Going extinct? Typical middle-child attention getting stunt.
The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
71–80 of 140 posts
Re: The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Limits to Growth" was from 1972, but Mathus' idea dates back to 1798, and he was certainly not the first to bring up the concept.
Malthus was probably correct without the invention of fertilizer. Hopefully technology like seaweed and vertical farms come to our rescue!
Even without that his ideas were a daft excuse for starving the poor because it was the 'convenient' thing to do for the people in power because feeding the poor actually working the farms would cut into their short term profits. Look at the Irish Potato Famine. The disporia emigrated and helped drive industrial booms and some like the Carnagies became wealthy. This points to the policies not only being a humanitarian catastrophe but a vast squandering of resources. The events came to a head after the actual man's death but he still bears some responsibility and his followers the remainder.
Meanwhile Ireland is /still/ down in population compared to its peak. Given the evidence I can't help but judge Malthus and his ideals as both stupid and evil. I suppose that describes a lot of downward historical trajectories actually - people in power do something selfish for short term gain because they don't see or care of the costs, ruin the lives of everyone around them a thousandfold and eventually themselves before permanently damaging their institutions.
On another note food is so far from being the limiting or driving factor for population it isn't funny. What truly drives reproduction are the actual incentives - even back in ancient times farmers had explosively sized families while the urbanized tended to have more modest sized ones simply because of other resources constraining. Neither human labor nor water, nor arable land are in scarce globally although all three are mismanaged some.
Re: The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually we know that intelligence is mostly genetic (especially at the high end), but even if it isn’t, the family environment provided by (most) intelligent parents is very conducive to raising intelligent children. It doesn’t matter the means (environment or genetic) as both will contribute to smart parents raising smart children (provided they have children).
I don't know if we need more smart parents or rather caring/nurturing families. You don't have to be smart, but children of dysfunctional families are at a disadvantage for breaking the cycle.
Well we certainly need fewer dysfunctional families, but if we want more smart people we need to encourage more smart people to become parents.
Re: The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn't say it was the only way. You said: > "The best way we know to create more smart people is to encourage smart people to have more children" ...which is also unsupported by current intelligence research and still relevant to my counterargument.
Actually we know that intelligence is mostly genetic (especially at the high end), but even if it isn’t, the family environment provided by (most) intelligent parents is very conducive to raising intelligent children. It doesn’t matter the means (environment or genetic) as both will contribute to smart parents raising smart children (provided they have children).
Socioeconomic status is far, far more important than genes[1]. If you want more smart people, give people more money.
1. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/under-the-influence/...
Re: The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The selection part works on individuals, what changes from selection is the frequency of alleles in the population. By not having children the alleles you carry will become rarer in the population of the next generation (all things being equal).
Also, having children later in life reduces the role that grandparents play in a childs life, reducing an important safety net.
Not having children removes the grandparents. Hard to be a grandparent unless you have children.
Re: The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
#76Technically, isn't it the youngest child going extinct and the middle child left to take on the role of the youngest?
Re: The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it is natural selection in action. Those that have children are of the future, those that don't are of the past. There is a huge shortage of smart people on the planet to solve the many problems that exist. The best way we know to create more smart people is to encourage smart people to have more children. Unfortunately we seem especially good as a society at identifying smart people and discouraging them from hav…
Children per couple goes down as quality of life goes up. All developed countries see birthrates decrease. No one is actively discouraging smart people from reproducing -- they're just better off and don't need children as a safety net for retirement, and they can access good birth control. The idea that smart people are only produced by other smart people is nonsense. Genes regress to the mean, so most smart people…
> The idea that smart people are only produced by other smart people is nonsense.
Don't be ridiculous. If dumb people have more kids than smart people, the next generation will be dumber. Intelligence wouldn't have evolved if this wasn't true.
Re: The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
#78Population shrinkage is not healthy for a society.
Re: The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
#79Technically, isn't it the youngest child going extinct and the middle child left to take on the role of the youngest?
Well no... the middle child only comes into existence upon the introduction of the younger child.
Re: The Middle Child Is Going Extinct
#80Population shrinkage is not healthy for a society.
Eating chocolate is bad for dogs.