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

Kevin Freels kevinfreels at hotmail.com
Tue Dec 23 15:02:37 UTC 2003


I just started following this thread. Has it been considered that the
phenomenon is cultural and not evolutionary at all? In wealthier nations,
they key to reproductive success in our (mostly) monogamous species would be
to "fit in". You don't "fit in" and appear responsible when you go having 15
children. This applys to both men and women. Excess baggage is a bad thing.
We can't exactly kill all the young when we take over the pride.
Education also would play a key role here. People struggling to eat really
could care less about the future of their social group, be it a tribe, city,
or country. All they really have time for is the survival of themselves and
their immediate family. A larger family would translate into more power
which would allow your family access to resources that otherwise would be
unattainable because another family had already been there first.

As I look at that on paper, it reads quite nicely although I feel I forgot
something I was going to write. Also, please note that I havenever been to a
third world or developing country. I really haven't read that much about
them either.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Walker" <mark at permanentend.org>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 8:13 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Affective computing: Candy bars for the soul


>
> ----- 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
>
>
>
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> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>



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