What’s Wrong with the World

Get that? Dragging women off to abortion clinics is just something that will "happen" if we don't spread around the condoms more widely now in the greedy, Western world.

Much more likely would be slaughter of one-child police, and eventually those defending their children. Don't know about GB, but I know the US is very much unsuited to China style policies. (not to mention the horrific sexual imbalance currently there....)

Odd how he doesn't mention the first world _already_ is below replacement, no?

Hi Lydia,

This is a great topic. That said, a couple of things:

(1) The notion of a carrying capacity for humans doesn't seem to me to be intrinsically absurd (not that you said anything of the sort, but I can imagine someone with, say, Julian Simon's views, thinking that is).

(2) If the earth does have a carrying capacity for humans, what do you think this implies for (at least some brands of) conservatism?

Oh, good grief.

Psuedo-science, pseudo-solutions, pseudo-facts.

The only reason for the 1:30 ratio of British to African is because British expend thirty times as much on non-essentials. Can't the author see that either all human life is of equal substantial value or there is no value?

From the article:

World population is forecast to peak at 9.2bn by 2050.

What he doesn't say is that the world population is then predicted to go into a nose-dive. Even the UN knows this, which is why they aren't pushing population control in Europe (one of the questions left unanswered in the article).

I wholeheartedly agree that British people should spend less on luxuries and give the excess money to starving African children. A child, however, is not a luxury.

Would he re-write Scripture to read: Be fruitful and multiply carbon emission units? Funny, the idea of being "Green" never occurs in Scripture, once.

The Chicken

Usually the population-controllers have used African population as a cover. Now it seems they are not even bothering to hide their Destroy the West agenda anymore.

Bobcat, I don't know about "intrinsically absurd," but I do know that if there is such a number, it seems plausible that only God knows what it is. It's incredibly difficult to make such computations. People who try are always building in entirely unjustified ceteris paribus assumptions. There is no telling what else might change if we had X people on the earth, to allow us to "carry" X many people. So I guess you could put me more on the Julian Symon side of concepts like that.

I have real doubts as to whether any such number would have any implications for conservatism. I have never been much impressed by the notion that we have responsibility for anything so large as "the earth." It's just too much, too non-local, etc. The prediction problems are intimately bound up with the problems of really making plausible ethical statements connecting individual human beings and their obligations with something so far beyond their scale as "worldwide population and the earth's carrying capacity." I would be inclined to go so far as to say that *even if*, per impossible, we could know what that capacity is, and *even if* we were approaching it or, per impossible, could predict reliably that we will approach it within a couple of generations, or whatever, and *even if*, per impossible, we could know that for some reason the population would not then go back down entirely naturally and without any special public policy, it would *still* not be incumbent upon us to try to formulate some public policy to "deal with" this problem. I think it pretty much inevitable that such a public policy would be wicked both in conception (by treating the existence of people as a problem) and in outworking. The chips, at that point, would have to fall where they may.

I guess this is me in what Steve Burton has called my "bull in the China shop" mode.

Bobcat, I can't resist adding that even if we're talking about the incredibly difficult empirical matter of writing reliable future world history, the score on that presently stands at Symon 5 -- Ehrlich 0.

Chicken wrote, "Funny, the idea of being "Green" never occurs in Scripture, once."

I think there's something to be said for the view that there is a Scriptural command to be good stewards over the earth. That could include such things as being "green". Tolkien, for example, reacted with horror to the smokestacks, arguably out a Christian horror with exploiting the earth's resources.

Good news. On the home front congressional leaders continue the fight for federal funding of abortion. This could give us all the opportunity to squelch life at it's outset & put an end to the silly notion of true choice, which we all knew was a one way street anyway.

Mr Benton should take cheer, you can't say that our leaders aren't doing their bit.
In the meantime Mr Benton, no half measures please, carbon allowances are for sissies. It's time for the real thing, food allowances.
Starve the little bastards !

"Bobcat, I don't know about 'intrinsically absurd,' but I do know that if there is such a number, it seems plausible that only God knows what it is. It's incredibly difficult to make such computations. People who try are always building in entirely unjustified ceteris paribus assumptions. There is no telling what else might change if we had X people on the earth, to allow us to "carry" X many people. So I guess you could put me more on the Julian Symon side of concepts like that."

I know it's incredibly complex, and certainly no one claims that people know _the_ number. What people claim is that we have a good idea of some range within which the earth is beyond its carrying capacity. As for how they calculate these carrying capacities, the wikipedia article is pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity.

I don't think I agree with your claim that we don't have any responsibility for anything as large as the earth. I'd have to think about this more, but it doesn't sound crazy to me to claim that the human race has obligations to the earth, even if no individual human does. Moreover, I'm friendly to Singer's and Unger's claims that we have strong duties to relieve the suffering of the world's poor. (Though, Hugh LaFollette had a really clever response to Singer's and Unger's arguments in his _The Limits of Affluence_).

Regardless, I think individual people could have obligations to avoid despoiling their part of the earth, even if no one, and no group, has obligations to "the earth".

Finally, I should note: I don't think anyone can wrong the environment, though I think people can act wrongly toward the environment.

Oh, and I should add that I'm aware that you didn't claim that anyone thought he knew _the_ number--I was just using that as a contrast to the claim that people might know within certain bounds a realistic number. I take it you don't agree with that last claim.

Lydia: not at all. This is what I call your "totally right about everything, couldn't have said it better myself" mode ;^)

Bobcat: in this context, the phrase "carrying capacity" keeps company with "global warming" (or, more recently, "climate change") as the leper's bell of an approaching totalitarian. The moment you hear somebody express his concern about such things is the moment that you know he wants to tell you how to live your life - right down to the most intimate details.

My favorite bit of Renton's piece is his suggestion that it would be a good idea to replace Englishmen with Sub-Saharan Africans on a one-for-thirty basis.

Oh, yeah. That's the ticket.

[Warning: do not follow that link unless you have a very strong stomach.]

"the phrase "carrying capacity" keeps company with "global warming" (or, more recently, "climate change") as the leper's bell of an approaching totalitarian."

This is no criticism at all. The company a word keeps is not a reliable indication of its meaning. Perhaps, for example, the hippies are right about carrying capacity, but wrong about global warming... in which case, the word "carrying capacity" will keep the wrong company...

But this is no more of a problem for Bobcat, than is the company "Jesus" keeps with violence in the Southern states.

The moment you hear somebody express his concern about such things is the moment that you know he wants to tell you how to live your life - right down to the most intimate details.

For instance, from the article:

"And if that makes sense, why not start cutting population everywhere? Are condoms not the greenest technology of all?"

I can practically hear the the response from the chicken coop: "There's no one but us right-company keeping chickens in here."

OK, Alex, if you prefer:

The phrase "carrying capacity" is the leper's bell of an approaching totalitarian. The moment you hear somebody express his concern about the Earth's "carrying capacity," you know he wants to tell you how to live your life - right down to the most intimate details.

*Capisce?*

Actually, Steve, I am not sure I understand. I would take it that Bobcat just expressed his concern about the Earth's carrying capacity. I take it that his view is this: maybe there is such a thing and if there were maybe there would be moral or policy consequences of it. He wonders what those might be, if any.

I can testify that Bobcat is not much of a totalitarian.

I'd guess that you meant to say something true. But since you appear to have said something false, you must have failed to express your view with sufficient clarity for me.

Alex: so literal-minded, so humorless...let me guess: you're studying philosophy!

Just like me, once upon a time.

And just like Bobcat, bless his soul.

That's me: humorless pedant!

I guess I didn't realize you were kidding about the connections between "carrying capacity" and totalitarianism. My goodness, I seem to be off today!

people might know within certain bounds a realistic number.

Bobcat, yes, I would really question that, at least if "certain bounds" is meant to indicate anything _useful_. You would just have to know so many things about how people would live at that time and so forth, what they would and wouldn't do, and even more importantly, what the trajectory would be on population and many other factors from there on out. It's sort of like probability intervals. Once you get an interval that is appreciably close to the whole interval from 0 to 1, what's the point of calculating the mean of the interval? It's a pointless number, no pun intended. Certainly basing public policy on something that requires, frankly, so many wild guesses seems to me to be the very height of imprudence, to put it mildly.

Moreover, I'm friendly to Singer's and Unger's claims that we have strong duties to relieve the suffering of the world's poor.

But that doesn't have anything to do with population control. Or if anything, it means that we should ditch population control, as usually that has involved doing grave and direct wrongs and harms to the world's poor and increasing their suffering. (Population Research Institute has some damning stuff here. In one third-world country, I forget which one at the moment, doctors have induced women to sign a release just before an emergency C-section that allows them to perform a tubal ligation "while they're in there," even if the woman actually wanted to have more children. When you're on the table needing an emergency C, you don't have much time or opportunity to stop and read the fine print, much less resist.)

Further, the thesis that we are somehow failing in our duties to relieve the suffering of the world's poor if we who aren't the world's poor have children seems to me obviously false. I realize you didn't say this, but you brought up the statement about the world's poor as though it were pertinent here, and I just have trouble seeing that it is.

Lydia: could you say a little about what is sick about offering rewards to people for having fewer children?

Obviously, there are evil ways to have fewer children -- if, for example, torturing goats would limit the number of my children to 2, then I would have done wrong to acquire the reward in this way. But there are permissible ways to have fewer children -- maybe abstinence is one such way.

The sickness cannot consist in the fact that people might use evil to acquire the reward. Most every incentive (in this world) rewards evil.

What do you have in mind?

Alex:

"I guess I didn't realize you were kidding about the connections between 'carrying capacity' and totalitarianism."

Ummm...could that be because I wasn't kidding about *that*?

Dear Scott W.,

You wrote:

"There's no one but us right-company keeping chickens in here."

Hey, speak for yourself :)

Actually, the, "carrying capacity," of the planet, what does that mean? I know what it means in my scientific view, but I have no idea what the author of these sorts of articles mean. Did they include farming the oceans? Did they include advancing technology that we can only dream of? Suppose we develop fusion technology. This sort of blows the whole insane carbon nonsense out of the water. Suppose we develop types of food that do not depend on photosynthesis? Granted, any physical process has an absolute energy capacity dictated by thermodynamics, but we are so far from maximum efficiency in many areas as to be silly.

Man has a duty to take care of the planet and he is doing so, at least to some extent. We are, perhaps, in a transition period. Perhaps the period after this will allow for all of these advances and we will find that we may sustain many more people without harm. These advances towards which we ARE heading, I maintain, are a form of taking care of the planet. The people wishing a reduction of population seem to me to have no faith. They are making statements of doom while the story is only in chapter five. Turn the page. Who knows? In any case, every haircut looks horrible if stopped in the middle. Perhaps these gloom-and-doom prophets should visit their barbers.

The Chicken

Lydia: could you say a little about what is sick about offering rewards to people for having fewer children?

"Don't have kids and we'll allow you to go to Florida once a year" is pretty damn sick.

And totalitarian.

And the notion of just assuming the sort of massive change in basic rights implied by that throw-away suggestion is sickening.

Do you mean besides that?

Hi all,

Assuming this is the same Alex I think it is--Alex, are you slinging wisdom?--then I regret very much that you all have gotten off on the wrong foot. Alex is not just good people, he's excellent people.

Bobcat

OK, I've lost this post twice already. Hope this will work.

I brought up Singer because of what you wrote above Lydia, namely this:

"I have real doubts as to whether any such number would have any implications for conservatism. I have never been much impressed by the notion that we have responsibility for anything so large as "the earth." It's just too much, too non-local, etc. The prediction problems are intimately bound up with the problems of really making plausible ethical statements connecting individual human beings and their obligations with something so far beyond their scale as "worldwide population and the earth's carrying capacity.""

In retrospect, bringing up Singer was inapposite. That said, my notion that we have an obligation to relieve the suffering of far-off strangers bespeaks a philosophical difference between us (right?). I think I may be more sympathetic to the environmental movement because I do think our obligations extend very far. (Indeed, this is one reason I believe in original sin: I take our obligations to help distant others to be fairly demanding, but ones many of us we shirk for the puniest of reasons; this is not to say there aren't good reasons for thinking Singer is wrong.)

Anyway, I think there are certain resonances between the environmental movement and conservatism. To wit:

(1) Environmentalists want us to preserve green spaces, which accords with a natural human desire to enjoy such things.
(2) Environmentalists want us to limit the externalities we impose on others, which is much of the reason I sympathize with social conservatism (e.g., I think sexual promsicuity contributes to a social miasma that makes life in general worse, even if individuals don't see how they contribute to it).
(3) There are other reasons--opposition to factory farms, living sustainably--that seem to be to be in accord with conservatism as well.

As for population control, I think it's possible that if enough people have too many kids then the earth's carrying capacity would be reached. At the same time, I think it's a strong natural desire to have kids, and that people should have them. That said, just like I think it's possible for a family to have children when they shouldn't--maybe they're in no condition to care for them--I think the world could produce too many people for them to be adequately cared for. So I would encourage chastity-belt-tightening measures. But obviously, just as I wouldn't encourage abortion as a solution to a family's having too many kids, so I wouldn't encourage abortion or the restriction of people's freedom to have children to limit population control.

Bobcat, I've gotta say that if Alex doesn't see what's sick about offering women permission to fly to Florida once a year from the UK if they have only one child, then I'm just having trouble seeing the "excellent people" thing. Perhaps it isn't the Alex you think it is. It's too late at night for me to go into all the reasons that is sick, and I'm not sure there's much of a point. Foxfier did a good job upthread on it, and I can think of even _more_ reasons why (or maybe just ways to express why) it's bad-crazy, aka sick. But I'm not sure someone who can ask the question is really going to be moved by the answer.

It sounds to me like you're more of a Crunchy Con than I am, Bobcat. And I see now how the "distant people" thing was meant to fit into "duties to the earth"--sympathy to more remote duties and so forth. I think it would take us too far afield for me to say all the reasons I am not Crunchy Con. But it's the kind of thing where (believe it or not) I'm pretty happy to have a truce. Different strokes for different folks. I'll enjoy my strip malls and factory-farmed chicken, and you can enjoy your more Crunchy lifestyle, for which I'm not clever enough when I'm a bit sleepy to think of short representative descriptions. I do drive a fairly small car, as it happens. But only because I prefer it and feel more comfortable handling it, not because it's a "green" thing to do. :-)

On the carrying capacity of the earth, though, I just think you are empirically way too willing to accept that this is something we can know, and ethically way too willing to think it is something we have a duty to take into account. To say that *I* am dirt-poor and cannot afford to have children and care for them is one thing. But if that actually *is not true*, but I think that in some huge, big-picture sense "the earth" is
not able to "afford" my children, even though I'll be able to take care of them just fine, and therefore I shouldn't have them--that's quite another matter altogether.

Foxflier (and Lydia):

Forflier writes: "'Don't have kids and we'll allow you to go to Florida once a year' is pretty damn sick.

"And totalitarian.

"And the notion of just assuming the sort of massive change in basic rights implied by that throw-away suggestion is sickening.

"Do you mean besides that?"

I think Alex--and maybe it's an Alex I don't know--does mean besides that. I took it that his question, "what is sick about offering rewards to people for having fewer children?" did not presuppose Renton's whole proposal, but was merely asking whether the bare proposal of encouraging people to have fewer kids through, say, financial rewards is sick.

The half-hearted distancing from government population control on the part of the left is giving way to only-slightly-coy advocacy of it once again.

Um, how can we finance the welfare state--particularly social security, medicare, and universal health care--if we discourage population growth?

Dear Bobcat,

That's FOXFIER, not FoxfLier.

Part of the sickness in offering one rewards not to have children is that there is no real possible compensation in material terms for the loss of a child, even a potential child and that is what one is doing when one asks a couple not to have children.

The Chicken

My readers are leaving me very little to do in the way of explaining what is sick about the proposal. Yes, that was one of the things I was going to add--the sickness of trying somehow to figure out a material equivalence, a kind of "buying-out sum" for not having had children. And the casual connection to an apparently recreational trip to Florida once a year as a plausible equivalence. What kind of mind thinks that way? Ick.

I would add that even if we were not talking about what Mark Steyn aptly calls (speaking of this proposal) Soviet-style restrictions on freedom of movement, when the government gives one person money, it's getting it from someone else. So even if we were talking about the government's simply paying people not to have children, the money would be coming from the people themselves, including, in particular, the people having children. Talk about mistreating the future of your country.

First, apologies to Foxfier.

Second, the Chicken writes, "Part of the sickness in offering one rewards not to have children is that there is no real possible compensation in material terms for the loss of a child, even a potential child and that is what one is doing when one asks a couple not to have children."

When someone is murdered, the murderer can be sued in civil court as well as criminal court. It's clearly not sick to offer his victims financial compensation. So, the bare fact of paying people money in some form of compensation for the loss of a loved one is not sick.

Similarly, it doesn't seem to me to be sick to offer people money to have kids. I assume every party to this dispute would agree to the above claims.

So, it's not _just_ material compensation for a loved one that is sick. I think what you're saying is sick is the idea that material compensation ALONE will make due for the loss of a loved one.

I agree that if someone's baby dies, and you try to comfort them by offering money, this would be outrageously misplaced and evidence of a severe misunderstanding of how people see the world. That said, it seems to me quite different to offer people money to REFRAIN from having a child WHO DOES NOT YET EXIST. It is worth exploring what, exactly, you're hoping for when you offer someone money to refrain from having children, but I have to go to office hours right now, so I can't explore that right this minute.

I'm fully willing to cop to the possibility that I'm bad-sick.

That said, it seems to me quite different to offer people money to REFRAIN from having a child WHO DOES NOT YET EXIST.

The problem is not in the does not yet exist part, but that a child is made a material object, alone. A child is not just a piece of matter. This is the sort of argument an atheists might make, but a Christian or even a theist never could. What is the price of a soul? One can stop the creation of a new organization of matter by putting a price on the operation. What is the proper price for ensoulment? to say, i will pay you X dollars to treat you baby as a mere thing is extremely sick and denies the inherent dignity that a baby (or human) has that no other matter does. one is, in fact, selling a human being, in a sense, or rather, selling the void created by the non-existence of a human.

The Chicken

So, the bare fact of paying people money in some form of compensation for the loss of a loved one is not sick.

But the difference here is one of unintended loss, not what amounts essentially to a bribe to "off" your kids, even future ones. You are bribing them to not propagate the human race. As a human, that is wrong. Humans are an end in themselves, not commodities like crops to be sewn on a rotating basis as soil and market conditions demand. Treating them as such by "price support" manipulation to refrain "planting" is sick because it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be human.

Chicken mentions

Suppose we develop fusion technology. This sort of blows the whole insane carbon nonsense out of the water. Suppose we develop types of food that do not depend on photosynthesis?

Quite right, but it doesn't even start to go down the other road of what ifs: what if this planet is not the sole surface for humanity to exploit. There's the deep interior, there's the moon, there's man-made satellites, and there's the possibility that we will thoroughly conquer the rest of the solar system within the next 150 years. (And what about other stars? I don't think it is necessary to ask that to make the point.) One single technological feat (a space elevator, for which we now have the necessary materials) would bring that all into the picture. Now what is the "carrying capacity" of ... the solar system? Do we even have a "range" that anybody is confident is near the optimal number? 100B, 500B? Any reason to think a guess makes remote sense?

Yes, civil damages for a death is not comparable. For one thing, the whole civil set up makes it utterly clear, symbolically, that the death was a _bad thing_ and that the demand for compensation is a recognition thereof. Bribing people in advance not to get pregnant implies to the contrary--that the existence of the child is the bad thing we want to set up a policy to prevent, that the failure of conception is a good we want to encourage. Consider the fact that no government or private charity tries to find ways to have to pay wrongful-death damages to people, but here we are talking about a deliberate attempt to find a way to pay people compensation for not having children.

Rob: I am who you suspect I might be.

Lydia: "Could you offer rewards: have one child only and you may fly to Florida once a year?" I read this, charitably and as Bobcat suggested, as not presupposing that those who have more than one child are not legally permitted to fly to Florida. As if it were like:

"Do the dishes and I'll give you an extra piece of pie."

Understood in this way, I would expect it wouldn't be sick... though you seem prepared to argue so.

Now, of course, such money as might be rewarded would be acquired through taxation. But this is a "problem" that infects any government payment for anything.

I am pretty sure that paying people not to have children does not, somehow, treat people as if they possessed less value than they really do. First, doing so needn't express the view that children are material objects. I might be willing, for example, to pay more for a vase that had an immaterial part than a vase that didn't. It is _such_ a remarkable vase, after all. (Obviously, of course, the value of a child goes beyond whatever value it might have as a partly immaterial thing. But that does not affect _this_ point.)

It is a mistake to construe accepting money as payment not to have a child as accepting payment in exchange for a child. It might be wrong to exchange children for money, but notice that we take rather different attitudes toward those that already exist than those that might exist.

Suppose you are cruising for a child and will become pregnant soon. But, tonight, I would like you to work late. I ask you to do so and offer you overtime. If you are informed, you'll realize that since the conception of a given child is such a chancy thing -- so contingent on which sperm (among the many competitor sperms) reaches an egg -- this will almost certainly prevent the conception of the child who would otherwise be conceived. If you accept my offer, you are accepting cash for a service which has as an easily predictable consequence the non-existence of a child who would otherwise be to be. Are you a sick, child-seller if you accept? I think not.

If you accept my offer, you are accepting cash for a service which has as an easily predictable consequence the non-existence of a child who would otherwise be to be. Are you a sick, child-seller if you accept? I think not.

You are, at the least contradictory, since you are cruising for a child. You would also be extremely selfish and self-centered. Perhaps you would not make a good mother/father because of this, but moral considerations are in different class than commodity transactions.

If a deduction for not having a child is wrong, then surely a deduction for having a child is similarly wrong. If procreation should not be a matter for 'bribery', then this goes both ways. I find it odd though to say the government should have no interest in the size of the population. Large changes in either direction can have ill effects on a country.

The reality, as I see it, is that while [voluntary] population control is hardly needed at the moment in most developed countries, that doesn't mean it is never needed anywhere. That it is illegitimate right this minute doesn't mean it is always illegitimate. Then again, the situation where population control measures are needed may be wholly unrealistic anyway and therefore irrelevant.

In any case, more people is not always better. Perhaps the decline in childbearing that comes with development is God's way of saying "enough is enough".

I shd. add that I am in fact _very_ uncomfortable with the crass form that compensation takes (figuring out a "loss of consortium" award and so forth) in wrongful death suits. I find it highly distasteful for some of the reasons we have been discussing re. incomparability. I wd. probably only be able to justify to myself accepting such an award by considering the deterrent effect of such suits and awards upon the _actual negligence or wrongful action_ that led to the death. Obviously, we aren't deterring the government from doing anything here, so there is no comparable argument that cd. begin to justify this trade-off.

Alex, the "working late" thing makes no sense to me at all, and I have no idea why you would bring it up, because the person asking me to work late is not attempting to induce me not to have a child. In no sense is the exchange an exchange of money _for_ the avoidance of having a child.

Little Bobby: "Mommy why do Joey and Susie get to fly to Disneyworld for Christmas Break every year, but the 6 of us load up in the wagon and go to grandma's house in Chisholm, MN?"

Mommy: "Well Bobby that's because Joey and Susie's mom and dad decided to have only two kids to comply with their carbon emission offspring allotment and so they get a free flight to Florida. But we're saving money and someday we'll all go to Disneyworld together."

out of Hope:

Little Bobby: "Well, when I grow up I'm only going to have two kids so we can go to Disneyworld too."

or alternatively, wishing for Change, Bobby could fly into a tirade:

"Why didn't you and dad only have two kids? Then me and Johnnie could go there too! I hate the long car ride to Minnesota and I never liked Billy, Jane, Annie or Sam anyways! Because of them we can't go to Disneyworld!"

Thank you, RyGuy. Well said.

Btw, I think Renton means exactly what he says when he refers to a "personal carbon allowance" and says you "may" fly to Florida, etc. I see no reason to interpret him as imagining that everyone will be allowed to keep flying on those ice-cap-melting, nasty, big planes as much as they can afford to with their own money and that we just give them _more_ money to do so if they have only one child. The phrase "personal carbon allowance" pretty clearly indicates to the contrary.

In other words, in his ideal world the only people who can go from Britain to Florida are a) people who have enough government-issued "carbon credits" to be allowed to do so or b) people who travel in the Kon-Tiki.

I think, perhaps, we should have done away with science fiction when it first started. It seems ashamed to give people any more hints as to how the future might work out.

If a deduction for not having a child is wrong, then surely a deduction for having a child is similarly wrong.

Again, this only applies if one considers a child to be a commodity. A child is not simply material. I thought these sorts of ideas were rebuked during the Civil War, at least in the United States. Perhaps, this, among other reasons, is why such an idea is not being too seriously suggested in the US

The Chicken

If a deduction for not having a child is wrong, then surely a deduction for having a child is similarly wrong.

There is simply no basis for a presumption of neutrality here. God's Genesis injunction "Go forth and multiply" is not neutral toward life. There is a presumption in favor of life, which means that all other things being equal (health, etc), if a couple has the resources for another child, they should be open to receiving another child from God.

if a couple has the resources for another child, they should be open to receiving another child from God.

Well put Tony, unfortunately many somehow make the leap from "should be open" to "must have." Or I guess in light of this conversation "should be open" somehow gets shoved into a pseudo-criminal/sort-of-immoral category. What makes this disturbing is that very openness to _____ (fill in the blank: life, God's Will, etc) becomes disfavored. Not even disfavored, for that seems too neutral, but discouraged and once you enter contraceptives into the equation, the openness is blatantly hindered,.

On what level besides openness-to-life is the openness attacked? In this carbon emissions debate, we are encouraged to be open to a responsible stewardship of the earth; we are urged to at least be open to an interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 that promotes responsible stewardship. But the command which Tony provided, "be fruitful and multiply" comes before the commands to subdue, have dominion, care and cultivate.

There's a lot to reflect on from such a simple statement...Thanks Tony...

RyGuy, you have touched on a telling point. I am not one of the conservatives who think that we are supposed to have all the children we theoretically could achieve bringing into this world. I DO think that stewardship comes into it. But that stewardship should not be controlled top-down by a mandate from the state, for a number of reasons. The simplest reason is that the state doesn't know what God has in mind for me and my family. The ultimate basis for the decision has to be in the hands of the person whom God gave the gift of matrimony and its graces to, and to whom He give the grace to raise up a new person.

Interestingly, your point about the order of God's commands is more complex than what you mentioned. True, verse 28 says

And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.

Notice, though, that this is called a "blessing" rather than a command. But even before we get to 28, verse 26 already says

And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.

I have never noticed before that there were two separate parts to this. Does 26 mean that God is saying what he WILL do for man, and then 28 actually do it? Maybe, but I would like more development before I conclude that. It might be a 2-part dominion, like this: the first one plans out man's dominion over the earth as caretakers/stewards, but not for their own benefit; the second sets out man's dominion over the earth as owners for their own sake: 29 and 30 say:

29 And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: 30 And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done.

Which doesn't mean the kind of (stupid) ownership implied by "well, its mine so I can destroy if if I feel like it." Rather, that our ownership would FIRST attend to the good of mankind and after that to the good of other creatures - that the order of priority starts out with man at the top (of worldly beings, of course).

Does any of that make sense, or am I just blowing steam?

If a deduction for not having a child is wrong, then surely a deduction for having a child is similarly wrong.

Nope, that assumes a neutral net value for live vs non-life. That assumption is not warranted.

Even on a purely rational basis, ignoring all morality, society has good reason to encourage the production of new citizens raised in the most stable situation possible; for a society to encourage their population to cut itself in half, especially doing so in a manner that will aim at the most responsible members of society (Who's going to plan to take advantage of being allowed a trans-Atlantic flight?), is highly irrational.

Plus, like TMC pointed out, it treats kids as a commodity.

Hi guys,

So, there's been a lot said since I was last here. I won't respond to it all, but hopefully what I write below should contain responses to at least some of the claims made.

Let's look at two cases: (1) paying people to have children (natalism); (2) paying people not to have children (anti-natalism).

Let's take natalism first.

Why might the government pay people to have children? Well, as in Russia, rates of replacement could be way down and might need some boosting, so that various social safety services can be maintained, and so that the national culture can be maintained; having and caring for children is a natural end, and the people who have the children learn certain virtues as well (assuming here a two parent family that naturally conceives its children and sticks around to raise them with a loving, protective attitude).

I think these are good reasons to encourage people to have children. That said, I have to admit there is something quite weird about a stranger approaching me and my wife and offering to pay us money if we have children. It seems like it's none of his business, and I would wonder what on earth he gains by it. So I can see the possibility of at least an off-putting, if not sick, attitude here. (That said, this goes for marriage benefits and $2500 tax credits for having children, no?)

What about anti-natalism? Well, this is significantly more precarious than natalism. But there may be some reasons for it nonetheless: e.g., you think global warming is a problem and that the more people there are, the worse it will get, and you think that the earth has a limited carrying capacity, and that the more people there are, the worse things will get. Empirically, you're on shakier ground with that last worry than you are with the global warming, cultural, and social safety net worries, but that's just given the state of technology now. It doesn't seem out of bounds that we could develop our technology to the point where we are much more confident of these things.

Now, the anti-natalist proposals have a chance of encouraging a lot of bad behavior. For instance, it will increase the numbers of abortion, it will increase the use of non-NFP birth control measures (assuming you think this is a bad thing), and it may move families who would otherwise have a child not to have any children at all. In this respect, it is worse than the natalist proposal.

There's also the same off-putting factor affecting it as affected the natalist proposal. Imagine, once again, a stranger approached you and your husband and told you that he'd pay money if you promised not to have children. Again I'd wonder, what business is it of his. I'd also wonder what sick thrill he gets out of my not having any children. Finally, there's a worry that it would corrupt my sex-life if every time I engaged in sex I worried, "what if my wife gets pregnant and we lose the $10000"?

That said, it doesn't seem wholly immoral to me either. Even families who use NFP sometimes don't want to have a child right now. They are formally open to one, but they're also trying not to have one, and if they use NFP properly, their chances of not having one are about as low as if they used artificial birth control. Imagine such a husband and wife choose to use NFP because they don't feel they can afford to take care of a child right now; are they commodifying children? Are they thinking of children as though they were just soulless lumps of matter? It seems to me that they are not.

Now, if the government encouraged people to use NFP and encouraged them to have no more than three children such that they'd give them a lump sum for every year they didn't have more than three, out of concern for the environment, this doesn't seem to me to be sick. Again, it might be objectively sick, and the fact that it doesn't seem to me to be sick might show that I'm a very bad person. But I already knew that I'm a very bad person, so this would just be one more evidence for that conviction.

I have time here only to say, Bobcat, that I think you are still assuming a false symmetry between the government's deliberately encouraging birth and the government's deliberately discouraging it. There is no symmetry, neither ideologically nor, for that matter, practically. You yourself admit that anti-natalism is likely to have much worse consequences than natalism. In that sense, I would say that consequentialism is a kind of pointer to a deeper truth of things (in something of the same way that the disastrous consequences of the sexual revolution are a pointer to deeper truths about the intrinsic wrong of sex outside of marriage).

In neither case is a stranger coming up to you, personally, and offering to pay you for anything. But the government is setting up some kind of structure that "leans" one way or another. I would point out, however, that oddly enough, even this structure is cruder in the anti-natalist than in the natalist case. If we consider our present structure pro-natal, because of tax deductions for dependents, consider that a tax deduction is itself less crude than a direct payment for refraining from child-bearing, and both are less crude than what Renton proposes--punishment for child-bearing.

But that's by the way. I think it would be worth asking yourself: Which is more rational and sane for society: An overall structure that stigmatizes child-bearing and tries actively to discourage it, or an overall structure such as the one we have that to some degree (and it isn't a very overwhelming degree) encourages it?

Those advocating population control for the sake of the environment are nothing more than serial killers, plain and simple. Let's face it--only the Indians were 'green.'

I don't think it is objectively sick conceptually for society at some future date to find that families having more than, well, I'll peg it at 4 kids, creates an EXTRA burden on the social fabric that cannot be accounted for SOLELY by the straightforward direct costs of raising that child - for example, the higher levels of ER visits, the higher probability of financial catastrophe because Dad is working himself to the bone with 2 jobs and dies early, I don't know, whatever. The point is, there theoretically could be a net per-person increase in social costs above a certain # of kids per family. If that were the case, and science could prove it (not an easy chore), then maybe it would make sense for there to be a mechanism for the family who decides to have another child above that 4 mark to pay society for the extra non-direct costs that will accrue. I strongly hesitate to suggest it be a tax, or any demand of the state, so I would welcome some help here. Maybe a philanthropist will donate money to a charitable organization on behalf of the extra children above 4 for a certain number of families. Voluntary is always better than forced.

But my main point is this: whatever the mechanism, it would have to be set up to not cause a social reprobation for a family to decide to have more kids, given that the extra cost is being paid. In other words, if you could have society see a family with 5, or 6, or 10 kids and say: "wow, what good fortune and great blessings they have - not only the resources to take care of 10 kids themselves, but ALSO enough to pay the extra donation to society to cover the indirect "charge", and on top of that to have God send them those 10 kids, how wonderful!"

But what I fear is the exact opposite: any theoretical conclusion that society needs an additional set-aside of 10,000 per kid over 4 to carry the indirect costs results in everyone in society looking at a family with 5 or 6 kids down their noses and says "well, I suppose we tolerate this since they did in fact pay the extra social charge, but it's downright unseemly to parade those kids in public as if it were perfectly fine." Given human nature it seems almost certain that any social conclusion that, having more than a certain number of kids over X means a situation where society would bear extra costs per person, results in a damaging perspective on personhood and family dynamics, on the understanding of the good of a person.

I will say outright, Tony, that I see no possible way for any such thing to work that would not stigmatize the family with more children.

And I will say this, too: If the family is able to take care of its own children and is raising them well in a stable environment, then I doubt that it is plausible to think of such social costs. These kids will someday be keeping the economy going that will be supporting the aged feminist who had _no_ kids. And they'll likely be able to do it because they were raised well. The ER visits thing just takes us all the way over to the question of whether everybody should have a portion of his health care that is automatically borne by society at large. If Dad has health insurance that is paying for the ER visit when Johnny falls out of a tree, then this is no more a special social cost than the food that Johnny eats. The dad should probably buy life insurance if he can or make a serious plan with the mom about what she will do if he dies. But even charitable costs to support them _if_ he dies before the children are grown (which isn't inevitable anyway) will, I would guess, be well repaid in society at large. And once they are grown, the father's death will be _less_ of a problem than it would be in the case of a man with no children, because the grown children will be able to help take care of their mother, so _she_ will be less likely to have to be taken care of by society at large.

And here's an interesting point: The fact that we have tax deductions for children somehow _doesn't_ make the DINK (dual income no kids) couples pariahs. I think this is, among other things, because people know that sometimes people would like children but are infertile through no fault of their own. But everyone regards it as entirely within a couple's control if they have _more_ children, hence, blameable if they have "too many."

"I have time here only to say, Bobcat, that I think you are still assuming a false symmetry between the government's deliberately encouraging birth and the government's deliberately discouraging it."

Let's look at two positions on recreational drugs: (1) at least some recreational drugs should be illegal, because they have negative health consequences, they undermine autonomy, they encourage the making of the pursuit of pleasure into society's highest value, etc. (2) at least some recreational drugs should be mandatory to take, because they feel good, they can be taken in moderation, they don't have any health consequences, etc.

Obviously, despite the superficial symmetry between (1) and (2) (they both involve the government's taking a stance on drug use), are very big differences between (1) and (2).

Perhaps you think a similar situation is going on with natalism and anti-natalism?

I certainly think there are important dissimilarities between the two. That said, rather than try to draw parallels between natalism and anti-natalism, I think my position is simply: it is conceivable that there could arise states of affairs--not the wholly imaginary states of affairs characteristic of philosophical thought experiments, but states of affairs that are at least on the cusp of "that could happen"--wherein it would not be sick for the government to encourage people to refrain from childbearing. Perhaps there are some such places in Africa, or perhaps this is a state of affairs in the future. The main problem, of course, is that no government likely to prescribe anti-natalism would ever discourage people from abortion or birth control, so any anti-natalist proposal, even if it does good, will probably end up doing more bad.

Here is a sort of hierarchy of these things, IMO:

I think it's objectively sick to the nth power for the government to give people a carbon allowance which will then restrict travel, etc., to factor children into it as a negative, and to say that you _may_ fly somewhere once a year only if you have only one child. I can't even say how many times this is sick and how many ways.

I think it is sick with some fewer repetitions for the government to let everybody fly wherever they will and can afford, as now, but to give them extra money for a trip to somewhere fun every year as payment for having only one child. (And this isn't what Renton was proposing, anyway.)

I think it is overwhelmingly stupid, ominous, and creepy for the government to be building into its system some sort of more minor incentives for not having children and putting up signs (as they in fact do in Africa) trying to induce people to have fewer children. (I understand that these signs were at one point misinterpreted by the Africans in one country to mean that a big house makes a man impotent, which I do find rather amusing.) It would make far more sense for the country to clean up its political corruption, get human action and entrepreneurship to be unleashed so the country can support itself, and thereby make both the country in general and families in particular capable of caring for themselves and their own children.

I think, by the way, that people who talk as you do, Bobcat, have trouble really understanding the inevitability of coercion in all of this. In some African countries the medicine is (of course) highly socialized, and women have been told that they will not be allowed health care for their existing children if they have more children. Hopefully you can see how horrible this is. Eugenics movements and population control movements _almost always_ start by talking "voluntary" and never end that way, because there is, whether anyone realizes it or not, an implicit totalitarianism in the movement from the beginning, implicit in this, "Darn it, what's _wrong_ with those people," attitude.

And to adopt a yen for coercive measures _not even for the good of one's own country or in some truly immediate and self-evident national emergency_ but on the basis of such dubious ideas a "man-caused global warming" and "the carrying capacity of the earth," as Renton does, is doubly, nay, triply, scary.

That said, I have to admit there is something quite weird about a stranger approaching me and my wife and offering to pay us money if we have children. It seems like it's none of his business, and I would wonder what on earth he gains by it.

Since God has blessed the begetting of children, one could argue that the stranger might be offering his own, additional economic blessing in cooperation with God's blessing. The same cannot be said for the anti-natal offer to pay for not having children. God never said, even once, in Scripture for anyone not to have children, unless it was by an intrinsically intended immoral act. I suppose that atheists would not be bothered by this argument.

Again, I have little tolerance for Renton's Malthusian scare-mongering. I say, we should have all of the children we can. Perhaps, there is a threshold number which, when reached, will cause the existence of enough people to solve the current problems or provide a leap in evolution. In any event, why don't people who share his opinion just suggest that we sequester five-hundred people on a deserted island as a back-up plan for re-starting the human race. Then, we can reproduce to our heart's content and if we mess up the world, we will all die out and our hidden stash of people can go to work repopulating the earth according to their ideas. Somehow, I think the Last Day will occur before those five hundred people are needed.

I get the feeling that too many population scientists are too timid to come right out and say what they really want to do: perform an experiment to collect empirical data about which is better: having children or not having children. This sort of experiment can really only be done once if it is as catastrophic as some people claim, but hey, at least we would have done the science right :)

The Chicken

Truth to tell, I think population "scientists" are doing something even worse than that. They are trying to reduce the number of people because they just don't like people. The "green" stuff fits in here very well. Renton clearly is thinking of the non-human environment as something towards which we are acting wrongly by reproducing too much and, consequently, using "too many" fossil fuels and what-not. That's very obvious from his talk about a 1 to 30 ratio of Western to non-Western babies and still leaving the world a "cleaner place." I get the strong feeling that people of Renton's ilk wouldn't mind _too_ terribly much if human beings _all_ were living much more miserable lives but with a lower "footprint." The Earth has become something very much like a right-bearing entity in that worldview, and human beings' ability to be free of typhoid fever, to have good sanitation, and the like, is placed in competition with an entirely different notion of a "clean" or "pristine" earth. In fact, there are two quite contradictory notions of "clean" here--"clean" meaning "healthy for human habitation by being relatively free of germs and lung pollutants" and "clean" meaning "relatively free of signs of human habitation." The contrast becomes particularly clear when we have greenies recommending composting toilets and the like, or greenies pining for the days of pre-auto travel, despite the fact that in those days the air of the city streets was highly polluted with powdered horse dung.

Every time I hear evironmentalists opine about the earth and what our impact should be on nature, I am reminded of my Italian relatives and friends. The immigrant generation was fine, but the next generation, once they experienced a little more prosperity, lost their perspective. I am referring to their propensity to cover the entire parlor or as we called it, the frontroom, in plastic. The drapes were made of velvet and would have made a beautiful dress for Scarlett. The carpeting was lush and had plastic runners from door to door. There were marble statues and plastic grapes and no one was allowed into that room. In one case a relative had the room roped off like at a movie theatre. Everyone who visited was relegated to the family room or rec room. The point being, a room is for relaxing in and the furniture is for sitting on. It is not a museum. If you train your children to respect what they have been blessed with, then of course they won't trash the room either. There has to be a middle ground. And of course with each generation, there are fewer children from which to protect the museum.

For what it's worth.

Lydia wrote,

"I think, by the way, that people who talk as you do, Bobcat, have trouble really understanding the inevitability of coercion in all of this. In some African countries the medicine is (of course) highly socialized, and women have been told that they will not be allowed health care for their existing children if they have more children. Hopefully you can see how horrible this is."

Yes, I see how horrible that is.

I don't understand the _inevitability_ of coercion in this, but I do think there's a _likelihood_ (i.e., more likely than not).

I think you and I may be talking past each to some extent. I'm not saying there are very many circumstances at all in which anti-natalism would be a good idea. Just that in theory--given some not-impossible assumptions about human nature--it's not sick or horrible. That said, should there come a time when anti-natalist measures would do more harm than good, it could be that the population would already be aware of this and would already have taken some self-restrictive measures.

Chicken wrote,

"God never said, even once, in Scripture for anyone not to have children, unless it was by an intrinsically intended immoral act."

God didn't say that, but Paul did say the following: "It is well for a man not to touch a woman. But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband." (1 Cor 7:1-2) Continuing in the same vein, Paul writes, "To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion." (1 Cor 7:8-9)

Now, Paul doesn't say that it's bad to have children here, but he certainly doesn't condemn an entire life of chastity; not only does he not condemn it, but he says it's "_well_ for a man not to touch a woman" and "it is _well_" for widows and unmarried people "to remain single".

I _don't_ think Paul is saying: (1) the ideal life is a man and a woman marrying and having kids; but (2) if you can't find a partner, it's still OK not to get married and have kids. I think Paul is saying that both (1) and (2) are good; one note about (2), though, is that you certainly shouldn't have sex if you decide not to get married.

Of course, maybe the key part of this passage--"To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do"--is the "as I do"; as in, "you should get married, or you should utterly devote yourself to spreading the gospel and being single, like me. Both are good."

Dear Bobcat,

You wrote:

Now, Paul doesn't say that it's bad to have children here, but he certainly doesn't condemn an entire life of chastity; not only does he not condemn it, but he says it's "_well_ for a man not to touch a woman" and "it is _well_" for widows and unmarried people "to remain single".

Christ's word's however, put St. Paul's into perspective [Matt 19: 10-12]:

The disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry." But he said to them, "Not all men can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it."[RSV, emphasis, mine]

In fact, although the virginal state is the ideal in the New Dispensation, it is not given to many, as history shows. The presupposition is that most people would get married and with the getting married would have children. Jesus said, "Suffer not the children to come to me". He did not say, "Suffer the children not to be born".

The Chicken

Gina M. Danaher | October 28, 2009 11:36 AM

That's a generational thing, not so much an immigration thing; the room with all the plastic should probably be called "The Parlor" to indicate what it's actually for, rather than what you'd use it for-- it's for entertaining, not for family.
Requires a mind-set that holds Entertaining Company to be as important as the other things we set rooms aside for-- work-shops, laundry, sleeping, home offices.... It's also a way to show you've Made It. My grandmother stopped having a Parlor long before I came around, but from my mom's stories it seems that the only time she was allowed in the room was big Christmas parties and when the Priest came over, basically when folks you wanted to Impress were there.
(It's funny-- having symbols of how you had Made It was very, very important to a lot of folks-- my mom grew up eating a fair amount of spam, chicken feet and such, but she never had corned beef until she went to college. Her home town had a lot of Irish immigrants, and corned beef is what poor people ate. So you'd totally go the Ramen route before you'd serve corned beef.)

I don't know if it is entirely generational but I don't want to get off track. It's just that environmentalists and their population control allies remind me of this mindset. They want the earth to remain pristine without a carbon footprint or any footprint. But the earth exists to be used just as the intention of even having furniture is to use it. The earth contains resources to be used. We are here to live after all.

Obviously, that should be:

Jesus said, "Suffer the children to come to me". He did not say, "Suffer the children not to be born".

Sorry for the extra not.

I had a thought: perhaps the whole carbon thing is really a disguised fear of death and all of the talk about preserving the planet is an elaborate rationalization. If we used reasonable, ordinary moral means of procreation, if the planet became unable to support life because of an excess population, I suppose that things would still work out. We would either: 1) die out, in which case, the New Jerusalem would come, 2) we would have found a way to circumvent it under ordinary means, 3) people would, by a special act of grace, suddenly become less fertile for a time. The only way one can have such morbid fear of global warming, etc., I suspect, is if one has no faith to sustain one. Yes, we are called to respond to faith, but we are not called to fear. A lot of this green stuff is simply raw, naked fear, because many of these people see nothing beyond this life.

The Chicken

Hi Chicken,

A lot of the green movement is certainly motivated by fear; whether it's fear of no afterlife, I don't know. But at least one trope that constantly appears is that we have to make the planet safe for future generations. I've always thought there was an interesting parallel between this rationale for the environmental movement and a similar rationale for the pro-life movement. It's interesting that the same people who claim that we have a moral obligation to make life good for beings who do not yet exist, even as twinkles in anyone's eyes, also claim that there's nothing morally problematic about killing an existing, three-month old fetus.

If we're going to bring St. Paul into this, or Christ, or indeed anyone in Scripture, what you _don't_ find anywhere is a positive picture of a _married_ couple who decide not to have any children or to have only one child, etc. Never. Marriage and kids are always assumed to come together, except where infertility is accidental and seen as a great sadness. Scripture is very pro-natal whenever one is talking about marriage. Now, one could argue that this is simply a reflection of the culture. But whether or not that's true, the reflection _is_ there, and Paul associates total chastity and an absence of responsibility for children with the _unmarried_ state. I don't think it wd. have occurred to him to do anything else.

Lydia, I agree that it seems difficult to nearly impossible for there to be a valid, scientifically proven result that the socially borne financial costs of having a child above number N exceeds the financial benefits that child can be expected to bring. It seems outrageously difficult to prove. But some things that seem outrageously difficult to prove have in fact been proven mathematically. I don't want to assume more than the known facts warrant - which is that right now we cannot imagine a way to prove such a thing.

And I agree with you that sociologically, the only likely outcome if society were to arrive at such a conclusion is just as you say: a stigma on any family having more than the "acceptable" number. Which stigma would be ruinous to the true virtues of marital and family life.

But at least one trope that constantly appears is that we have to make the planet safe for future generations.

Bobcat, it's a funny thing about that trope: it is ALWAYS used to get us to STOP using some resource, or to NOT use some resource, and never used to get us to PREPARE resources for future generations. Seems to me that one of the fundamental aspects of stewardship is just that - preparation for the future people who are (maybe) to come. And that preparation must include things like building up intelligent networks of renewable resources, and building up networks of social support groups, and having children and educating them. You can't really SAVE the planet for the future generations if you won't generate them.

Lydia is totally right in saying Scripture is very pro-natal whenever one is talking about marriage. Whether this is or is not a reflection of Hebrew agricultural society, we must remember that God designed Hebrew culture in order to produce the prophets He wanted, and to prepare the way for the Redeemer. If that culture evidences a firmly pro-natal stance throughout 2000 years of history, and never does God take issue with it in the Bible (He certainly takes issue with so many other roads the Jews start down from time to time, then we may be assured it is not just a cultural accident.

Lydia, I agree that it seems difficult to nearly impossible for there to be a valid, scientifically proven result that the socially borne financial costs of having a child above number N exceeds the financial benefits that child can be expected to bring. It seems outrageously difficult to prove. But some things that seem outrageously difficult to prove have in fact been proven mathematically. I don't want to assume more than the known facts warrant - which is that right now we cannot imagine a way to prove such a thing.

The equations of ecology (species survival/growth) and economics are notoriously non-linear. This means that two different children in almost identical families might contribute in vastly different ways, one positive, one negative, in terms of either societal or financial benefits. Macroeconomics is not suited for these sorts of calculations on individual cases, since sensitivity to initial conditions exists in many of the equations describing the survival of individuals, which is a precursor to the economics. One would have thought the failure of modern economics would have proven that we do not understand how to model things very well, even in species driven by instinct. Throw in free will, and everything goes out the door. Economics is good at setting up systems and then trying to get people to conform to them. As long as they agree to conform, the economics works. When they decide to do something else, the economics no longer describes the system and it usually takes a depression or two before economists realize that people have abandoned their implicit contract with the system of economics they were going along with. Economics does not describe people; people inform the economics.

The really silly things is that ANY of the commenters in the press or scholarly publications think they understand the math or people well enough to make serious predictions. How many times have they been right, really?

The Chicken

I'd comment, but what's the point, when Gina M. Danaher has said everything worth saying, here, better than I could have?

"...the earth exists to be used..."

Well, indeed. Either that, or nothing at all.