Ecclesiastes 1:9

[james_davis_nicoll]

Tough problems demand tough-minded solutions! LIFE BOAT RULES! LIFE BOAT RULES!

Inexplicably not titled "I have a totally original idea nobody has ever had before and that I will not research to see if there are known pit-falls! Let's pay undesirables to get vasectomies!"

My favourite line?

While I have not crunched the numbers to support this hypothesis,

Comments

[eagle]

Sigh. Freakonomics. A mildly interesting book that became far too popular for its own good and thereby gave the authors delusions of grandeur. As soon as they started straying away from the research the actual economist of the writing pair had done himself, they very quickly ended up in the weeds.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

I have this utter lack of shock that this is being posted on Freakonomics.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

I admit I have no clear command of the pitfalls.

I note the proposer thinks vasectomies are reversible; wikipedia says that's not reliably true, and is expensive ($10K) to even try. RISUG would seem a better fit, except it's still in trials, apparently.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Is it my imagination, or does the idea suddenly become vastly less creepy if you remove the monetary incentive? If, you know, reproductive health and reproductive choices were free and available. Oops, socialized medicine. Can't have that. Shock, horror, etc.

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

All those in favor of cutting his nuts off?

--H

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

On a not really related note, were you aware there's an example of the Someone Must Go Out The Airlock story from 1891? A Plunge into Space by Robert Cromie.

This is in Chapter 5

“One word more.” He pointed to a door in the side of the globe opposite to that by which they had entered.” That is what we have called the ejector. By a simple device of double doors any superfluous or deleterious article or—or—body can be expelled with only a trifling loss of air. Should we run short of oxygen it will be my duty to name the man who must first pass through that door.”
The men below shuddered.
“If that be not enough I shall name another, and so on, till only myself and the engineer are left. Then I shall go in the hope that he may reach the end in safety, to the growth of knowledge and the advancement of science. If any man hesitates—if any man is afraid—we can still easily return to the Earth and set him free. He may never have another opportunity to go. I now require every man to accept or decline my terms.”

By the end of the novel someone is ejected...

[(Anonymous)]

ISTR they tried that in India. Wasn't a great success there.

Too bad we don't have some sort of electronic information system that accessible from almost anywhere, so people with bright ideas could easily do research.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

The poster also refers to the Freakonomics theory that the decline in criminality is caused by the legalization of abortion. While this is an appealing theory, in many ways, the numbers are at best ambiguous. If I recall correctly, another explanation that has better numbers to support it is the reduction in lead in the environment, which happens at approximately the same time as the legalization of abortion. Moreover, it more handily explains local variation. Communities saw crime reduction commensurate with the amount of lead abatement done in that community.

[vass]

I'll give him .0005 of a point for originality, for offering to sterilise men, not women. I hadn't heard that variation before. Then I'll subtract the .0005 of a point again, because it didn't add any merit to the proposal.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, as the Thirty Years' War suggested when two-thirds of the men in the Holy Roman Empire were killed, and Indira Gandhi established beyond doubt when her stormtroopers were dragging men off the street for compulsory sterilization, the proportion of fertile males is utterly irrelevant to the birthrate.

[moonlithoughts.livejournal.com]

That could lead to an increase in the spread of STIs. I haven't crunched the numbers to support this hypothesis, but if men aren't worried about causing pregnancy they might forgo condoms altogether.

Why do people jump to this radical stuff rather than cheap, legal contraceptives and cheap, legal abortions? It's not a total solution but it's a lot better than, "Can't pay your rent? Get yourself sterilized!" and less likely to lead to a lawsuit when someone turns their life around and accuses the state of manipulation of the poor.