From: rkunenbo@cs.ruu.nl (Ronald Kunenborg)
Subject: Re: Are the Moties us?
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 11:16:37 GMT
Organization: Utrecht University, Dept. of Computer Science

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.

>>> 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.

>>> 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.

>>	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. More important, humans (when allowed) control
their own birthrates. Dandelions cannot, since they aren't conscious.
In all respects dandelions are nonsensical as comparison material
for humans.

>>> 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.
>
>Once more, such things are evolutionarily irrelevant.

But we're dealing with humans here. Not dandelions. So these factors may be
evolutionary irrelevant, they aren't irrelevant to the discussion.
As humans have a choice about getting more children or more time for leisure
etc., more and more women make the choice of not getting babies but spare time.
See for instance the declining birthrates in virtually every developed country.

>>> 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.

>>> 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).

>>> 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.
>Just more food makes preemies more likely to live.  Remember - an
>eight month baby is also a preemie.  I'm not talking about six
>monthers.
>
>As for "poorer areas" how poor are they?  Poor enough that large
>families or families without male parents don't survive?  Heck no.  
>
>>> 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.
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. Ofcourse I don't presume to know the
alien psychology - but an alien race that paranoid is unlikely to survive.
(Besides which aliens wouldn't neccessarily all have the same interests
etc. etc. - you might have even less reason to speak of "race" as when speaking
of humans).

>>	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 ?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>I am not an official Oracle spokesman.  I speak for myself and no one else.

Regards,
-- 
Ronald Kunenborg, Ina Boudier-Bakkerlaan 89-3, 3582 XD Utrecht, The Netherlands

        "I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom
	      and democracy, but that could change." - Dan Quayle
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