From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Sat Jun 02 2001 - 08:28:22 MDT
Adrian writes
>Lee Corbin wrote:
>> In the same way, if you are bored by sex, it
>> means that something probably went wrong in your
>> phenotype or genotype, in the (weak) sense that
>> it is predisposing you to have fewer offspring.
>
><shrugs> Our genes given the society which we find ourselves in,
>perhaps.
<snip>
>Or maybe it is some environmental trigger invoked by the number
>of people I see in my daily life - certainly, this population
>level would be gross overpopulation for any stone age clan,
>such that more children might do more harm than good to my
>immediate kin, thus decreasing the odds of our shared genes
>propigating into the future.
Evolutionary biologists debunk this view all the time.
It DOESN'T MATTER that the whole society would suffer.
Your genes don't know that---it's the tragedy of the
commons. While group selection exists, it specifically
cannot exist like this. It still would be best for you
(biologically speaking) to have the greatest possible
number of viable offspring.
>It's not just me. Take out immigration, and a number
>of industrialized countries have birth rates lower than
>their death rates.
Yes, that's true. In "Mother Nature", Sarah Hrdy examines
all this in detail. But I think that the bottom line is
that our prosperity and convenience---bought at the expense
of fewer offspring---is from a biological view a defect
under the present conditions, regardless of how under
certain circumstances in the past it was "correct".
But evolution will deal (pace Singularity) with the kinds
of people who have fewer children. They'll become extinct.
That's why in North America, the biologically fit Mexican
and Mormon peoples will predominate. Given enough time,
people would evolve to be horrified at the thought of
not having enormous numbers of children.
>Of course, there's also the possibility that I realize that the best
>chance for my personal indefinite survival - and thus the survival of
>those genes inside me (barring uploading, which concept the genes have
>never encountered before) - is to pour my resources into technological
>advancement. It may be no coincidence that this is what I find
>non-boring right now.
But still, it has to be coincidence. There were many people all
through the ages that thought that they heard God's voice,
and failed to reproduce. They have fewer (or no) descendants
today.
But you're absolutely right that we have to listen to logic
and reason if we want to survive, especially personally, in
the presence of all the technological possibilities today.
Someone who has eleven children, but dies and is buried,
is still dead.
Lee
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