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Originally Posted by well named
I mean, I think the principal objection to your ideas are moral. I'm not sure any academic credentials would move the needle much for me. And I like me some academics, don't get me wrong.
The other objections are just that whatever problems you're trying to solve can be adequately addressed through less authoritarian and inhumane means.
Anyway, I'm not one of those academic experts, but unless I've missed it I haven't seen anything about forced sterilization in any of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality magazines I'm subscribed to, so I'm a little dubious about the claim that there is some academic consensus on this.
There isn't academic consensus on this. Neither will there ever be. It's a touchy subject that's pretty polarizing. There're people on both sides with strong opinions.
Humor me, though, in what sense are your objections moral? Do you think that there are some liberties that we extend to people for which there's NO price that we can put on it, where no matter what the consequences are that we need to guarantee it to them? I don't think you believe that. You just think that there are "better" ways to do it.
And I wouldn't disagree that there are ways to suss out poverty that are less direct. I just think they're significantly more costly, slower to take root and have a variety of undesirable side effects - which isn't really contentious if you're being honest; an honest person may just disagree about the severity of the side effects or how MUCH longer it would take to reduce poverty.
That makes a big difference if we're talking about, not years, but generations of suffering to get to that end state. You have to be able to put a price on how much "value" there is in offering unstable/incompetent people these liberties. The people who are baring the consequences of it are the people who are living in poverty, and the way the wind is blowing, you'd be lucky to retain even half of what was previously being spent by 2020.
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Sure, some people who probably would be better off not having kids do so intentionally. But as far as there is a social problem worth trying to address through government intervention the evidence I've seen (not that I've taken a lot of time on this question) suggests that you could focus on making it easier for people who don't want to have kids to avoid having them and accomplish much of what you want without the moral problems.
I dont think anyone here disagrees with making contraception widely available and affordable enough that no one has to think twice about using it. These points aren't mutually exclusive.