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The evolutionary urge for reproduction is all-consuming. So much for humanity's claims to have transcended nature. EDIT: (stealing a half-remembered quote fr

The evolutionary urge for reproduction is all-consuming. So much for humanity's claims to have transcended nature. EDIT: (stealing a half-remembered quote from someone else) "Humans beings are unique in that they are the only known species who produce offspring in order to subsidize their fantasies."

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
And yet, industrialized countries fall below replacement level and world population plateaus. Clearly, it isn't all-consuming. Also your quote is blatantly false. Consider bees. The queen produces offspring literally to build her hive and feed her young.
- Kye 5y ago
  I always wonder about what goes on in the heads of people who claim that. I've never had any desire to have kids. Is it a case of something like pluralistic ignorance, or do they really feel a strong overriding drive here?
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    How many of us who didn't want children have siblings that had children in our place? The drive for reproduction wins, even without considering that without the drive for reproduction of our parents we wouldn't even exist. More so, the drive for reproduction isn't necessarily about kids, but sexuality. Sex sells. A big chunk of our civilization is about food and sex.
    - jl6 5y ago
      Not having children is very common and always has been, and yet seems to me a somewhat radical decision when you think that you represent an unbroken line of reproduction going back 4 billion years, and somehow that line ends with you.
      - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
        If you fail to reproduce (voluntarily or otherwise), only a small mutation in a giant cross-breeding pool is lost, not some great bloodline of ancestry. Provided, of course, that you're not literally the last living descendant of some genetic bottleneck. The total genetic consciousness of humanity cares for your particular genes about as much as you care for a single hair or cell of skin falling off the greater whole.
      - ASalazarMX 5y ago
        A branch. A tiny, insignificant, microscopic branch is ended when one doesn't reproduce, the main line keeps going strong.
  - apocalypstyx 5y ago
    There's a difference in the individual level and the species level. An individual does not necessarily have to be concerned with direct propagation to participate in propagation. A bee that kills itself stinging something that is attacking the hive potentially increases the overall survival of the genes which it shares with the hive, even at the expense of its own particular genes. An individual human who assists in the aid of other adult members or children in the group, even though they themselves do might not mate successfully, does something similar. It is all-consuming in the sense that it is fundamental to life by definition. (Unless we are to posit some organism arising from proto-life and just 'hanging out' until the end of the universe.) And it is the second half fundamental to evolution -- the other being death.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - panzagl 5y ago
    First you get married, then one day you run out of things to talk about. Nine months later, kids!
  - dr_dshiv 5y ago
    I’m assuming you’re male. The desire comes from both sexes but some women need babies.
- apocalypstyx 5y ago
  > And yet, industrialized countries fall below replacement level and world population plateaus. Yes. Reproductive rates vary over time and due to environmental conditions. See Calhoun's Mouse Utopia Experiments for an extreme example of this. (Though simplistic applicability of this to human society, in the ways that have been done in the past, should probably be discouraged.) > Also your quote is blatantly false. Consider bees. The queen produces offspring literally to build her hive and feed her young. Other animals act in collective ways. Yes. But it's not talking of collectivism in terms of bees, ants, or wolf packs. So far as I understand the quote, or the sentiment, it refers to the seeming fact that bees, ants, wolfs, etc, reproduce as a series of drives that function to that end without them needing to be cognizant of that end. Whereas humans, in addition to the compulsive drives of pleasure, etc, require justification. A queen bee does not concern itself (so far as we understand the mental processes of other animals) with prospects a billion years from now. A queen bee doesn't have to justify that more bees are good. Eggs are just cared for, fertilized, hatched in relation to the functioning of the hive and the processes which occur to regulate such. The seeming distinction with human beings is that the course of evolution has perhaps instilled them/us with a sort of, if not a 'meta drive', then a drive to override other aspects of our evolved intelligence which might undermine reproduction. In short, humans don't just 'get horny', they/we also have to 'get religion[1]'. Other animals (again, so far as we are aware, which is admittedly not very far sometimes) don't seem to require any justification on top of 'the mating dance makes me horny', they just 'do it'. [1] This, of course, should be considered in terms of ideology broadly, rather than just religion specifically. (In addition, I would also contend here that ideology is not an external addition, but a fundamental of human psychology, and to paraphrase Zizek 'the most thoroughly ideological environment is the post-ideological one.'
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    > A queen bee does not concern itself (so far as we understand the mental processes of other animals) with prospects a billion years from now. Of course it does! Bees gather honey literally to survive through winters.
    - apocalypstyx 5y ago
- greenonions 5y ago
  Maybe there are situations where the best thing for the reproduction of our species is an individual deciding to not reproduce. If you live in a developed nation, you probably feel secure that humanity will not perish without you having kids. You are allowed to simply enjoy life as you wish and not have kids if you choose (at least, that is my ideal).
- AlgorithmicTime 5y ago

hypertele-Xii 5y ago

And yet, industrialized countries fall below replacement level and world population plateaus. Clearly, it isn't all-consuming. Also your quote is blatantly false. Consider bees. The queen produces offspring literally to build her hive and feed her young.

Kye 5y ago
I always wonder about what goes on in the heads of people who claim that. I've never had any desire to have kids. Is it a case of something like pluralistic ignorance, or do they really feel a strong overriding drive here?
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  How many of us who didn't want children have siblings that had children in our place? The drive for reproduction wins, even without considering that without the drive for reproduction of our parents we wouldn't even exist. More so, the drive for reproduction isn't necessarily about kids, but sexuality. Sex sells. A big chunk of our civilization is about food and sex.
  - jl6 5y ago
    Not having children is very common and always has been, and yet seems to me a somewhat radical decision when you think that you represent an unbroken line of reproduction going back 4 billion years, and somehow that line ends with you.
    - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
      If you fail to reproduce (voluntarily or otherwise), only a small mutation in a giant cross-breeding pool is lost, not some great bloodline of ancestry. Provided, of course, that you're not literally the last living descendant of some genetic bottleneck. The total genetic consciousness of humanity cares for your particular genes about as much as you care for a single hair or cell of skin falling off the greater whole.
    - ASalazarMX 5y ago
      A branch. A tiny, insignificant, microscopic branch is ended when one doesn't reproduce, the main line keeps going strong.
- apocalypstyx 5y ago
  There's a difference in the individual level and the species level. An individual does not necessarily have to be concerned with direct propagation to participate in propagation. A bee that kills itself stinging something that is attacking the hive potentially increases the overall survival of the genes which it shares with the hive, even at the expense of its own particular genes. An individual human who assists in the aid of other adult members or children in the group, even though they themselves do might not mate successfully, does something similar. It is all-consuming in the sense that it is fundamental to life by definition. (Unless we are to posit some organism arising from proto-life and just 'hanging out' until the end of the universe.) And it is the second half fundamental to evolution -- the other being death.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- panzagl 5y ago
  First you get married, then one day you run out of things to talk about. Nine months later, kids!
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  I’m assuming you’re male. The desire comes from both sexes but some women need babies.
apocalypstyx 5y ago
> And yet, industrialized countries fall below replacement level and world population plateaus. Yes. Reproductive rates vary over time and due to environmental conditions. See Calhoun's Mouse Utopia Experiments for an extreme example of this. (Though simplistic applicability of this to human society, in the ways that have been done in the past, should probably be discouraged.) > Also your quote is blatantly false. Consider bees. The queen produces offspring literally to build her hive and feed her young. Other animals act in collective ways. Yes. But it's not talking of collectivism in terms of bees, ants, or wolf packs. So far as I understand the quote, or the sentiment, it refers to the seeming fact that bees, ants, wolfs, etc, reproduce as a series of drives that function to that end without them needing to be cognizant of that end. Whereas humans, in addition to the compulsive drives of pleasure, etc, require justification. A queen bee does not concern itself (so far as we understand the mental processes of other animals) with prospects a billion years from now. A queen bee doesn't have to justify that more bees are good. Eggs are just cared for, fertilized, hatched in relation to the functioning of the hive and the processes which occur to regulate such. The seeming distinction with human beings is that the course of evolution has perhaps instilled them/us with a sort of, if not a 'meta drive', then a drive to override other aspects of our evolved intelligence which might undermine reproduction. In short, humans don't just 'get horny', they/we also have to 'get religion[1]'. Other animals (again, so far as we are aware, which is admittedly not very far sometimes) don't seem to require any justification on top of 'the mating dance makes me horny', they just 'do it'. [1] This, of course, should be considered in terms of ideology broadly, rather than just religion specifically. (In addition, I would also contend here that ideology is not an external addition, but a fundamental of human psychology, and to paraphrase Zizek 'the most thoroughly ideological environment is the post-ideological one.'
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  > A queen bee does not concern itself (so far as we understand the mental processes of other animals) with prospects a billion years from now. Of course it does! Bees gather honey literally to survive through winters.
  - apocalypstyx 5y ago
greenonions 5y ago
Maybe there are situations where the best thing for the reproduction of our species is an individual deciding to not reproduce. If you live in a developed nation, you probably feel secure that humanity will not perish without you having kids. You are allowed to simply enjoy life as you wish and not have kids if you choose (at least, that is my ideal).
AlgorithmicTime 5y ago