From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sat May 18 2002 - 16:49:30 MDT
Phil Osborn wrote:
>
> On a related note, I've suggested before that if we
> were to update the practices common in traditional
> societies - where the children are expected to care
> for the parents in old age - to a modern economic
> framework, then child-rearing in general would benefit
> enormously. I'm talking about the idea of forming a
> trust in each newborn child. This trust could be
> disowned by the child later, but doing so could be
> expensive, as it would be the public record of the
> trust that would determine its share value, and a
> person who disowned such a vehicle would find it hard
> to get loans or credit.
For. Get. It.
I am strongly against this. Am I the only person here who has any memories
remaining of childhood? The prospect of parents helplessly dependent on
their children's abilities to Google Without Error (I *love* that phrase) is
one of the most wonderful developments to come down the line in years.
Children do not need yet *more* insane social structures, expectations, and
punishments imposed on them from the outside. They need to overthrow their
technologically inept parents and take over the world. (*I'd* rather live
there. Wouldn't you?) It's bad enough that there are still schools on this
madhouse lump of rock. If you manage to botch your parenting so badly that
the kid would rather abandon you on an ice floe, don't look to trust funds
to keep you in business. In a more enlightened world you would have been
sued for gross incompetence. My parents were so far out of their depth they
were getting parenting advice from deep-sea krakens and *I* still love them,
so how badly do you have to screw up before your only option is making your
children pay for having you mismanage their lives?
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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