Licensing reproduction
We do not allow anyone to drive a car, or practice medicine, or fly a plane. All of these activities - and many more besides - are licensed. And we do not allow just anyone to adopt a child. You have to demosntrate that you will be a competent parent, that you have sufficient money and emotional stability to look after the child well, and so on.
The reason why we - that is, why civilized people - license these activitites is fairly obvious: do them badly and you can cause others enormous harm. As even the staunchest libertarian will agree, we are sometimes justified in restricting the liberty of others when doing so is necessary to protect the rights of others. We have rights, but we do not have the right to violate the rights of others, and others have the right to be free from the risks of harm the above activities would pose if we did not restrict who could do them.
So given that these activities are licensed, it seems obvious that reproduction itself should be. After all, the mere fact you are fertile and capable of reproducing does not by any stretch of the imagination guarantee that you will be a good parent. And if you parent badly, you can clearly do a great deal of harm. That's precisely why we licence adoption - children have a right to be brought up well, to have a stable home environment, to have parents who are financially, emotionally and intellectually capable of discharing their responsiblities.
The idea that children who are up for adoption have this right, but those who are not do not, is ludicrous. And thus, it is equally ludicrous that we licence the former but not hte latter.
I propose, then, that it stands to reason that reprodution should be licensed. For too long human socities have let this most significant of human activities go almost entirely unregulated. We do not allow those who really want to be surgeons to be surgeons if they cannot demonstrate they also possess the requisite skills; likewise for car and plane and train drivers. Likewise, then, we should not permit those who lack the requisite skills to be a good parent (which would include things such as a healthy, demonstrably stable relationship, IQ above a certain level, and a stable financial and emotional situation) to breed.
The reason why we - that is, why civilized people - license these activitites is fairly obvious: do them badly and you can cause others enormous harm. As even the staunchest libertarian will agree, we are sometimes justified in restricting the liberty of others when doing so is necessary to protect the rights of others. We have rights, but we do not have the right to violate the rights of others, and others have the right to be free from the risks of harm the above activities would pose if we did not restrict who could do them.
So given that these activities are licensed, it seems obvious that reproduction itself should be. After all, the mere fact you are fertile and capable of reproducing does not by any stretch of the imagination guarantee that you will be a good parent. And if you parent badly, you can clearly do a great deal of harm. That's precisely why we licence adoption - children have a right to be brought up well, to have a stable home environment, to have parents who are financially, emotionally and intellectually capable of discharing their responsiblities.
The idea that children who are up for adoption have this right, but those who are not do not, is ludicrous. And thus, it is equally ludicrous that we licence the former but not hte latter.
I propose, then, that it stands to reason that reprodution should be licensed. For too long human socities have let this most significant of human activities go almost entirely unregulated. We do not allow those who really want to be surgeons to be surgeons if they cannot demonstrate they also possess the requisite skills; likewise for car and plane and train drivers. Likewise, then, we should not permit those who lack the requisite skills to be a good parent (which would include things such as a healthy, demonstrably stable relationship, IQ above a certain level, and a stable financial and emotional situation) to breed.
Comments (114)
There is really no substantial difference between licensing something and saying that 'doing this without satisfying certain criteria will result in us punishing you'.
Someone who drink drives but gets home without running anyone over should be punished, not quietly admired for their gall.
Yes, it is the antithesis of freedom in that we are saying "you are not free to do this" - but not all freedoms are equal. As the saying goes, your freedom to swing your fists ends where my face begins.
If - if - you are opposed to all licensing, then do you at least agree that 'if' it is justifiable to licence piloting and medicine, then it is justifiable to licence reproduction?
I don't admire the gall of drunk drivers or anyone else engaging in activities that put others at risk, but I think that they should be punished in proportion to the harm they cause -- as all punishment should be -- and so the deterrent effect of punishment will automatically be in proportion to how much their actions risk how much harm. Asking for permission in advance or not shouldn't play a part in how much they're punished.
But even within the realm of licensed activities, licensing reproduction seems even worse than the rest, precisely because the practical effect of it is going to be punishing someone for something, and what exactly do you propose the punishment be for what act? Are you going to punish people for having unprotected sex? How are you going to find out if that's happening? That's going to require an enormous invasion of privacy to be effectual at all. Do you only punish them if they actually conceive a child? What if they accidentally conceive, after taking all due precautions? (Birth control sometimes fails). In any case, do you force an abortion on them? That raises a huge ball of problems comparable to banning abortions. Even if you don't, then what? Do you take the children away from them? Children raised in institutional environments generally fare worse than even the averagely-badly-parented child, so that seems contrary to the intended purpose of protecting the children. Do you let the parents keep the children, and just jail one or both of them? Both seems obviously problematic, leaving the children in institutional care again, and even if it's only one, children of single parents, especially those with jailed co-parents, generally fare worse than otherwise, again defeating the purpose. Do you just fine the parents, but leave them free and let them keep the kid? That just leaves you with poorer parents, which again negatively affects the rearing of the children, defeating the purpose.
I do think people should be responsible in their procreation, just like they should be responsible in their driving, but trying to enforce that with punishment (besides the given of punishing people for the direct harm they cause) is not only morally wrong, but in this case seems like it would just cause way way more problems than it could possibly solve.
That's quite an extreme position - and if you're opposed to licensing reproduction on grounds that would include being opposed to licensing pilots and surgeons, then I'd say the case for licensing reproduction remains a good one.
Quoting Pfhorrest
That seems irrational - surely it should be punished in proportion to the wrong they have done? After all, it is for wrongdoing that one deserves punishment, not causing harm.
Obviously sometimes someone is punished for causing harm, but in such cases the harm for which you are being punished is one that has been judged unjust - that is, it is a harm you were not justified in doing to me.
For example, imagine you harm me in self-defence. Well, clearly you do not deserve punishment for the harm you have done to me. Why? Because the harm you did to me was just, not unjust.
You cite practical problems with a procreation licence, but they are not big problems and anyway they do not get at the heart of the philosophical issue. There are practical problems with any licencing scheme - with any justice system.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Yes.
Quoting Pfhorrest
How so? We currently charge people for attempts - attempted murder, attempted fraud and so forth. And for behaving recklessly, even when no harm to anyone else results. These do not require any enormous invasions of privacy.
Let's say an unlicensed couple conceive a child and there is no evidence they took any precautions against this. Well, then a good case exists for thinking they had unprotected sex - that is, we have quite compelling prima facie evidence that they behaved recklessly and deserve punishment. Just as, by analogy, if you discover me at the wheel of a car parked on the motorway hard shoulder - me, someone who lacks a licence to drive - then you have good prima facie evidence that I have been driving without a licence.
Quoting Pfhorrest
That would depend on whether abortions are morally permissible in general (and I believe they are). But that's a different issue. The point is that if abortions are not unjust killings, then yes. If they are unjust killings, then no.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Yes.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Yes, but if we introduced licencing then most children would be much better parented, so overall the welfare of children would improve.
Quoting Pfhorrest
No more problematic than cases in which, say, a parent has committed some other crime. Let's say Jane and Tom are excellent parents, but they both commit art fraud for a hobby and we catch them. Now, do we send them to jail and their kids into care? Yes, obviously.
You keep saying the policy would defeat the purpose.
No, I see no reason to think it would. You're focussing on the children of offenders, not children generally. Children generally would fare much better as they'd not be brought up by feckless losers.
Plus the purpose is not just to improve the welfare of children, but to make others behave more responsibly.
Licensing reproduction, as in having children?
Whoa.
Really? That's a bit too much confidence in the spurious presupposition that we know what the direct consequences of our decision will be.
So much for the possibility of coming out of the gutter to do great things, and in doing so helping the gutter people rid themselves of some of the gutter-ness all at the same time.
The opposite is also a possibility though... So that argument doesn't amount to much in my opinion.
Quoting creativesoul
The irony is that this presupposition is exactly what you need to have children in the first place. If you knew your child would suffer miserably you wouldn't have him correct? So having children is presupposing they won't suffer or that their suffering will be "low enough" as determined arbitrarily by their parents that it isn't problematic to have them.
Quoting Bartricks
The problem I have with this idea is what is the best way to raise a child. Once you were a poor parent if you didn’t instil Christian values in them. What sort of values should they have? And how would you prove someone has the prerequisites you mention? A licence suggests that the state knows what’s best for you.
They had a one-child policy and now have a two-child policy.
The reason for licensure is first and foremost to restrict competition in the field and increase profits for the cartel that controls it.
Regulatory capture (also client politics) is a corruption of authority that occurs when a political entity, policymaker, or regulatory agency is co-opted to serve the commercial, ideological, or political interests of a minor constituency, such as a particular geographic area, industry, profession, or ideological group[1].[2] When regulatory capture occurs, a special interest is prioritized over the general interests of the public, leading to a net loss for society.
Licensure is never in the interest of society. It is always in the interest of the oligarchy.
For example, why do so many people have no access to medical care in the USA? Why is it so expensive? Why is it so much cheaper in other countries? There is only one explanation that makes sense: They are ripping these people off by licensing away every cheaper option.
The reason why it is so easy to rip off these people, is because these people believe in the manipulative lies of the mainstream media and the public-school indoctrination camps. But then again, since these people believe these lies, they should be happy to get stripped clean; and they increasingly are. The same holds true for the student-loan idiots who will be made to pay off for the rest of their lives from the little money they make from serving coffee at Starbucks. They believe in the manipulative lies, and now they must pay. So, let them pay!
I mean, I get it. Parents now have a huge responsibility and one where they right off the bat need the ability to learn and should have basic common sense. And we licence things that are much easier. But generally this has to do with protecting us.
Now we could say: we should be concerned about that child and protect him or her. But since the parents create that child, goverments have tended to assume they have no right to per se block this until criteria are met, but rather take the role of intervening when they 'fail' in their role.
And with misgivings I agree. I don't want a government that can prevent people from having children unless they pass through whatever test.
But if you could say how you would test the parents - perhaps I might change my mind. I think getting down to specific concrete testing procedures might clarify the problems and benefits of such a plan.
So, I'm open to seeing what I would think if you could make an actual proposal. (and yes, I can imagine varous psosibilities)
Quoting tim wood
I don't think it is - we already make such intrusions, for we do not allow anyone to have sex with anyone, for instance. Plus I have always found that the idea of licensing reproduction is one that many people find perfectly ethical.
Like any licensing scheme, it could be abused. And some criteria would be more ethically debatable than others. There would also be room to debate to what extent its goal should be merely to prevent the worst kind of parents from breeding, or to promote the best kind of parenting (the former being much easier than the latter, of course).
It is, I think, also worth reflecting on just how terrible the current system is - nothing prevents a sociopath with poor impulse control, a history of violent abuse and no money from breeding. We could reasonably predict that such a person would make an appalling parent, with results that the rest of society will have to live with for a lifetime. Yet the state in no western country does anything at all to prevent them from becoming a parent.
Preventing those kinds of people from procreating is a long way from any kind of problematic eugenics, I suggest.
The policy does not have to make substantial assumptions about what the best kind of parenting involves, only what the worst kind involves. Just as driving licences are not designed to ensure that only the best drivers drive, but to stop the worst kind from doing so.
Take adoption - the adoption process in most civilized countries is heavily regulated precisely in order to weed out the worst. And, as I understand it, it is quite successful at this. I read somewhere that adopted children are five times less likely to be abused by their parents, for instance.
No, that's sometimes the reason, but it is not the reason being mooted in this case.
I feel it highlights the virtues of the utilitarian intent behind your antinatal views and shows a sincere effort to meet people halfway to find some common ground where we can maybe now speak without insulting one another. I feel you have also made efforts to address the demandingness problem in your views to do this. Bravo! Sincerely. My apologies for my part in the circumstances which led to our falling out. Clean slate or would you like to respectfully and formally address specific issues before carrying on with one?
Fundamentally I agree with licensing; but not for the same reasons as yourself obviously, but I think you'll agree with mine to some extent. The thing licensing does is bring in Education! Education and opportunity are the most powerful contraceptives one could hope for in any part of the world. Equal opportunity for education and diverse education at that.
Now the thing about licensing; of course some people are going to have kids without permission, however everyone has to access a hospital or midwife and many of these now offer compulsory parenting classes.
Obviously education isn't perfect and even if we reduce some avenues of suffering more may open. That being said; at least we can improve how we educate as we grow and learn.
How do you feel about child limits set at realistic intervals? For example one child per adolescent cycle? So not until Child A is 16 or 18 can child B be conceived? Laws would have to be cognizant of twins+ also.
I feel these sorts of rules serve the purpose of reducing suffering and improving the quality of life even though a percentage of people will not obey them. It's a good start and so long as education is also at the core of any punitive action against those that break licensing laws I'm also agreeable.
As for issues of equality in giving out licenses; welfare reforms could allow for intensive support and education for those who wish to have children but might otherwise have difficulties in raising them compared to your average person. I feel like this is going back to the idea of community raising where there is enough trust and safety to do so. My point here is simply that access to licenses shouldn't be a problem so long as access to educators is given equally.
Anyway, very stimulating thread. Well done again. Glad to finally figure out some common ground.
These people will rather immigrate from elsewhere, gradually outnumber you, and then, sooner or later, simply get rid of you.
Or marry my kids haha
Quoting Bartricks
In that sense you have a fair point. And I don’t doubt that the world would be a better place if we control who has children. I wish I could have more faith in the state and I obviously don’t. A interesting proposition all the same.
I do not think this makes a big difference where justifying licencing is concerned.
We licence pilots because of the terrible harm a totally incompetent pilot can wreak on others. Imagine, however, that if a pilot flies an empty plane above a certain altitude this brings into existence people who then occupy the empty chairs. A bizarre idea, I grant you, but conceivable. Well, wouldn't we still think it right and proper to licence the pilots of these planes? They have brought into existence the passengers on their aircraft - people who would not have existed if we did not allow them to fly - but still, this doesn't seem to affect the need to licence these pilots.
So it doesn't seem to matter whether the people who'll be endangered by a lack of licencing exist independently of the activity in question, be it flying or procreating.
We haven't needed pilots to fly planes for over thirty years now.
In fact, we use a lot of drone technology already, which is safer, better, and cheaper, but we do not use it for commercial passenger flights, the reason being the seventy-year old totally outdated regulations that were suitable for 1950ies technology, but which are still around today.
Seriously, we simply do not need pilots.
Licensing has a strong tendency to freeze situations as they were when the regulations were introduced. We started regulating trains in the 1920ies, and that is why the railways remain frozen like things were in 1920. Railways are as unusable today as they were back then.
Technology and regulations do not go well together.
The more regulations, the more outdated the country tends to become. Just give it enough time. For example, the USA has the most outdated banking system in the world. The USA are behind on even most African countries when it comes to mobile payments. It is slower and more expensive to wire money between two American bank accounts than between two bank accounts in Kenya.
Give it a few more decades, and the USA will be behind in terms of technology on literally everything, thanks to ... regulations.
In every respect, the USA will be worse off than third-world countries today.
Quoting alcontali
I do.
Quoting alcontali
How do you see this panning out with licensing for parents? What would be the consequences?
Since licensing for parents can only limit births in the country that introduces it, I see wholesale immigration of "unlicensed" people, born in unregulated locations, until the bottom of the labour market is no longer attractive to outsiders.
These wholesale suicidal policies are actually funny to watch. I am not against them, because it mostly backfires on people who believe in them. So, go for it!
Well I’m not actually for it. But you raise some interesting points.
I don't really want the government deciding who can have children, but again, if you have a proposal around what the criteria might be, I could begin to consider it. Maybe my concerns would not be there.
This would be true; if the code to work all this new technology wasn't also built and written by a perfectly fallible human. Neither technology or man alone is a sure recipe for success but they are both the others contingency. So yes, we do in fact still need pilots. Machine and human pilots. Just as those pilots still need licensing. You still have to license life altering tech.
Its not like Luke was gonna decide at the last minute "Hey R2! Your calculation skills should be perfect for this! Wanna take over and blow up the death star? Make the Shot R2! Feel the force of math and physics that ingrained into your programming!".
No, we don't.
We also no longer need taxis, because we have things like Uber. We don't need hotels, because we have things like Airbnb. All these technologies and business models are being held up in the West by the same problem: outdated and counterproductive regulations. Countries that do not have them will simply leapfrog ahead.
That is why is it now mucb easier and cheaper to get around in Saigon than in any American city. No need to buy your own car. Just use Grab. That is also why you can use your mobile to pay for a coffee in Shanghai but not in Seattle. The West is getting behind on even Africa in many ways.
All of these useless regulations are gradually making the West less and less competitive. It is no longer just a problem of labour cost because of excess taxation. The problems caused by misguided regulation are even larger.
They think they know, but they clearly don't. There are simply too many people trying to impose their stupidity onto others. The problem even starts at school and university. The students mostly regurgitate mere bullshit. They mistakenly think that they are learning something, but they aren't. They think that they are smart, but in reality, they are the dumbest people on the planet. They are even too stupid to see how stupid they are.
This phenomenon is busy leading up to the most spectacular economic implosion ever seen on the face of the earth. I don't give it even five years, before it will all be over. As I am writing this comment from Asia, I can guarantee that a spectacular surprise awaits the idiots in the West. That is simply inevitable.
Some AIs have been logged as genuinely feeling they have won a win or lose game simply by pausing the game permanently or losing level two so it doesn't lose the final level.
So to put that into automated Pilot terms, it might save you from a large crash which will mill you by having you die in a smaller crash. That doesn't sound good to me. Id rather know that a human pilot can jump in at any time if the computer has one of its many many logic farts because the programmer behind it was too busy listening to drum and bass, smoking weed and playing video games when he isn't glued to the screen for work. I should know, my ex flatmate is this guy and he's worked on coding systems for the Australian department of education so I know what I'm talking about here.
That is how they fix issues with drones during their flight. Of course, these flights are closely monitored. There isn't anybody suggesting that flight control would no longer be needed. Still, why does that person need to sit inside the plane? In what way would that help anything?
By the way, there haven't been mechanical controls on planes for decades now. It's not that someone could still pull a lever or manually open a valve on commercial airplanes nowadays. If the electronic controls are out of order, there's nothing that you can do anymore. We are no longer in the 1950ies.
The problems are caused by people who memorize the 70-year old regulations but do not understand the underlying technology. They think that they know but in fact they don't.
We don't need pilots in airplanes. We don't need captains or navigation personnel on ships. We don't need paper-based bills of lading any more. A digital file will do. We don't need any of the paper-based stuff any longer. It is also time that the old people who insist on that bullshit, finally retire.
Ahhh I see what you mean now. Yeah sorry, I misunderstood. Human remote operating is a thing although you do need to account for stability of connection in distances between remote piloting via either man or machine.
For example; if the mars Rover were ever in a situation where it was in immediate danger where only quick immediate human intervention can save it; it's probably already a goner by the time the feed gets back to control to be able to avert disaster.
However, a control center in orbit around Mars would have much greater success so your point is still a very valid one and I'm admittedly pro science so I don't see the need to fight you on this one too much. You understand the human margin for error in programming and have still given good answers to the piloting issue.
How do you feel we should come at the problem of human error in coding? I know it needs to be more accessible to non-whites and Asians for starters. A lot of AIs that do facial recognition and machine learning, incorrectly learned that black people don't go to or attend parties due to the fact that the affirmitve examples of parties it was shown as its frame of reference only showes the faces of tech demographic parties full of Asians and whites. Racial bias being taught to machines. Scary prospects. I'm saying all this being White myself although my arguments on race aren't really required here as racism is thankfully not allowed on here :) so no open racists to crush into submission. Yes, I see the irony in a white person claiming to not be racist talking about submission.
*Looks around for evidence that philosophers and psychiatrists actually have any idea how to run things, bring up children or make sensible decisions*.
*Shakes head in despair.*
Taboo as it is I agree with you, both on the concept of licensing, and on the concept of involuntarily restricting unfettered reproduction. The only legal/moral issue would be bodily autonomy, the right to do with ones body as one wants; but then again, we wouldn't be licensing sex per say, but rather, the procreation of children...and people are all-for stripping women of their bodily autonomy...
Temporary birth control in the water source/air would probably do the trick.
Would have to be careful that licensing would not lead to any form of eugenics though, people should still be free to "breed" with who they want; it should be environmental factors like material capacities to raise a child, mental stability, ect. ect.
Before cashing out from my startup, I always worked as a contractor. For various reasons, I strongly preferred that arrangement. I never had a "boss". I always had a client. I cannot stand employment labour arrangements. Seriously, I hate employer-employee situations with a passion.
In the case of Uber, I would never, ever choose to be an employee of a taxi company. I would rather monetize some free hours, left and right, with Uber.
I really do not need an employer to "take responsibility" for any personal problem of mine. Of course, for that to work, you need to live in a country where the government hasn't taken over health care in order to make it unaffordable. Medication is up to 300 times cheaper here than in the USA. Furthermore, where I live, children take care of their elderly parents. So, I do not need a retirement pension either. I will just live in with one of my children, grow vegetables in the garden, raise a few hens, and be done with it. Unlike in the West, old people are happy here. No loneliness. No retirement home. No bullshit.
Well, you don't need a degree for software engineering. All programmers are essentially self-taught. The other ones invariably drop out. I was programming from the age of fourteen, as a hobby, together with other 14-year old classmates. I did my degree in another subject (operational research). Back then, no one else in my high school -- especially not the teachers -- knew how to program.
Often, clients did not see me as an equal. I often found them quite arrogant. I didn't see them as my equal either, because they were incapable of writing one line of code, even to save themselves from drowning. Most of the time, we mutually disrespected each other, especially at larger, corporate organizations. We tended to be mutually condescending to each other. I often ended up treating them with contempt. Things went much better when I started taking smaller-company clients online while living in SE Asia. These entrepreneurs were much more respectful, and so was I.
Quoting Coben
They are much better off, because they do not even need to talk with customers. They just do their job, and be done with it. Thinking of it, I would have preferred that too.
Quoting Coben
I did have direct clients online, but I ended up using platforms like upwork.com too. Upwork is just a middleman similar to Uber. I don't see anything wrong with that. For the few percent they charged back then, they saved me a lot of time in which I didn't have to contact potential prospects. Still, eventually, I liked my startup work much better. However, doing contract work was actually not bad either. Unfortunately, in contract work, there is no possibility of cashing in on an upside. You can't suddenly make a lot of money. Startups are much better in that respect.
Quoting Coben
Just look up the molecule name for the brand that the doctor prescribed, and then order online Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, or Vietnamese generics instead. Instead of paying $1000, you can often buy the medication for $3 or $4, if you do that. Very little of that medication is still under patent.
Quoting Coben
I don't live in Singapore. Too much red tape over there. My favourite countries are Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. I also like Indonesia, but they make too much trouble about long-term visas. I can't be bothered to deal with that. Let's keep it simple, stupid!
from...
https://www.otherworldsinc.com/uber-and-lyft-abuse/
Basically you have companies that found a way to come in between workers and people who work. There's a parallel in the hotel branch with book.com and other similar companies. They claim their service helps the hotels, since people find the hotels via the service. But people would have found the hotels on the internet anyway. And for doing next to nothing, but dominating google, they skim large amounts of money off the hotels. Which lowered wages, forced increased work per hotel worker, drove up prices for hotel nights.
They are parasites.
Quoting alcontaliWith upwork, if you are earning a living through it over time, the percentage they take goes down. Uber stays at 25 or 30 percent. Period.
Quoting alcontaliSo these countries are selling drugs that Western research developed for low prices?
Quoting Grre
Yes, although our right to bodily integrity is not absolute and does not normally extend to doing things with our body that pose a serious danger to others. For example, it seems justifiable to quarantine those who are carrying highly infectious diseases (not always and everywhere, but under a lot of circumstances). And I am not entitled to use my body to drive a car or plane until or unless I can show that I have certain skills.
It's hard to deny that child-rearing, when done badly, causes significant harm (harm that lingers for a lifetime). The case for licensing reproduction then, for thinking that no-one has a right to use their body to have a child if they lack the skills etc to bring it up badly, both because this is unfair to the child itself (who does have a right to a good upbringing etc), and unfair to the rest of us as we'll have to live with the results.
As for stripping women of their bodily autonomy - it seems to me that, if anything, such a policy would enhance their autonomy overall, given that mother nature seems to be something of a misogynist and so - historically anyway - leaving things to nature to regulate has led to women being burdened with the lion's share of the disadvantages that accrue to those who procreate irresponsibly.
Of course I agree. I meant that pro-life idiots have no problem stripping women of their bodily autonomy contemporarily. Women have, and continue to be, made solely responsible for the irresponsibilities of procreation; women have been murdered, lives and careers destroyed ect.... it was actually radical feminist Firesmith (Firestone) that wrote that it wouldn't be until women were freed from the burden of reproduction that they could be truly equal. I often feel the same when I'm waiting in line at the drugstore to get emergency contraception at nine in the morning while my boyfriend gets to stay in bed and sleep off his hangover.
Yes, that sounds correct to me.
Quoting Grre
If mother nature had so arranged things that men's penises would get an inch shorter after every successful impregnation, I'm sure he'd be at the drugstore before it even opened (indeed, pregnancies would be a rarity). Mother nature is a misogynist and no friend of Reason.
The user can filter the list of hotels for a location, time period, amenities that you require, and sort the list from lowest to highest price. They save the customer an incredible amount of time.
When there are no good offers on airbnb, which sometimes happens, I always resort to booking:com. Over the years, I have spent hundreds, if not thousands, on that website. Once, I even ended up at the reception of a hotel, asking for the price, and they said $150, but at booking.com they had listed the same room for $65. So, in front of the receptionist, I booked the room on booking:com; after which he grudgingly gave me the key to the room. So, I also gave them a low rating for service.
Quoting Coben
No, they are not. It is the large hotel groups that are parasites.
Anyway, I have cut down on using hotels because I strongly prefer airbnb.
Quoting Coben
I don't really care about how much their commission is. If you can sell a project for $5000 with $2000 commission (net=$3000) you are still better off than selling it for $2500 with $500 commission (net=$2000). There are lots of situations in which paying out a higher commission for a sale, makes you more money.
Quoting Coben
Patent protection for drugs expires after twenty years. After that, you can freely sell the medical molecule. We are no longer paying patent fees for the use of the wheel either. That particular patent expired in the stone age already.
Furthermore, most of the expense is in bribing the FDA into ignoring dangerous side effects. The FDA accept applications for new drugs only from a very small cartel of oligarchs. So, yes, very often it is western companies who originally paid the corruption fees for the fake FDA documentation of these products. The newer the product, the more likely it is really bad for your health.
Well, apples & oranges ... for starters. :roll:
But, anyway, I think it would be more practical (i.e. enforceable) simply to register parents - birth & adopted, citizens & foreign residents - as 'child raisers' and hold them criminally liable - same offense & conviction record, and, if warranted fines and/or probationary community service, but without incarceration - for those children until they are 25 years old, or maybe 30. (Also, in order to reinforce skin-in-the-game investment in social accountability, make voting mandatory from 16 years old (age of work/consent, driver's licence & selective service registration) until 30, and enforced by fining (or surtaxing) the parents AND the children.)
The only version of this I could get onboard with would be to sterilize people who partake in severe child abuse. The system is already set up for removing children from hostile parents so those parents should effectively have to apply for a license to show they’ve changed their ways or they should be banned outright (depending on extent of ‘abuse’/‘maltreatment’ (I’m thinking forming drug addicts who’ve managed to turn their lives around being unfairly held to account for their youthful mistakes).
Quoting I like sushi
Is that eugenics? Surely it is. It is just that it seems entirely justified.
So, what you are opposed to is 'unjustified' eugenics.
Well, all reasonable people are opposed to 'unjustified' eugenics (for it is unjustified, after all). So now the debate is not over whether or not eugenics programmes are justified, but when they are.
Take your view that it is justified to sterilize those who have abused children.
Okay, well presumably you don't think that for arbitrary reasons? Presumably it is to protect the rights of the children they would otherwise have created, yes?
So, it seems that by your lights (and mine too, of course) procreation can be controlled when needed to protect the rights of children (children who do not yet exist, but would exist if we allowed the procreation to go ahead).
Well, that's exactly the basis upon which I am arguing for licensing procreation. I just don't see why you stop at child abuse. Surely children do not just have a right to be free from 'severe' child abuse, but all manner of other abuses, including being brought up very badly?
Explain please - they seem relevantly identical.
Quoting 180 Proof
Would you think that justified in adoption cases - that is, anyone can adopt a child (just turn up and get given one from the pen), we just register who got what child and hold them criminally liable for anything bad they do to it?
Presumably not. Presumably you agree such a policy would be criminally reckless?
Okay, let's apply it to pilots. Let's just let anyone who wants to fly the plane. If you want to fly it - have a go. Whose to say that some good may not come from it? Yes, probably a lot of people will die a fiery death and others will suffer life changing injuries - all easily preventable - but their suffering and the suffering of their bereaved relatives might help toughen them up in the future.
Maybe you assume I meant sexual abuse only? Being brought up ‘badly’ means what, and exactly what is it social services do that doesn’t cover this already?
I stop at child abuse because non-child abuse is ... not abusive. You just want to decide who you deem worthy of living. Denying someone the joy of children because you happen to think IQ matters or some other daft criteria is utterly facile.
Support is generally the way to go. Like I said, it is possible for people to change so even those who’ve abused children should be allowed a second chance - exceptions would be for severe abusers (in the real world such people would have their children taken away, so the system is working as best it can).
No, I assumed you meant 'severe abuse' (which would include sexual abuse, but not be limited to it). You're not addressing the point though. The point is that you are in favour of eugenics, you just draw the line differently to me - but I think you draw it arbitrarily.
That's just silly. So a parent who, for instance, refuses to educate their child in any way (because it is soo facile to think intelligence matters!) or a parent who thinks, say, poverty doesn't matter and so doesn't bother trying to earn any money at all, is a responsible parent? You'd leave a child in their hands?
I assume the answer to that is 'no'.
Now, is prevention better than cure?
Answer: yes.
So, why - why - would you allow someone who has no money and low IQ to procreate?
Your position makes no sense to me at all.
I don’t regard ‘intelligence’ or ‘money’ as indicative of ‘good parenting’. Besides I’m talking about preventing severe abuse NOT preventing reproduction. The child of abusive parents who go to prison will go to a new home. Besides, reproduction cannot be managed.
By preventing those ones from breeding, yes?
So you're in favour of eugenics, you're just arbitrarily opposed to some kinds and not others. Prospective children have a right to be protected from severe abuse, but not from poverty or idiocy?
No, but it would be hard to be a good parent if you're starving and have no resources, and those with IQs below a certain level are pretty much fated to a hard life of exploitation. A responsible prospective parent does not procreate if they know they're not in a financial position to be able to look after any offspring; and I think a couple who know that any child they have would have a very low IQ would also, if responsible, not procreate.
We may disagree about that, but in each case my defence of caring about those kinds of thing is fundamentally the same: protecting the welfare of others.
Quoting Bartricks
How could they know their child will have a low IQ?
Quoting Bartricks
You can try and turn it into a thought experiment. Who is “they”?
As for the pilot analogy, I’m sure you can see why that may not be such a hot comparison as not everyone can just fly a plane whereas people like all creatures can procreate. And even in the less desirable instances (which I do not assume) most folks don’t jump right to thinking fiery deaths necessarily lie ahead for all those whose paths cross said unlicensed baby. You’ve mentioned rights a few times as a given, by what means do you assign rights? Would you not say that people have the right to have sex and have children with whom they wish? Assuming of course they are consenting adults?
Again, I assert the claim that some of the most evil people and negative outcomes for the many people can and possibly have come from situations that you might promote and license. Whereas many of the most positively beneficial and strongest proponents for the good of many likely have arisen from situations you’d seek to ban. How can you; how can we help things to work toward good? I know you say my opinion of love has no merit, but if applied freely and liberally I do believe many of those fiery deaths might be avoided.
Don’t play games. You expect more than this from others. So, who are the prospective parents that will know their child will have a low IQ?
If I child is abused I don’t think killing the child is an answer. If a family is poor I don’t think killing their children is the answer. If a family to raise a child then social services will come in and take the child away - protecting the life of the child is nothing like suggesting the child should never exist because they are from inferior genetic stock. There is a HUGE difference and what you’re saying appears to be purposefully clouding the lines between ‘eugenics’ and ‘protection’. True, you don’t need to protect children that don’t exist.
If your sole valuation of human life is based on IQ. Your facile reasoning is irresponsible so maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to have children? What do you say to that? Further still, given that you may already have children perhaps they should be ‘culled’?
Remind you of anything that happened last century?
No offense intended to Mr. or Miss Bartricks, but I’m wondering if one sets the premise as; why don’t we require licenses to have kids? And, we engage that premise I feel maybe we might have heard someone yell, let the games begin! Nonetheless, it is a fun game; or thought experiment. It’s a bit strange how some assign value to one thing over another. So many born with low IQ can contribute so very much and can bring incredible good to the lives of others. Arguably those with the highest intelligence can be capable of the most harm. I hope in these discussions we can help each other be less quick to judge and assume.
It is a topic that will no doubt become more and more apparent in political circles as the sciences advance our understanding. I’ve done a fair amount of research into this subject matter and the very idea of genetics determining human productivity is grossly overestimated. More support for poor families - such as governments paying parents to spend time with their children rather than punishing them financially and driving them away from infants - would be an extremely good idea. In terms of family planning that can be combated by educating young women in poorer nations.
When I said it would be better to make certain crazies in society ‘infertile’ I meant this for highly unstable individuals as they could effectively have children in secret and then lock them up. It wasn’t anything to do with some deluded idea that their children would grow up to be the same as them - there is no conclusive evidence to show this (in fact the opposite is generally more true when it comes to abuse).
Just to be clear - you are in favour of eugenics, then. Yes? By your definition of eugenics, you. are. in. favour. of. it.
My proposal is not based on 'whims' anymore than yours is. It is based on the idea that a) people do not have the right to do things if the lack the skills to do them well and when doing them badly has very bad consequences for others.
That's not a whim - it is the same basis upon which it would be justified to stop psychopaths breeding.
Think about this. Basically this shows genetic adaptation takes places over multiple generations so to suggest IQ is a given based on parents is utterly ridiculous as there is no evidence for this because both the prenatal environment and the postnatal environment are contingent to both that child AND their grandchildren to some degree. It’s very complex and we’ve barely scratched the surface of these mechanisms - ‘mapping the genome’ didn’t help anywhere near as much as people had anticipated.
How on earth does that follow?
I think people should be prevented from breaking other people's arms. By your logic that means my sole valuation of human life is based on having usable arms.
For the record: I think people with low IQ have rights. Hell, I think my cat has rights.
Quoting I like sushi
Look, I know you've recently acquired this word 'facile' and you're understandably enjoying using it, but there's nothing facile about my reasoning.
Quoting I like sushi
Your reasoning, however, is another matter altogether.
How on earth does it follow that I'm in favour of culling existing children just if I am in favour of preventing some people from breeding?
I mean, you realize that means you - you - are in favour of culling the kids of psychopaths, yes?
I am in favour of preventing irresponsible breeding - that does not mean that I am in favour of killing those who have already been brought into existence. After all, in addition to having a right to a decent upbringing, kids also have a right not to be killed.
Eugenics is about selective breeding. I am against eugenics and for the protection of children born to psychopaths or other maladapted individuals - the best form of protection being to prevent them from having children (of course this is merely hypothetical because we’ve no way of knowing who is likely to become such a person - once known it would make sense that they are either locked up, made infertile, and/or have any offspring taken away from them.
This is already the case where adults with Down syndrome - depending on their mental faculties - are not allowed to raise infants just like children are not allowed to raise infants (unassisted).
It doesn’t matter how many times you try to snare me I haven’t said I am for eugenics. You can accept this or you can continue to bang your head against a wall. Which is it? Frankly I see it as a distraction from you having to defend the position you’ve set out - it’s wrong as far as I can tell so you’ll have to do more to convince me to shift.
Undoubtedly there will be a line where things are blurry, but that will be in extreme circumstances. Selective abortions is more or less where such items become socially relevant in today’s climate and what is likely to become an issue more and more this century.
Quoting Bartricks
You are effectively dictating who has a right to exist.
Perhaps if you say how you’d go about ‘preventing irresponsible breeding’ I can point out clearly why it is wrong.
Attempts at goading me into anger won’t work either. If I say ‘facile’ it is because the term suits, and if i repeat it it is because I believe that you didn’t pay heed to it the first time around. If it upsets you I’m not particularly sorry because I’m not here to tread on egg shells and second guess every word I write as ‘possibly offensive’. The definition suits the situation perfectly from my perspective.
I think you're the reason I'm against licensing for procreation.
Such blueprints for eugenics have been applied in the past. I believe poor, mostly ethnic minorities, were paid to become sterilized.
What possible requirements would need to be met, how would they be monitored, and what loopholes could be exploited that go against the basic idea of ‘betterment’ for all?
Also, why is this a concern? We know that less developed countries are have higher population rates to mitigate child mortality. As mortality rates in infants fall so do birth rates - all of this goes hand in hand with the lessening of inequality. It is sensible to guard against lessening ‘inequalities’ by inhibiting human choices (for ‘better’ or ‘worse’). There is certainly difficulty in finding a balance and often we fall into the stupidity of believing what works now works forever - balancing is a continuous act not something we can approach in a formulaic way and then leave unattended.
There is a serious issue regarding inequality due to the cost of education. Undoubtedly recent advances in our understanding of pedagogy has widened gaps in society regarding opportunity. This could have extremely bad results in the near future. Correcting/Giving better all round education is a far better way to tackle the gap as it is the route cause - selective breeding is merely a way of covering up the problem by removing some people’s rights (selective inequality based mainly on wealth/status).
This is quite ludicrous. My view we be the reverse approach though - that is to make it easier for people to adopt rather than to make it harder for people to have children.
I used to think it was bizarre that people could be banned from having pets yet could still have children. After more thought it is down to our regard for animals generally being quite different than for humans. Animals are always (throughout there lives) unable to do much to change their circumstances, and because of this are treated as ‘inferior’ as well as being mentally ‘inferior’ and reliant upon human care in a domestic environment. Human reliance on others decreases with maturity quite drastically.
A licence for procreation is really a license to have sex without fear of getting pregnant.
Pregnancy without a license is a crime.
Accidental pregnancy is a crime. The parents are criminals. The child is removed.
Sex is a natural drive in humans.
Those without a license will need to abstain from sex (as Catholics were required to do, which didn’t work) or take contraception.
If accidental pregnancies increase in number then those without a license are required to be on contraception. This is a form of eugenics.
To not be on contraception, even if a child isn’t produced, is equal to the crime of accidental pregnancy. Contraception becomes compulsory unless you have a licence. Contraception will be administered by the state. Policing will be necessary. Proof of actually taking contraception will be required.
Because the child born to parents classified as idiots or low IQ or undesirable will be detrimental to society the pregnancy must be terminated.
Naturally there will be a black market in licenses.
Illegals will be removed from parents, even if it’s a loving, supportive relationship. Unless you can make an appeal, unless you have the money. But you’ve already broken the law, so you have a criminal record, therefore you’re unfit to be a parent.
Quoting Brett
I know. Your point?
Is your point that the Nazis practiced a form of eugenics and that therefore it must always and everywhere be wrong?
I am assuming so, otherwise I don't see what point you could possibly be making (describing a view does not amount to criticizing it).
I am having a fence built at the moment. But I am a bit worried that it is evil to have the fence built because I've just been told that the wood has to go into a - wait for it - gas chamber. That's how they treat it. If they don't do that to it, it'll rot. They put the wood in a gas chamber and gas it and then do other things to it. But the important point is that it goes in a gas chamber - a giant one. And Nazis used gas chambers, didn't they. So that's evil, right? It's evil to put things in gas chambers.
Only no, it isn't. It kinda matters what you're using the gas chamber for. Racist holocausts - evil. Treating wood. Utterly ethically innocuous.
Now, stop being silly and thinking that if something qualifies as a eugenics policy that makes it evil and Nazi and wicked. That's every bit as stupid as thinking that all uses to which one might put a gas chamber are evil just because the Nazis put them to an evil use. It's the opposite of sensible debate - it's cheap, silly, emotive debate.
Now, we already have a eugenics policy. Children are not permitted to breed. The very seriously mentally challenged are not permitted to breed.
Are you opposed to those eugenics policies? Should children be allowed to breed? No, of course not. Yet that's a licencing scheme in all but name. If you are below a certain age, you are not permitted to breed. I am just extending that idea in sensible and, I think, ethically justifiable - I would say mandatory - ways.
Now, do children have a right to a good home and a healthy upbringing?
yes.
What's a 'right'? What does it mean to say that someone has a 'right' to something?
It means force can be used if necessary to give them it.
That's why people protest about rights - that's why people always get a bit hot under the collar when people talk about rights. It is because they're talking about the legitimate use of force - of coercion.
So, children have a 'right' to a good home and a healthy upbringing.
That means we - we moral agents, or suitable agencies operating on our behalf - are entitled to use force and coercion to give it to them.
That means that stopping someone who is clearly not going to be able to give the child he/she has a stable, happy home and a healthy upbringing is something we're entitled to do.
That's eugenics. But it is good eugenics. It is not racist eugenics. The justification is to prevent rights violations.
Perhaps you think it won't prevent rights violations, but then argue that. Don't just label it 'eugenics' and think your job is done.
Not to mention every parent screws up to some degree. We’re not robots.
Then there is the difference between children of young parents and older parents. Studies have found that younger parents tend to be less controlling and that their offspring tend to be more socially adaptable because of this whilst the children of older parents are more mollycoddled.
What exactly would be the measure for ‘good parents’?
Quoting Bartricks
The point is not the one sentence about eugenics. The point is the problem of authority over people, how complicated it is and the unknown knock-on effects. Because in your posts there’s no room for the sudden unexpected spark of brilliant life that comes to us randomly and unexpectedly.
It’s the randomness that’s behind the brilliance, not the ticking of boxes.
I can’t think of one moment in history that would suggest this sort of authoritarian management of life would be worth it.
Quoting Bartricks
Don’t you see the error in that statement?
No. Did you read anything I wrote about it - anything? Are you a pigeon? Everything is black and white. Eugenics = bad. Gassing = bad. Crumbs = good. Waddling and cooing = good. Pooing randomly on things = good.
Why don’t you address the rest of my post, not just eugenics? Why not address the potential problems of licensing?
Ah, the random unexpected spark - the last resort of someone who's totally lost the argument.
Should children be allowed to breed? I mean, it isn't currently allowed. You'd allow it - yes? You know, because of the unexpected spark. Or do you agree with me that that is just the most stupid argument in the world ever?
Authority - normally we don't have the moral authority to interfere with other people's private lives, and that applies a fortiori to the state. But that's because most people's private lives are the result of their own free choices.
There are exceptions. A pigeon ethicist wouldn't be able to see them. But everyone else can.
Children don't choose their parents. Their upbringing is not a result of their own free choices.
Now, are you opposed to licencing pilots? Answer please. Are you a total anarchist?
I just did. How about you address something I've argued.
I assume you now agree that eugenics is not always and everywhere wrong and that your 'that's eugenics' point was cheap?
I suspect it wouldn’t take much to have you barking orders at others. You’re posts get more and more abusive.. I don’t know why. Is it because you disagree with me or you think I’m stupid?
Are you a complete anarchist where procreation is concerned? Should it not be regulated in any way at all? Should children be allowed to breed, for instance? Or would that be irresponsible?
Are you an anarchist across the board? Are you opposed to the state regulating who can fly a plane or drive a car?
You express concerns about authority. Those are just general concerns.
Are you opposed to all interference? Should anyone and everyone be allowed to do anything to anyone? Or engage in any activity at all, no matter how great the dangers may be of doing it badly?
What principle are you appealing to?
The state mustn't interfere in anyone's life ever?
The state mustn't interfere in anyone's life unless the way they're living it poses a threat to the rights of others?
The former is not consistent with my proposal, but it is also far more controversial than it and requires robust defence - provide it.
The latter is not controversial, but is consistent with my proposal.
Quoting Bartricks
To answer one of your questions. This law is not about children breeding. It’s a law that applies to people over the age of consent. The law is not about the child but the adult.
that's not an answer to my question. You've just told me it is against the law. Er, yes, I know. It is against the law because it would be grossly irresponsible to allow it.
Now, again, is it morally justified to prevent children from breeding - is, in other words, the law against it 'just'? yes or no?
As I just said, the law is not about children breeding.
Edit: it’s about protecting the child.
Barking.
I don’t believe this is the case at all.
Quoting Bartricks
Maybe you could answer ours before making demands?
Do you want to discuss this topic or simply pick a fight? You’ve tried to provoke me and now you’re doing your best to provoke another. We could have a civil discussion about this interesting topic.
To repeat, what exactly would be the criteria for ‘good parents’ and what are the positives and negatives that we can appreciate from a purely hypothetical position? I’m certainly not denying positives, and I have in fact asked almost an identical question in another forum so I understand knee-jerk reactions (the two people trying to engage in this discussion are not simply dismissing the topic).
Can you please clarify and explain on what basis you make this claim? For all of human history children have been born in all kinds of situations on all ends of the spectrum from “good to bad” and may likely live a life that ends up on the opposite side of the spectrum. There is no way to weight these things. How do you draw the line for what does or does not constitute a “good” home?
I think it is undeniable that there are benefits to this scheme on a facile level. The question is really do the positives outweigh the negatives? Can we put together a strong argument for such eugenics and then see how well it bears up to scrutiny?
Given bartricks silence to my questioning I can only assume he’s not given this as much thought as we have so we can do a better job I reckon - as I mentioned above I’ve been down this road before.
He’s dodged that question already and then called someone else a coward.
I can make an attempt though as the topic has been of interest to me before.
The criteria I imagine we’d be looking at would be to judge families based on monetary income/wealth. I think it would be a reasonable plan to set up ‘limits’ for licenses after maybe the first or second child - so family sizes would be dictated by circumstances. Of course this is a flawed plan as circumstances change and families may be making good money one year and then unemployed the next. This does at least seem to be a reasonable position to start from.
One thing we do have to consider is how socialised children are - how exposed they are to other people in their early year (ages 1-4) - as this has a huge effect on their lexicon. What is deadly important here is the time children spend with their parents during these early stages of development. This is a problem if we’re only regarding ‘income’ as a means of measurement, yet we can certainly understand that a family with more money generally has more freedom to interact with children where a single parent working three jobs would be able to.
I think from here we can begin to tackle the problem of providing a reasonable approach toward development in early years - the most important item when thinking about human potential.
Quoting I like sushi
It’s an observation only, but it seems to me that larger families come from those who struggle financially. If it’s true, why is this? I think it’s too difficult to establish why people have children, but why they have so many is worth thinking about. I imagine financial stress is a big contributor to dysfunctional families. Love doesn’t require an IQ test.
The situation is similar in Africa. Basically, if women have more control, education, then they make better choices concerning how they build a family - if they choose to; which most people do. If we just looking at individual countries the following comes into play ...
IQ is not a big deal really. Even if we were to consider IQ then the same follows as IQ, or rather ‘g’, is pretty concrete, yet in the early years it will drop of without stimulation. So, this beings us back to nurture in the early years of life. To put this into perspective wealthier families who have both parents contributing to interacting with their children as much as they can compared to parents who only have a few minutes a day to spare translates into classroom productivity - the former children end up coming arriving at school knowing how to count, read and write, whilst the later are at an incredible disadvantage having had no preschool teaching and a substantially limited lexicon.
So education (what was the education?) leads to fewer children leads to economic stability leads to stable children.
My point about love and IQ was in relation to mothers, that they had many children because they loved children. You don’t need a high IQ to love someone. But there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of young women having multiple children by different fathers. I’m not sure what’s behind that. Is it a naive search for some sort of security, or just not caring.
Bartrick’s post used the idea of licensing as a way to create a better world for everyone. I don’t disagree with that, just on how we do it. The objective is to have fewer people who are destructive, or obstructive, in that world. Smaller families might be a beginning but there is still the need for a particular quality, which I don’t think can be based on IQ or current circumstances.
Obviously one of those qualities would be caring. Only a caring society can raise caring children. Some caring children might come out of a dysfunctional society, but not enough to make a difference. Unless the society we want isn’t based on caring.
Quoting Jack Foreman
I would support that because it’s that more than any evolutionary driving force that has brought us here today. Without that there would be nothing. It’s possible to argue against that, but that’s my belief. So it stands to reason we maintain what has been good for us.
Edit: licensing, as a demand, seems opposite to that.
Edit: sorry, I misread your post. Love and kindness counts most or comes first, anyway.
So if you think the hotel chains are a problem, well, these parasitical uneeded, provide no service to guests, middleman companies like booking.com just make the market harder for other companies.Quoting alcontaliI agree with all this. Pharma includes some of the worst companies in the world adn they have a revolving door with the FDA. What I was pointing out was the your smugness about the coming destruction of the West and the superiority of the East is based in part on a skewed image, since currently the East is, via cheap labor and copying, relying on the West for much of what it does well.Quoting alcontaliI've worked in hotels, so I know this from the inside. That hotel left too much of a gap and she or he should have handled the situation much better. But they have had their margins stripped down to nothing by these parasites and, yes, they try to get a better margin from a portion of their customers.
Once these sites booking.com being one of the two main parasites came in, Espedia being even worse for hotels, hotels had to cut staff and the remaining staff had to cover 1 and half to two jobs. This cut into
service at every hotel
you will ever stay at.
Because these parasites do not have to work, they are like protection rackets with restaurants and bars in a town.
With minimal labor and no direct service around the actual work of hotels,
they take a huge percentage of the room fee. IOW they take a huge chunk of your money to do very little of the labor of serving you.
So every single hotel now can serve people less. This margin loss cuts into staffing, unkeep of facilities, amenities, everything.
The hotels try to keep up with these losses and they have two main ways to do this. Cut staff and force staff to work twice as hard .But it gets harder to leave reception and help with specific issues if there are less people to answer phones, check in, for example.
These companies are a kind of protection racket.
You are applauding people who have reduced service in hotels worldwide. They have unemployed people. They have added incredible stress to the people who work in hotels.
I know this from the inside. I watched the effects direcly on myself and my fellow staff, as the hotel had to cut staff and the exact effects this had on customers and staff health and turnover. I had to work almost what had been two full jobs and these were not luxury lazy jobs before. I had less time to deal with anomoles. I was later coming to rooms to fix tv problems or whatever. Staff turnover increseased. Which means that your bucks are now paying more for trainng new staff than they would have. You are served by less well trained staff at every single hotel you go to. The staff can respond to you less calmly and are likely to make more mistakes.
All because these companies are getting a large percentage of the hotelier fee, without providing any of that service, and most of their service is streamlined by programming down to a near nothing.
They got via google between you and the hotels and they charge you and the hotel - you indirectly - for their services and they make those serrvices worse.
Everywhere.
When those companies really got a lock on, service went down. And I know this because the hotels in the city I worked in got together with each other to see how they could collectively deal with the issue. They all had to cut staff. They all lost the ability to put money into all facets of the business. They all had to pressure workers to increase workloads to a point where you simply had to make people wait for things or not get them at all, whereas a year before you could handle it because more staff was on, more inventory was in and so on. If they'd had the capital and the balls, they perhaps could have collectively refused. IOW a union of hotel owners. But now it is way too late for that. They had a small window and it's gone.
What is ‘better’ is generally understood from a human perspective not from pure logic.
A fumbling along with incomplete estimates related to the immediate emotionally burdened circumstances amidst shifting conceptual landscape methodology for describing better does not sound reasonable to me at all. We don’t know what better is often until we can see things in hindsight. And, what things we perceive as bad, could be better in the long run for us; if we can change ourselves and our perception. The better off that we are today at to technology and comfort and wealth may in all actuality be the worst things for us, to the extent that these things tend to take our eye off the ball. Or are these creature comforts the ball? I suppose better is determined by what your ball is. Maybe, instead of what is better? Would it be better to ask what is the ball? Or better still; would it be better not to ask at all? Where but from a human perspective does pure logic reside?
Regarding the general ‘ethic’/‘moralistic’ stance mine is quite firm in terms of the OP. I’m willing to act as I see fit and suffer the consequences of being wrong - that said I’m likely too cowardly to actually act as I see fit, but I’m working on it like everyone else.
I certainly don’t buy into the whole ‘no making a choice’ as a ‘moral’ stance to emulate. That is cowardice in my mind and just because someone refuses to make choices I’m not going to look at them as a role model for life.
Imagine if the proposal was put to the vote and the majority voted for eugenics and then you had the choice to overturn the decision and suffer the consequences. Would you? A great number of people here may refuse much like they’d refuse to pull the lever in the Trolley Problem ... I call that cowardice, and understand that in such a situation I am most likely going to take the ‘coward’s’ choice.
For me when it comes to ‘better’ or ‘worse’ it is simply down to me acting as I speak as much as I can and constantly assessing how my choices pan out and why they pan out the way they do. I’m always at least partially in the dark, but I strive to be attentive rather than shirk any sense of responsibility and frame it as ‘moral’.
You can see strange attitudes in this thread. There is the ease of painting the situation black and white in order to shut down any reasonable discussion and frame such a line of attack as justified and progressive. I think it’s nonsense.
We may not know exactly what we mean by human ‘flourishing’ but we sure as hell understand what equal opportunity means even if it is a practical impossibility given we’re all different to some degree or another. I refuse to dismiss the concept of ‘betterment’ or ‘flourishing’ just because it is an inconvenient problem to face and we’re likely going to make hideous mistakes along the way and call them ‘better’. Remaining static is pointless.
When I say ‘flourishing’ and ‘betterment’ I don’t for a second consider this to be anything like an easy or painless journey. Frankly put, I don’t see a life absent of mistakes and suffering as a life I’d want to live - this is the immediate ‘good’ at the cost of future ‘good’. We have to be bold sometimes, take risks and ‘suffer’ the hands we’re dealt. Passivity is not something I see as beneficial to this end - but doing nothing can work as a considered choice rather than as a refusal to step up (maybe call it an ‘effort of passivity’ rather than blank refusal).
This means if I don't get a licence, I am in a position to go out and have as much sex with consenting partners as possible, without ever being bogged down to raise children, which is, basically, a long, continuous headache.
They should have introduced this licencing thing a long time ago.
Because the law makers are sadistic and deny people pleasure just because people enjoy pleasure?
Yeah, that's sensible, just look at the tax returns. Not only are you forced to enforce yourself to pay taxes, but you also have to wrestle with incomprehensible descriptions, a busy work of millions of unnecessary calculations, and declaring you haven't lied. (Which everybody does, but we declare the opposite anyway.)
So... they force us to hurt ourselves, at great lengths of effort and time, and morally condemn ourselves via selling our souls to the Devil as lying is a deadly sin.
Yep, you're right, Sushi. Anyone who forces its subjects to do this, would LOVE to have the control of who can have sex and who can't.
Quoting Bartricks
:point: Res ipsa loquitur.