On Children

I have good news and I have bad news.

Good news: China has ended its one-child policy.

Bad news: Instead, China will now have a two-child policy.

This is surreal. Just when you thought, ‘Okay, maybe China gets it,’ you find that China doesn’t get it at all. If a one-child policy was bad, a two-child policy is also bad, because the thinking behind it is wrong. Firstly, contrary to what we taught in school, population is not something you need to control. People are a resource, not a problem. Putting an upper limit on people is literally like putting an upper limit on prosperity. We live in a positive-sum world, and on balance, every person brings more value to the world than they consume.

For more on this, read my essay, ‘The Evil of Family Planning’.

Secondly, the state doesn’t own the people that it decides what it should ‘allow’ them to do. But hey, am I so naive as to lecture China on individual rights? I have a better shot at provoking World Peace by singing bhajans at Wagah.