Pronatalism seems straightforwardly ideologically correct from a sum-Utilitarian human-centric perspective, so long as marginal human lives are very happy (I think so)
I agree on the margin it’s better to have more people than less;[1] I don’t know how much it matters in practice; I’m fairly skeptical of governments’ ability to increase population (given realistic governments and not idealized ones).
I don’t believe in the governments’ ability to get above 2.1 TFR but I do believe they have the power to decrease birthrate, like with child car seat requirements, Obama-era fuel efficiency regs which in practice caused increase in automobile weight (which is dangerous to kids walking), housing supply restrictions via badly designed zoning guidelines, funding for academia. sex ed plausibly has a positive or negative effect—condom distribution causes higher rates of teen sex for instance.
The EA question is how much do these things matter. I’m too lazy to look it up but I predict that housing prices swamps everything else birth-wise and decreasing deathrate is way more tractable physically and politically.
Pronatalism seems straightforwardly ideologically correct from a sum-Utilitarian human-centric perspective, so long as marginal human lives are very happy (I think so)
I agree on the margin it’s better to have more people than less;[1] I don’t know how much it matters in practice; I’m fairly skeptical of governments’ ability to increase population (given realistic governments and not idealized ones).
With maybe 55% probability? It’s really hard to be sure of these things because of e.g. effects on factory farming etc.
I don’t believe in the governments’ ability to get above 2.1 TFR but I do believe they have the power to decrease birthrate, like with child car seat requirements, Obama-era fuel efficiency regs which in practice caused increase in automobile weight (which is dangerous to kids walking), housing supply restrictions via badly designed zoning guidelines, funding for academia. sex ed plausibly has a positive or negative effect—condom distribution causes higher rates of teen sex for instance.
The EA question is how much do these things matter. I’m too lazy to look it up but I predict that housing prices swamps everything else birth-wise and decreasing deathrate is way more tractable physically and politically.