The Parable of the Long Spoons is an Advocacy for Polyamory and Polygamy

I thank CON for a succinct argument that centers around the statement: "If the parable is about good procreation, then surely the well-being and development of the child should be among the first concerns of society."I fully agree. Apparently the point of contention for this debate will center around "the well-being and development of the child".I will demonstrate how in many, many cases, unrestricted polyamory and polygamy will indeed lead to "better" child-rearing.RebuttalR1) CON asserts that 20 females can only produce 20 offspring in any given year. Very true, I do not dispute this. However, US women currently give birth to only 1.86 children throughout their lifetime (http://www.lifenews.com...), which is far below the replacement rate of 2.1 necessary to sustain the population. This means that women could give birth to far more children to far more mates throughout their lifetimes.R2) CON also states that there is a limit to how many mates a woman can have offspring with, and that such a limit precludes a woman's ability to have offspring with all the men at the table...let's say this limit is 10 kids with 10 different mates - this accounts for the "optimal interval"of 3-5 years between each childbirth that CON brings up in her source #3.This is fully in line with the parable...there is also a limit as to how much food any one person can eat before they become "full". Thus, such an approach by CON is not valid to disprove the veracity of this parable when applied to polyamory and polygamy.R3) CON believes that "Pro has argued that the more men a woman sleeps with before becoming pregnant, the more help she will have with the child-rearing," but PRO has made no such assertion. My comments have been gender neutral; I speak of unrestricted polyamory and polygamy. So, even assuming that CON is correct in that the man "often does not contribute much to child-rearing," more mates and more intimate relations may result in more women helping each other with their offspring, regardless of what men may do.This is a very reasonable approach. Imagine cooking pancakes for a family of four or a family of forty. It does not involve much more time or effort...you still need to prepare the batter, warm the grill, mind the stove, and flip the pancakes. Let's say it takes 20 minutes to prepare pancakes for 4 people...it may take maybe two or three times longer to cook for 40, but that would be a net savings of over 140 minutes, had there been 10 different spouses cooking 10 different meals for 10 different families of four...as long as those 40 people all don't mind eating pancakes on a given day. =)This argument would also address one simple fact - 2 parents are better than one, regardless of gender (http://www.ucalgary.ca...). Well, if 2 parents are better, why not 3, 4, or 20? Imagine if a kid had 20 parents. Would the kid have to suffer because "mommy or daddy" didn't have time to take little Johnny or Suzie to school? No...because the kid would have 20 "mommies and daddies" and maybe, just maybe, one of them has enough time to take the poor kid to school so s/he wouldn't have to be bulled by Marvin the Monster on the bus.So, you can have the situation where a woman mates and has children with 10 different men. Another woman also mates with 10 different men, resulting in the two women sharing commonalities in that 8 of those men are the same men for the two women. That gives both women a pool of 8 different men for possible care-giving, and even if all of them turn out to be deadbeats, the two women still have good reason to help each other with at least 8 of their respective children (16 total), who share genetic lineages with each other and are blood-brother/sisters - such a plentitude of children can eliminate problems stemming from jealousy as well, because it wouldn't be MY kids, but OUR kids. Expand this to 10 or 100 more women, and there may be a LOT of parenting going on, just amongst the women.This "poly-parenting" precludes the scenario that CON proffers, that "a mother [may be] the sole provider for her children." Nonsense. There would be MANY mothers and fathers. VERY MANY. Such is the power of this parable of the long spoons when applied to polyamory and polygamy!ConclusionObviously I am being somewhat facetious here, because I am fully cognizant that if each woman had 10 babies, we would very, very soon be hit with an over-population problem, and the evils of scarcity would then risk wiping out all of mankind.However, the parable assumes that scarcity is not an issue, and if scarcity is indeed not an issue, it would behoove everyone to be intimate with as many people as possible, both in a relational and sexual context. This would be the pathway to heaven! Let the orgies commence!I have thus fulfilled burden for this debate, no matter how ridiculous this parable may seem to be when applied to reality.