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by henrikschroder 3074 days ago
> I can definitely see the other point of view from folks who do not have children and/or do not want children.

The society you live in needs to replace its dying citizens with new citizens. The easiest way to do that is by existing citizens having children. If having children is too expensive such that the birth-rate shrinks below replacement levels, your society will shrink, and your economy will shrink. This is bad for you, regardless of you having children or not. Therefore, it's in your interest that society uses some of its pooled resources to ensure that the birth-rate is kept above replacement level, i.e. use your taxes to subsidize children.
2 comments
freedomben 3074 days ago
I agree with what you said, but I think

> the world is full of short-sighted morons who can't think long-term

is counterproductive (and probably a violation of HN guidelines (see "In comments, paragraphs 1 and 2): https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) since it seems to be calling the person you are responding to a moron.

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henrikschroder 3074 days ago
Fair enough.
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aianus 3074 days ago
> The easiest way to do that is by existing citizens having children.

Seems to me the easiest way to maintain the population in any given developed first-world country is immigration, not raising new people from birth.

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always_good 3074 days ago
It's easier initially. But dealing with the resulting social issues that may result certainly is not easy. Accounting for everything, I'd say immigration is the harder route.
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henrikschroder 3073 days ago
Of course, most first-world countries do both.

But if you accept immigrants, you also need to instill some of the ethos that makes your country first-world, and this challenge is something that many first-world countries fail miserably at. :-/

(And I'm not trying for some sort of wacky cultural superiority angle here, it's not the shape of your culture, the colour of your skin, or the language you speak that makes it first-world, it's simpler things like your society being high-trust, not tolerating corruption, and accepting and embracing diversity and individualism. These things are also culture, but pretty hard to teach others.)

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thriftwy 3074 days ago
And then eventually your country ceases to be first-world.

That unless you think the secret is first-world dust on the street. Hint: it's not, it's upbringing.

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