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There is _massive_ evolutionary pressure going against this. To the extent that not wanting to have children is at all genetic, it will disappear from the gene

There is _massive_ evolutionary pressure going against this. To the extent that not wanting to have children is at all genetic, it will disappear from the gene pool within a few generations. That the desire to "not want to have children" (especially among women) exists at all is caused by the sexual revolution (contraceptives), which changed who had children from "people who desired sex" to "people who desired to have children."

scardine 9y ago
A data scientist would say we are overfitted to sex.
grondilu 9y ago
Maybe contraceptives are a dead-end against which evolution can't do much. Maternal instinct exists : it pushes a woman to keep her offspring alive at all cost. I suppose it also makes women yearn for having a baby to take care of. But apparently, having just one is enough for them. Maybe two, but they seem to be content with no more than that. What makes a woman pregnant in the first place is the sexual impulse of the male. That sexual impulse is the primary way nature gets animal organisms to reproduce. With contraceptives, males can satisfy that sexual impulse without creating new offspring. How will nature induce highly-intelligent animals to make an offspring if the sexual intercourse is no more sufficient? It's hard to imagine how genes could intervene high enough on cognitive functions to induce a thought such as "I must have intercourse with this women without contraception because I want children". It could be an evolutionary dead-end.
- DougWebb 9y ago
  Paternal instinct, and women who like sex, exist too.
  - grondilu 9y ago
    Well, no rule is written in stone. What you talk about could be a consequence of the fact that men and women are more or less built the same way after all. Kind of like why men have nipples, even if they are useless to them. My point remains anyway : even if there was a perfect symmetry in gender roles, parenting instinct would be what makes parents desire to have at least one offspring and keep it alive at all cost, but what would drive them to have more than two would be sexual impulse.
    - sgt101 9y ago
      There exists a desire to have children in a household amongst some people both male and female just because it can be fulfilling and nice.
      - walterstucco 9y ago
        But it's not genetic It's culture and education
        blacksmith_tb 9y ago
        Citation needed - obviously culture and education have an enormous impact on how humans live, but given that other animals are driven to reproduce, it shouldn't be a surprise that we are also.
        walterstucco 9y ago
        When child survival increases, kids per family decrease at an enormous rate down to one kid per family https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...
        toasterlovin 9y ago
        Complex behavior can be and often is genetic. A great example of this is the vastly different behavior of the zebra and lion when in close company with zebras. The zebra will engage in herd behavior, whereas the lion will try to eat one of the zebras. No amount of socialization can alter these behavioral patterns. I can tell you that my wife and I both knew long before we were anywhere near adults that we wanted families. You know how some people know that they want to be a fire fighter or a police officer when they grow up? I knew I wanted to have a bunch of kids. The story is more or less the same for her. And my wife and I both grew up on the left, where the attitude toward having children varies from something you do after you have your career sorted to outright anti-natalism.
fallingfrog 9y ago
Based on what I've read, pre-agricultural people nursed their children until the age of 4 or 5 when they could keep up with the tribe on foot, which limited the birth rate. The explosive growth in population we have had for the last few thousand years dates to the agricultural revolution, when we settled down in one place which allowed women to wean their children sooner and have more. So in a sense the absence of birth control is the new and unusual phenomenon here. If you look at ratios of sexual activity to pregnancies human beings are extreme outliers- we clearly are evolved to use sex for bonding first and reproduction second, so the idea that birth control is going to change our behavior through selection pressure seems wrong.
toasterlovin 9y ago
> There is _massive_ evolutionary pressure going against this. To the extent that not wanting to have children is at all genetic, it will disappear from the gene pool within a few generations. This is only the case if the selection pressures which humans in the developed world are facing stay the same. Since they seem to be tied to our technological development, I think there is a good argument to be made that these selection pressures will intensify as we breed resistance to them. My personal theory is that the increasing addictiveness (see the PG essay on this[0]) of modern life is why people are having less children. I don't see that trend changing. I do think there's a good chance that technological renunciation and voluntary cultural isolation of some sort are the best solution to this problem for people who are naturally susceptible to the addictiveness of modern life. [0]: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

scardine 9y ago

A data scientist would say we are overfitted to sex.

grondilu 9y ago

Maybe contraceptives are a dead-end against which evolution can't do much. Maternal instinct exists : it pushes a woman to keep her offspring alive at all cost. I suppose it also makes women yearn for having a baby to take care of. But apparently, having just one is enough for them. Maybe two, but they seem to be content with no more than that. What makes a woman pregnant in the first place is the sexual impulse of the male. That sexual impulse is the primary way nature gets animal organisms to reproduce. With contraceptives, males can satisfy that sexual impulse without creating new offspring. How will nature induce highly-intelligent animals to make an offspring if the sexual intercourse is no more sufficient? It's hard to imagine how genes could intervene high enough on cognitive functions to induce a thought such as "I must have intercourse with this women without contraception because I want children". It could be an evolutionary dead-end.

DougWebb 9y ago
Paternal instinct, and women who like sex, exist too.
- grondilu 9y ago
  Well, no rule is written in stone. What you talk about could be a consequence of the fact that men and women are more or less built the same way after all. Kind of like why men have nipples, even if they are useless to them. My point remains anyway : even if there was a perfect symmetry in gender roles, parenting instinct would be what makes parents desire to have at least one offspring and keep it alive at all cost, but what would drive them to have more than two would be sexual impulse.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    There exists a desire to have children in a household amongst some people both male and female just because it can be fulfilling and nice.
    - walterstucco 9y ago
      But it's not genetic It's culture and education
      - blacksmith_tb 9y ago
        Citation needed - obviously culture and education have an enormous impact on how humans live, but given that other animals are driven to reproduce, it shouldn't be a surprise that we are also.
        walterstucco 9y ago
        When child survival increases, kids per family decrease at an enormous rate down to one kid per family https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...
      - toasterlovin 9y ago
        Complex behavior can be and often is genetic. A great example of this is the vastly different behavior of the zebra and lion when in close company with zebras. The zebra will engage in herd behavior, whereas the lion will try to eat one of the zebras. No amount of socialization can alter these behavioral patterns. I can tell you that my wife and I both knew long before we were anywhere near adults that we wanted families. You know how some people know that they want to be a fire fighter or a police officer when they grow up? I knew I wanted to have a bunch of kids. The story is more or less the same for her. And my wife and I both grew up on the left, where the attitude toward having children varies from something you do after you have your career sorted to outright anti-natalism.

fallingfrog 9y ago

Based on what I've read, pre-agricultural people nursed their children until the age of 4 or 5 when they could keep up with the tribe on foot, which limited the birth rate. The explosive growth in population we have had for the last few thousand years dates to the agricultural revolution, when we settled down in one place which allowed women to wean their children sooner and have more. So in a sense the absence of birth control is the new and unusual phenomenon here. If you look at ratios of sexual activity to pregnancies human beings are extreme outliers- we clearly are evolved to use sex for bonding first and reproduction second, so the idea that birth control is going to change our behavior through selection pressure seems wrong.

toasterlovin 9y ago

> There is _massive_ evolutionary pressure going against this. To the extent that not wanting to have children is at all genetic, it will disappear from the gene pool within a few generations. This is only the case if the selection pressures which humans in the developed world are facing stay the same. Since they seem to be tied to our technological development, I think there is a good argument to be made that these selection pressures will intensify as we breed resistance to them. My personal theory is that the increasing addictiveness (see the PG essay on this[0]) of modern life is why people are having less children. I don't see that trend changing. I do think there's a good chance that technological renunciation and voluntary cultural isolation of some sort are the best solution to this problem for people who are naturally susceptible to the addictiveness of modern life. [0]: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html