I edited this post several times because I kept finding new things. About +6 karma was from an earlier edit.
The post is at −22 karma. I don’t think this is “An instance of white supremacist and Nazi ideology creeping onto the EA Forum”.
I was going to say I found this quote very compelling, but the full quote is quite different to what you’ve quoted in this piece.
Quote in this artice:
If you are worried that an immigrant may be more likely to vote Democrat/Left, commit a crime, retain their non-Western culture or be on welfare and believe that it is ethical to exclude them from migrating for these reasons, why is it not ethical to prevent someone from giving birth if their offspring are prone to all of these behaviors?
...I believe that if you are concerned about welfare, crime, IQ, culture and so on, then the optimal combination of border control and birth restrictions is not ~98% ~0% because you could be more optimal. Take IQ for example. You could prohibit the lowest 10% from having kids and have open borders for the top 10% of IQ scorers (90% 10%). If all you care about is IQ. But you could extend this to crime, voting, culture, etc. Set whatever criteria you want and permit immigration from the most XX% and prohibit birth for the least XX%.
Full quote of lower paragraph, with following paragraph:
Imagine a 25 year old is given the option: You can either live with similar material conditions as a Sudanese/Haitian/Yemeni, or you can not have children. It would be reasonable to pick not having children. I am not saying it would always be the correct choice but there is a case to be made that in some instances migration seems like a more fundamentally desirable right compared to the right to have children. These two restrictions do not seem to be on different planes in which one is always worse than the other. Therefore, I believe that if you are concerned about welfare, crime, IQ, culture and so on, then the optimal combination of border control and birth restrictions is not ~98% ~0% because you could be more optimal. Take IQ for example. You could prohibit the lowest 10% from having kids and have open borders for the top 10% of IQ scorers (90% 10%). If all you care about is IQ. But you could extend this to crime, voting, culture, etc. Set whatever criteria you want and permit immigration from the most XX% and prohibit birth for the least XX%.
I am opposed to both coercive birth restrictions (unless very extreme circumstances) and closed borders (unless very extreme circumstances) and I find my position to be coherent. I can imagine someone being in favor of both for reasons laid out above as a coherent view but still disagree with it. But I do not see wanting to have nearly 100% closed borders for reasons X,Y,Z but not be willing to have ANY birth restrictions even though X,Y,Z apply here too. If it applies to one it should apply to another even if you view a lot of social harm from birth restrictions.
That seems fairly misleadingly quoted. It seems really important to note that the author is talking about a voluntary option in exchange for immigration as opposed to a mandatory process. One of those seems acceptable to discuss and the other doesn’t.
I would like this post a lot more if it discussed some fundamental error in how the EA forum parses such posts. As it is the original post is bad, but also it’s underwater so I don’t really see what concretely needs to change.
It seems really important to note that the author is talking about a voluntary option in exchange for immigration as opposed to a mandatory process.
As “Ives Parr” confirmed in this thread, this is not a “voluntary option”. This is the state making it illegal for certain people — including people who are not immigrants — to have children because of their “non-Western culture”. It is a mandatory, coercive process.
I can’t see this particular form of birth restriction as particularly more egregious than restricting someone’s ability to migrate from one country to another. I think both restrictions are immoral, and I can understand why someone would see birth restrictions as more immoral, but I don’t understand why it would be so much more immoral that we should have ~98% closed borders and ~0% birth restrictions when both can be used to achieve the same ends.
Another quote that hopefully makes it even clearer:
If you are worried that an immigrant may be more likely to vote Democrat/Left, commit a crime, retain their non-Western culture or be on welfare and believe that it is ethical to exclude them from migrating for these reasons, why is it not ethical to prevent someone from giving birth if their offspring are prone to all of these behaviors? There are people within the native country which are, statistically speaking, likely to grow up and vote Democrat/Left, commit crimes and be on welfare. For example, if someone’s parents both voted Democrat/Leftist and their parent’s parents voted Democrat/Left, they are probably more prone to voting Democrat/Left than an immigrant. I think some will say that they do want to restrict birth but can’t because it is not politically feasible, but imagine that you could have full control to implement this policy for the sake of the hypothetical.
Also, a quote from “Ives Parr” in this very thread:
I was not trying to implement a strange voluntary option.
I was not trying to implement a strange voluntary option. I was giving a hypothetical to make it apparent how egregious immigration restrictions are in terms of their harm. The argument was comparing how extreme the violation of birth restrictions is and comparing it to restrictions on immigration which could have extreme downsides. As I say in the article, I was against closed borders and restrictions on birth unless extreme circumstances (brother-sister marriage type situation). The reductio was supposed to push the reader toward supporting open borders. However, I think my willingness to make a socially undesirable comparison between two rights was used against me.
I wrote that article years ago and it’s hardly relevant to whether or not my other article is true and moral. This sort of reasoning and argumentation style should be rejected outright. I think this person is just trying to throw mud on my reputation so people try to censor me. Quite unvirtuous in my view.
I found the original quote and pointed out you were being misquoted. That seems the relevant update here, over the specific words I used to describe that.
I wrote about why I think the original post was bad on the post, but in short, it is long and seems to imply doing genetics work that is banned/disapproved of in the West in poor countries. You seem to say that’s an error on my part, in which case, please title it differently and make clearer what you are suggesting.
I think the title is accurate and the content of my article is clear that I am not suggesting violating anyone’s consent or the law. Did you read the article? I don’t see how you draw these conclusions from the title alone or how the title is misleading. I gave policy recommendations which mostly involved funding research.
I edited this post several times because I kept finding new things. About +6 karma was from an earlier edit.
The post is at −22 karma. I don’t think this is “An instance of white supremacist and Nazi ideology creeping onto the EA Forum”.
I was going to say I found this quote very compelling, but the full quote is quite different to what you’ve quoted in this piece.
Quote in this artice:
Full quote of lower paragraph, with following paragraph:
That seems fairly misleadingly quoted. It seems really important to note that the author is talking about a voluntary option in exchange for immigration as opposed to a mandatory process. One of those seems acceptable to discuss and the other doesn’t.
I would like this post a lot more if it discussed some fundamental error in how the EA forum parses such posts. As it is the original post is bad, but also it’s underwater so I don’t really see what concretely needs to change.
As “Ives Parr” confirmed in this thread, this is not a “voluntary option”. This is the state making it illegal for certain people — including people who are not immigrants — to have children because of their “non-Western culture”. It is a mandatory, coercive process.
A key quote from the Substack article:
Where does it talk about non-immigrants or non-voluntary in this quote?
Another quote that hopefully makes it even clearer:
Also, a quote from “Ives Parr” in this very thread:
I was not trying to implement a strange voluntary option. I was giving a hypothetical to make it apparent how egregious immigration restrictions are in terms of their harm. The argument was comparing how extreme the violation of birth restrictions is and comparing it to restrictions on immigration which could have extreme downsides. As I say in the article, I was against closed borders and restrictions on birth unless extreme circumstances (brother-sister marriage type situation). The reductio was supposed to push the reader toward supporting open borders. However, I think my willingness to make a socially undesirable comparison between two rights was used against me.
I wrote that article years ago and it’s hardly relevant to whether or not my other article is true and moral. This sort of reasoning and argumentation style should be rejected outright. I think this person is just trying to throw mud on my reputation so people try to censor me. Quite unvirtuous in my view.
Also why is my original post bad?
I found the original quote and pointed out you were being misquoted. That seems the relevant update here, over the specific words I used to describe that.
I wrote about why I think the original post was bad on the post, but in short, it is long and seems to imply doing genetics work that is banned/disapproved of in the West in poor countries. You seem to say that’s an error on my part, in which case, please title it differently and make clearer what you are suggesting.
That’s fine. I was adding more clarity.
I think the title is accurate and the content of my article is clear that I am not suggesting violating anyone’s consent or the law. Did you read the article? I don’t see how you draw these conclusions from the title alone or how the title is misleading. I gave policy recommendations which mostly involved funding research.