The war in Ukraine is strong evidence that manpower will continue to matter in war.
There is a longterm dysgenic effect with 2 kids per household, because the way human fertility is designed to work is that ~8 births occur and perhaps 1 or 2 of the healthiest go on to have 8-12 births themselves. A norm of 2 births is a norm of decreasing health over generations until the problems become apocalyptic.
In America, even without mass immigration, you have the high fertility of the ultra Orthodox Jews. So unless you want a future without music or art or equality or indigenous Europeans it’s a good idea to incentivize births. Eg 200k in New York, doubling every 20 years means hundreds of millions within 200 years. And they already wield an absurd amount of political power in New York
The dysgenics is trivial to solve with embryo selection, which unlike AI-powered robots has the perk of existing and already being cheap enough to be accessible for middle class people if they so choose. Even in the current form it'd be trivial for western government to subsidize usage for poor people (though I think there is enough slack to make it much, much cheaper to begin with through scaling).
Agree on the Ukraine war & on the problem of extremely fertile ultra-conservative populations, though.
The dysgenics is trivial to solve with embryo selection
The obesity pandemic is also trivial to solve with people eating less. Mass migration would be easily solved if a wall would be build at the Mexican border.
Even if an easy solution is known, even if the solution is proven to work, it can be very very hard, often impossible, to implement it.
Mass migration wouldn’t be solved with a wall because a large number of illegal immigrants (obviously more if the illegal land crossing route was closed) come legally and then overstay tourist or student or other visas. And, of course, a wall wouldn’t affect legal immigration.
The obesity pandemic is being solved as we speak with the new generation of appetite suppressant drugs. It will take time, but ultimately the market is generating the solution.
As soon as embryo selection for positive traits is possible, everyone except some religious extremists and the dirt poor (who should and in many nations will get it for free) will do it because parents have a biological drive to advantage their children in any way they can.
As soon as embryo selection for positive traits is possible, everyone except some religious extremists and the dirt poor (who should and in many nations will get it for free) will do it because parents have a biological drive to advantage their children in any way they can.
Designer babies seem like they’ll suppress the birthrate further among the sorts who do it for the same reason ultraselective preschools and the like to, leading to a natural selection effect towards tabooing it.
This is not true in practise. Parents who go for antenatal screens don't abort on a whim because the kid isn't just right, even in IVF, those who want kids almost always accept the first viable pregnancy with no obvious abnormalities.
They don't get into a tizzy about finding the absolute best, just the best of what's at hand.
That isn't what would suppress the birthrate, but rather changing the burden of action from having to end a pregnancy, toward having to take (non-fun, non-instinctual) action to begin a pregnancy.
Likewise, I would expect implants to suppress the birth rate vs oral contraception, because the implant has to be intentionally removed by a doctor, while the pill might just run out or be forgotten (or "forgotten" with some subconscious drive toward having children).
See, I think it's all moot because human labor will shortly cease to matter. But ignoring that:
The people who are opting for pregnancy in a considered manner, especially those who want to go through IVF and potentially embryo selection, want a baby more than is the norm, or they wouldn't bother. People who adopt instead of accepting being childless probably want kids more than average after all.
Likewise, I would expect implants to suppress the birth rate vs oral contraception, because the implant has to be intentionally removed by a doctor, while the pill might just run out or be forgotten (or "forgotten" with some subconscious drive toward having children).
My exam in about a dozen hours leaves me well prepared to field that point. You know why implants are offered in the first place? It's precisely because they reduce unwanted births.
Some poor 18 year old girl is scared of being knocked up? We give her an IUD. A 26 yo woman, we ask her if is planning a family. No? Or a 36 yo who says she's got 3 kids and not one more? Then an IUD, or perhaps an implant, which can be trivially removed for any reason, let alone if they desire kids.
Leaving aside total birth rates, where I expect changes to be minor, this is also helping mitigate dysgenics. A lower class girl with low time preferences has far lower odds of being knocked up again by her deadbeat boyfriend, and then has every opportunity to remove it when she legitimately feels ready.
See, I think it's all moot because human labor will shortly cease to matter.
Labor isn't the only reason it can be good to have children and grandchildren. Maybe they'll be good, interesting people. Human labor would also cease to matter if there were no humans, but most people don't want that.
The people who are opting for pregnancy in a considered manner, especially those who want to go through IVF and potentially embryo selection, want a baby more than is the norm, or they wouldn't bother.
Yes, and that's fine, if someone is already doing IVF, then embryo selection makes sense. I was pushing back about the claim above that "everyone except some religious extremists and the dirt poor (who should and in many nations will get it for free) will do it," which sounds awfully extreme, and I would certainly not want that to become a base level expectation at anywhere near our current level of technology.
I wasn't necessarily saying that IUDs and implants are bad, just that any impediment that requires expert removal will likely reduce births.
Anecdote: despite being 32 and married when I had my first child, I would probably not have had children if I had to intentionally make plans about it ahead of time, vs putting off turning in the renewal paperwork for the oral contraception. We got stable jobs and house because we had a child, not the other way around. Otherwise, we would probably still be wandering around erratically employed and houseless.
This is the kind of marginal situation pro-natalists seem most interested in pushing on. People who are basically pro-social, educated, able to form a stable relationship, mid twenties or older, but aren't in any hurry to settle down and have kids, because that would be a hard change. Short time preference selects for irresponsibly having sex without forethought or precautions. Long time preference selects for planning for and then having the number of kids the person actually wants. But there are a lot of people in the middle who don't necessarily want to raise a baby in the medium term, because babies are hard, but kind of know it would be better to form a family than not.
This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a
court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to
optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.
The weekly Culture War threads host the most
controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are
appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy;
if in doubt, post!
Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.
Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
New post guidelines
If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it.
A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts
such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a
submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).
Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or
significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The war in Ukraine is strong evidence that manpower will continue to matter in war.
There is a longterm dysgenic effect with 2 kids per household, because the way human fertility is designed to work is that ~8 births occur and perhaps 1 or 2 of the healthiest go on to have 8-12 births themselves. A norm of 2 births is a norm of decreasing health over generations until the problems become apocalyptic.
The dysgenics is trivial to solve with embryo selection, which unlike AI-powered robots has the perk of existing and already being cheap enough to be accessible for middle class people if they so choose. Even in the current form it'd be trivial for western government to subsidize usage for poor people (though I think there is enough slack to make it much, much cheaper to begin with through scaling).
Agree on the Ukraine war & on the problem of extremely fertile ultra-conservative populations, though.
The obesity pandemic is also trivial to solve with people eating less. Mass migration would be easily solved if a wall would be build at the Mexican border.
Even if an easy solution is known, even if the solution is proven to work, it can be very very hard, often impossible, to implement it.
Mass migration wouldn’t be solved with a wall because a large number of illegal immigrants (obviously more if the illegal land crossing route was closed) come legally and then overstay tourist or student or other visas. And, of course, a wall wouldn’t affect legal immigration.
The obesity pandemic is being solved as we speak with the new generation of appetite suppressant drugs. It will take time, but ultimately the market is generating the solution.
As soon as embryo selection for positive traits is possible, everyone except some religious extremists and the dirt poor (who should and in many nations will get it for free) will do it because parents have a biological drive to advantage their children in any way they can.
Designer babies seem like they’ll suppress the birthrate further among the sorts who do it for the same reason ultraselective preschools and the like to, leading to a natural selection effect towards tabooing it.
This is not true in practise. Parents who go for antenatal screens don't abort on a whim because the kid isn't just right, even in IVF, those who want kids almost always accept the first viable pregnancy with no obvious abnormalities.
They don't get into a tizzy about finding the absolute best, just the best of what's at hand.
That isn't what would suppress the birthrate, but rather changing the burden of action from having to end a pregnancy, toward having to take (non-fun, non-instinctual) action to begin a pregnancy.
Likewise, I would expect implants to suppress the birth rate vs oral contraception, because the implant has to be intentionally removed by a doctor, while the pill might just run out or be forgotten (or "forgotten" with some subconscious drive toward having children).
See, I think it's all moot because human labor will shortly cease to matter. But ignoring that:
The people who are opting for pregnancy in a considered manner, especially those who want to go through IVF and potentially embryo selection, want a baby more than is the norm, or they wouldn't bother. People who adopt instead of accepting being childless probably want kids more than average after all.
My exam in about a dozen hours leaves me well prepared to field that point. You know why implants are offered in the first place? It's precisely because they reduce unwanted births.
Some poor 18 year old girl is scared of being knocked up? We give her an IUD. A 26 yo woman, we ask her if is planning a family. No? Or a 36 yo who says she's got 3 kids and not one more? Then an IUD, or perhaps an implant, which can be trivially removed for any reason, let alone if they desire kids.
Leaving aside total birth rates, where I expect changes to be minor, this is also helping mitigate dysgenics. A lower class girl with low time preferences has far lower odds of being knocked up again by her deadbeat boyfriend, and then has every opportunity to remove it when she legitimately feels ready.
Labor isn't the only reason it can be good to have children and grandchildren. Maybe they'll be good, interesting people. Human labor would also cease to matter if there were no humans, but most people don't want that.
Yes, and that's fine, if someone is already doing IVF, then embryo selection makes sense. I was pushing back about the claim above that "everyone except some religious extremists and the dirt poor (who should and in many nations will get it for free) will do it," which sounds awfully extreme, and I would certainly not want that to become a base level expectation at anywhere near our current level of technology.
I wasn't necessarily saying that IUDs and implants are bad, just that any impediment that requires expert removal will likely reduce births.
Anecdote: despite being 32 and married when I had my first child, I would probably not have had children if I had to intentionally make plans about it ahead of time, vs putting off turning in the renewal paperwork for the oral contraception. We got stable jobs and house because we had a child, not the other way around. Otherwise, we would probably still be wandering around erratically employed and houseless.
This is the kind of marginal situation pro-natalists seem most interested in pushing on. People who are basically pro-social, educated, able to form a stable relationship, mid twenties or older, but aren't in any hurry to settle down and have kids, because that would be a hard change. Short time preference selects for irresponsibly having sex without forethought or precautions. Long time preference selects for planning for and then having the number of kids the person actually wants. But there are a lot of people in the middle who don't necessarily want to raise a baby in the medium term, because babies are hard, but kind of know it would be better to form a family than not.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link