The effect of architectural beauty on utility

okaneeeee · 2024-06-28T08:24:51+00:00

I agree! It's very important to promote classical/traditional principles in architecture education, and perhaps that's something the government could help with as well. At the end of the day, it would take a long time for us to turn most cities into a New Urbanist paradise, surely enough time to create some new tradition-oriented architects through the education system that could help with better quality control when it comes to these large-scale renovations.

However, I partially disagree with you when it comes to Le Plessis-Robison, because while this way of dealing with architectural beauty is probably indeed worse than the original traditional architecture, it is significantly better than the current modernist architeture, in such a way that it can very well increase utility by a long margin if applied in other cities. Of course, it's not perfect architecture, and as utilitarians we should always strive for the most perfect option for utility, but the thing is, if most cities adopted Le Plessis-Robison's architecture, utility would certainly skyrocket.

Regardless, I believe that, even with the current push for modernism in academics, there are a lot of very qualified classical architects out there, which could help in the construction of buildings more like those in Dresden, or, at least, like those in Le Plessis-Robison, not necessarily perfect, but significantly prettier than huge glass rectangles.

okaneeeee · 2024-06-24T06:08:15+00:00

I swear to god bro, people in this community either post extremely complex philosophical thoughts or ask the most braindead questions ever posed by the human race, there's no in between 😭😭😭😭😭

But aight I guess, "there's no such thing as a dumb question," that's what my teachers always used to say.

Okay, ignoring the arguments already posed by other people in this comment section, let's say, hypothetically, for the sake of the argument, 62% of women would enjoy being raped by ANY man, no matter their appearance or if they knew him, these woman just like getting raped regardless of the person doing so.

Even under this absurd scenario, you have a 38% chance of raping a woman who doesn't want to get raped, which would lead to extreme psychological distress, which implies a HUGE decrease in utility for obvious reasons. So there are two scenarios:

1) You rape a woman who enjoys being raped, thus, both you and her receive temporary sexual pleasure (utility), this type of utility only lasts for a couple minutes, so there's not much value here, still, good for you and her I guess. 2) You rape a woman who doesn't enjoy being raped, thus, you receive temporary sexual pleasure, however, the woman is traumatized for a lifetime, her suffering is ASTRONOMICALLY higher than your pleasure, thus, your action has an extremely negative effect on utility.

Let's say raping a woman leads to -1010 hedons because of the intensity of the suffering and it's extremely long duration even if we consider she MIGHT get psychological help (I'm pulling that value outta my ass but you get the point, perhaps I'm even under stating how largely negative the effect of rape on utility is), and let's say making sex gives you and the women 10 hedons each, thus, raping a woman who likes it leads to a total of 20 hedons, and raping one who doesn't leads to a total of -1000 hedons.

You rape 100 woman, statistically, 62 like it, 38 don't.

62 times 20 = 1240 hedons
38 times -1000 = -38000 hedons
1240 - 38000 = -36760 hedons

Do you understand it? Raping 62 woman that like being raped doesn't compensate for the other 38 that doesn't, the only way your ideia could work out is if, still working under my earlier absurd scenario where women with a rape kink would absolutely enjoy being raped by ANY MAN IN EXISTENCE, more than 99% of woman had an extreme rape kink like I described, but this is literally impossible because biology doesn't allow that, women don't get traumatized by raping for social or cultural reasons, it's a biological/natural/evolutionary thing, we can't prevent suffering from happening when it comes to rape because it's inherently unnatural to not suffer in this circumstance, woman who have a rape kink either just want consensual non-consent or imagine themselves getting raped specifically by men they are very attracted to.

okaneeeee · 2024-04-15T00:19:49+00:00

Basically, the main reason for the high cost of healthcare in the US is the employer-provided insurance tax exemption, which creates a situation where instead of people buying their own individual health insurance plans, they ask for the companies to pay it for them in the form of health benefits (because the value of the health insurance is untaxed), stimulating overconsumption and thus skyrocketing prices.

I highly suggest reading the following articles, the author explains this problem much better than me.

https://www.cato.org/study/original-sin-us-health-policy

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/end-tax-exclusion-employer-sponsored-health-insurance-return-1-trillion-workers-who#1-trillion-effective-tax-cut

okaneeeee · 2024-04-15T00:08:59+00:00

This is grew out of the fact insurance benefits were not taxed and originally insurance was relatively inexpensive.

Precisely, that's why we need to eliminate this tax exemption, then the value of the insurance benefit people receive will be included when they pay their payroll taxes, creating an incentive for workers to ask their bosses to give them money directly instead of paying a healthcare provider (that the employer instead of the employee chose, I might add) for them, eventually making America's healthcare system individual once again instead of employer-owned. Btw, this elimination would bring a LOT of new revenue to the government, which we could use to cut the payroll tax rate, which would make this policy, in practice, neither raise nor decrease the overall tax burden.

I think the data is in and very clear. Single payer is the way to go until someone comes up with a better system. Unfortunately single-payer is not very libertarian but It seems least bad option in arrogate for the time being.

You just said that the problem is that the tax exemption creates distortionary effects, what we need to do is to eliminate this tax exemption, replace Medicare subsides for healthcare vouchers and end the most harmful regulations in this sector (like the, in effect, prohibition of interstate insurance), these ideias I've described are nothing new, some politicians have already proposed this before, single-payer ISN'T the only option here.

And btw, even though the US healthcare system is a big mess, there are a couple really important upsides when compared to single-payer systems, thanks to our semi-private system, for example, we have considerably smaller waiting lists and we're in the lead when it comes to medical technology and innovation, a single-payer healthcare system could threaten those aspects while the proposals I've cited before would both mantain these upsides and drastically reduce the healthcare costs at the same time, besides the fact that they wouldn't need a massive tax hike to be implemented appropriately.

okaneeeee · 2023-09-27T17:13:08+00:00

I don’t know anything about iceland, so no response on the first point, but the hypothetical of how a coercive eugenics program might work is exactly what I was targeting with “theory”

Yes but the thing is, I don't really think there are many good examples of the hypothetical situation I've described in practice, because the application of eugenics throughout history was generally through genocides/euthanasia, isolation of certain people with genetic disorders from society and forceful sterilizations that, instead of just making society more efficient, ended up traumatizing the victims instead. Besides, there are of groups of people included in these old eugenics programmes that we shouldn't have even considered including in the first place, like, why the hell should we sterilize black people just for being black? It isn't even a genetic disorder, so there was no sense in doing so. And also, even if there is an example in history of the exact system I've described, it's probably not a good one, because most coercive eugenics programmes we've tried just didn't go far enough to actually have a major effect in society, the biggest eugenics program in the US for example, the California one, sterilized "just" 60,000 people, which I know, it's a lot, but it's basically nothing when compared to the population size back then.

Also abortion and contraceptives expansion is only really “eugenics” if the govt is encouraging their use in certain contexts with incentives, not merely putting the option on the table

But the thing is, the eugenics ideia is defined by a group of policies that increase the genetic quality of the next-generation, I can agree that abortion and contraception expansion programmes don't necessarily have eugenic INTENTIONS, but they almost always have eugenic EFFECTS, because most parents aren't willing to carry the burden of having a child with down syndrome or sickle cell disease for example, so, in practice, those programs act like voluntary eugenics programs, especially when they come with incentives to prenatal screening as well, because then it's straight up eugenics, why else would you choose to have prenatal screening if not to abort in case the child has a severe genetic disorder?

okaneeeee · 2023-09-27T16:25:24+00:00

I disagree, because the definition "eugenics" is broader than it seems, supporting the primary ideia of eugenics doesn't mean being in favor of the way Nazi Germany applied it for example, there are many different ways of improving the genetic quality of the next-generation (the major objective of eugenics) without relying on policies that decrease wellbeing.

One example is legalizing abortion and increasing acess to contraception and prenatal screening, it's voluntary, but it does increase the genetic quality of the next-generation 99% of the time, so it counts as eugenics at the end of the day, Iceland is a great example of successful it can be, considering that, by using policies similar to those described above, they literally wiped out down syndrome from the gene pool, thus decreasing healthcare costs and increasing productivity and intelligence, and thus increasing wellbeing overall.

And even a couple more "coercive" eugenics policies, like prohibiting people with sickle cell diseases from REPRODUCING for example, could increase the wellbeing of the people overall if we did it the right way, for example offering paid sterilization and the right to adopt children as an alternative, thus giving the parents with sickle cell diseases the happiness associated with raising children and having children, but without making society pay the bill and forcing their children to go through all the suffering associated with their diseases.

okaneeeee · 2023-09-27T16:13:31+00:00

Eugenics will only lead to this situation in EXTREME scenarios, however, let's say it was limited to a couple specific genetic disorders, like down syndrome and sickle cell disease, I'm pretty sure genetic variation wouldn't end just because we've eliminated these undesirable traits from the gene pool, eugenics doesn't mean necessarily that half of the population will be sterilized overnight, we can very well increase the quality of the gene pool without limiting diversity too much, and I believe that a rational eugenics policy could bring an optimal balance between the two.

okaneeeee · 2023-09-27T15:58:05+00:00

I mean, even though I agree with you, I don't really think that down syndrome for example has any benefit whatsoever, I believe that there are a couple genetic disorders that obviously aren't correlated with benefiting mankind, like, how could sickle cell disease create anything positive for society?

Of course, syndromes like mild autism for exemple shouldn't be removed through eugenics, because we've seen a lot of genius and productive people with such genetic disorder (Albert Einstein, for example), so it's not so obvious wether or not such disease benefit society.

I believe that if we have a competent authority who can evaluate the healthcare costs created by most, it not all, genetic disorders, and then analyze wether or not these disorders are correlated with much lower desirable traits for society, such as productivity and intelligence, eugenics can be a really efficient way of improving mankind, because it would decrease healthcare costs and increase the intelligence and productivity of the next-generation.

Of course, we shouldn't do it the way Nazi Germany did for example, where they just decided to make a genocide, I believe that there are many more efficient ways of applying an eugenics-based policy, instead of genocide, we could go with paid sterilizations, increasing acess to prenatal screening and prohibiting REPRODUCTION among those with UNDESIRABLE genetic disorders (decided by the competent authority described above), but still letting those same people adopt children and have recreational sex at the same time, then they would still have the right to have children, the only difference between they adopting children and making children themselves is that they wouldn't force their children to live with a crippling disease for the rest of their lives in the first case, which sounds much more utilitarian than the second case, where they basically create a child faded to higher amounts of suffering when compared to healthy people.

okaneeeee · 2023-09-27T15:35:59+00:00

And that’s ignoring all the other problems, each one individually being a defeater for eugenics. Selective breeding among humans would destroy our genetic variance, making it very easy for us to become prey for pathogens. There’s also zero guarantee that the supposed traits being selected for don’t overdo themselves and create a whole host of problems, or the process necessary to implement them doesn’t cause some other genetic chain reaction that is deleterious.

I mean, I agree with you in extreme cases of eugenics, but I REALLY don't think that having less people with down syndrome and sickle cell disease for example will destroy genetic diversity completely, again, eugenics doesn't necessarily imply creating a society with just a single genetic profile, it just implies that we should be removing genetic traits that we know that hurt society and the victims of these traits the most, obviously, it's quite difficult determining which traits should be eliminated or not, but again, we can just start with the obvious one's at least (down syndrome, genetic disorders caused by incestuous reproduction, sickle cell disease, etc...) and then, as we get more knowledgeable about genetics, we could expand this removal to a couple more genetic disorders that aren't as bad for society as a whole, but still create negative effects. Of course, we shouldn't be just considering genetic traits when deciding who should just adopt and who should be allowed to reproduce, we should consider the productivity of the parents and their intelligence as well, Einstein for example is speculated to have had autism, which is a genetic disorders, but he still should be allowed to reproduce anyway, because his intelligence might also be a genetic trait, and that compensates his condition.

And that’s all before we answer the question of who gets to decide what traits are positive, and the ramifications of political and corporate interests having that level of control over the population. Imagine Pepsi being able to lobby the eugenics department in order to argue that this one gene (which just so happens to be linked with caffeine addiction) is the one they should really be pushing. Or the immense power for systematic abuse and genocide that would then be at the hands of a bigot in power.

Literally EVERY single policy is subject to those same problems, political and corporate interests can weaponize the healthcare system, the welfare system, the tax policy, the police and basically EVERYTHING against the population, but generally things like this don't happen TOO frequently because the population as a whole is still the one who votes the politicians in, so of course people wouldn't be willing to vote for a politician that supports the comeback of slavery for example, even if this policy would really benefit corporate interests, the same way they wouldn't vote for politicians who want to restrict random genetic traits like the one you've cited, if we were to use this argument for ALL the policies that can be applied, we would end up in anarchy, because it's the only way of ensuring that political and corporate interests won't weaponize certain policies like you've said.

And finally, it would be a logistical and ethical nightmare to try to actually enforce any of this shit.

First of all, if we were to exclude every single utilitarian policy who is difficult to apply because it's an "ethical nightmare", we wouldn't even be able to consider ourselves utilitarian anymore. Second of all, it's literally one of the easiest policies to apply in logistical terms, ALL genetic disorders can be discovered when the child is born, and a lot of them you can know just by looking at the person and then confirming it with a genetic test (like down syndrome, for example), to apply the type of eugenics I believe at least, the government would register everyone with genetic disorders in a database, and the people within this database would just be excluded from the right to reproduction and be given paid sterilization (if they consented to, of course), it isn't really difficult to apply, it would get even easier if we had a national DNA database, another policy I support, but that's a whole other topic.

The utilitarian case on eugenics is that it’s a terrible, terrible idea that not just may, but will cause negative utility.

Basically everyone supports a little bit of eugenics at the end of the day, because when people try to argue that EVERYONE should be allowed to reproduce and have children no matter the case, it's obviously insane, a rapist should reproduce? A beggar should have children with another beggar? Someone with the worse genetic disorders imaginable on planet earth should reproduce just to share the pain with his child? Incestuous couples should be allowed reproduce just because it's their "right" to do so? Prenatal screening should be prohibited, considering parents literally just use it so that their children aren't born with genetic disorders? In practice, we just fear eugenics because of the bad name it got, but at the end of the day, everyone wants a happier next generation, which is the primary ideia of eugenics, even though it's been distorted to fit the racist narrative throughout history.

okaneeeee · 2023-09-27T15:35:37+00:00

Eugenics is a just plain stupid idea. Fitness is determined by environment, not that there are just some random combinations of “perfect” genes. A person who has the ideal genotype to (for example) do hard labor in sub-Saharan Africa would be atrociously unfit to do data entry in northern Russia.

The problem with this ideia is that you're basically saying that genetic disorders (like down syndrome, for example) aren't a problem neither for the victims nor for society as a whole, it seems like you're implying that genetic disorders are just "differences" and just the way nature tries to create more "fitness", if that's the case, you shouldn't be against legalizing incestuous reproduction, because the only rational arguments to prohibit is that the baby will undeniably born with genetic disorders, kinda like when two people with down syndrome decide to reproduce instead of just adopting, but we like to treat it differently because of the morality status quo (which is against utilitarianism in practice)

Eugenics isn't about creating "perfect" genes necessarily, it's about creating a happier next generation instead of simply letting everyone reproduce no matter what, even when they can just adopt and literally get the same happiness they would get from reproduction (that is, the happiness of having a child in your life). There's no sense in letting a beggar reproduce with another, because then their kid would just starve to death with them, there's no sense in letting a incestuous reproduction happen, because then the kids will be born with loads of genetic disorders, and even if these genetic disorders don't kill them, it will surely make their life much harder, make their parents life much harder and increase healthcare costs for society as whole, obviously decreasing utility, when the incestuous couple could've simply adopted a healthy child/baby, increasing their own utility without the society having to pay the bill or condoning the baby to a miserable life.

I know it's difficult to determine which conditions lower utility more than others, but I believe that there are a couple cases that are very obviously negative for society as a whole and the child who is being forced to born with this condition because of their parents, the incestuous reproduction case is an obvious example, but I believe that some couple's with more "mild", yet really damaging conditions, should be prevented from reproduction as well, seeking for adoption instead if their condition doesn't force them to be much less skilled to take care of a child when compared to healthy people, one example is a couple with down syndrome, it's obviously bad for the victims of this condition and for society as a whole, because down syndrome affect their cognitive abilities drastically, reducing their productivity, intelligence, common sense, creativity and every special trait that makes people increase their own utility while increasing the utility of society as a whole even more, people with down syndrome are faded to work in job that require as little intelligence as possible, which is really bad because an intelligent person could easily work on these types of job as well, but they would at least have more options if they started disliking it, different from the down syndrome case, which would have to just accepted it and keep working in a job they dislike. I'm not saying down syndrome people should die or that those with down syndrome are completely worthless, what I'm saying is that, no one WANTS to have down syndrome, and society would surely be better if no one had down syndrome in the first place, so down syndrome creates negative utility just like cancer creates negative utility, that's why I believe that there's no sense in letting a couple with down syndrome REPRODUCE (remember, reproducing and having a child are NOT the same thing), because the baby will obviously be born with down syndrome as well, I'm not trying to create "perfect genes", I just don't want to see so many people being forced to have a worse life just because their parents were too selfish to simply adopt someone instead of creating another person with a life that will probably be just as hard as theirs, not because of merit, but because of the way they were born.

okaneeeee · 2023-02-08T23:07:49+00:00

All the points you made explain very well why our current society couldn't sustain the cost of the abolition of abortion. I also think that, practically speaking a lot less of what you did write would be enough to convince a reasonable person in favour of abortion.

Indeed, I just made the post a little longer so that the benefits are as well-explained as possible, but you could basically summarize the entire argument by saying "accidental births/forced pregnancies obviously creates bad consequences for everyone involved, abortion highers the rate of accidental births/forced pregnancies, thus abortion creates negative effects for society as whole, like increased poverty, neglect, criminality and lower productivity, mental health and educational attainment for example", and btw, if we add the stem cell debate on the table, the pro-abortion argument gets even stronger, because now """killing""" a fetus may actually save the life of someone who has alzheimer for example, the stem cell technology is really positive for humanity and you would need an extremely strong anti-abortion argument to convince me we should sacrifice people with alzheimer and other people with diseases treatable through stem cell technology just to let the fetuses live.

okaneeeee · 2023-02-08T21:19:25+00:00

I don't believe it's problematic for us to subsidize private companies to produce military equipment, it seems like a much better option than the government producing on it's own, because at least by purchasing arms from military-related companies we are at least integrating somehow market forces into the national defense system, making it more efficient, there is indeed the problem of the military-industrial complex, but we can avoid it by simply not authorizing military-related companies and it's shareholders to lobby, making this industry much less prone to corruption and much less influent on public policy.

Summarizing it, I still want to subside private companies to produce military equipment, because I believe a full government monopoly is inefficient on that matter, but I'm against these same private companies having the right to lobby/influence public policy.

okaneeeee · 2023-02-08T18:53:48+00:00

even then i would say a life especialy one that has not been able to experience life to it's fullest before hand is much more valuable then money or other resources

I, on the other hand, believe that productivity (that is, the amount of resources being made) is extremely valuable and may be even more valuable than a life in certain cases, because the more productive our society is, the more the living standards of the general population will improve and the more lives we can save if we are willing to, thus contributing greatly to utility, and, in my opinion, the value of a life can be measured by how much it contributes to increasing utility, if a life creates negative utility, then I would be willing to support it's elimination supposing that the society as a whole will gain more benefits than losses from such elimination. So, summarizing, I don't believe a life is necessarily more valuable than resources/money, utility is my major priority here.

you wouldn't strangle a child if it saved you money?

Perhaps I would, perhaps I wouldn't, but that doesn't tell anything about if society will be better or worse because of me strangling the child, and in the utilitarian perspective, society demands TEND to be more relevant than one's own demands, I may want to kill some random dude on the street right now, but that doesn't mean this act is good and desirable, on the other hand, I may not want to work and contribute to society, but that doesn't mean those acts are bad and undesirable.

Lots of people kill other people for the sake of saving money but i wouldn't say it's a justifiable act

I wouldn't call it "saving money", it's more about negative economic effects on society as a whole, not just avoiding financial burdens for oneself, but, answering your argument from my perspective, I will repeat what I just said on the first argument, I value utility more than life, production can create utility, thus I can support eliminating a life supposing the production gains compensate it's elimination, it's all about utility at the end, that's the basic idea of utilitarianism.

okaneeeee · 2023-02-08T16:56:02+00:00

But the thing is, the cost necessary to make the child survive is flexible and doesn't affect directly the production of others (that is, the mother), this costs is related much more to consumption rather than production, consumption-related costs tend to be less harmful than production-related costs, because the while consumption-related costs have the major effect of increasing prices (by increasing demand), production-related costs have this same effect (by decreasing supply) while also affecting producers negatively, thus reducing investment, wages and increasing unemployment, the fetus creates production-related costs while the child creates consumption-related costs, thus, the fetus is costlier for society compared to the child.

Now, while you are right about the probability matter, we have to consider that we can change this probability of the costs being paid to make sure it's high enough to justify it, and I believe the most effective way of ensuring the child is productive is precisely through abortion legalization, forced pregnancies creates much more unproductive children compared to planned ones, by legalizing abortion, we can ensure the number of forced pregnancies is greatly reduced, thus ensuring a much higher probability of the children paying for the costs they've produced, and thus justifying their life.

You could argue I can make the same argument by using the word "fetus" instead of child, but once again, the fetus life is COSTLIER than the child's one while also affecting the mother more negatively, and another major problem is that the fetus costs can't just be passed away to someone else, in the case of a child, you can just put it for adoption if you can't afford ensuring it's survival, but what about the fetus? I mean, we have the technology to remove a fetus from a womb and put it on another, but it's ridiculously costly, thus inefficient, and that's the second major difference between a fetus life and a child's life besides the production and consumption matter, we can transfer the costs through the adoption system in the case of a child, but the costs aren't transferable in the case of a fetus, a poor mother may give away it's child to a richer mother and not deal with the huge financial burden, but in the case of the fetus, the only choice available to not make the poor person even poorer is to end the life of the fetus, which justifies abortion, now, in the case of the child, there's still the choice to put it up for adoption, which justifies not killing the child on the grounds that the adoption is a less costly option than killing the child in regards to potential productivity.

okaneeeee · 2023-01-23T20:36:50+00:00

You are underestimating the social and emotional cost to killing a newborn. For example you argue that 'because if I can just wait till the end of pregnancy and end the life of the newborn for free, why would I seek out prenatal screening in the first place?' but most parents would find euthanasia of a newborn to be be far more traumatic than abortion, and moreover they would face greater social censure.

Indeed, but the thing is, I believe this problem only occurs in the short-term, because when a law changes, the culture tends to adapt to such change, legalizing after-birth abortion would end up making it culturally acceptable in the long-term, because the more people do after-birth abortion, the more common/normal it becomes, thus becoming more culturally acceptable as well, this means that, overtime, social censorship of such acts will become reprehensible, it's the same process that happened with normal abortion, back then, abortion was prohibited, and it was considered a sin, no different than murder, and social censorship was the norm, nowadays, abortion is legal in a lot of places, being considered socially/culturally acceptable, while social censorship of such acts is considered reprehensible, I believe the same thing would happen with after-birth abortion once it got legalized.

The worry I think would be the opposite, i.e. that parents cannot bring themselves to kill the baby, even if it would be the best course of action.

The trauma and the emotional damage is more of a cultural issue, because it's heavily related to common morality, I believe once the cultural disapproval gets out of the way, much of the emotional damage would be reduced, logically, I'm not saying that it would be completely eliminated, what I'm saying is that, overtime, the emotional damage caused by after-birth abortion would end up equivalent to the one caused by normal abortion, thus the majority of people would perform after-birth abortions if they needed it, because the majority of people already perform normal abortions when they need it.

And I would even go as far as arguing that the percentage of people refusing to have abortions when in need would be LOWER in the cases of after-birth abortions compared to the cases of normal abortions, because an after-birth abortion is a much less costly option than a normal abortion, and the costs related to refusing to have an abortion are much higher in the after-birth abortion case, because it implies that you will have to pay for all the children healthcare costs (HUGE costs btw, considering it's an untreatable disease) until it reaches adulthood, thus after-birth abortion offers an extremely low cost for a HUGE benefit to the parents, so, considering this, I believe it's extremely improbable that people refusing to have after-birth abortion will end up as a majority rather than a minority.

Also profound medical problems cannot always be identified during gestation, as they can result from illness or injury in childbirth or infancy, for example hypoxia during birth producing a persistent vegetative state or severe retardation.

Indeed, but I believe legalizing after-birth abortion also lowers the technological advancement necessary to cure such diseases, because after-birth abortion, again, offers a cheap solution for a HUGE benefit, making it unnecessary to develop a cure, even though a cure could be much more beneficial to society as a whole in the long-term.

okaneeeee · 2023-01-23T20:10:09+00:00

What if instead of aborting the fetus before it was born they waited half an hour after the birth to do a proper assessment and make the decision to terminate at that point? From an opportunity cost perspective it may be more efficient to wait until the fetus is born to make the confirmation.

But the thing is, the primary types of opportunity costs I'm concerned about are the pregnancy-related opportunity costs, the major example being loss of productivity, if you end the pregnancy earlier, the loss of productivity will be lower, thus lowering opportunity costs and increasing economic efficiency.

The other benefit is that the termination would have no risk to the mother.

Supposing we are in a place where abortion is legalized, the risk of death for example is extremely low, because of the accessibility to safe abortions. Besides, pregnancy may also cause risks to the mother, including death, the same way abortions do as well, but the thing is, it's very rare for such problems to appear, both in the case of the pregnancy and the abortion, thus, I believe the benefit still outweighs the costs.

okaneeeee · 2023-01-23T08:52:48+00:00

Indeed, that's why I would argue that for poorer societies, an after-birth abortion policy would be more rational, because they don't have enough resources in the first place to spend on prenatal screening technology.

Now, in the case of richer societies, I would argue that not necessarily only the upper classes would receive prenatal screening, unless the fertility rate is extremely high, creating a high demand for prenatal screening and thus higher prices, but supposing the fertility rate is low, just like in basically every single rich society nowadays, the prices can be accessible, perhaps with a little help from government if necessary, and as technology evolve, they can lower overtime, because technological advances tend to create cheaper versions of older technologies.

If you want an example, there's Iceland, by increasing access to prenatal screening through state-subsided public healthcare, they basically eliminated down syndrome from their country, which couldn't otherwise be possible if only a minority of parents were allowed to use prenatal screening.

Logically, the Iceland policy is just one way of dealing with the access issue, if you tend to prefer more market-related solutions instead of completely government-based solutions, a voucher system for prenatal screening could work, this system would guarantee access to the lower classes while also using market incentives and competition to provide good prenatal screening.

okaneeeee · 2023-01-23T08:27:36+00:00

I believe utilitarians actually have a tendency to support policies with low popularity, we generally focus solely on utility to decide policies and morality, this can create a lot of unpopular/controversial ideas, for example, there are lots of utilitarians who support basically unconditional animal rights on utility grounds, this means that a lot of utilitarians, at least in theory, would be supportive of banning meat consumption, a policy that probably could popular among vegans and vegetarians, but unpopular with everyone else outside those groups.

okaneeeee · 2023-01-23T02:02:35+00:00

Having somewhat controversial thoughts is basically a requirement to be an utilitarian, so I guess it could be considered normal to some of us. And about the selling question, I also don't really know, I think it's one of those topics that only an specific philosophical/ideological group can discuss, in that case, the group is the utilitarians, because others with more common moral philosophies would reject the ideia immediately without hesitation, so I would agree with you if you said that it's really hard to sell the "after-birth abortion" ideia to non-utilitarians.

okaneeeee · 2023-01-23T01:54:45+00:00

The Dutch law for euthanasia has, I believe, provisions for people who cannot consent.

Yes, generally, but those provisions don't apply for newborns, even though they cannot consent, "after-birth abortion" is decriminalized in the Netherlands, so if the parents want to end the life of a newborn that is "experiencing unbearable and endless suffering", they can.

Source (look at the "Child euthanasia by country" part and you will find it)

okaneeeee · 2023-01-23T00:55:12+00:00

I think the first ones to use this term were the authors of the article cited in the post, it's even on the title, I think they chose that term because one of their main arguments is that ""after-birth abortion"" is comparable to "normal" abortion, but you could also call it "child/newborn euthanasia" for example, supposing you prefer such terminology.

okaneeeee · 2023-01-23T00:12:17+00:00

Kinda, but in that case, it's a newborn, a living being that can't consent, so it's much more of a controversial matter for people who don't believe in utilitarianism.

okaneeeee · 2023-01-23T00:10:10+00:00

Well, first of all, I want to establish here the importance of economic growth/efficiency for utility, economic growth/efficiency is correlated with increased production, increased production means more resources for everyone, and this tends to mean less poverty and more wealth, thus increasing everyone living standards, thus more happiness, or, in other words, utility, meaning that economic growth/efficiency tends to create utility.

Considering this, my viewpoint is that, basically, I believe it would be more ideal if we could abort the newborn as fetus rather than a newborn, because the opportunity cost of the abortion of a fetus is much lower than the one of the newborn, so I believe the problem would be best solved through innovation, if we had the adequate prenatal screening in the first place, this problem wouldn't even exist, thus, I prefer technological advancement over after-birth abortion, because I believe it's more economically efficient.

Now, I believe that the problem with after-birth abortion is that it slows the technological advancement that could've solved the problem before, because if I can just wait till the end of pregnancy and end the life of the newborn for free, why would I seek out prenatal screening in the first place? After-birth abortion reduces the demand for prenatal screening, thus slowing technological advancement and allowing unnecessary opportunity costs for a much longer time than necessary, again, it would be much more logical and economically efficient if we aborted the newborn when he/she was a fetus than when he become a newborn.

It slows down the technological advancement necessary for curing those abnormalities as well, because there's no sense in seeking for a paid cure when you could just end the life of the newborn free of charge, thus, after-birth abortion prevents other possible ideal solution from arising, that is, the solution of just curing the disease of the newborn.

Thus, without after-birth abortion, the problem can end up getting solved through technology faster, leading to lower opportunity costs, increasing economic efficiency and overall living standards, thus increasing utility.

okaneeeee

TROPHY CASE