How easy is modern de-evolution?

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

As we all should know, the one and only mechanism by which “Evolution” has ever occurred is very simple: Whoever has more children that can survive, and who also have a similarly large amount of successful grand-children will soon determine the genetic state of the entire population and then “the species will have evolved to the new state” Please ask for clarification if needed.

My question is:

Is it [size=150]EVER[/size] the case that some people choose to have a large number of children for some purpose other than creating a better generation? If so, we may see de-evolution.

I mean if i have children, it will only be because i have a huge amount of extra money and i want to see what happens when a super nerd and supermodel combine forces to create the greatest demi-god that the world will not be prepared for. My supermodel wife and i will hopefully still be alive when little Futuremany finally conquers the last empire. (no i have not met her yet)

People generally dont have children for this reason. I dont really know what theyre thinking, except probably something similar, to a noticeably lesser degree. They want to someday have a child who is better than their parents, and even better than them and if theyre lucky, possibly comparable to my primitive ancestors.

Here is one thing that I am afraid of:
People have children so that when they retire, somebody will be able to continue to pay their bills.

This is a completely natural, acceptable, non-hate-able, predictable and downright prudent choice to make for some people who have no 401k and in the alternate universe where Dubya actually succeeded in destroying social security (remember that incredibly horrifying idea, republicans? no? probably because you watch fox news)

This behavior is also APOCALYPTIC!!!

If people have more and more children because they need someone to pay for their retirement, we are going to see an increase in the population in a very specific genetic category: “people who want to have children in order to increase their retirement fund”

This category might not actually be defined by genetics at all, and i hope to god that it is not. I do know that each of these children should not be judged by their parents, ever, and they should always be judged individually. What also seems possible is that, on average, after judging each of them individually, we will find that people in this category, on average, have traits that would be better off not-evolved into. Diabetes is an innocuous example. There are worse examples, I’m sure.

The thing that is alarming is my own birth rate. I will be shocked if i have more than 2 children. I really need well over a million dollars before i am comfortable choosing to have more than 2 children. Tell that to Billy Jo Billy in Appalachia (as an affluent white, i am not comfortable using any other examples), who has 6 children because he knows they will pay for his retirement, however poor that retirement may be. He will not starve if he has a family, he just needs to make sure that he has a family, and that at least some of them do not run off to be thousandaire meth dealers across the state line.

I do not know that this ever exists. I have never heard anyone say that this is their goal. I have no clue what i am talking about.

What i do know is that poor people have more children than i ever want, extremely often. I have some genetic fluke that really requires me to have children because we really are all that great, its weird; and i only want two, barely, someday when im around 30. why do those poor people have children asap?

Did you know that the republican party has BANNED FEDERAL FUNDING OF CONDOMS!!! BECAUSE OF JESUS!!! WHAT THE FUCK??? WHAT!!!@#L$TM@$#TY:KL#$MYKL:YKN. I assume Obama has done what he can to undo the horrifying, APOCALYPTIC damage, but he can only do so much when it seems everything he does is met with… a fucking filibuster? really? Ban the republican party, i do not care about the first amendment, thanks to you, republitards. They are the anti christ, in this example, as always. Prove me wrong.

2

So it is clear to me that we need to do everything that we can in order to prevent this de-evolution.

Step 1: Subsidize condoms

Step 2: Subsidize vasectomies

Step 0: Ban Christianity, of course.

Step 3: Profit like we have never seen before. All modern economics has been founded on the assumption that the population is increasing at an inexplicable rate, beyond control and beyond the bounds of prudent feasibility.

What if it just decreased? We have seen what happens when population increases more slowly (post wars and post famine): A magical increase in the greatness of every single thing on the face of the earth. More resources per person means that everyone can have more, and they all want more so they all consume more. More resources per capita means that everyone has a job, everyone has a higher wage.

If everyone is not desperate for a job, the owners of business no longer have a bargaining chip. Every worker can just get a new job. It’s called “the free market” and it has not been applied to the labor market since the advent of “pro-children christianity”, thousands of years ago, when the first chief invented organized religion. Ban it.

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it’s not possible to de evolve, you evolve according to the environmental pressures you are in. Over the billions of years evolution has taken place many animals have lost and gained advantages when they no longer suited the environment, some might of said that they de evolved back to simpler forms of life but that isn’t so, there is only one direction for evolution and that is forward, complicated, less complicated, more or less inteligent, more arms and legs are irrelevant its still evolution. For something to devolve it would require someone to physically alter its genetics and thus its phenotype.

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F M,

Children as an insurance policy or a retirement hedge may not be considered in the industrialized west, but is, and has been common in most of the poorer parts of the world for centuries. In a society with high infant mortality, no social “safety net”, little or no medical care, over-population is the consequence of people attempting to have that assurance that there will be family to care for them when they can no longer care for themselves. Look at Asia, India, South America. Large families are cultural identity. We wonder at condom resistance in these areas of the world, but why? We are asking people to give up their 401K’s (children) for what? Starvation at the end of their days? How stupid! The more children, the better. That this cultural practice results in the consequences of over-population and simply makes matters worse is beside the point. The only viable solution isn’t technology (birth control), but a significant die-back of the species. For all the wonders of the human mind, we is still animals. :wink:

5

FutureMan !!!

He’s back, he’s bad and he’s slammin’ the poor. :laughing:

I dunno about the genetic side - as per the arguments of the last couple of posts, evolution is always forwards, even if forwards happens to be backwards in comparison with times past - but politically, since politicians dance to the piper of the largest demographic… Then this huge mass of poor stupid bastards will begin increasingly to dictate the overall shape of society. All corners will be rounded, pavements will be constructed out of bouncy foam, and all references to the hateful word ‘success’ will be qualified almost into non-existence.

There’s a reason why Lincoln talked at grade eight, but Obama at grade 3, or however that observation goes.

As for the banning of condoms I think we shouuld just [reversably] sterillize everyone at birth, and not un-sterillize them until they pass both a means-test and some kind of “just how educated are you” test.

Of course, political suicide.

The sad fact is that, after a while, as with everything, the law of diminishing returns begins to apply to population sizes. After a sufficient group size has been established in view of the enviromental context, those who follow on will simply fall into the ‘slacker’ department.

6

Actually there’s no such thing as semantics in science, you’re either right or wrong in this case. In this case calling any progression arbitrarily determined to be backward as devolution is just flat out wrong. if the environment encourages survival of the weak because they are fit then that is evolution. its the reason why the term survival of the fittest is inapt and was never really used outside a more complicated context by Darwin. What he did in fact say is in animal populations those most able to adapt to their environment are those most likely to survive, he makes clear this does not necessarily apply to humans, who have different selection pressures that we can consider special cases. Just as a seemingly weak trait like short legs may be considered weak, should the creature learn to climb trees it would be considered strong, there are environmental pressures which lead to selection, and there is evolution, never in the history of life on Earth has anything devolved, humans included, it would take mass genetic engineering to achieve that. Maybe you can dance around with semantics with philosophical issues but not when you are dealing with a strong scientific principle. That said it was only a point of order so who the hell cares, I know what you meant, so there’s no real need to belabour the point. :stuck_out_tongue:

As regards some other points, tbh I don’t see mass starvation happening except in poor countries anyway. If perhaps the wealth was more evenly divided and technology I suspect we could support 20 billion easily. Not only that but with technology comes more static birth to death ratios, whether culturally prejudiced against it or not populations tend to stagnate, take Ireland for example. Take Europe, population practically in equilibrium. For example I recently heard a statistic in a science mag that said if China were fully industrialised it could support the worlds population in food on its own. A lot of the disparity has little to do with shortages and more to do with human greed. Current statistical models suggest with current trends the Earth’s population should stagnate around 20 billion also.

There is no evidence that we are becoming either more intelligent or more stupid. If there were any they would support the fact we are becoming better educated and evolving to cope with greater intellectual challenges than maybe our ancestors would, and that’s about all they could say.

Doom mongers have their place but the tiresome over speculation is nothing more than a hypothesis. Before I start panicking I want more than just 19th century paranoia about exploding populations and or x, repackaged for the 21st.

Yeah we’re all fricking doomed, whatever, I’ll believe it when I see more credible beliefs than those who read or watch too much sci fi.

7

Oh good, nothing to worry about then.

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Calrid,

You say that IF wealth were more evenly distributed and technology continues it’s progress, then we have nothing to worry about, right? I’d agree that in certain geopolitical areas this might be true temporarily, but have you seen any indication of a cessation of human greed? Whether historically or in current world “progress”, greed seems to be alive and healthy and drives most of our so-called progress. The food aid programs in many poor countries never reaches the poor - the foods are diverted by theft which are then sold on the black market making the poor even poorer. Could we do better? Of course. But politically, how does one mandate the cessation of greed and control it? It seems that we are our brother’s keeper - as long as they can afford to pay. Greed undermines our collective good intentions. There is the ideal and then there is the current reality. Millions are still starving to death, wealth is still being concentrated, not dispersed. What do you propose to change that?

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Technological parity would help, education, bringing countries up to a level where they can compete without being exploited by dubious characters and or treaties that advantage wealthier nations and exclude poorer ones. I don’t claim to have all the answers I’m just saying that the problems have little or nothing to do with over population. Doom mongers have been saying we would never be able to supply our burgeoning populations with food, and yet Europe produces incredibly huge food surpluses that mostly go to waste. I’m more willing to say that populations can’t expand unchecked, but then they aren’t, it seems the more advanced a country is the less its population grows, Europe has pretty much flat lined in the last 30 years. I see no reason to believe that eventually technology wont mean the same happens elsewhere and that as education, technology and access to contraception increases population increases will likewise start to fall as they have in other Westernised countries, and developing countries as well for that matter. I’m not saying we wont face problems in the future I’m just warning against the whole science fiction tendency to exaggerate problems and ignore rapid technological advances that have meant productivity in agrarian and other areas has increased exponentially.

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Calrid,

I hope you’re right, but my cynicism regarding the greedy nature of my fellow man says it is unlikely. :unamused: It would be nice to believe than we are more intelligent than we appear, but we is what we is - unfortunately.