4 ms·

Most wealthy couples with the means to afford designer babies would probably want heterosexual children. Gender would be left at their discretion.

mcculley 4y ago
Not just wealthy couples. Most parents want their children to be heterosexual and bear them grandchildren. Having successfully procreated, they are more likely to have natalist genes and inclinations.
- lajamerr 4y ago
  Why would they need to be heterosexual to successfully procreate. If the future is designer babies/baby incubation pods. It doesn't matter what sexual orientation the kid is. The parent would have a designer baby, then why would the child eventually not have a designer baby as well?
  - DrudgeCorporate 4y ago
    You will always need an Egg or Sperm depending on which is missing in the relationship. Also, one of the parents would not have genetic code in the offspring since you can't splice two eggs/sperm together as far as I know.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      In Vitro Gametogenesis has been improving lately. 20 years from now, making an egg from a stem cell harvested from a male might be possible.
- blamestross 4y ago
  We already selectively breed for natalists and look how that turns out. It actually makes an argument that genetic predisposition to natalism is currently rather weak and it is mostly memetic predisposition in practice.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    The demographic trends we're seeing now (declining birth rates for affluent people in the developed world) could be due to our natalism level being mis-calibrated for our current circumstances. It's good evolutionary strategy to reduce the birth rate to compensate for successful reproduction (i.e. more pregnancies that result in offspring that reach child-rearing age themselves), as otherwise populations will explode beyond the carrying capacity of the environment (or pay more of the fixed resource costs of raising children than is necessary). What we see now, however, is that in situations where both pre-adult and maternal mortality rates are exceedingly low (such as has been the case for the last ~4-5 generations in the developed world), the strategy undershoots the replacement rate.

mcculley 4y ago

Not just wealthy couples. Most parents want their children to be heterosexual and bear them grandchildren. Having successfully procreated, they are more likely to have natalist genes and inclinations.

lajamerr 4y ago
Why would they need to be heterosexual to successfully procreate. If the future is designer babies/baby incubation pods. It doesn't matter what sexual orientation the kid is. The parent would have a designer baby, then why would the child eventually not have a designer baby as well?
- DrudgeCorporate 4y ago
  You will always need an Egg or Sperm depending on which is missing in the relationship. Also, one of the parents would not have genetic code in the offspring since you can't splice two eggs/sperm together as far as I know.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    In Vitro Gametogenesis has been improving lately. 20 years from now, making an egg from a stem cell harvested from a male might be possible.
blamestross 4y ago
We already selectively breed for natalists and look how that turns out. It actually makes an argument that genetic predisposition to natalism is currently rather weak and it is mostly memetic predisposition in practice.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  The demographic trends we're seeing now (declining birth rates for affluent people in the developed world) could be due to our natalism level being mis-calibrated for our current circumstances. It's good evolutionary strategy to reduce the birth rate to compensate for successful reproduction (i.e. more pregnancies that result in offspring that reach child-rearing age themselves), as otherwise populations will explode beyond the carrying capacity of the environment (or pay more of the fixed resource costs of raising children than is necessary). What we see now, however, is that in situations where both pre-adult and maternal mortality rates are exceedingly low (such as has been the case for the last ~4-5 generations in the developed world), the strategy undershoots the replacement rate.