The Weird Reason To Have more Children:

Bryan Caplan:

"Think of a trait that brings people together. It could be jokiness, religiosity, libertarianism, love of books, or fascination with role-playing games – or seriousness, impiety, statism, hatred of books, or contempt for role-playing games. Take your pick.

Now suppose that the parent-child correlation on the trait you picked is exactly zero. Then no matter what you’re like, you should expect your kids to be at the 50th percentile. If you’re normal, that’s a pretty good deal; at least on average, your kids will be just like you. But the weirder you are, the less your kids will typically resemble you. Even if you’re at the 95th, 99th or 99.99th percentile, you can expect your kids to be perfectly average. In a world of zero parent-child correlation, weird people have little in common with their children.

In the real world, of course, parent-child correlations almost always exceed zero, and are often substantial. This doesn’t boost the similarity between normal people and their children; no matter what the parent-child correlation is, parents at the 50th percentile typically have children at the 50th percentile. But a positive parent-child correlation does boost the similarity between weirdos and their children – and the weirder you are, the bigger the boost. "

"There are two ways to surround yourself with people like you. One is to meet them; the other is to make them. If you’re average, meeting people like yourself is easy; people like you are everywhere. If you’re weird, though, meeting people like yourself is hard; people like you are few and far between."