I agree that subsidies need to go to actual increased fertility, not subsidizing kids that were already in the works. We need to get couples to marry and start larger families earlier.
Brainstorming… Remove all income tax from any married couple having 2 or more kids before/by the age of 30. They would go tax free 100% until their last child reaches age 5. No income limits, no limits on number of kids. But you need to stay married, and start (or adopt) early.
Add to this free college for these same children.
This will make it so that nobody can afford not to have a larger family (taxes and college costs may of course need to go up over time to fund these, but these would be years downstream from first passing these benefits)
What a lively and thought-provoking interview. Thanks!
However, assuming philosophy majors are representative of liberal arts majors in general is misleading. Check out this excerpt from a relevant SLOW BORING post.
The humanities should be harder - Low standards have devalued non-STEM study
by MATTHEW YGLESIAS AUG 7, 2025
"If you major in philosophy, as I did, you will inevitably get jokes about whether they’re hiring at the philosophy factory. The truth, though, is that philosophy majors have above-average earnings compared to the typical college graduate. And that’s not just a function of would-be philosophers going to law school. People whose terminal degree is a bachelor’s in philosophy earn pretty good money.
Most philosophy departments have a line about this, pitching students on the very real value of the skills that philosophy undergraduates practice.
I don’t think those departmental lines are wrong, exactly. Skills like reading texts closely, understanding the logical structure of arguments, and writing persuasively certainly do come in handy in a wide range of settings. That said, I don’t think this explains much about the relative earning power of a philosophy degree. The skills you learn studying history — reading documents, evaluating evidence — are also broadly applicable.
What’s interesting isn’t that philosophy-type skills have some utility, it’s that philosophy majors earn more than history majors or English majors or students of other traditional, non-STEM academic topics.
And I think Scotty Hendricks nailed the explanation in a Big Think piece he wrote a couple of years ago: philosophy majors earn more because philosophy majors are smarter, on average, than students of other traditional liberal arts disciplines.
But why are philosophy majors smarter?
I don’t fully understand the historical or sociological factors behind this. Whatever the factors are, though, they are highly contingent. Philosophy professors have higher GRE scores than professors of English or history or sociology. They run classes that are relatively difficult and that dissuade people from pursuing the major unless they’re smart and hardworking. Philosophy graduate programs don’t have many slots to offer, and the few slots they have go to people with high GRE scores. And the cycle continues."
I don't know how you manage to override my Substack settings to auto-start your video but please desist!
I agree that subsidies need to go to actual increased fertility, not subsidizing kids that were already in the works. We need to get couples to marry and start larger families earlier.
Brainstorming… Remove all income tax from any married couple having 2 or more kids before/by the age of 30. They would go tax free 100% until their last child reaches age 5. No income limits, no limits on number of kids. But you need to stay married, and start (or adopt) early.
Add to this free college for these same children.
This will make it so that nobody can afford not to have a larger family (taxes and college costs may of course need to go up over time to fund these, but these would be years downstream from first passing these benefits)
What a lively and thought-provoking interview. Thanks!
However, assuming philosophy majors are representative of liberal arts majors in general is misleading. Check out this excerpt from a relevant SLOW BORING post.
The humanities should be harder - Low standards have devalued non-STEM study
by MATTHEW YGLESIAS AUG 7, 2025
"If you major in philosophy, as I did, you will inevitably get jokes about whether they’re hiring at the philosophy factory. The truth, though, is that philosophy majors have above-average earnings compared to the typical college graduate. And that’s not just a function of would-be philosophers going to law school. People whose terminal degree is a bachelor’s in philosophy earn pretty good money.
Most philosophy departments have a line about this, pitching students on the very real value of the skills that philosophy undergraduates practice.
I don’t think those departmental lines are wrong, exactly. Skills like reading texts closely, understanding the logical structure of arguments, and writing persuasively certainly do come in handy in a wide range of settings. That said, I don’t think this explains much about the relative earning power of a philosophy degree. The skills you learn studying history — reading documents, evaluating evidence — are also broadly applicable.
What’s interesting isn’t that philosophy-type skills have some utility, it’s that philosophy majors earn more than history majors or English majors or students of other traditional, non-STEM academic topics.
And I think Scotty Hendricks nailed the explanation in a Big Think piece he wrote a couple of years ago: philosophy majors earn more because philosophy majors are smarter, on average, than students of other traditional liberal arts disciplines.
But why are philosophy majors smarter?
I don’t fully understand the historical or sociological factors behind this. Whatever the factors are, though, they are highly contingent. Philosophy professors have higher GRE scores than professors of English or history or sociology. They run classes that are relatively difficult and that dissuade people from pursuing the major unless they’re smart and hardworking. Philosophy graduate programs don’t have many slots to offer, and the few slots they have go to people with high GRE scores. And the cycle continues."
To be accurate I should have said humanities not liberal arts...