Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Re: Are the Moties us?
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 23:11:02 GMT
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In article <6w-yrlc@rpi.edu> kasprj@rpi.edu writes:
>In article <1992Aug12.201344.6642@oracle.us.oracle.com>, mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:

>|> 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.

> Whoa. Whoa! I think you've got it exactly backwards.

> In less developed or expanding societies, a large family is a positive 
>strategy. Consider: where medical science is primitive, there is less of
>a chance of any given child surviving to maturity, so a family should 
>have as many pregnancies as possible. Also, where mechanical technology
>is primitive and most labor is human-powered, a larger family will have 
>more wealth-producing potential. 

Define "less developed".  I'm defining it as any society you can find
up to about 200 years ago.  In that kind of society, you have many
kids but few get past early childhood.  Moreover, you don't have too
many too close together because if you do you stand a fair chance of
starving before they are old enough to help out.

> Now consider a society with advanced medicine and technology, like 
>today's United States. Take two families with an income of US$50K each,
>one with two children and one with ten children. Which one has the 
>better chance for prosperity in this generation and the next one? Keep
>in mind also that in a technological society, education is a de facto
>prerequisite for wealth, and that education costs money. A family which
>has ten children is likely to decrease the wealth of both the parents 
>and the children.

Why are you worrying about prosperity?  This is an argument about
genetics.  Prosperity isn't an evolutionary advantage.

>|> If I am right, we would expect the following effects....

>|> 1.  Women having children at a younger age

> But do the women who have children at age 16 keep having more until age
>35+? Most teenagers with a child or two can't afford any more.

But they have them anyway.  How often do we read the sad stories about
women on welfare with four kids by four different husbands?  Anyway,
just having kids earlier helps you spread your genes through the gene
pool even if you don't have any more than anyone else.

>|> 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.

> So what? Again, for the most part these women aren't having more 
>children than the average. Most single-income (or no-income) women 
>simply can't afford that many.

What do you mean, so what?  I'm describing the effects we would expect
to see if my theory is correct and pointing out that we see them.
This is corroborative evidence.  What's your point?

>|> 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.

> And again, this isn't making families have more children. Having the 
>technology to make sure that your first two or three children can 
>survive something like a premature birth simply means that you'll be
>less likely to have the next two or three at all. 

I don't quite think you get it.  Please reread my post.  Note the bit
where I say "If I am right we would expect to see the following
effects."  I am citing these as effects, not causes.  Read the god
damned post before following up.  You're claiming that the effects I
cite won't anything.  Well, I;m not claiming that they will cause
anything at all.  I'm claiming that they are predicitions made by a
particular theory.

>|> 4.  Women having more kids

> This is not happening. Check the birth rates of the first-world nations.
>Population growth in the USA is strictly due to immigration - the birth 
>rate is negative. Japan has achieved, or come quite close to, zero
>population growth. Some European nations are actually declining in 
>population (Hungary comes to mind). 

Quite true.  This strongly suggests that other peopl's genes will
spread through the gene pool while the ones from Europe, Japan, and
the US decline in prevalence.  Want to bet that over the next 100
years the negative correlation between wealth and birth rate isn't
going to decrease?  In fact, going blind, I'll bet that in the US
mong native born Americans it has decreased in the last 100 years.
Anyone know how to check this out?

>|> 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.

> You'd be in the minority, then. The facts fail to support your hypothesis.

Which facts are those?
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