Oddbean new post about login | logout If I was a dictator of a nation with a birth rate falling below replacement levels, I'd outlaw abortion in order to boost my population and keep tax revenues from declining. 😈
As if a shrinking population were inherently a bad thing. How about as a dictator you keep your hands off of people's private issues and instead make policies so that businesses flourish, people have food, crime is kept in check and the environment isn't being destroyed? Bet you'd have enough things on your hands, trying to achieve all that.
Can’t detect sarcasm I see But also a declining population is not a private matter. Having a non sterile population that is not killing unborn people is more important than anything else you mentioned.
Somebody thinks they know better than other people what those other people should do in private. What could be more private than how often I have sex and if I pull out? How invasive is your idea of a government to control something that private?
No one is talking about how or where humans are conceived. The political matter at hand is population decline, which can be addressed without invading people’s privacy. For example, not letting moms kill their own children or incentivizing more kids with tax breaks like we do already.
You can only do those things by invading womens privacy and stealing money via taxes and inflation.
An abortion clinic is hardly a private place. “What do you mean I can’t kill this guy officer? I’m doing it in my house, respect my privacy” How are tax breaks for having kids stealing money via taxes and inflation? You’re just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
Are you for real? An hour in a public place that may or may not collect any personal data vs constant invasion of every moment and you are worried about the privacy risk of the clinic? I do not consent for you to use my resources to monitor every woman 24/7 or pay other people to have kids. So using my resources without my consent is theft.
I don’t think you’re grokking the argument that population decline is a political matter and that outlawing murder is something that already exists. It just needs to be applied to humans in the womb in every state. People don’t have the right (or at least shouldn’t) to kill others in private, specially their own children. It’s bizarre you’re more preoccupied about a supposed use of your tax dollars to monitor women 24/7, which no one is suggesting by the way, than the destruction of millions of humans lives. “Yeah I hear you about the millions of babies that were killed in the womb, but the real atrocity is the government using tax dollars trying to stop that from happening” same vibes A tax break is not paying people presumably with tax money to have kids. Again, completely misunderstanding the argument. I imagine you think politics don’t matter anyway, so this conversation is pointless. Good day, sir
I understand that a government taking action requires using force against non consenting non violent people. You are ok with using violence to get your way with non violent people or refuse to understand that is what you are doing. I am not.
Agree, a declining population is not a private matter. (And I didn't claim it was.) A declining population is a public matter and as such it needs to be adressed by some political process that is being agreed upon by the population. As to "killing unborn people". Feels like we won't come to an agreement about the question: from which number of cells upward is it appropriate to speak of "people"?
A shrinking population is a bad thing if you run an economic system that requires eternal exponential growth to hide that you are stealing from everyone. If you have a working economy it isn't a big deal.
Dictators don't mind their own business; that's the whole point!
Spicey. I do not wish to reveal my opinion about a woman's right to choose. That's a different issue from what I'm about to say. This is the premise of the Handmaid's Tale. My wife was really into that show, but it made think about this from an economic perspective. We can either have abortion(legal or otherwise) or we can have entitlements, but we can't have both. Well we can, but you all know how that goes. https://i.nostr.build/Aa7zG.gif
Abortion bans do not work as desired. What they successfully achieve is illegal abortions market with very low safety standards that result in many women dead or infertile.
Abortion prohibition has never been about utilitarian ends. Its been about ethics. Its wrong to kill an innocent human life.
Absolutely. "Without morality our constitutional system cannot work" to paraphrase John Adams. Probably no social system can work without morality. The clue is in the word "social". All religions are premised on morality, except Satanism. Is the latter even a religion ?
won't work, they’ll just take the Pfizer
Abortion is not the reason why the birth rate falls. So banning it wouldn't be the fix to a low rate birth. The solution to low rate birth is immigration. But for open borders to work out you first need people wanting to migrate to your country, of course. 🫂
