[extropy-chat] Affective computing: Candy bars for the soul

[Mark Walker]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hanson"
Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org


> The demographic transition is the phenomena whereby the birthrate falls
> dramatically when nations get richer.  This phenomena is *not* driven
> primarily by birth control.  It happened before birth control, and poor
> nations now have high birth rates after cheap birth control.

Ok, I see why this is more perplexing. The evolutionary explanation for this
aside, is the causal mechanism known? Given that birthrates drop, and it is
not birth control measures that are responsible,  it seems that either
copulation or fertility rates must have dropped. Do we know if it is one or
the other (or both)? As for the evolutionary explanation, this is an
interesting question. Admittedly it is quite a stretch but I wonder if it is
related to the following evolutionary counter-intuitive result. I've bred a
number of aquarium fish (e.g., Discus, clown fish, etc.) and generally the
birthrate is higher for those that are kept a little hungry rather than
those that are fed until they are satiated. This seems counter-intuitive
since one would think that the fish with the extra calories would have more
offspring rather. The best breeding results occur when they are fed lots for
say a couple of weeks and then fed almost nothing for a few days. I've
observed the similar results with breeding worms. In any event, the
hypothesis based on this flimsy evidence is that human birthrates are
correlated negatively with total calories or the steadiness of food supply.
(Perhaps it goes without saying that the correlation will fail below a
certain level of calories that stress the organisms so much that they cannot
breed). Obviously evidence for this will be hard to come by since in general
the rich nations have a greater calorie consumption and poorer nation fewer.
http://www.fao.org/NEWS/1998/981204-e.htm We would need to find examples
where poor nations have a steady and abundant supply or rich nations have
low calorie consumption or periods of interruption in their food supply to
refute the hypothesis.

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org