Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Re: Are the Moties us?
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 23:56:56 GMT
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In article <1992Aug18.111637.7239@cs.ruu.nl> rkunenbo@cs.ruu.nl (Ronald Kunenborg) writes:
>In <1992Aug15.223028.9223@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:

>>In article <1992Aug14.113015.3466@desire.wright.edu> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
>>>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.

>What? Exactly the opposite is true: in many cases a large family was
>neccessary to enable the parents to survive their old age, when they
>could no longer work in the fields. It also produced a number of cheap
>(free) laborers. The larger the family the more people to farm & till
>the soil. 

Incorrect.  Parents had many kids, but most died.  Up until technology
began to change things, we were about at a replacement level.

Simple thought experiment:  Let's say the average adult had 1.5 kids
survive instead of 1.  Well, if you assume a generation time of 25
years you find that in 800 years your population grows by a factor of
over 400,000.  We didn't start that kind of growth until the
nineteenth century.

>>>> This is no longer the case in most developed countries.  

>On the contrary, it is increasingly so in most countries, even the less
>developed countries. As long as women are given a choice about abortion,
>anti-conception etc. AND have reasonable standards of living. The latter
>is slightly more important though.

I'm afraid I don't understand your point.  What do the factors you
list have to do with optimum survival strategies?

>>>> 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.

>Maybe so, most women don't want that many children.

So?  Do you think we evolve the way we want to?  One thing I'm
predicting is that women will evolve to want 20 kids.

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

>>Come on, Brett.  Most of your posts are much more intelligent than
>>this.  Who said anything about attitudes?  Do dandelions have
>>attitudes about dominating the next generation when they send out
>>their seeds?  Heck no, but that doesn't stop advantageous traits from
>>spreading an becoming predominant in the population.

>Dandelions =/= humans. 

True, but irrelevant.

>More important, humans (when allowed) control
>their own birthrates. Dandelions cannot, since they aren't conscious.

Are you saying that our instincts are not genetic?  We can shape our
minds, but our instincts also shape them.  If a human evolves that
does not want to control its own birthrate does it really have the
ability to control its own birthrate?  Philosophicly interesting, but
from a practical point of view the answer is "No."

>>>> 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.

In which case people who don't mind that image will have a larger
share of the next generation and in a while it won't matter because
people will want huddled masses.

>>Once more, such things are evolutionarily irrelevant.

>But we're dealing with humans here. Not dandelions. 

So?  Humans evolve just as much as dandelions.

>So these factors may be
>evolutionary irrelevant, they aren't irrelevant to the discussion.

Yes they are.  Thse factors motivate some individuals but not others.
Thsoe individuals motivated by these factors will have a smaller share
of the next generation.  Eventually these motives will be bred out of
the race.  

>>>> 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.
>>But in society as a whole we do seem to have a recent trend to births
>>at very low ages.  
>Maybe that SEEMS so. It isn't confirmed by facts. In the highly industrialized
>countries, women get less children at an older age.
>In most of the less developed countries this is increasingly so.

But in our fastest growing population groups this is not so.  

>>>> 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.

>>So then why don't we have 24 month gestation periods like elephants?
>>Average gestation periods can evolve up or down.

>Yes, but there was an evolutionary pressure to keep it down as well. Read
>Stephen Jay Gould (I think it's an essay in his latest book Bully for
>Brontosaurus). 

I am aware of that - if there was no pressure to keep it down we would
have 24 month periods.  What I am pointed out is that we have less
pressure now to keep it up.

>>>> 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.

>I doubt it. Our overall growth rate is slightly over 1% and
>declining.

1% per year works out to a doubling period of 70 years.  This is under
heavy population pressure.  What do you think our doubling period
would be on a colony planet?  

Even at 70 years, in just 700 years we would have had 10 doubling
periods to their 7.  That works out to a 8 to 1 advantage.  In 1400
years it would be 64 to 1.  If that didn't scare the shit out of them
it would mean they were pretty stupid.

>And besides why'd they see us as a plague? The onliest reason for that
>would be something besides pure growthrate - like nuking the first alien
>ship we see or somethink like that.

Only if they are foolishly naive.  If our growth rate pushes us to
expand radially faster than they do then, in time, we will encircle
them despite the complete lack of any concious desire to do so.  Once
that happens how do they expand?  

>Ofcourse I don't presume to know the
>alien psychology - but an alien race that paranoid is unlikely to
>survive.

Why?  Personally, I suspect that paranoia is a survival trait.

>>>	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.

>>Why the smiley?  In the short run you are totally correct.  I am
>>contending, however, that in the long run the negative correlation
>>between wealth and fertility will disappear.

>Based on what ?

The fact that it is evolutionarily selected against.
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