What I was getting at was the stats that show that poorer and less
educated people tend to have more children than educated affluent
people, which explains why the "explosion" in world population really
only exists in undeveloped or underdeveloped nations. Seeing as how much
health care technology benefits the life expectancy of poor people much
more than rich people, despite increasingly high costs of service,
technology seems to in this respect act as a governor on natural
evolution, providing negative feedback that allows less successful
strains to survive and reproduce, which brings us back to the old social
darwinism thread. Given the decreasing influence of natural selection in
our species due to the benefits of health care technology, one would
argue that our society should evolve to enhance or encourage increased
selectivity in other aspects of our culture. The shift toward more open
free markets is one indication that this is happening. Unfortunately,
while natural selection conveniently killed off unsuccessfull strains,
we have the unsuccessful strains hanging around taking up space,
resources, and bandwidth. This winds up expending the evolutionary
"inertia bank" on a faster and faster basis. Before I start to sound too
ghoulish, I'm not too worried about it, as I know that once space travel
becomes more viable, enough to be able to colonize, we will have a new
big filter. Still and all, my statement was a reflection of my noticing
that of all the people I grew up with, while most of the smart ones are
just starting to settle down and start families, the morons are already
married, divorced, with 2-4 kids. Makes me want to lobby for birth
licenses.
>
> There's the other line of discussion about whether or not one can best
> achieve immortality through one's genes or one's memes. In other words,
> how much is one limiting one's advancement and personal development by
> settling down into family life? I struggled with this one too, and have
> come to the conclusion that I want to have, and think I can accomodate,
> both. I know that I have developed quite a bit by being married, and I
> expect that being a father will offer many new opportunities to grow. So
> I'll hopefully end up being a better, more effective person, and will be
> bringing a potential new Extropian into the world to boot.
Of course. Until we can upload multiple copies, or clone bunches of
ourselves, we are realistically limited to the one current, proven, and
whole lotta fun method.
>
> Along those lines, does anyone have any suggestions for how to raise a
> successful, Extropian child? Are there any particularly good books, web
> sites, etc. out there?
>
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/Mikey's Animatronic Factory My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) ------------------------------------------------------------ #!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}