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You seem to be suggesting that all values that don't contribute to long-term evolutionary success are not worth pursuing. Perhaps in the thousand-year timefram

You seem to be suggesting that all values that don't contribute to long-term evolutionary success are not worth pursuing. Perhaps in the thousand-year timeframe it's irrelevant what it means to be a "have" or "have not" in today's society. But does that really mean that we shouldn't care about the lives of the people around us who are living right now? In fact, why should any of us care all that much about who's still got descendants long after we're dead?

rjf72 8y ago
I wouldn't create a dichotomy between these two choices. In many ways our descendants will determine the state of the future far more than any particular change we might engage in today. Imagine that people who are well educated, secular, and generally well off start to stop having children. At the same time people who are poorly educated, highly religious, and generally poor continue to have children at a high rate. Think about what this would mean for the lives of people born into the next generation. They're going to disproportionately come from households that are poorly educated, highly religions, and mostly poor. And of course this isn't a hypothetical. This is exactly what's happening today on a global and crucially, even on a national level. For instance in the US people who earn < $10,000 per year annually have a fertility rate that is just about exactly 50% higher than those earning > $200,000 per year. [1] And there's a disconcertingly smooth gradient in the incomes in between. This is a very new problem. It was speculated about in the past, but generally well to do families continued to pump out the kids at a decent rate and there were macabre systems in place that prevented reckless procreation from those who could not afford it. Today fertility rates have plummeted and such macabre deterrents have become completely unthinkable which is a very good thing, yet it's simultaneously a very bad thing in that it effectively enables reckless and socially destructive behavior. It becomes clear that one of the easiest ways to have a society where more people are better off is simply by encouraging those that can afford to have children to do just that! This also goes a step further as well. You might argue that 'well, if we create better social systems then we can start to transform those poorly educated, highly religious, and generally poor families into the [perhaps subjectively] better off households today.' Maybe, maybe not -- it'd be a herculean task in any case. But there's an even more fundamental problem. The future of those systems will be upheld, or tossed aside, by the generation of tomorrow. And we once again end up back at square one as this generation will be comprised heavily of these poorly educated, highly religious individuals who are going to generally have different social motivations. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  I think HN User reader500's material point is that while you and I may believe that poor people procreating is "reckless and socially destructive behavior", Mother Nature does not. She's going to go to great lengths to ensure that poor people have a desire to procreate that is, at once, urgent and overpowering. She really doesn't care about anything other than getting the genes propagated. (Basically, in human terms, she just wants more kids. Nothing else matters to Mother Nature.) She's also going to go to great lengths to instill the same urge in the wealthy, and everyone in between for that matter. She really does just want the genes propagated. The rest she doesn't care about. Ideology, money, whether or not one human has any power over another, social morés, and any other human construct... none of it matters to her.

rjf72 8y ago

I wouldn't create a dichotomy between these two choices. In many ways our descendants will determine the state of the future far more than any particular change we might engage in today. Imagine that people who are well educated, secular, and generally well off start to stop having children. At the same time people who are poorly educated, highly religious, and generally poor continue to have children at a high rate. Think about what this would mean for the lives of people born into the next generation. They're going to disproportionately come from households that are poorly educated, highly religions, and mostly poor. And of course this isn't a hypothetical. This is exactly what's happening today on a global and crucially, even on a national level. For instance in the US people who earn < $10,000 per year annually have a fertility rate that is just about exactly 50% higher than those earning > $200,000 per year. [1] And there's a disconcertingly smooth gradient in the incomes in between. This is a very new problem. It was speculated about in the past, but generally well to do families continued to pump out the kids at a decent rate and there were macabre systems in place that prevented reckless procreation from those who could not afford it. Today fertility rates have plummeted and such macabre deterrents have become completely unthinkable which is a very good thing, yet it's simultaneously a very bad thing in that it effectively enables reckless and socially destructive behavior. It becomes clear that one of the easiest ways to have a society where more people are better off is simply by encouraging those that can afford to have children to do just that! This also goes a step further as well. You might argue that 'well, if we create better social systems then we can start to transform those poorly educated, highly religious, and generally poor families into the [perhaps subjectively] better off households today.' Maybe, maybe not -- it'd be a herculean task in any case. But there's an even more fundamental problem. The future of those systems will be upheld, or tossed aside, by the generation of tomorrow. And we once again end up back at square one as this generation will be comprised heavily of these poorly educated, highly religious individuals who are going to generally have different social motivations. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

bilbo0s 8y ago
I think HN User reader500's material point is that while you and I may believe that poor people procreating is "reckless and socially destructive behavior", Mother Nature does not. She's going to go to great lengths to ensure that poor people have a desire to procreate that is, at once, urgent and overpowering. She really doesn't care about anything other than getting the genes propagated. (Basically, in human terms, she just wants more kids. Nothing else matters to Mother Nature.) She's also going to go to great lengths to instill the same urge in the wealthy, and everyone in between for that matter. She really does just want the genes propagated. The rest she doesn't care about. Ideology, money, whether or not one human has any power over another, social morés, and any other human construct... none of it matters to her.