May 27, 2007
Bryan Caplan
Believe it or not: This blog has given life to a baby girl! Michael Stastny, better known as Mahalanobis, has the story:
My wife had a baby today, which implies with high probability that I had a baby today too. I blame this completely on Bryan Caplan, who noted that people tend to overestimate the costs of kids when they can make them because that is precisely the time they are bearing most of the costs (childrearing toddlers). In contrast, spunky breeders underestimate the long-run benefits of progeny precisely because most of them occur well after childbearing is an option, such as creating people who will give a crap about you in 50 years. I then mindlessly applied the implication and here we are.
Here's the seminal post. (Please don't kill me for that pun, I couldn't resist!)
Correction: Tim Worstall says "It's HedgeFundGuy, Michael Stastny's co-blogger, who has just had the baby." Sorry for the mix-up. :-)
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A word of advice: I would avoid mentioning 'spunky breeders' in polite company if you ever visit the UK.
Here 'spunky' is slang for 'covered in seminal fluid'.
Unless that was, in fact, what you intended to suggest...
Lemme put this in a way a sci-fi buff like Bryan can understand ... Bryan didn't force me to have a kid the way Spock was forced to spawn in Star Trek, it was more the way a Borg drone affects the hive mind. Hmmm, too extreme. How about, not the way Palpatine affects the Empire, but more how one of the Jedi High Council affects the Rebellion. Clear?
Anyway, her name is Isabel (because, of course, it contains two conspicuous letters in 'Bryan' as normally spelled).
Bryan: That old post is still one of the most intelligently practical things I have ever read (in any media). I often quote it to friends who are expecting yet another child, and I think it makes their day, not to mention making their lives more complete and joyful.
What I love is that you're preferentially encouraging reproduction among those who listen to economists - exactly who we most need more of! :). It would be neat to set up a charity which subsidized childcare for smart people, thus encouraging them to reproduce. This seems much more efficient than scholarships, since the difference between existing & not existing is much bigger than where/whether you go to college.
