From: sl6wv@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: Are the Moties us?
Date: 18 Aug 92 07:28:32 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

In article <1992Aug16.023454.14687@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>, arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
> In article <1992Aug14.231933.11904@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>>1.  The richer you are, the more likely you are to have access to
>>contraceptives.  
>>2.  The rich need less redundancy in their families to be sure of
>>reaching a given target.
>>3.  The rich are more likely to be educated to have fewer children.
>>4.  If you're dirt poor you aren;t that much poorer with 6 kids than
>>with 2.  If you're rich you are much poorer.
>>None of these factors produce any kind of evolutionary pressure to
>>have fewer kids if you are rich.
> 
> Sure they do.  Education and lack of poverty are survival traits.
> --
> I am of course experienced in teaching and have read the writings of Socrates.
>     -- Ed Nilges
> 
> Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
>      INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)

	I've been following this argument for a bit now, so I hope that I'm
not overreaching too much here.  An argument was made that children were a very 
cheap source of labor for family owned businesses, and I would venture to say
that the introduction of child labor laws *may* have been one of the factors
that helped to reduce family size, both in Europe as well as the United States. 
I spent a little bit of time living in Brazil, where there is a tremendous
birth rate, and even in the wealthier areas there still tends to be rather
large families.  To support my hypothisis, they really don't have anything like
the child labors laws we're familiar with in the USA, and it isn't unusual to
find a six or seven-year-old doing something like shining shoes, working in a
corner grocery store, or even doing some of the nasty jobs like those of
children in the 19th Century in the good ol' USA like mining in shafts too
small for adults, being a printing press grease monkey, or working in the
textile mills.
	One other more logical reason to look at it this way is that children
in developed countries now are a substantial burden on families and usually
don't produce any kind of income to at least support themselves until they are
age 21+.  There are exceptions, but at least go along with the idea.  As was
also mentioned, the development of the Social Security program (and other
similar programs for old age pensions throughout the world) has ment that
people don't need to have large families to support them in their old age. 
There are some overall problems with this approach, and I think as the US
babyboom generation goes into retirement they will receive a big shock to find
this government program isn't going to work for them, but that is another topic
of discussion.  What I'm pointing out is that sometimes the long-term
consequences of different government programs may not be totally though
through.
	Looking at yet another government population control measure, examine
the People's Republic of China.  They are forcing their population to have a
negative growth rate by gunpoint, and are changing the demographics of their
country substantially.  Most families can only have one child, and there is a
cultural concept that male children are preferable to females.  What this
actually means is that female infantcide is commonly practiced so the family
can have another attempt to have a male child.  I think this is an
international time-bomb just waiting to explode, and keep in mind that China
does have nuclear weapons too.


		Rob "Woodchip" Horning


...Utah State doesn't ask for or require a disclaimer, so I won't.