TheJach.com

Jach's personal blog

(Largely containing a mind-dump to myselves: past, present, and future)
Current favorite quote: "Supposedly smart people are weirdly ignorant of Bayes' Rule." William B Vogt, 2010

Two Simple Solutions to the Abortion Problem

I've mentioned these two here and there on my blog and other places, but I realized it's useful to have a centralized post for them. Especially if I ever do more in-depth research and want to share my notes.

The first simple solution is kind of totalitarian and I don't think it's likely to be done by America. Maybe one day in Asia. Basically as part of a larger eugenics program to create more perfect humans, the State forces every male to undergo a RISUG treatment with follow-up treatments every 5-10 years. People are thus free to fornicate as they desire, and if they want to reproduce they must demonstrate fitness for such to the State and the State will arrange to reverse the RISUG. Since the State will only select breeding partners that are serious about it, there will be no abortions -- and as a bonus, no unwanted children.

The second simple solution, which I think may be more feasible in America, is to alter the abortion procedure into cryogenically preserving the embryo until such a time as a mother wishes to carry the embryo to term. This could be the original mother or not, and the birth-mother may not end up as the parenting mother. (There is a market for infertile women to pay fertile women to carry the preserved embryo to term and then the infertile woman adopts the child.) If you the original mother decide you don't want the child but are too far along in the pregnancy where cryogenically preserving the baby gives less than say for argument 50% chances at survival post-revival/thaw, then too bad, you have to carry it to term (and probably put it up for adoption) or be tried for infanticide. Research will be done into extending the period where a mother can have second-thoughts all the way up to birth (with the research also being useful for adult cryopreservation).

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What I'm Not Writing About

For the past several months (or has it been over a year?) I've been trying to orient myself in which cultures I value, which political theories I most endorse, and teaching myself truths that were once known generally but are now known to just a few.

And what I've found is at such odds with the public opinion that I don't want to write about it publicly. At least, not at length. And a lot of it I'm still shaky on. So much relies on a careful examination of history, which I have to do completely on my own, as no secondary educational institution (and probably very few if any post-secondary institutions) adequately prepares one for the task. The knowledge of history I gained growing up is completely suspect, and for the past year I've slowly been fixing that. One day when I have ample historical knowledge to have strong evidential arguments, not just strong arguments from logic, I may write about the things I'm currently thinking about.

It's interesting to find something that's very at odds with public opinion. I've also realized that "internet culture" (mainly that which exists on reddit, youtube, 4chan, tumblr, facebook, and twitter), while not equivalent to the larger offline culture, is nevertheless big enough that it counts as public opinion. Even though the internet culture is sometimes at odds with the offline culture, there are certain things the two agree on that if you disagree with can result in a bad time for you. And if the two disagree, you can still lead a happy existence. Anarchy's not so cool offline, but online anarchists are all over the place. Same with atheists. Same with furries. Criticizing the military is A-OK. What's not cool online or offline? The stuff I'm thinking about.

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