An idea inspired by a mediocre movie (Bulworth): Resolved - the US ought to create incentives for people to marry/procreate with partners outside of their personal ethnic background, with the goal that racism will be lessened when more of us are the same color. Can be done either as a tax deduction given to people who marry or have kids with partners whose ethnic background is sufficiently different than theirs. Or - likely more problemmatic - a tax penalty for marrying/reproducing with someone whose ethnic background is very close to yours.
I can’t imagine anyone would have any objections to such a system!
I was going to list some objections, but it might be easier just to say: Consider the opposite. What if the powers that be somehow passed tax incentives for marrying and/or procreating with people of the same ethnic background. Are there any legal or practical obstacles to that that wouldn’t also apply to your proposal?
I’d rather see tax breaks for married couples where both partners have tested IQs above 115, so the incentive (if you are bright) is to marry someone who is also bright.
Leaving aside all the obvious difficulties: Look at countries where there are a lot of mixed marriages, or countries that have a large non-white population. Colorism is still rampant (i.e. light skin vs dark skin) - thinking of countries like Cuba and Brazil. You can’t erase other-ism by erasing one difference, it will only pop up again using some different characteristic.
Also, read Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
It concerns a man who can change existence with his dreams, so he learns to direct his dreams and tries to get rid of racism by making everyone the same color (they turn out gray, but I don’t think that was the problem). It doesn’t work; frankly I don’t remember why. After you’ve read it, come back and tell us.
Might be helpful to also add a premium to the per-child Child Dependent Credit. We already incentivize having more children; might as well sweeten that incentive for the more intellectually-endowed.
And for the dummy sector, lowering the per-child Child Dependent credit each time a child is added to the family past the second one (gotta maintain the replacement rate).
Oddly the GOP just did that to the American Taxpayer, part of their “I got mine, Jack!” plan to reduce taxes on millionaires while screwing the middle class. This year, you lost your personal exemptions. The standard deduction was increased. So, you are rewarded for not procreating at all.
Since I think the OP isn’t being serious, I will forebear to comment.
Actually, the “I got mine, Jack” plan increased the Child Tax Credit. Not having kids, I’m not up on how it all works, but for children under the age of 17, you get a tax credit of up to $2,000 each. If this puts your tax below 0, you can get up $1,400 in a tax refund (I presume in addition to whatever tax refund you’d otherwise have gotten).
The people who may pay more tax due to this aspect of the tax plan are those with dependent children who are 17 or older.
Well, I think so, anyway. Those with kids under 17 may lose. Depending on your income, you’ve lost $4000+ in personal exemptions plus $1000 in child tax credit per child, but now get $2000 in child tax credit. That I guess could work out to a gain in tax.
I can foresee some people deliberately trying to split hairs. “Yeah, we’re both white, but I’m Scottish while she’s Polish, so we’re still having a diverse marriage - give us that tax credit now!”
On the theme of non-serious ideas that may make you think about whether what we actually do is logically or ethically consistent…
For those who would advocate only ever taking a pet from a shelter (rather than getting a “designer” item from a breeder), why does this principle apply only to non-human animals? By the same reasoning, if you are financially secure, you should marry a homeless person.
This is all highly influenced in the US by the fact that inter-group marriage used to be actively illegal. The further you get from that, the less people will clutch their pearls about it. Which is already happening
In the absence of external pressure, or other factors (eg ethnicity as a marker for religious background), marrying outside your group is just a thing that people do. See for instance how people on this board occasionally pop up to wonder if “all the inter-racial marriages” on British TV are the casting directors making a point … well, no, that’s just accurately reflecting what British society is like. It ain’t no thing.
Mostly true, except in US advertising, where interracial couples are extremely disproportionately high compared to the population…drawing criticism of its own since the number of black couples is disproportionately low.
Just a product of advertisers trying to economize the demographics they can target per dollar as far as I can tell.
If you’re going to advocate eugenics you may want to just take quick gander at the Wikipedia article on it and the arguments.
You’ll quickly realize that even barring ethical problems the technical reality is far more complicated than " let’s encourage smart people to breed and we’ll have less dummies"
I think that with more people born, the world’s problems would be alleviated by the creativity of the extra people. But I could be wrong. It all depends on who the omitted people will be.
Eventually, the earth’s human population will be dominated by members of religious groups that strongly discourage birth control. Your proposal would get us there faster. I suppose that if the Amish, and ultra-Orthodox Jews, have what is needed to solve the world’s problems, your proposal should work.
People can change their religion a lot faster than particular religions can breed up a next generation. I’m fairly sure the growing proportion of atheists in various countries since, say, a hundred years ago, is not because all the 1919 atheists were flat out having kids (for instance)
I gather the religion of the parents is important, but the religion of the culture overall can be more so. If the Orthodox Jews and Amish (and any other group) really wants to preserve their faith and maximize the chance their indoctrinated children won’t abandon it when exposed to outside influences, they have to isolate their children as much as possible and insulate themselves. Wouldn’t this tend to reduce their culture’s influence on the overall society?
