Only occasionally. And that does not justify raising children in a difficult environment!
> What do you want to do, sterilise the poor?
I agree that the parent phrased that post very poorly.
However many countries did a lot of effective work to prevent unplanned parenthood, including education and access to contraceptives and abortion rather than sterilization or punishment.
> even if they don't these children are often the backbone of our industry
This sounds like the world need enough desperate people to accept exploitative jobs or go to war and so on? I hope humanity can do better than that.
You and I both know neither of us have enough information to assert how often it happens. I am merely stating it DOES as a counter weight to effectively killing off poor geniuses or rather poor "good enoughs".
> However many countries did a lot of effective work to prevent unplanned parenthood, including education and access to contraceptives and abortion rather than sterilization or punishment.
Yes! This is the available path to us which we should take.
> This sounds like the world need enough desperate people to accept exploitative jobs or go to war and so on? I hope humanity can do better than that.
That's a very extreme way of interpreting my words. Many of these children will become construction workers, carpenters, plumbers, administrative types, catering workers, chefs, musicians, entertainers, IT admins, etc, etc, etc. I am suggesting that my parent post is underestimating the reach of some of these children and falling for the gutter-press focus on the worst case examples. Many of these people will become good enough citizens. I live in a vaguely deprived area and the kid across from me isn't educated and is definitely working class but he's learnt from his tough upbringing and has a pretty good head on his shoulders. For every worst-case example there are tons of kids like this. Baby => bathwater.
Reversible sterilization for everyone by default, temporary reversal for a fee. Make people pay for externalities.
Having children is a luxury, we only need to start treating it like one.
RESPONSES
(THANKS FOR THE ANTI-SPAM, HN! IT MAKES IT SO MUCH EASIER TO HAVE MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS)
> Why are you focusing only on the financial aspect and ignoring the parents education, general behavior and mental health, and living conditions, safety and so on?
All these qualities (1) heavily correlate to their wealth and (2) much harder to have any objective measure of.
I apologise for being rude but it sounds like you have limited compassion if you haven't been able to think this one through. What do you want to do, sterilise the poor?
I would remind you that despite a poor background children can and do still excel and even if they don't these children are often the backbone of our industry. You might not approve but these people are still the workforce and generation of tomorrow so you should afford their inception a little more respect and empathy.