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This is asinine and ass-backwards. Nobody should be surprised that people are having kids. They've been doing it for millenium, and will continue to do so for millenium. Every species on God's green earth has been reproducing to the best of their ability for as long as they can. This is not surprising, so don't make it some noble instead instead of the barest minimum standard just because you don't want to meet the standard.
What if the moon were made of cheese? What if I were god-emperor of all mankind? Why should I think zebras, and not horses, when you say there are hoofbeats in the distance?
Is this an argument? You seem to be just stating that you're correct without providing any justification, and then mocking @Goodguy for his opinion.
What could be a stronger argument than an unbroken trend for thousands of years?
Surely if having children was just a passing fad, we'd not exist.
This must be one of those core differences between traditionalists and others. There are many awful things that have been happening for thousands of years and I’m glad we ended them.
Status quo bias is one of my biggest frustrations with the world.
It certainly is. Nothing ever happens.
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Some people have done it for millenia, but it doesn't mean that most have. Actually, if you take account of those who died as children, most people ever born have never got any children. You are the result of those who chose to have children, but it does not mean that most people have done it in the past.
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For the majority of humanity's history people didn't have a choice in the matter. They wanted to have sex and kids were inevitable byproduct of it. Also for some time children were profitable investment of resources. Both of these reasons became invalid, hence demographic transition.
Surely those few nations and peoples that don't fall for this selection trap will inherit the earth, and with them carry whatever factor makes them have offspring with or without tying it to the pleasure of sex.
This is not the first time people invent a way to cheat our reward mechanisms and it likely won't be the last either.
Though I must say I personally have extreme difficulty relating to this argument given the only reason I even care about sex is kids and not the other way around. But it certainly seems most people don't share my disinterest given some ruin their lives over it.
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It's a very inefficient and ethically dubious way to make new people.
Beings that start without well formed motives and worldviews is an ethics of consent issue, and the consequences of that issue has been every "think of the children" argument against personal freedom ever.
Still, people evolved to have kids. They want to. So assuming we don't outlaw it for reasons like those- I wouldn't be too surprised to see bio-conservative reproduction methods numbering in billions of births per year 1000 years from now...
But it's still inefficient. Nine months and a child that starts as a complete dependent? That you have to watch grow through all the pain and suffering of being a new mind? I would expect other methods like forking and spawning new teenage AI minds to be thousands of times more common at least. This is 1000 years we're talking about. We could easily have 10 more AI booms in that time even if this one fizzles.
Reality is not under any obligation to make sense. The obligation is upon us to make sense of reality.
I didn't even understand what you meant by this until I started seeing the responses because it didn't even seem like a response to my post...
And now I see why.
You see my brain's response to what you have just said is...
"That's enough culture war for this month. Time to go read all the ML papers my gay lovers have recommended to me so we can continue building our children together."
It seems clear to me now that we are living in entirely different realities.
This explains why you would say something like -
When from where I'm standing it is you who has clearly failed to make sense of reality.
Do we really? Is the speed of light in a vacuum different where you are from?
You're free to find biological reproduction "inefficient and ethically dubious" just as I am free to believe that the world would be a better place if you had been aborted or run down your mother's leg in the seconds after your father came. The thing is I don't because I am not like you. I actually take the old cliche about each person born being a small miracle or crowning unlikelihood, dead seriously. Who do you think you are to judge?
My reality has different priors due to different experiences. As a result our predictions diverge.
When I live in the moment, each of my moments fill with qualia that differ from each of yours, and when I live in the future, the future I am simulating differs from yours.
The textures and forms that constitute the sacred miracles are all rewritten between our minds.
We live in the same universe, but we are embedded in different 'everything smaller', from culture to neuro-chemistry.
Who am I to Judge? What an odd question. I am myself. I am an agentic sophont. Who the hell do you think I would have to be to Judge?
I aim to love, to understand, to discern, and to make my judgement for how to build a better world. Like every agent does.
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Careful, you might be handing the keys to a lunatic like Karl Rove with this sentence. To the point of this conversation: if the transhumanists get their pod babies that will be the reality that you'll have to make sense of.
if
Buckle up, buckaroo!
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Yes, but that's a very laconic "if".
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Not the OP but I'd say "damn right it's an argument". As the old saying goes, "the future belongs to those who show up", If you want to stake out a position that, on the face of it, would seem to contradict pretty much everything we know of both evolution and human history you at least need to offer up an alternate theory.
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It's pretty clear that the desire to have kids is not universal. My source: the many people who never have children or express a desire to have children and in fact go to great lengths to avoid having children.
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