[extropy-chat] impeccable birth control
Spike
spike66 at comcast.net
Sat Oct 30 06:15:48 UTC 2004
> Our modern birth control techniques are so impeccable
> that many women use them until it is too late to have
> children, perhaps to their desperate regret. Perhaps
> technologically advanced societies will come to depend
> on their most irresponsible elements and unwed teenagers
> to carry out most of the actual reproduction.
>
> spike
Actually in a sense we already do this, but do let us look
at the bright side. (I have a well-known habit of looking
at the bright side, even if totally unreasonable.) When
we try to deal with all the problems that face humanity
today, the armed conflict, impending multinational civil
wars looming in the middle east and so forth, let us try to
view life from the point of view of the genome.
If we view life from the point of view of the human gene,
then birth control *really is* a terrible thing. Drunken
teenagers in the back seat becomes a good thing, the dumber
the better. Hungry overpopulated Africa is good: they do
bear lots of children, even if many die. Most technology
is bad, since it gives people distractions from copulation,
which for so long was the only really good form of
entertainment (was it not?) and television is one of the
most tragic technologies ever invented. Now we have a
number of activities that people claim are as good as
or perhaps better than sex. If I were a selfish gene,
I would be so alarmed.
Things do look different from that point of view.
spike
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