PayPal and Two-Factor Authentication: A “Weakest Link” Case in Point

I had an interesting idea this weekend regarding the effect that having
children has on one’s life views.

I was talking to a friend of mine about what our plans were for ten and
twenty years from now, and he basically said that he stays focused on being
very conservative with his money because he plans on having kids at some
point.

He’s quite progressive, as I am, so the word “conservative” didn’t have any
overt social implications for him, but it prompted me to think about how I
would view life differently if I planned on having children.

In short, I think I’d instantly become more conservative. Not just
financially, but socially as well. I put myself in that position and
instantly saw myself moving away from the Bay Area and landing somewhere
with good public schools, little crime, and generally smart, like-minded
people nearby. San Francisco is mostly like that, but the Bay Area in
general is fairly rough.

Anyway, what fascinated me was that in a single mental experiment I could
feel myself become more conservative. After careful self-reflection I think
I figured out how it came about: It wasn’t that having kids made me more
conservative, it was that having kids made me scared. And being scared made
me more conservative.

This is consistent with
a number of studies
that have come out recently that seem to show that conservatives tend to be
more afraid than liberals.

And it makes sense if you think about it. If you feel connected to everyone,
not tied down to anything, and see the world as a big place to explore and
love and grow, then you tend to be more liberal. But if you have something
to protect, and you see the world as a place that can deny necessities to
your loved ones, you’re more likely to take certain actions.1 At the top of
the list is probably collecting together with other like-minded people,
ostracizing those who think differently, etc.

Now think about taxation, welfare, incarceration, healthcare, and other
social policies. The more conservative you are the more likely you are to
scream, “Mine! Me! Not theirs!” That’s conservative, and it’s based on fear
in my opinion — fear that your resources will be
used wasted on another.

Where this really starts getting interesting is if you take it further — to
where I think society should be heading. This would be a society where we
don’t reproduce “just because”, and instead we only have enough children to
maintain an ideal number of people on the planet. What’s ideal? Let science
tell us that. Oh, first you have to actually ask the question.

In a world like that we would have far more people who lived without fear.
Why? Because there would be more resources for fewer people. Crazy. And when
we did have children there wouldn’t be this massive fear that prompted us to
hoard for them at the expense of everyone else (especially those who don’t
look and act like us).

I’m rambling now. TL;DR: Kids –> Fear –> Conservatism. ::

Notes

1 Of course, these two sets of attributes are not mutually exclusive.2 Also
keep in mind that if you’re super liberal then you can still be a parent and
not be overly fear-based. The argument is that it moves you *towards* fear —
not that it necessarily makes it dominate your life. But if you’re close to
the line anyway, and then you have kids, you’re likely to become more
conservative. That’s the idea anyway.