From: Michael Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Jan 29 2001 - 08:50:41 MST
Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Spike Jones wrote:
> >
> > > GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > some have speculated, "free basics" might come with some strings attached...
> >
> > Exactly. Free basics in exchange for non-reproduction. The
> > free food would contain birth control medications. Everyone
> > wins: society could offer educational benefits, shelter, food, you
> > name it, and even the conservative element would gain some
> > enthusiasm. The medications would be non-permanent, so that
> > if the recipients get with it and row their own boat, then they
> > can after a few months bear litters of pups. What we still need
> > is a medication that makes the men temporarily sterile. Ive heard
> > such a thing exists, dont know the details
>
> I am not actually so sure (ala Julian Simon) whether such mandatory
> control of population growth is actually such a great thing. I
> certainly would not tie it simply to not having a paying gig. Many
> quite productive and cretive people may not be doing something that
> there is a job slot for although they are clearly highly intelligent,
> capable and productive.
What I'd do is grant birth licenses based on the average education of
the couple. If the average is high school graduation, they get one kid.
For every two additional years, they get another kid. Since the data
shows that child bearing goes down with increasing education levels,
this should cause average family size to drop to between 2-3 kids per
couple rather quickly.
If you don't want this to become a dictated law, then you need to
promote social policies that engineer this result. For example, I'd only
grant welfare to individuals and families where the parent, or parents,
are in school, either vocational or college, and unemployment coverage
that goes beyond 6 months would mandate that the worker engage in
retraining classes and agree to move to a region of lower unemployment.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:05:25 MST