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For what it's worth, I buck the Motte comment trend that you observed. I am nearly 100% in favor of the sexual revolution and I believe that, by the standard of my preferences (both selfish: I like having casual sex, and altruistic: I want women to be free), it has been a rousing success.
The only criticism of the sexual revolution that has any weight, as far as I am concerned, is that it may have contributed to the declining fertility of the West. Not that I care about fertility itself - the only problem as far as I am concerned is that a society with extremely low fertility might eventually be outcompeted by societies with higher ones.
However, I believe that ways can probably be found to solve this problem that do not involve undoing the sexual revolution. And I believe that we should pursue them.
I would be a lot more pro sexual revolution in a world that had artificial wombs than one that didn't. I feel that the sexual revolution happened about a hundred years before it's time and that it's biggest failure are happening because we don't have the technology yet to mitigate them. Much like how a car machanic is a useful job for society in 1950 but a useless one in 1750, the sexual revolution has certain "prerequisites" to work well that aren't satisfied by the society of today, but will probably be done so in the next century.
For an example I have pretty much nothing against the sexual hedonism in Brave New World, over there it's perfectly fine and a good thing for the citizenry.
Artificial wombs seem like they will have a near-null effect on fertility because people are hesitant about raising kids, not bearing them.
With artificial wombs you can get the state to rear children and tax the populace to fund it. Plus, right now there is a massive shortage of children to adopt with waiting lists over a decade in many places, which suggests that there is a shortage of children without parents who want to take care of them (which is what is primarily produced by artificial wombs, but produced not that much by natural wombs).
I cannot agree. Artificial wombs presumably don't pop children out automatically: you have to intend to have a child, unlike many a case with natural wombs. I would assume fewer people would back out of children they intended to have and raise than currently do out of whatever the distribution is between planned babies, surprise babies and oops babies.
Why would it be any easier to get the state to raise your kid just because it wasn't gestated inside your body?
Presumably in this scenario the state could take donor eggs and sperm and have and raise kids itself, was the suggestion.
And children from state run institutions turn out pretty badly, I think.
There's definitely a selection effect of being the offspring of parents who relegate their kids to being wards of the state, and don't have family who can raise them.
Sure, but not everything is selection effect and there is nothing we know about institutional/foster care child rearing which doesn’t point to it being incredibly bad at parenting.
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