The Australian government’s legislation seeking to ban access to social media for people under 16 has received plenty of attention in International media, mostly leading with the government’s that 4.7 million accounts were banned or deactivated when the legislation came into effect. Rather less attention has been paid to discussion of the outcome within Australia, where the consensus is that there has been very little effect for most.
As part of my critique of pro-natalism, I’m looking at the philosophical foundations of the idea. Most of the explicit discussion takes place within the framework of consequentialism (the idea that the best actions or policies are those with the best consequences) and particularly of utilitarianism, broadly defined to say that the best consequences are those which maximise some aggregate function of individual happiness or wellbeing.
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
My contribution to the East Asia Forum special feature on 2025 in review
The events of 2025 have broken the world order that had prevailed throughout this century.
TL;DR Not good. Taking account of economic failure, nothing Trump has done – rape, war crimes, corruption, insurrection, ICE or trashing the constitution – has cost him a single vote on balance.
This came out in The Conversation, a while ago, but I didn’t get around to posting it here. I’m posting my original version, which includes a discussion of vapes
Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
How my AI report on housework started well, then went off the rails
I’ve been seeing more and more alarmism about the idea that, on current demographic trends, the world’s population might shrink to a billion in a century or two. That distant prospect is producing lots of advocacy for policies to increase birth rates right now.