Maternity leave

[KrazyHorse]

More people give more minds that can find solutions to problems. If we have fewer minds, we have fewer people who have the possibility of discovering solutions.

Yeah, and there are also fewer problems to solve. Would you like to spend some time thinking before you write crap?

ECONOMY OF SCALE IN IDEAS. DISECONOMY OF SCALE IN NATURAL RESOURCES.

Why do you have this faith that the one outweighs the other?

People who take advantage of their opportunities produce more than they use.

Sure, if everybody was going to be a great scientist or engineer we should encourage more children. But THAT IS NOT AN OPTION. If we encourage more children then we will get a mixed bag. WILL THE AVERAGE ADDITIONAL CHILD BE A PLUS OR A MINUS TO THE REST OF SOCIETY? If the average additional child is a PLUS then we should subsidize the production of children BY EXACTLY HOW MUCH OF A PLUS HE OR SHE WILL BE, ON AVERAGE.

This is why larger cities produce more than smaller, larger nations produce more than smaller nations, etc.

Larger societies PRODUCE MORE IN AGGREGATE. The question isn't WHO PRODUCES MORE, it's who produces more per individual. And right now the two largest countries on Earth by population are ****holes.

And yeah, that is with some other things being equal. But even countries which are behind others produce a lot more if they are much larger. And there is no reason why a large country has to take less advantage of it's people than a smaller one.

Again, you're being ****ing retarded here. China produces more than Luxembourg. But would you rather be born in China or Luxembourg?

Your statements go against all of earth's history.

It is true, there might be some point where we just don't have places to put everyone, where we just can't fully utilize our population. But no nation has shown itself to be there yet. And China and India, the worlds two largest nations (in population) are still growing at a frantic pace. They show that at least all 'first world' nations would benefit from having greater population.

China and India are playing CATCHUP to us. OF COURSE THEY HAVE A GREAT GROWTH RATE. They're using a bunch of technologies and organizational knowledge that WE CAME UP WITH in order to pull themselves out of the dark ages. Good for them. What the **** does it have to do with them having a large population? Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea HAVE ALL ALREADY DONE THE SAME THING.



Jon, you're making a fool of yourself. Human welfare is BASICALLY determined by production PER PERSON. When you increase the population you increase the numerator AND the denominator. There are certain reasons you'd believe that the numerator increases FASTER than the denominator (technological development) and certain reasons you'd believe it increases SLOWER (natural resources). I don't know which one's more important. Neither do you. I do know that it's VERY unlikely that either way those effects account for more than a small fraction of an individual's lifetime earnings.

[KrazyHorse]

Thanks for helping prove my point. I have been able to produce a lot more because I have an education. I would not have been able to get an education, and so would have stayed as a not very productive worker in a low productivity sector, if I had not had assistance in my education.

Too bad we don't have some sort of means for an individual to substitute consumption today for production tomorrow.

[Drake Tungsten]

I hate seeing you two fight like this.

[KrazyHorse]

By subsidizing education and providing opportunities to kids who would otherwise not have them, the government allows those with the ability to, to become much more productive than they otherwise would be able to be.

Yes, but they DON'T just subsidize those with ability. They subsidize EVERYBODY. Because the INDIVIDUAL doesn't have to pay for their own education too many people consume too much education.

[KrazyHorse]

I hate seeing you two fight like this.

Normally Jon's a smart guy, but he's got some sort of cognitive block on this one.

I'm trying to break through it.

[KrazyHorse]

Look, Jon:

Productivity per additional individual is obviously some sort of smoothly varying function of the number of individuals. With very few people productivity per individual is low. There is insufficient division of labour, little technological progress. On the other hand, with very many people the productivity per individual is ALSO low. And we reach this point a LONG time before any silly naive estimates of the number of human beings the earth can support blah blah blah. Natural resources become scarcer, etc. There is some sort of peak in between. Why are you of such utter faith that we are below this peak? I don't know whether we're below or above it. I do know that the slope of the curve is likely not very severe. Children are expensive propositions, and throwing blind faith into raising as many of them as possible is retarded. I'd rather let parents, who are the main beneficiaries of children, decide how many to have without leaning on the scales too much.

[Jon Miller]

It is like an gap in physics... if the gap is small then it is a lot easier to get the electron (or nucleon or whatever is the relevant 'particle' for that particular gap) to jump the gap and move from one level to the next.

??????????????????

There is no "gap". There is a continuous set of states available, even if they aren't currently populated.

Not if no one produces services/goods for those states.

The reason why there is such a plethora of differing quality of goods and services now is because there is large groups of middle class and upper middle/wealthy (But not capitalist class) members.

If these groups because too small to make it worthwhile to produce for them (or offer services for them), people won't produce/offer services geared to them.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Look, Jon:

Productivity per additional individual is obviously some sort of smoothly varying function of the number of individuals. With very few people productivity per individual is low. There is insufficient division of labour, little technological progress. On the other hand, with very many people the productivity per individual is ALSO low. And we reach this point a LONG time before any silly naive estimates of the number of human beings the earth can support blah blah blah. Natural resources become scarcer, etc. There is some sort of peak in between. Why are you of such utter faith that we are below this peak? I don't know whether we're below or above it. I do know that the slope of the curve is likely not very severe. Children are expensive propositions, and throwing blind faith into raising as many of them as possible is retarded. I'd rather let parents, who are the main beneficiaries of children, decide how many to have without leaning on the scales too much.

History shows that we are not above it.

Look at how productivity has increased relative to population for all nations that aren't screwing themselves.

If we see productivity per population starting to decrease as population increases, then I might change my theory.

But currently, I base my theory on previous evidence.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Not if no one produces services/goods for those states.

Demand creates supply, dude. If you come, they will build it.

[Jon Miller]

Thanks for helping prove my point. I have been able to produce a lot more because I have an education. I would not have been able to get an education, and so would have stayed as a not very productive worker in a low productivity sector, if I had not had assistance in my education.

Too bad we don't have some sort of means for an individual to substitute consumption today for production tomorrow.

So you suggest that we replace our current system of government subsidies with one in which people take loans where the loan officers determine who is able to get an education or not (of the non-wealthy)?

So not only will I have to pay for my own education, I will also have to pay for the risk inherent in the loan (for the people who fail/etc). Additionally, there will be a strong reason for professors/etc to pass people because money is involved, unlike currently where it is (generally) removed from the grading decisions.

So I will end up owing a fair bit more than 280k, and will have to pay interest on it afterwards, I don't think I would be able to make the ranks of the wealthy club (using the DanS method) without luck even with ability/saving as much as possible if this is the case.

And not only would I have to pay for my own education, but I would also have to be supporting my family as well. So that even if a loan officer decided I would be able to pay back the loan, it would be a large hole to pull myself out of.

Now if you were to say that people are getting education that isn't ideal for them, and that they should be educated in other ways, I would agree. But it is still in societies benefit to educate people. Whether it is to educate them in a science or art or profession or tradeskill.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

History shows that we are not above it.

Look at how productivity has increased relative to population for all nations that aren't screwing themselves.

Jon, you're honestly being really dumb here.

The "ideal" population changes with current technological level. 60 million people in Britain would have been FAR too many in the 14th century. There would have been mass starvation. Technological/organizational progress as well as capital deepening INCREASES the ideal population level, as well as INCREASING the productivity per person.

You can't simply look at a graph of the population of Britain and a graph of the GDP per capita and say "look! they're both increasing! more people = more productivity!"

I'm starting to be worried about your capacity to think analytically about this.

[KrazyHorse]

So you suggest that we replace our current system of government subsidies with one in which people take loans where the loan officers determine who is able to get an education or not (of the non-wealthy)?

Partially, yes. In actuality, I would simply reduce the per-student spending in the public system. Those who wish to acquire a better education (they are the main beneficiaries of their own education, by the way) should be able to borrow money against future earnings.

[Jon Miller]

Not if no one produces services/goods for those states.

Demand creates supply, dude. If you come, they will build it.

I Agree, if there are a lot of people there, supply will come. If it is a rare thing because only those who work the hardest/etc can get there, demand won't come.

There is a threshold.

Lets say that the gap between the capitalists and the poor is X or 1000X. If we have the same number of middle class/wealthy (which we wouldn't if you take away education support, because you have made it more difficult for poor people to enter into the middle class/wealthy), then there is less density for the wealth continuum and there is less demand for a beemer/etc for a difference of 1000X compared to a difference of X.

Additionally, if there is less benefits from going up in the continuum, less people will put in the effort to do so. And having it be more luck based, means that people who do want to get there will focus more on luck based pursuits.

So common completely luck based pursuits are lottery and crime. An additional one which isn't thought of as often is the fame based one of sports/music/movies.

The groups that focus the most on these sort of successes today are exactly the sorts that see less hope for being able to raise their status by hard work. So if you talk to poor black kids versus poor white kids, you will find more poor white kids who want to work hard and become engineers/doctors/etc, and more poor black kids who want to hit it big as a rapper or basketball player.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

So not only will I have to pay for my own education, I will also have to pay for the risk inherent in the loan (for the people who fail/etc). Additionally, there will be a strong reason for professors/etc to pass people because money is involved, unlike currently where it is (generally) removed from the grading decisions.

a) You SHOULD pay for your own damn education. You're going to earn a lot more money than you would have otherwise.

b) Those who fail out are SPONGING OFF of the public teat. They aren't going to earn more, so they won't pay more taxes, but they DID consume a lot more publicly funded education. They're insulated from the costs of their poor decision because they didn't pay for it.

c) I have no idea what world you live in, but public school teachers basically CAN'T fail kids

[KrazyHorse]

So I will end up owing a fair bit more than 280k, and will have to pay interest on it afterwards, I don't think I would be able to make the ranks of the wealthy club (using the DanS method) without luck even with ability/saving as much as possible if this is the case.

Then your education was useless. If you can't turn a PhD in physics into more than 280k present value lifetime earnings then you've wasted it.