[ExI] the formerly rich and their larvae, was: Impressive book: Farewell to Alms

[hkhenson]

At 10:11 PM 2/3/2008, Lee wrote:
>Spike writes
>
> >> ...Rich people certainly don't have twice the number
> >> of kids as poor people today.
> >
> > Keith, the act of having kids converts us from rich people into 
> poor people.

snip

>Hence it follows that the population will over time become composed
>predominantly of those following the r-strategy. At the present time,
>from a biological standpoint "the more children, the better". Hence
>those families churning out fifteen or twenty children must come to be
>the norm.

Even by the Hutterite standard of fertility that's high.  (Page 72 in 
Farewell to Alms.)

I wonder what "designer babies" would be worth?  Regression to the 
mean means that on average high quality parents are going to be 
disappointed in their children.  I don't know if it will happen 
before people abandon biology for some other kind of existence, but 
it seems to me there would be quite a market for gene sorting/editing 
for really high quality children.

Alternately clones could become common.

Keith