6 ms·

I think the evolutionary explanation for child free people is that evolution gave us a sex drive, and for a long time that substituted for a "have children" dri

• sho_hn 3y ago
  Indeed. Child-free people are either an evolutionary dead-end, or we perhaps compensate for this with some form of artifice as well.
  • smoldesu 3y ago
    It's not artifice to point out that most contraceptives are not permanent, and don't prevent child-free people from choosing to have children later in their life. Calling those individuals an "evolutionary dead end" is entirely jumping the gun, and precludes the possibility that mature parents are more financially stable and well-educated. Had my parents conceived me before they were 30, I'd have grown up destitute on the outskirts of Detroit. Giving people an alternative to adoption or abortion is important, even if you feel it's petty or antiproductive.
    • sho_hn 3y ago
      I would agree; it's good that I didn't call them that :-) Given the context of the thread, I'm referring to people who remain child-free for all of their lives. And "evolutionary dead-end" isn't calling anyone names. It's just what it is. I tend to agree with you on having children a little later.
      • smoldesu 3y ago
        People who remain child-free their whole lives generally don't plan it to be that way. It's the sum of cumulative questions asked at multiple points in your life: "am I ready to raise children?" We aren't predestined to dead-end lives or evolutionary staleouts, sometimes virile and willing individuals die before they conceive. I think your characterization is futile, and the wrong lens of looking at majority of non-sterile people. Couples do indeed shy away from raising a child, but shaming them for temporarily turning down the question is the wrong response.
        • sho_hn 3y ago
          Why do you consider something factual as shaming?
    • Teever 3y ago
      Very good points. Though I'm pretty sure that people who refer to child-free people as "evolutionary dead ends" are lashing out because they have some sense of jealousy.
      • sho_hn 3y ago
        Jealousy of what exactly? :)
        • Teever 3y ago
          I dunno, I just have a rule of thumb with online conversations that the harsher the language that someone uses the more they're doing it for personal reasons.
          • sho_hn 3y ago
            I don't think it's harsh language, it's just factual. I actually think it's more interesting why child-free people would consider it harsh or react sensitively to it, at least when it's a conscious choice.
            • Teever 3y ago
              Whether or not something is factual is besides the point. Pregnant women are smug.[0] Pregnancy often ruins women's bodies. People with five children have too many children. I consider these things to be very factual. You won't find me saying them to people though. As to why people 'react sensitively' to these kinds of comments is quite simple. People, especially women, very strongly dislike being reduced down to their reproductive ability. I guarantee you that someone like Rosalind Franklin has contributed so very much more to 'evolution' and the wellbeing of our species, however you want to measure it than your stereostypical redneck pumping out a dozen kids in the trailer park. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbTB3ASkdOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbTB3ASkdOo
              • sho_hn 3y ago
    • brightball 3y ago
      It's an "evolutionary dead end" if we assume that people who intend to be "child free" follow through with it. What you're describing it more akin to waiting until you're more financially stable, which is perfectly normal. There's an entire swath of people in society today who are voluntarily removing themselves from the gene pool, for a number of different reasons. Some of those reasons are marketed influences trying to convince people to do it too, which is more nefarious in my opinion. No matter how you slice it though, from an evolutionary perspective deciding not to reproduce only has one outcome.
      • smoldesu 3y ago
        The majority of people who choose to be child-free are doing just that - making a choice. Unless you are referring to the extreme minority of people who castrate or kill themselves to avoid conception, you're not actually describing people being "removed" from anything. They're just making choices that don't result in conception. If someone is gay, they are most likely still capable of conceiving with the opposite sex. They are making a series of conscious decisions that preclude that conception, but they haven't been "removed" from the gene pool any more than a straight couple using a condom has been. Unless you don't believe in free will, most people are not at a "dead-end" at all.
        • nvm0n2 3y ago
          Are they? Most women I know who are child less (not on board with calling it "child free", as if it's a sort of disease), ended up that way because they didn't get into a stable relationship quickly enough before their biology caught up with them. It wasn't so much an explicit choice as much as a consequence of an inability to be satisfied with a partner, or inability to settle.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
• circuit10 3y ago
  This is a bit of a tangent but this is a good example of why it’s hard to align AI systems to do what we want especially when conditions change, because what was a good proxy for what we want in one environment might not be in another It also shows why “if it’s intelligent it will figure out what we wanted” doesn’t work; like us it has no reason to care what was “intended” even if it knows
• dist-epoch 3y ago
  > strong selection pressure going forward for people with a drive to have kids This strong selection pressure also applies at the society level. See kid count differentials across various religions.
• simondotau 3y ago
  Maybe. Homosexuality has survived as a genetic (or epigenetic) trait of our biology despite breaking the sex-children connection.
  • orwin 3y ago
    Homosexuality is present in some social animals. I'm not talking about homosexual comportement (present amongst Bonobo, where they'll fuck to resolve conflict, but also in a lot of species), I'm talking about homosexual relationships. AMongst penguin and wolves, it seems to strengthen the pack (or whatever it's called for penguins).
    • klipt 3y ago
      Is that full homosexuality (those penguins never mate with the opposite sex) or more like bisexuality?
      • orwin 3y ago
        For wolves I know it's bisexuality. For penguins it's less clear. It is at least seasonal homosexuality (penguins pairs, like ducks). I would have to ask an expert.
• mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  I think this is a bit too reductive. Certainly contraceptives have played some role, but human evolution is not purely biological, it's also cultural. Modern civilisation has a lot more ways to be successful without having children than middle age or older civilisation did. Most importantly for women, who previously had housewife, mother and certain low-status menial/sex jobs as their only culturally accepted roles. It's not surprising to me that as women were permitted higher education, voting rights, etc, cultural evolutionary pressures shiftes quite massively. And history seems to bear that out.
• lamontcg 3y ago
  Evolution isn't perfectly deterministic. It is perfectly fine and allowed for any individual organism to not participate in passing its genes forward. It will have any number of near siblings passing its genes along. Evolution doesn't require 100% compliance.