"So you don't have castes and instead you educate everyone like they're yellows or greens, even if they're going to grow up to drive a delivery truck or do gymnastics?"

"...I guess not everyone goes to college? But I'm in a special test-in high school for smart kids and it's sort of casually assumed that everyone in my classes is going to college. I don't think you go to college to drive a truck but I don't know what athletes do, I don't know any athletes." 

"Oh, that makes sense. You tested into greenschool. That's a thing you might do if you don't have castes. Must make your population allocation more complicated though, if you're in a"-- Jarvis fails to translate the word-- "country it'd be like green child inequality but for everyone."

"...our what more complicated?" 

"You don't have population controls?!"

"No what the fuck of course we don't have population controls!!" 

Hair-touch. "--I need to go home as soon as possible before someone kills me."

"Why would someone kill you because we don't have population controls." He says 'population controls' the same way an Amentan might say 'permissions system.'

"Because if you don't have population controls everyone has ten babies and the population grows exponentially and the only way to get enough land for all your people is to commit genocide against everyone else."

".........uh, maybe your species is bizarre, but we don't have population controls and the average number of babies is two-point-something." 

"You mean you can have as many babies as you want and the number of babies you want is two?!"

"There are people who have five but they're usually Catholics — Catholics don't believe in using birth control and they have famously big families, one to three is a normal number. I'm an only child." 

"There's a philosophy that believes in not using birth control and it's not illegal?"

"No religion is illegal in America. And birth control isn't mandated anywhere, holy fuck." 

"On Amenta it's illegal to have a baby unless you have a child credit. In some countries you buy them and in some countries the government gives out credits to people it thinks are worthy of them. In Voa every couple gets two."

"That's horrifying and we don't do that." 

"It's less horrifying than genocide!"

"Here, if someone tried that, that would be a sign of an impending genocide." 

"You really only want two kids?"

"I personally don't want any kids. But, yeah, in countries where birth control is easy to access most people just have two." 

"You don't want any kids? But babies are so good."

"They scream all the time and you don't get any sleep and anything you do might fuck them up for the rest of their lives and they can be killed by fucking anything and they don't talk so they can't tell you what they need and the idea of interacting with one much less being responsible for its well-being much less responsible for everything having to do with it is terrifying get it away from me." 

"I... guess if lots of your species feels like that it makes sense that you don't have to have population controls?"

He sounds a bit like the way Sasha would sound if someone has just given an impassioned speech about how art is a waste of money and resources could be used so much more efficiently if everything were colored a dull utilitarian grey.

"I don't know about lots, sometimes it feels like everyone I say this to wants to assure me that I'll change my mind someday or it's different when they're yours, but." 

"If you've seen a baby try and fail to find its own toes and you don't want, like, four, I'm confused but I'm not going to argue."