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I think this would be a huge improvement if it was done moderately and selectively. That is, take the people at the very bottom socioeconomic classes (mostly young unwed mothers), and offer them a financial incentive to choose daughters over sons. Then we end up with, say, 51% of babies being born female, compared to the present situation of 51% male. And that 2% would come from the demographics most likely to commit crime and get into trouble, so changing them to female would massively reduce those risk factors.
Unfortunately I think the people most likely to voluntarily choose this would be upper class liberal women, and that would just be a disaster. Even more girl boss feminist women!
You could also speculate about some fascist government forcing it on everyone, to the point where we end up like 75% female or even more. As a guy I'll admit it sounds like a fun sex fantasy, but... I suspect this would cause some horrible consequences down the line (the women would end up fighting with each other and not cooperate at all in running society).
While everything seems to work better with slightly more females than males, I strongly expect that would break down long before reaching a supermajority.
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I think this will would improve things for a generation or so, but likely increasing the fraction of women in classes which reproduce unplanned will increase their fertility.
One juvenile delinquent can easily impregnate a dozen 16yo's, if there are no competitors, after all.
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