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> You are vastly overestimating how many children people have. Right, my post was complaining about how few children people are having. For the sake of contras

> You are vastly overestimating how many children people have. Right, my post was complaining about how few children people are having. For the sake of contrast, I supposed an idealized situation where our fertility rates are comfortably above mere replacement, say 3 to 4 per woman. In such case, a woman with 4 children, each having 4 children, each having 4 children, will indeed have >100 descendants. > The way forward is not to lean on women to do huge amounts of uncompensated labour, the return of which flows to someone else. Over the past 10,000 years, we've determined a set of social constructs that solve this problem really well in the context of agrarian society: marriage (monogamous, enduring partnership between provider and carer), and religion (commitment to a purpose higher than yourself, because a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail). Anyway, note my quotes on "equality": try as we might, women are not men, and nobody wins by getting women to be more like men. The ideal of equality is like communism: inspiring, misleading, and impossible. No one is equal, nor should they be.

nommm-nommm 11y ago
>religion (commitment to a purpose higher than yourself, because a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail). It is objective untrue that people without a religion only pursue their own interests.
- cameron111 11y ago
  Yes, but you have to look at it from a societal-engineering mindset. Religion was vital in getting everyone to commit to the collective rather than the individual. FWIW, it's difficult to analyze this through today's society because I think the cancer of individualism rampant in our society bleeds into everyone regardless of their faith. For example, many Christians pray and act in order to be saved; totally individualistic. I believe this is a byproduct of our age, and with a more collectivist societal mindset we could address things like this.
pjc50 11y ago
in the context of agrarian society We're not in an agrarian society, and in case you haven't noticed almost everyone gets the hell out of that situation as soon as they can when other opportunities present themselves. a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail You say this, implying the inevitable failure of capitalism; then you oppose communism; do you really want to go straight back to feudalism?
- cameron111 11y ago
  > We're not in an agrarian society I made the wrong use of terms; by "agrarian" I meant non-nomadic; static; people living in one place working on things sometimes multiple economic edges from subsistence. Since we progressed away from nomadicism, we have determined these social structures that work for ensuring our survival, and indeed, maximizing our potential. > a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail Capitalism doesn't require individualism. You could argue that it tends to individualism, but I believe that with a strong societal philosophy (and perhaps a bit of oversight) it can be kept in check. Capitalism is a bit like web development: it works, and makes sense, so long as you're not talking about it. As soon as you're talking about it, you're probably doing it wrong.
prodigal_erik 11y ago
Agrarian society was only practical because a wealth of unused resources was available to each individual. Since then, we have barely managed to postpone an impending Malthusian catastrophe by optimizing the crap out of high-tech agriculture. The world isn't growing, and a population of seven billion is worse off in most ways a than a population of one billion would be.
- cameron111 11y ago
  I think our economic system more or less makes sense. By requiring a constant trend of growth, we can spur investment and make people more inclined to take on risk, which in general serves us better than not. As I mentioned in [0] (linked above), if we can get the fertility rate back up for another 100 years in order to drive good growth, I believe we will be able to eliminate most forms of scarcity. From there, we will have more flexibility. For now, in a world of scarcity and competition, if we continue to perish without replacement, we are risking everything. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11076964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11076964

nommm-nommm 11y ago

>religion (commitment to a purpose higher than yourself, because a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail). It is objective untrue that people without a religion only pursue their own interests.

cameron111 11y ago
Yes, but you have to look at it from a societal-engineering mindset. Religion was vital in getting everyone to commit to the collective rather than the individual. FWIW, it's difficult to analyze this through today's society because I think the cancer of individualism rampant in our society bleeds into everyone regardless of their faith. For example, many Christians pray and act in order to be saved; totally individualistic. I believe this is a byproduct of our age, and with a more collectivist societal mindset we could address things like this.

pjc50 11y ago

in the context of agrarian society We're not in an agrarian society, and in case you haven't noticed almost everyone gets the hell out of that situation as soon as they can when other opportunities present themselves. a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail You say this, implying the inevitable failure of capitalism; then you oppose communism; do you really want to go straight back to feudalism?

cameron111 11y ago
> We're not in an agrarian society I made the wrong use of terms; by "agrarian" I meant non-nomadic; static; people living in one place working on things sometimes multiple economic edges from subsistence. Since we progressed away from nomadicism, we have determined these social structures that work for ensuring our survival, and indeed, maximizing our potential. > a world of individuals pursuing their own interests can only fail Capitalism doesn't require individualism. You could argue that it tends to individualism, but I believe that with a strong societal philosophy (and perhaps a bit of oversight) it can be kept in check. Capitalism is a bit like web development: it works, and makes sense, so long as you're not talking about it. As soon as you're talking about it, you're probably doing it wrong.

prodigal_erik 11y ago

Agrarian society was only practical because a wealth of unused resources was available to each individual. Since then, we have barely managed to postpone an impending Malthusian catastrophe by optimizing the crap out of high-tech agriculture. The world isn't growing, and a population of seven billion is worse off in most ways a than a population of one billion would be.

cameron111 11y ago
I think our economic system more or less makes sense. By requiring a constant trend of growth, we can spur investment and make people more inclined to take on risk, which in general serves us better than not. As I mentioned in [0] (linked above), if we can get the fertility rate back up for another 100 years in order to drive good growth, I believe we will be able to eliminate most forms of scarcity. From there, we will have more flexibility. For now, in a world of scarcity and competition, if we continue to perish without replacement, we are risking everything. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11076964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11076964