Maternity leave

[Jon Miller]

Actually, this world needs an additional 10b people.

Humans are the greatest resource we have and they aren't maximized.

Well educated humans with opportunities, and everyone in america is this sort compared to the world average (africa/india/china/etc).

JM

[BlackCat]

Actually, this world needs an additional 10b people.

Humans are the greatest resource we have and they aren't maximized.

Well educated humans with opportunities, and everyone in america is this sort compared to the world average (africa/india/china/etc).

JM

No offense, but that is prime BS.

+10 bill people especially US type would be an instant disaster. It's bad enough that the current pop tries to act as US are doing.

[Jon Miller]

We are completely fine for food, and would be.

The way we do energy is just wrong, whether it is for 1b or 15b.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Frankly, the ignorance put forward by anti-population folks always depresses me. Do some research before you start going off on human population being a bad thing.

Our food production, for example, is not at all maximized for efficiency, but we still throw away a large percentage of the food we grow.

JM

[BlackCat]

Probably yes when it comes to food/energy, but not other resources.

[Jon Miller]

What other limited resources are there?

If you say space....

JM

[KrazyHorse]

I take it you are not a fan of the Canadian system where the employment insurance system (EI) pays during maternity periods.

Not particularly.

[KrazyHorse]

It's in the interests of everyone that people continue having children.

And what makes you think that they'll stop?

[KrazyHorse]

I am in favor of more kids.

I don't care whether they are the kids of poor people or the kids of rich people.

Currently, the way that society is set up (materialistic, flat benefit to those who have kids) it favors poor people having more kids and rich people having less (or none).

JM

a) What makes you think that more children is a good idea?
b) Wouldn't it be cheaper to simply pay every woman a fixed dollar amount (perhaps annuitized over 18 years) to have children? It's cheaper to incentivize a poor woman to have children than a rich woman. Why should we pay rich women more?

[KrazyHorse]

Frankly, the ignorance put forward by anti-population folks always depresses me. Do some research before you start going off on human population being a bad thing.

Our food production, for example, is not at all maximized for efficiency, but we still throw away a large percentage of the food we grow.

JM

Jon, I have no problem with population growth as such. But reducing everything to food production is stupid. The educated, rich human beings you want to breed more of consume a lot more than food. Metals, oil, fresh water etc. are all going to cost more in a world with more people. Talking about adding 10 billion people is silly. I have no idea what the price of copper, say, would be in such a world and neither do you. It is a tremendous leap of faith to claim that the net results of such an increase would be positive. Personally, I'd rather let nature take its course than engage in widespread social engineering based on no more than this reasoning.

[Jon Miller]

Emperical investigation shows that the single largest predictor of a societies creative output is it's population size.

My ideas are influenced by:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Lincoln_Simon

And others.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Jon, there is no doubt that the larger the number of people CETERIS PAREBUS the more the creative output

But you're talking about ENGINEERING POPULATION GROWTH to get creative output. And what many years of central planning have taught us is that you engineer toward a given target, the beneficial effects previously observed with that target disappear.

I have no idea what the idea population of the US is. But I do credit people (in aggregate) with more wisdom about how many children to produce than the government.

[Jon Miller]

Currently with the way our economy is structured, there are lots of factors to discourage population growth among the wealthy....

How is that a good thing? As long as inheritance is allowed, it will jsut focus % wealth in a smaller and smaller group of people.

There are still plenty of people having children, just it is the people who it makes economic sense for... the poor/etc.

The economy doesn't do things that is the wisest for the nation/economy as a whole. Rather, it is whatever is for the best self interest of that particular element. In such case, it is best for the wealthy to have no kids (The fact they do is due to cultural/biological reasons) for that particular wealth person. But it isn't best for the economy as a whole, or for the nation as a whole.

JM

[Drake Tungsten]

I have no idea what the idea population of the US is.

> the next largest country

[Jon Miller]

Basically, it is a failure of the materialist market economy, and needs to be corrected for (like other failures) by the government.

JM