From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Self-genociding space colonies
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 22:12:53 GMT

In article <1646@hsvaic.boeing.com> eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) writes:
>
>Of course, in any long term, you have to consider the effects of a
>sub-populations (like the Mormons) for whom large families are an
>imperative.  In the long run they will tend to overrun the rest of
>the population by producing more offspring.  

But people can be talked out of their religion.  It's no coincidence
that pro-natal religions also try to isolate their children from the
outside world (eg with private schools); it's the only way the meme
can take advantage of the new minds.  They often do not succeed.
Every religion has to trade off natality vs. evangelism.  Nuns are an 
extreme pre-birth-control example; Protestant cultures use birth control 
to gain economic leverage and constitute a quite successful, anti-natal 
symbiotic meme-set (a fancy term, here refering to religions and
their substitutes).

Also, while religions may provide good models, I think many of us would 
like to find a non-religious motivation, since space fans are 
disproportionately non-religious, and religions tendencies tend to
disrupt the scientific rationality needed for the task of developing 
space.

>What if in 20 years automation has reduced the cost of supporting
>children and changes the equation again? 

Perhaps, but technology has been decreasing the cost and increasing
the effectiveness of birth control faster, and our expectations for our
children rise as fast as the economy.  For example, nowadays many
middle class couples will delay having children until they can pay
for their college; an extremely high expectation in historical
and world-wide terms, but seemingly normal for us and probably
sub-normal is a space colony; they will want their children to
get PhD's.

>For example, housing is
>the largest single cost of raising a child 

Is it a cost of raising children or a cost of something else?
We do have an inexpensive, effective housing technology,
manufactured homes.  Unfortuneately, their status is such that nobody 
who is anybody wants to be caught living in one.  Most people
in our society will delay or cancel having children rather than 
living in one.

>Another possibility is extended lifespans
>making having sequential children more affordable than having to
>have them all at once in your 20's and 30's.

This is extended fertility span; we have already extended lifespan well
beyond it.  I agree fertility tech will likely play an important 
role in the solution to this problem, but so far it hasn't kept
pace with anti-fertility tech.

>Finally, in 40 years
>or so I expect human-capability computers to be in production.

This is entirely speculative, though; nobody knows how much
we have left to learn about human capability, especially in
terms of software.  It could be 40 years, or 4,000.  It could
turn out that the silicon forms, like us, have little motivation
to reproduce once they achieve the ability to control their own
reproduction.


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