providing that "service" is pretty high, and society might want to regulate that market to make it more efficient.

It's true that the majority of the rich are considered self-made[0] (although one in three are not) but it's also true that children of rich parents are at an advantage compared to children of poor parents, meaning people don't get an equal start in life. One study estimates that "adult children tend to earn another $0.33 for every dollar their parents earn".[1]

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-riche...

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/parents-determine-child-succ...

expensive real estate is already working as a child tax. you want to raise kids - you need a bigger house, and with prices skyrocketing fewer and fewer parents are able to afford a child

Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world[1]. As far as I know, they don't live in palatial affordable mansions there. How are they managing to afford all those children?

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/total-fer...

not all those children survive, thats the reason

> Already, most people live in countries with less than replacement fertility (i.e. with a total fertility rate (TFR) below 2.1 births per woman).

This is a textbook example of what unsustainable means. In the long run most people will live in the countries with the highest fertility rates.

I’m suggesting that instead of creating a web of complex restrictions and bans, why not just create a simple system that replaces all that complexity by altering a single input into the pollution equation? Fewer humans means less consumption and emission. The humans that do exist will live in relative freedom instead of being subject to authoritarian restrictions on their every action.

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