"You'll get a catastrophic selection effect that way. Even if you unweighted the votes and humans had most of them accordingly, under your outlined proposal the ones who don't think much of the caste system don't need to interact with it at all until they're locked in by their parents' choices next generation, and the current adults aren't incentivized to vote in accordance with that issue. This is not a way to accurately reflect the needs of the preponderance of the constituency."

"The fact that people unaffected by the caste system are not likely to vote to abolish it is a good thing," she says patiently, "as in general the fact that people who care more about things will see their values reflected more in policy is a good thing. If the next generation in fact felt 'locked in', instead of proud of their culture and community, then they could vote for liberalization. They wil probably overwhelmingly favor the caste system for the same reason that Amentans overwhelmingly do."

"Wow."

"I'm sure it seems very strange to people from societies without a caste system, just like the human conception of gender or race seem very strange to us."

"You'll notice I'm not suggesting that Amentans be invited to impose human laws relating to gender or race on their offspring."

"If some Amentans wanted to convert to human religions which include such concepts and include religious obligations to raise your children and grandchildren in the religion, we would certainly not make that illegal, except insofar as we would still require them to comply with population controls."

"But nor would you impose consequences on the children for apostasy."

"That's true."

"Perhaps you can complete the analogy to caste."

"I wouldn't mind if the Church kept a record of apostates and denied them access to Church services or employment among adherents to the Church because of their refusal to follow the associated rules."

"But then they could if they felt like it move to another continent on which that religion was unpopular, do you see the problem or do I need to ask for a new diplomat."

"I understand your concern, and it might well turn out for that or related reasons that the best way to promote the wellbeing of our citizens is a different caste arrangement, I am just unwilling to make any commitments to the effect that we will make it illegal for humans to join the caste system."

Miranda sighs.

"I think human parents will probably give lots of thought to the wellbeing of their children before they make caste-related decisions."

"I think there are a billion humans and somebody's going to just not think about that or succumb to wishful thinking and they'll go blue to run for office or green to try to make it as a painter or yellow to get into computer school or grey because they find it personally offensive that they can't theoretically shoot people if a war were to occur without it being considered a war crime or orange to get some fancy medical license or purple for I can't think of a specific example for purple, and then they may have children, and their children will be stuck, and this doesn't even consistently work for Amentans."

"Oh, we'll definitely do screening to make sure people are better suited than 'they felt like it'!"

"I heard you the first time. What is your second guess for what my problem is with this plan."

"I think that you don't understand castes, except that every once in a while someone isn't happy with theirs, and so are completely misunderstanding what is likely to happen if humans choose to raise their children in a caste."

"I am not the only Amentan she knows."

"They conduct surveys asking people whether they're happy in their caste, and whether they want to do out-of-caste work. It's a better way of learning about things than talking to some individuals who - I'm not sure how you are acquainted exactly -"

"Pelape is my cultural consultant. Don't worry, I'm not paying her except in access to my nieces and nephews."

"It's very nice to meet you," she says to Pelape. "Most Amentans like their caste. Very, very few people want legal caste abolition. I think they feel that way for reasons which are also likely to apply to humans who choose to raise a family within our system."

"I didn't say abolition or anything that implies it. Access to caste swaps would attenuate my reservations, and they're an incredibly limited move towards liberalizations."

"I worry that treating humans different from other people of the caste they choose, if they choose a caste, would ultimately be harmful to integration, but if humans don't inherit aptitudes it would make sense to have provisions for that. We'll look into it."

"You could also just let everyone do swaps."