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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Parental Licensing and Why We Need It
« Reply #20 on: December 12, 2022, 04:28:45 AM »
So there's nothing stopping irresponsible or undesirable people flying under the radar from making babies that they can't or won't support.  Good to know.

It's supposed to be your social responsibility to report inadequacies to the authorities. It's a reactive system. Neighbors, friends, and family, all have a social responsibility to report. It is taken a step further with teachers, counselors, doctors, and police, who are given a mandatory responsibility to report.

In a sense, your capacity as a parent is always being evaluated. You are being continuously evaluated and tested by your community. This far more oversight than only a test for a license, which can be cheated or not applied. Nor can a test force you to be responsible and attentive to your children. Every day you are being watched, and every day you are being tested.

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Offline stack

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Re: Parental Licensing and Why We Need It
« Reply #21 on: December 12, 2022, 04:59:25 AM »
I guess the same applies to driving a car.

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Offline AATW

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Re: Parental Licensing and Why We Need It
« Reply #22 on: December 12, 2022, 02:42:21 PM »
So there's nothing stopping irresponsible or undesirable people flying under the radar from making babies that they can't or won't support.  Good to know.

It's supposed to be your social responsibility to report inadequacies to the authorities. It's a reactive system. Neighbors, friends, and family, all have a social responsibility to report.
Do you think people who can't understand crepuscular rays would count as being deemed too dumb to reproduce?

There is some merit in this idea. You do get some parents who pop out baby after baby without any ability to look after the child, so the children are either removed or have a terrible upbringing which often leads to the cycle repeating.

You have to have a licence to be able to drive a car, why should you be able to pop out a baby without any checks and balances?
Obviously defining who is able to do so and enforcing it are the tricky parts.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline markjo

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Re: Parental Licensing and Why We Need It
« Reply #23 on: December 13, 2022, 01:25:25 AM »
It's a reactive system. Neighbors, friends, and family, all have a social responsibility to report.
Which is exactly the problem; people don't get reported until it's too late and the damage is already done.  Rushy is proposing a proactive system requiring any prospective parents to prove that they are qualified to bear and raise children.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2022, 01:28:03 AM by markjo »
Abandon hope all ye who press enter here.

Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin

If you can't demonstrate it, then you shouldn't believe it.

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Offline stack

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Re: Parental Licensing and Why We Need It
« Reply #24 on: December 13, 2022, 05:40:16 AM »
You have to have a licence to be able to drive a car, why should you be able to pop out a baby without any checks and balances?

Hey man, keep your reproductive rights laws off my body…oh wait, never mind, we already allow that…

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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: Parental Licensing and Why We Need It
« Reply #25 on: December 13, 2022, 05:58:55 PM »
Do you think people who can't understand crepuscular rays would count as being deemed too dumb to reproduce?

I do not think that you are too dumb to reproduce. You have my blessing on this to proceed.

Quote from: AllAroundTheWorld
There is some merit in this idea. You do get some parents who pop out baby after baby without any ability to look after the child, so the children are either removed or have a terrible upbringing which often leads to the cycle repeating.

You have to have a licence to be able to drive a car, why should you be able to pop out a baby without any checks and balances?
Obviously defining who is able to do so and enforcing it are the tricky parts.

There is oversight in the US. Your entire community is watching you and will report you to the authorities if need be. If you are found by the government to be mentally or physically disabled you can be sterilized against your will. Mental and physical retardation is flagged by the school system at a young age. If you are a woman found to be unable to take care of yourself you can be put on forced birth control like Brittany Spears. If you do have children and are unable to take care of them, they can be be taken and provided for.

There is no test which can predict who will become an irresponsible parent, who will treat their depression with drugs, or who will not express enough to love their children. The problem is not a lack of knowledge of basic parenting - even someone with the mentality of a twelve year old knows the basics.

It's a reactive system. Neighbors, friends, and family, all have a social responsibility to report.
Which is exactly the problem; people don't get reported until it's too late and the damage is already done.  Rushy is proposing a proactive system requiring any prospective parents to prove that they are qualified to bear and raise children.

I would encourage you to read up about the eugenics experiments in America over the last hundred and fifty years. It has been done and tried in an official capacity with by doctors, psychologists and family therapist progressives with the approval and support of State governments and the US Government. The Supreme Court even upheld the procedure of sterilizing people based on IQ Test. These attempts to discriminate based on intelligence failed to gain traction, however, and are considered flawed.

Again, basic parenting isn't really a matter of intelligence. Above the level of mental retardation, people with low intelligence know basic parenting. People with low intelligence can be good parents. The problem is not a lack of knowledge, or a lack of intelligence.

For example, someone may be eligible and pass the tests necessary to get into college, but there is no test that can predict whether they will drop out of college. People may start college and then become overwhelmed by life and drop out. They may be distracted by recreational activities, relationships, jobs, or fail due to lack of interest. There is no way for a school to predict that.

This has been closely studied for a very long time. If there was a feasible way to predict this, it would have been done and in place in at least a few areas.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2022, 03:05:49 PM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline AATW

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Re: Parental Licensing and Why We Need It
« Reply #26 on: December 14, 2022, 04:58:06 PM »
There is no test which can predict who will become an irresponsible parent
I guess the 1,000 monkeys at typewriters who write your posts were bound to come up with something reasonable sooner or later.
That's a fair point.

I do think there's "a problem" here, but it does feel like any potential solution probably just causes more problems.

Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

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Offline markjo

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Re: Parental Licensing and Why We Need It
« Reply #27 on: December 15, 2022, 12:08:54 AM »
Again, basic parenting isn't really a matter of intelligence.
I never said it was.  I also never said anything about an IQ test being a criteria for a parenting license.
Abandon hope all ye who press enter here.

Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin

If you can't demonstrate it, then you shouldn't believe it.