Much to my wife’s chagrin, many of my views are highly qualified. I’m not sure how much it has come across in this blog, but in person I’m sometimes caricatured as having moderate opinions on everything.
So in honor of my wife, who is currently distracting our baby across the room as I write my weekly blog post, I’ll share some of my opinions that are unusual, extreme, or otherwise poorly moderated.
I am aiming to include a set such that very few people would agree with all of them. If you read this post and think I’m a crazy person, or you’re happy I’m far from the levers of power, well, I’m also happy about that second one. But also please remember, these are my views that I think will seem craziest!
Prostitution Should Be Legal
I don’t see great reasons to illegalize prostitution. Modern society has STD tests, reliable birth control, and a pretty good social safety net. Furthermore, illegal prostitution causes all sorts of horrible problems, where people are routinely killed or imprisoned. Having a place you go to purchase the service legally and under surveillance seems way better than cloak-and-dagger appointments where shame runs rampant and violence is common.
At the risk of starting my “immoderate opinions” section with some moderation, I’m not imagining a world where anyone can legally sell sex whenever and wherever they want; realistically, I more imagine a world where most cities have regulated brothels, it’s not that hard for an attractive person (especially an attractive woman) to get a job at one, and there are pretty toothy protections for everyone involved.
Do I worry that way too many young women would become prostitutes, and it would somehow ruin society? Probably not! Camgirls are somewhat like prostitutes who don’t actually touch their clients, lots of people are camgirls, and society doesn’t look that collapsed to me. Also brothels do exist in a few places, and it doesn’t seem like it usually goes horribly, despite those places specifically being “party destinations” where it’d be extra likely to go wrong.
I think probably I’m just missing a moral intuition most people have against this, but, well, I am missing that intuition. I’ve never visited a prostitute myself, and I probably wouldn’t even if it were legal, but I don’t see an argument why people shouldn’t be able to if they want. And in fact rich people probably can make it happen anyway, using “escort” services where it’s hard to get caught. So may as well open it all to regulation, make it boring and (hehe) unsexy, and let consenting adults make positive sum trades.
Alcohol Is Bad
If someone magically made alcohol no longer exist, it’d be a good thing.1 I think “prohibition doesn’t work” is an oversimplification and the world has changed a lot since the US last tried it, but I do buy it’s a stupid political hill to die on. That being said, I think the cons of alcohol consumption clearly outweigh the pros. It’s involved in huge amounts of violence, especially domestic violence, it kills a gigantic number of people through medical complications and many innocent bystanders from drunk driving, and a small proportion of its users become alcoholics, which is generally life ruining.
People have a lot of indirect takes in favor of alcohol, like that it promotes social cohesion or helps people get together romantically. And sure, it does that today. Lots of lovely relationships, including my own marriage, have origins that involve at least one party drinking for courage. But in a world without alcohol, I think people would mostly just find other sources of courage. Likewise, alcohol occupies a social default, but plenty of other substances or activities could take its place if it were gone. I’d probably take weak THC drinks or kava or something over alcohol; at least you can drive a car after those things and probably not kill anybody.
Speaking of alternatives - and here I’m getting extra zany - perhaps a world where adderall is the default social substance would be an improvement. Not only would there be few DUI accidents, but after people got home from a party, they’d clean the hell out of their apartments.
Estate Taxes Should Be Large
It’s good to tax stuff you want less of. So what better to tax than death? I’m not too fussed about income or wealth inequality; as long as everyone’s doing alright, the ultra-rich can have as many yachts and private compounds as they want. But I don’t really see why having rich parents should, on top of various other advantages, also get you all of their money. A bunch of it, sure, whatever. But all of it is silly and distortionary.
Children of the rich have many opportunities to make a splash in the world, and I think more of them would leverage those opportunities if they wouldn’t automatically become rich over the course of their lives. I think a lot of people who stand to inherit large sums of money just sort of wait around for large chunks of life, putting off family formation or putting down roots, and end up with complicated and negative feelings when their rich relative happens to live to, say, 90. A steep inheritance tax might get them to shrug and try to make their own fortunes.
Also, it seems clear that people in modern democracies want to fund super expensive social safety nets; once these exist, they tend to be politically bulletproof. Fair enough! But you’ve got to have some sort of heavy-duty tax to fund these, and many taxes introduce drag to the economy. Maybe a higher estate tax would too, but it still seems less bad than most other taxes; sure, rich people would find loopholes, but death is unpredictable and so far impossible to avoid, so a steeper estate tax would probably yield a decent bit of revenue for social programs.
The Human Cloning Taboo Is Dumb
Ha! Perhaps you thought you’d get through this post without anything truly unhinged. Don’t worry. I’ve saved the best for last. I think if people cloned themselves, it’d be fine, and everyone shouldn’t get in such a tizzy about it.
Much like the prostitution case, this opinion is mostly just me not having an instinctive revulsion, that many other people seem to share. Without that feeling or intuition that I’m missing, the actual arguments against human cloning seem weak.
The ultra rich would make clones of themselves, and pay people to raise them? Sure, maybe a tiny number of them would. But the ultra rich can just have a bunch of babies via IVF now, and at least one famously does. I’m not sure what the big difference is between creating 10 people with 100% genetic overlap with you, or 10 people with 50% genetic overlap. It’s not like cloning is especially more eugenics-y than plenty of schemes that are perfectly legal today; like, a rich person could offer to have children via IVF only with opposite-sex people who passed a difficult IQ test or something. Also, more importantly, extremely few people, no matter how rich, act to maximize their genetic representation in the next generation. Unethical doctors working at sperm banks and dishonest sperm donors that fabricate their credentials make the most Genghis Khan-level performances, and human cloning by comparison would be a drop in the bucket. It’d be super expensive and quite inconvenient, and few people would choose to do it.
Would I want to clone myself? Not especially. I’m a romantic; I like the idea of mixing my genes with those of someone I love and admire, and seeing what happens. In fact, I’ve put this preference into practice! But if some guy or lady really loves themselves, and wants to take another crack at the same genetic makeup in the next generation? Go for it, sir or madam. The funniest objection is that a clone might have an identity crisis, worrying that they were doomed to repeat their parent’s path, or something. But come on, man. They’d be a clearly wanted child, with at least one rich and dedicated parent, who liked themselves enough to want someone else to be just like them. I’m sure it’d go badly sometimes. But I bet mostly, clones would just make extra funny memes.
The kind you drink. Rubbing alcohol is fine. I guess the “proper” hypothetical is “alcohol no longer gets anyone the least bit drunk or gives anyone any sort of lowered inhibition feeling” but whatever.