Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Bacchus]

Well, you're the one who described 'our welfare system discourages the poor from having kids' as 'a feature, not a bug'. For the record, my first child was born a few months after moving out of the aforementioned studio apartment, while I was working behind the counters at McDonalds - maybe it's not a good idea to make assumptions about my rationality.

I have never said the underlined words, and I think it's revealing of just how far past each other we are talking, even though we seem to understand what each is saying. I have not talked about a 'welfare system', my thinking does not commonly rely on such a prism, even more I haven't talked about 'the poor', which is also not generally in my vocabulary or thought. I'm actually pretty terrified of just what sense you did extract from my words -- if it somehow led you to think that working behind counters is a sign of irrationality in my eyes, it's pretty far from anything that I actually think.

What I did say, is that if you are out of a job, and especially if you are not even planning on getting one, you are not in a position to care for children. That's just a fact, as far as I can see (again, I may be wrong). That the UBI doesn't change that fact cannot by itself be a criticism of UBI or a sign of its insufficiency. You could, as a separate matter, say that "well, we should provide everyone with the means for caring for children, even if where they cannot do so themselves", but that's not a statement you made. But then I am probably misunderstanding you just as much as you are misunderstanding me. I don't even really know how to parse "if you get pregnant" for example, it seems to suggest a lack of control over whether one get's pregnant, but I'm afraid to raise the issue at all, to be fair, lest the conclusion is that I am advocating some hideous fate to be effected on 'the pregnant' by a 'system', or that I am failing to consider and thus oppressively disregarding things like rape, or something else entirely.

[Gavagai]

2 Huinesoron. Btw, thanks for reminding me what a ridiculous and useless organization UN is.

[Huinesoron]

Well, you're the one who described 'our welfare system discourages the poor from having kids' as 'a feature, not a bug'. For the record, my first child was born a few months after moving out of the aforementioned studio apartment, while I was working behind the counters at McDonalds - maybe it's not a good idea to make assumptions about my rationality.

I have never said the underlined words, and I think it's revealing of just how far past each other we are talking, even though we seem to understand what each is saying. I have not talked about a 'welfare system', my thinking does not commonly rely on such a prism, even more I haven't talked about 'the poor', which is also not generally in my vocabulary or thought. I'm actually pretty terrified of just what sense you did extract from my words -- if it somehow led you to think that working behind counters is a sign of irrationality in my eyes, it's pretty far from anything that I actually think.

Okay, I think I'm still not understanding you. The words you used were:

As for not being able to have kids whilst not (yet) having a job -- surely that's a feature, not a bug?

My understanding is that you were responding to comments of mine like "[living in a single room is] pretty much impossible if you have children." and "Pregnancy is on that list [of health costs not covered by most private insurance policies]", which are in the context of how some of the ways you proposed of reducing the cost of UBI would not be viable in a situation where someone had or intended to have children.

I used 'welfare system' to describe the UBI system under discussion: one in which the only government support offered (in 'welfare', health, or education) is a single lump sum every week/month. Sorry for that being unclear. 'The poor' stood in for 'people who have no other source of income, and are therefore subsisting solely on UBI' - you're right that it was an inaccurate and actually somewhat offensive term, which I shouldn't have used.

So: my interpretation of your words (as quoted above) is that you feel a UBI setup such as the one under discussion should be designed (ie, should have as a feature) to discourage people who are unemployed from having children. I attempted to convey that interpretation in a shorter, pithier way, which excluded some of the nuances. If I still haven't understood your words correctly, could you clarify for me?

(As for having kids while working at McDonald's - I don't know what you think of it, but I think it's pretty irrational, looking back! ^_~)

What I did say, is that if you are out of a job, and especially if you are not even planning on getting one, you are not in a position to care for children. That's just a fact, as far as I can see (again, I may be wrong). That the UBI doesn't change that fact cannot by itself be a criticism of UBI or a sign of its insufficiency. You could, as a separate matter, say that "well, we should provide everyone with the means for caring for children, even if where they cannot do so themselves", but that's not a statement you made. But then I am probably misunderstanding you just as much as you are misunderstanding me. I don't even really know how to parse "if you get pregnant" for example, it seems to suggest a lack of control over whether one get's pregnant, but I'm afraid to raise the issue at all, to be fair, lest the conclusion is that I am advocating some hideous fate to be effected on 'the pregnant' by a 'system'.

It's worth remembering (as I'm sure you do) that we're not just talking about a steady climb from the UBI to high- or even medium-income. People can lose their jobs. If there's an economic downturn, or the local factory shuts down, or what have you, you could find yourself back on UBI when you already have children - or even while you're pregnant! You'd hope that you'll be able to get back to work quickly, but in some cases that's not possible. If healthcare is included in the UBI, you're stacking multiple stresses on the system on top of each other: unemployment, injury (if that's why you're off), pregnancy, childcare...

As an aside on pregnancy: Google suggests that 50% of pregnancies in the US are unplanned, or 16% (2013)/40% (2004) in the UK. The US article indicates that half of those are in 'women who were attempting to use some form of birth control'. There are, of course, options - ~50% of those pregnancies ended in abortions - but abortion is a medical procedure too...

hS

[TheHumanHydra]

Who must needs convince their voters. Hence, 'any popular reaction against a UBI would be to cancel the UBI, not implement [eugenics].'

You're still misreading the argument, neither will it be construed as a 'popular reaction against the UBI'. It'll just be put as the scientific, enlightened and environmental thing to do with a certain class of people.

Who must convince their voters.

You don't need to convince them to vote for it. They'll just convince people that since the experts support it, it must be right, so just go along with it (like with much of economic policy, which the public doesn't understand).

Ipecac, 'go along with it' means vote for the party that advocates it.

I, for one, will consider every proposed social initiative on the basis of its merits, not on the basis of what hypothetical fanatics might do with it. 

Each social initiative  has to be considered in terms of its demerits too, which includes what intellectuals who've gone on and on about 'too much population here on earth' will do with the redundant class it creates.

As has already been pointed out, eugenics was a standard Progressive policy in the US for a while, these people weren't 'fanatics', they were matter of fact about it. And many of their policies were enacted. Not thinking about higher-order effects is the standard feature of liberals when they approach policy, which explains why the policies usually are bad.

Yes, demerits are included with merits -- but I mean the merits of the policy, not of our dystopian daydreams.

Yes, eugenics used to be part of mainstream thought. Then the Second World War happened, and society as a whole became far more adverse to perversions of that kind and even, to a degree, to violence. Furthermore, we have seen an increasing regard for people who might have been ignored or held in contempt before -- in the first place along racial lines, now also for disability. Do American job ads not now all have a little notice at the bottom that the company supports diverse hiring and will make all reasonable accommodations for the disabled, or is that only a Canadian thing?

Society would have to reverse itself for the nightmare scenario you envision to become real. It could, but you can bet we would fight it, and the costs associated with holding ourselves captive to such fears could be immense.

Your contempt for liberal thought is not appreciated and again betrays ideological fanaticism. But a better riposte would be that not thinking about the health and welfare of the little guy is the standard feature of conservatives when they approach policy, which explains why the policies usually hurt people -- and why they are wrong by every standard of Christian morality.

[Bacchus]

If I still haven't understood your words correctly, could you clarify for me?

Sure. The choice of words 'feature not a bug' was not particularly great from my side either, even providing that metaphors and common phrases are to be taken lightly. To put simply, "not having enough resources to raise children if you are unemployed" is just not a problem that the UBI is meant to solve. That fact stands on its own, my focus was more on "it's not a bug" than on "it's a feature". UBI, or any other policy, for sure should not be designed to discourage anyone from having children. Having children, in general, is a good thing, purposefully discouraging it is evil. The policy not being designed to encourage is not at all the same as a policy being designed to discourage, though. The feature that I meant is that yes, indeed, UBI in my formulation does no work to encourage people to have children when they, themselves, are unable to provide. This accords with what we would advise ourselves or our friends -- we would not encourage them to have kids whilst they are destitute and without immediate hope for providing at all, so why should we design a policy that does this?

People can lose their jobs. If there's an economic downturn, or the local factory shuts down, or what have you, you could find yourself back on UBI when you already have children - or even while you're pregnant!

To be sure, one of the reasons for UBI, and to make it U, is precisely to afford a level of saving available to all who work, appropriate to their circumstances. Circumstances are precarious, and you should be mindful of a downturn. This thing about "people being bad with their money" not in the least bit stems from the fact that they are not being properly educated in the need to be good with it. If the world is chaotic, and it is, the only way you can insulate people from the chaos, is to force the mindful to pay through the bad times not just for themselves, but also for those who were not mindful. This is unfair and, in the long-term, completely destructive.

Now, it has to be said, that there are all sorts of important cases where people made all reasonable efforts to secure their livelihood, but still find themselves out of luck and maybe with more responsibilities than they can carry -- children, elderly parents, sickly relatives, what name you. These cases exist, they are real and important, and they need to be dealt with by communities. This help just cannot be effectively provided on an anonymous, bureaucratic, policed basis. I agree that it needs to be provided, and people should rise to the challenge of providing it, but they should not lean on the state to do so. Such leaning is actually both an absconding of responsibility (let the bureaucrats deal with it) and an excessive load of responsibility (I have to support whatever the taxman tells me, plus the taxman himself). Having the UBI creates much more scope for engaging in just such charitable activities, and to a great extent frees people up to engage back in communities from which they were ripped by the anonymizing market-bureaucratic machine.

[SevenSpirits]

A room is viable if you're single. It's less viable, but doable, for a couple (though 'preserves their dignity' suffers). It's pretty much impossible if you have children. I was working on the model of a small flat - perhaps a studio flat, perhaps one with the luxury of a separate bedroom. We paid... something like £450 for our single-room apartment, actually, but that was almost ten years ago now.

If you're a couple with two children you're getting 2-4 times the UBI. Maybe you can afford more than one room.

[Bacchus]

This data on unintended pregnancies from the US is absolutely flabbergasting to a European: https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default...teup10.pdf Is there a widespread taboo on pill and condoms that's not talked about? Do kids fail biology class on mass?

[scooter]

Immigration also increases the demand for product due to there being more consumers in the population pool, which increases the demand for labor.

The demand of a single person does not create enough demand for one new job, especially with economies of scale.

I didn't say that it did. It's definitely not nothing, though.

[RFS-81]

This data on unintended pregnancies from the US is absolutely flabbergasting to a European: https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default...teup10.pdf Is there a widespread taboo on pill and condoms that's not talked about? Do kids fail biology class on mass?

Abstinence-only sex-ed is a thing. Though I don't think that can be the only explanation, since it doesn't apply to all states.


About UBI: The way I understood it is that everyone is supposed to get UBI, but it's paid with a tax increase that - ideally - would leave middle-class people at roughly the status quo. Relying on an honor system that only needy people apply for UBI seems totally unrealistic to me.

[Bacchus]

Relying on an honor system that only needy people apply for UBI seems totally unrealistic to me.

There is no question of relying on it, but the interpretation of policy is no less important than policy itself (something leftish wonks tend to forget). The effects of UBI that is socialized as a right and proper entitlement for everyone are going to be very different from the effects of a UBI that is socialized as a universal backstop that you should seek to get off as soon as possible, and you are kinda a dick if you don't. It's that dependency point ipecac raised -- people shouldn't think that it's OK to live off UBI, because it isn't, you are wasting your life if that's what you do. So yeah, UBI takes a little cultural maturity -- where the state is just seen as an ATM to be milked, the policy would be a disaster, not because it couldn't be afforded, but because it will be disabling and infantilizing, rather than enabling.