Dutch Auction for the Right to Reproduce

Hey people. I discuss this in class sometimes, albeit obliquely. It comes under general talks about the stability of a given society, and I argue that the lowest threshold a society can reach before collapsing is the point where (most) people can no longer realistically guarrentee the well-being of any existing children, or more to the point of the OP, envision ever being able to have children at all. It is at this point there is no real benefit to the populace of the current regime, to my mind, to adhere to the laws governing them.

Sorry to not answer the specifics, but practically, some professions, police, army etc. would have to have a bond included with their contracts for such a society to have any hope of surviving the undoubted backlash.

Interesting statistics, worldwide, every second, roughly 4 babies are born (2 people die every second too btw). Good luck to any institution dedicated to enforcing the birthing regulations…

Second thought, how about a less punative bond system - the cost of the bond is held by, rather than simply paid to, the government, and put towards the nurturing of the child of the bond-holders. The offer-price of the would-be parents is compared to the average of the total offers submitted in the time-period, those above are approved, those below, refused. However, this too fails as it would be too easy for the super-rich to skew the average upward - putting in an amazingly high bid - effectively giving them some control over which demographs reproduce. Tricky. The average calculations would have to be weighted by a particular bid’s fraction of the would-be parents income or something to even the odds.

Well lookee here.

Awesome. Hello Tab. Prolly don’t remember me, but it’s good to read from you again. Blast from the past.

And of course, the problem with these thought experiments is that they take government to be an absolute variable, a thing which gives only regulation, and not a party per se. But it is a party, with interests beholden to it and beholden to interests.

The real darker side of these thought experiments is, students with their youthful cum-fullness and desire to achieve, or maybe tiredness of the uselesness of old people, will take them literally and seek to apply them, even if consciously they know there is no such absolute variable, or even that one would be absolutely horrible and undesireable, if only as an operative practicality to guide all that cum.

Hey Pedro, thanks for the nod, I’m afraid no, I don’t remember you - unless perhaps you posted under another name at some point. It has been a long time though.

Third thought, perhaps (reversable) sterility would be more palatable. In that person X could trade their fertilty in for Y benefit at some point in their lives, and regain it for cost Z in the future. This would give the populace some degree, however ultimately ficticious, of control over their procreative prospects as well as a source of hope. And to the government in question, deniablitity of democide. A scheme of being able to trade a bond (supplied as a basic human right at birth) on the market would achieve the same end, though with more mess as unsanctioned births could still occur.

Actually, both of those versions could be beneficial to anyone in a lower tier of society who managed to hold onto their bond or fertility as they would become more attractive to upper teirs who had either already expended theirs or undergone sterilization, if the bond/restoration of fertility price were to be exceptionally high. Sure, the obvious riposte is that the upper-tier partner would exploit the everlovin’ bejesus out of the lower tier, simply dumping them after the desired child is achieved, but on the other hand the practice would preserve the 50% genetic input of the less advantaged person involved. Then of course I am assuming that the bond is legally attached to the genes of the holders, and not simply to the act of bringing a new baby, of any genetic heritage, into the world.

If the bond were to be legally bound to the genes of the holders I can imagine a stable(ish) society in that families of poor background could always have a ‘designated breeder’ amongst their offspring, their siblings trading their bonds/fertility to promote the finances of the family, secure to a degree in the knowledge that at least some of their genetic legacy would continue on.

To be honest though, any society implementing any policies concerning people’s rights to reproduce would be massively prone to unrest, not to mention utterly draconian in nature for it even to arise.

Hey, shit, China did it.

And the Germans woulda too, it wasn’t unrest that brought them down.

I went by pezer. I probably shouldn’t have burst out like that, but it really was a blast from the past.

Anywho, I’ll politely step out of this thread now. Good to see ya.

“S3: Again, it depends on what the population goals are.”

What whose population goals are?

Ok, now I’m going.

This sounds like you’re thinking in terms of a traditional option, i.e. start low and raise the price until no one will bid any higher. But a dutch auction is the reverse: you start low and lower the price until someone buys. Or am I misreading you?

This might also help to clarify e2: since people value a bond differently, some people will buy sooner than others. Some will be willing to pay a lot, others will wait for the price to come down. So you end up with a distribution of prices across which people buy, presumably with some narrow tail at the high end and likely clustering at the low end; on reflection, the question is probably pretty boring when the bond is transferable, but may be more interesting when we consider a non-transferable bond.

Well well well.

It seems like in much of the developed world, it’s not a lack of ability to provide for children, but a lack of desire to have children that’s driving us towards a threhold. I don’t buy that millenials are actually particularly economically precarious relative to earlier generations, but they are opting not to reproduce because the alternative is more appealing. That leads to a detachment from the long-term future that can be just as bad as a collapse in legitmacy from a majority being unable to have kids. I’m not sure which way the causal goes, though; people may be becoming detached first, and then choosing not to bring children into a nihilistic universe.

For similar reasons, though, I agree that we’d want to provide bonds to people in certain positions, to nudge them towards a longer-term outlook. But giving politicians free bonds and denying them to the poor is a very, very bad look.

This doesn’t seem like that high a lift. Each new person would be tied to the bonds that permit their birth. Bonded births could be checked quickly, leaving only a small residue of people who would spur investigations into their parents illegal acts. The IRS employs 80,000 people, and that would be more than enough to police the ~350,000 births every day.

If the fees paid go into the public fisc, the result should be the same, assuming that tax revenue is spent in a way that supports people through their lives. If direct spending on childcare is the best way to spend public money to support society, all well and good, but I don’t know that that’s a given (this and the above remind me that I have a very first world perspective on the question).

I’m not sure that it’s possible to avoid that in a system with transferable bonds. Speculators would probably pull the price too high for most, assuming that childbearing has a positive value for most people. A non-transferable bond system would solve a lot of the distributional inequality that would result, but would put weird pressures on poor families, e.g. families choosing the best of a generation and pooling their resources to give that one the chance to reproduce on behalf of the clan. But I’m not sure that this doesn’t happen already: I know other species do this explicitly (e.g. shoebills killing weaker chicks to allocate more food towards the stronger chicks), I wouldn’t be too surprised to find it’s practiced implicitly among humans.

Interesting. It seems like overall fertility (i.e. on/off for as many children as you like) would be too easy to game. As you point out, siblings could trade off years and basically reproduce exactly as they always have. If each person were born with bonds for 2 individual births, though, that would create a similar market as would result following a dutch auction.

But I liked the idea that the auction could flip into reverse if the government wanted to raise the fertility rate, and start putting a negative price (i.e. a cash incentive) to lure more people into childbearing. I don’t know how you could do that in the system where people are born with a certain number. Maybe tax unused bonds?

Do you think that happened with China’s One Child policy? I don’t think China is particularly prone to unrest, and what unrest there is seems more due to the demographic effects (more unpartnered young men) than to reproductive regulations per se.

I didn’t think this was that dystopian when I first offered it, but there are a lot of very dystopian versions of it. That said, I don’t think global reproduction regulation is that unlikely in the long term. The Earth likely has a maximum human carrying capacity, and preventing ecosystem collapse might require direct regulation (though, as Phyllo points out, more progressive social policies might solve the problem more organically).

I did an excellent job in my conveyance, apparently, if my conveyance had been intended to convey the precise opposite.

What I am suggesting, and we’re going to use small numbers for this just to save me typing:

Population: Males-5,000 Females-5,000

Okay, so suppose we have decided that we want to sell 5,000 TOTAL bonds, 2,500 (per sex/gender) for whatever reasons. The reason I would think would have to do with population control. One way or another, whether intended or not, creating a finite number of bonds does indeed control the population.

Imagine the richest male has a net worth of $10,000,000; it would be pointless to start the bidding at $10,000,000. The reason why it would be pointless is that you could not even theoretically sell one bond to each person who wants one. Since each bond represents the same, “Thing,” I figure everyone would first get a shot to say, ‘Yes,’ or, ‘No,’ at a particular price…or perhaps the early stages of the auction would just require as many, “Yes,” votes as that would get and everyone else could simply be assumed to be a, “No.”

Okay. Our person with a net worth of $10,000,000 (unless a complete idiot) is not going to buy a bond for that price for three reasons, though the second and third reason will follow from the first:

1.) Because he would be the only one buying at that price because only he could afford that price. He would be offered a bond at a particular price and would have no competition in the bidding, because nobody else could afford one anyway. Therefore, there is no way buying at that price makes sense.

2.) Because it would be ALL of his money and there would be no reason to do that because he has zero bidding competition. There is no risk of him losing the opportunity to buy a bond if he refuses the $10,000,000 price.

3.) Prior to buying the bond, he is the richest person in the world…so even if the perceived value of the bond (with an eye towards resale) ever eclipsed that $10,000,000 figure…there’s no real reason to think there would be huge demand or that anyone could really afford it anyway. There’s also no reason to believe that would happen, since every other bond would be sold at a lower price.

So, what I would do if I were controlling the pricing, is I would determine the total price that the 2,500th richest person could even theoretically pay and start there. Anyone who wants a bond at that price can afford one and there would be no reason for those with more than that to pay any more than that because they don’t have any competition anyway. This is the highest price that you could sell a bond in the first round of bidding such that everyone who wants to buy one (and has the money) in the first round can buy one.

I also think the price, in this case, would remain high enough to avoid the whole institutional buying problem, and again, I’m not even sure I stipulate that institutions should be permitted to buy them. Unless you want to work people not using a number of these bonds into your population projections, but I think that would muddy the waters, be overly complicated and also allow an institution to buy up all the bonds with no plans to ever sell them for the lulz.

The entity selling the bonds and dictating how many bonds are going to exist in the first place.

Well, the obvious way is to build world wide suicide clinics.

Plutocrats just want that money. More people, more money.

Ah, I see what you’re saying Pav, I think this was a comprehension failure on my part. To simplify further, just so I’m sure: If there only 5 bonds being sold, and the top 5 wealthiest people have $10m, $9m, $8m, $7m, and $6m, respectively, no one will buy for more than $6,000,000.01 because they can still guarantee they’ll get a bond at that price. Is that the idea?

I can see a few problems with this. First, where the bonds are transferrable, the there might be speculative value in buying at a higher price. So if the wealthiest person can buy multiple bonds at a higher price, they could hold them in anticipation that people will be able to buy at a higher price later. For example, if the bonds are expected to maintain their value and other assets are expected to have negative return, the bonds could act as a hedge.

Second, as I mentioned in my reply to Tab, people may pool their resources to buy bonds, so several people whose net resources are blow the current price could buy one bond together (e.g. parents and granparents on behalf of their child).

Third, in practice there isn’t full transparency between buyers, so buyers can estimate how much others have to spend, but they can’t know and will sometimes rationally overpay when they’re uncertain about what other people can/will pay.

Fourth, I don’t see any cost to starting the bidding too high. If you start it too low, you leave money on the table, because people that would have purchased at a higher price instead purchase at a lower price.

I agree with your final point, that adding in all the realistic considerations complicates the question a lot. But dutch auctions are used in the real world to do things like IPOs, we could probably find a rich literature on how those sales behave in practice – do you think that the reproduction bond auction would function the same way? My gut reaction is yes, but I could also see it being sufficiently different. I’ll try to find some case studies.

Yes. And, even if you change the one at the top to 20M, everyone below would still have first right of refusal before he could buy a second bond at x price. And again:

1.) If with an eye towards resale, I don’t think they would but it for more than they think they could eventually resell it.

AND:

2.) They would still be inclined to get it for the lowest price they can, which for the richest person, would be less than literally all of his wealth. And on down.

I agree that they might for, “A higher price,” but not, “The highest possible price.” The highest price that I would be willing to pay would be such that, at worst, I could at least theoretically resell it right now for the same price. Would you buy a stock that is guaranteed to drop in value 20% (for example) as soon as you buy it with the hopes that it eventually exceeds what you paid?

That’s very true, but I think this gets too far into the weeds for the purpose of a thought experiment. It also results in the possibility for buying a particular bond for more than any individual actually has unto himself.

True, but I think that the initial Government function and rationale behind it ought be transparent.

I guess my focus is on something at least approaching fairness? If each individual wanted to buy one bond during the first round, they could, but it would cost the poorest of those individuals literally all of his money.

Sweet! I would definitely be willing to do so, but it would be on the backburner behind a lot of other stuff I have going right now.

Another thing that I didn’t think of earlier and would like to add is that you would REALLY maximize profits by only auctioning one bond at a time whilst not telling the public how many bonds there will be.

I don’t have too many hard principles. I could probably fit them all on a notebook page. But, the above notion violates so many of them for so many different reasons that I would still be typing next Thursday.

Also:

1.) The Government officials (more than zero, anyway) would know how many total bonds will be offered, so that affords an advantage akin to insider trading.

OR:

2.) The Government officials are not permitted to purchase any of the bonds, (except on resale) but I doubt they would agree to that. Besides, they could still use the insider info to influence the actions of others.

So, the whole thing should be transparent in every way possible. I guess my idea was to strike a balance between revenue generation and fairness, I admit, it does not perfectly maximize revenues.

Also, I’m assuming there would have to be some regulations as to who or what could participate in the auction and to whom the bonds could be sold consequently - nationality-wise, otherwise some outside body, with an eye to controlling the population of a country involved in this birth-bond process, could effectively buy ‘generations’ of its (yet to be) populace, especially if the exchange rates were low as the price of the bonds would always be tied to the currency of the country issuing them, and the average incomes of its populace. This would effectively give rich nations a fair degree of control over the birth rates of poor nations, and leverage over the governments involved.

In fact, have we not simply created a counter-currency…? Its worth based on probably the most valuable asset imaginable - a human life…?

“2 packs of Marlboro please.”
“Sure that’ll be 80trillion euromarkdollars.”
“Tch, this economy lol - Have you got change for a baby…?”

Just an aside. The organ transplant business is already thriving big time, there are increasing cases in the former third world countries of human trafficking , that actually show internet images of children found with major organs ripped out, going for millions of local currency, where the buyers are obviously well heeld.
Could some of this dirty business be helped by the buying and selling of
certificates and bonds to buy rights to procreate?
Would / could black markets rig underground criminal business and find a ways to short circuit similar business practices as well ? Would the two types of businesses compete or form a single entity? The myriad combination of such industries could, after all be modified .
This is not too futuristic, because the former kind already exists with a ready made structure and practice.
So the second kind of trading may cause competitiveness to increase crime.

The transplant business does impact population control in a big way, since killing the younger , when organs become unavailable, correspondingly reduce population, as well. Euthanasia killing or mercy killing wood also be a way, by liberalizing the illness qualifications, and lowering the ages prescription.

I think these methods added to the others above mentioned will last well into the present century, without the need of government intercession.

But just a guess.

Re. Birth-to-order for organ harvesting.

I think a birth-bond system here would help prevent or at least put an obstacle in the way of the black market organ business. A birth bond would effectively increase the value of a child to a prospective mother.

Worst-case scenario - producing children premeditatively for organ harvesting as a ‘family business’. The overheads just went up.

Kidnapping children off the streets - when each child becomes an expensive investment to a family, that child will be better protected, and thus less easy to kidnap.

In short, a birthbond system would combat the organ-harvesters or at least drive them elsewhere. If world-wide, the average ‘price’ of a child were to be driven up beyond the cost of producing a replacement organ by other viable means, then the black market organ business would shut down.

Tabula Rasa
forwarding a message from an old friend…to Istanbul?

Don’t understand…but he said you would.

The first thing to say is that I completely agree with the first paragraph and have nothing to add. I suppose the only exception would be if it were stipulated that bonds could only be purchased using currency xxxxxxx, worldwide, but the notion that all countries would agree to that (or would even all agree to doing this) is so far-fetched as to be beyond reasonable consideration, imo.

However, I do disagree with the notion of a, “Counter-currency,” at least, to the extent that it actually means anything. If we accept that the barter system was simply a means of exchange that was replaced by a more efficient one (i.e. currency), but that the barter system is still (or can be) used to a limited extent, then these bonds don’t do what you are saying anymore than anything else does. In other words, the bond is just an instrument, and unless it is stipulated that money can be the only means of transferring a bond from one person to another (which, if stipulated, causes the whole, ‘group pool for one’ concept to immediately fail because there is no legal means to give the bond to the one) then the bond does not necessarily have to be exchanged for currency, or really for anything at all.

That’s not to say that currency would not be the most likely method of exchange, it probably would, just that it doesn’t have to be.

So, in my view, you can call a car a, “Counter currency,” if you intend to trade the car for currency, or you could not call the car a currency, “Item for sale,” but calling the bond a currency doesn’t make it any different than transferring ownership of a car.

I also don’t think it’s a counter-currency because actual currency would be the most likely method of exchange. If someone in Europe wanted to offer me Euros for my car (or bond), and I was willing to accept them, then I don’t think that sufficient to make the car a currency:

Common U.S. Currency:

$100 bill—$50 bill—$20 bill—$10 bill—$5 bill—$1 bill—Quarters—Dimes—Nickels—Pennies

So, I would argue that another characteristic of a currency ought be its reducibility to smaller components. The bonds would be irreducible, similarly, you wouldn’t cut a car in half and expect to be able to sell each half for the same (combined) amount for which you could have sold the entire car.

Pav wrote:

Yeah, ok, was a verrry early morning post, counter currency is pushing it a bit. Savings bond maybe. :smiley:

Erm, nope, I don’t understand either tbh. :-k ‘tabula rasa’ was my old old handle, so that dates it a bit I guess.

Savings bond could work.

If it helps, Future Man (as far as a search goes) is the only user that has ever said, “Zoink,” at the same time that you were known as Tabula Rasa. However, I do know that there are lost posts, a good many of them, for whatever reason. It also doesn’t appear that he was speaking to you in that thread.

EDIT: I think you were just throwing up a softball to get me back in practice. We’ll call it that. I appreciate it, I can use any help I can get. :sunglasses:

Eh, lotta water under bridges, etc. I liked futureman, cheers for investigating anyway. Must be that chest of cursed spanish dubloons I buried under the blue mosque or something. And the illuminati ofc., always the illuminati.