From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: Are the Moties us?
Date: 14 Aug 92 16:30:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: desire.1992Aug14.113015.3466
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <1992Aug12.201344.6642@oracle.us.oracle.com>, mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
> Has it occurred to anyone else out there that the Moties are really
> not all that different from us?
> 
> Consider:
> 
> Up until quite recently the optimum genetic strategy for a human
> female was to have a few kids and concentrate on them.  The optimum
> strategy for a male was to have as many by-blows as possible but to
> also have a small family that he concentrated his effort on.
> 
> This is no longer the case in most developed countries.  
> 
> In the US today, if you have a family of twenty kids you won't have
> fun but you will probably bring all, or the fast majority of them, to
> maturity.  That means you will have a larger share of the next
> generation.  This is true for both men and women.

	Perhaps, but (at least in the US) the attitude is not one of
dominating the next generation.

> Countervailing pressures for smaller families won't be caused by
> crowding.  They will be caused by changes in conditions that make it
> impossible to have all or most of the children in a large family
> survive.

	Actually factors for smaller families include increased leisure time
and a better standard of living.  Images of large families now evoke pictures
of huddled masses.

> If I am right, we would expect the following effects....
> 
> 1.  Women having children at a younger age

	Affluent women have children at an older age.

> 2.  More women having children without husbands - after all, the male
> is no longer so important and you only have so many child bearing
> years.

	Income is a factor here also.  As is history.  Those growing up with
one parent are far more likely to be a single parent.

> 3.  More premature births - we can take better care of them now
> outside the womb and if you pop them out early you can have another
> kid sooner.

	!  Premature birth is hardly controllable, and not likely to be an
evolutionary factor.  For 100ks of years premature babies have died.  Any
evolutionary pressure would have been that of breeding it out of ourselves.

> 4.  Women having more kids
> 
> Seems to me like we have effects 1, 2, and 3 already.  I don't know
> about 4.

	Not here we don't.  The exceptions are in poorer areas.  With 3) more
preemies live because of better technology.  But it hasn't been long enough by
far for this to have had any evolutionary effects.

> Until something happens to forcibly restrain humn breeding I would
> expect to see a continuing trend that brings us closer and closer to
> the Motie model.
> 
> A race with a doubling period of 100 years that bumped into us even
> today would see us as a plague that could take over the galaxy while
> they are still stuck on a few dozen worlds.  They would be right.

	Except that our population is largely regulated by wealth.  If they
wanted to pacify us, all they would have to do is make us all rich.
:)

Brett                                                      
_______________________________________________________________________________
Proconsul Computer Consulting                                        CHA-CHING!
Better, Cheaper, Faster					       (Pick any two :)
Disclaimer:								   NOT!