I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 339 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 6:14 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Consensi wrote:
Cashmere wrote:
Where the hell is Felix Unger when you need him?
Where I would expect to find him; sitting on the couch, feet up on the hassock, stuffing his mouth with cheese puffs while he watches a football game.
Meanwhile, a 34 yo father of 10 abandons 9 of his children at a Nebraska hospital, packs a suitcase, and runs off with his new girlfriend. Seriously, if every man waited until his 40's to decide whether to have children this would be a much better world.
The question is not about what would make a better world or if an individual off spring from a 40+ couple (oldsters) would be better off than 10 from a 16 year old couple (youngsters.)
The question is, relating to selection, which couple will have the better chance to propagate their genes? Keeping this ridiculous model for illustration only the oldsters will have 1 grand kid and and 1 great grand kid in three generations or 120 years. The youngsters will have 100 grand kids and 1,000 great grand kids, and 10,000 great grand kids in about the same time. This is an obviously exaggerated example to make a point. It would be more reasonable to say that the youngsters end up with around 100 great grand kids in the same time. Still it is a 100 to one ratio.
So, by natural selection, it is hard to see the advantage to genetic longevity to have a single kid late in life when "others" can out produce you to such a degree.
I don't like it, I don't promote it, and I (@ 57 do) not preach it to my 17 yo daughter.
Still it is a fact of mathematics and life. What we want and desire has little to do with it.
It is hard to see any natural selection advantage to a low, slow reproduction rate - on a personal level. That makes population control very, very, very difficult.
Sucks to be our grandkids. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 339 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:13 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
VMarcHart wrote:
Newfie wrote:
I don't like it, I don't promote it, and I do not preach it to my daughter.
What do you like, promote and preach to your daughter?
I try to give her an open portal to the world and encourage a wider world view - good excuse to do some interesting travel.
That she is competent and can do a lot of things - that being scared is not a reason to not do something, it is just a caution light.
That she is important to my wife and me and we want her to succeed.
VMarcHart wrote:
Newfie wrote:
Sucks to be ourmy grandkids.
Correct your grandkids, if as you say you have none, then you will not pass on your genes. Which speaks very much to my point.
Look this is not personal. I'm just trying to discuss the math.
Edit - to fix idiotic mistakes. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
Last edited by Newfie on Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:23 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Newfie wrote:
Correct your grandkids, if as you say you have none, then you will not pass on your genes. Which speaks very much to my point.
Humanity will thank me for that. There will be roads, bridges, buildings, and airports named after me.
What exactly is your obsession with passing your genes? Do you consider yourself of higher quality, worthy of a future? _________________ 9/29/08, cube, The Dow will drop to 4,000 within 2 years
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 339 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:30 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
VMarcHart wrote:
Newfie wrote:
Correct your grandkids, if as you say you have none, then you will not pass on your genes. Which speaks very much to my point.
Humanity will thank me for that. There will be roads, bridges, buildings, and airports named after me.
What exactly is your obsession with passing your genes? Do you consider yourself of higher quality, worthy of a future?
Please try to reread the posts. My comments are about the way the world works, not you or me. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
Joined: Apr 08, 2006 Posts: 1442 Location: Somewhere there
Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 5:52 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
VMarcHart wrote:
Newfie wrote:
Correct your grandkids, if as you say you have none, then you will not pass on your genes. Which speaks very much to my point.
Humanity will thank me for that. There will be roads, bridges, buildings, and airports named after me.
What exactly is your obsession with passing your genes? Do you consider yourself of higher quality, worthy of a future?
I am not a Newfie, but i hope u dont mind if i answer. My grandmother was a slave at one of the Soviet collective farms since she was 11 or so. She had lived through more horror and personal loss than you can possibly imagine. widowed after the war, after spending a winter with 3yo and 1yo in some earth-hole they got some clay/wood/manure shack built for them by neighbours/relatives, where she raised her kids while living in 6X7 feet room (she, her mother-in-law , 2 kids and a built-in oven--all in the same room ) sharing the other, bigger room with a pig and a cow. They never had enough food. They never slept without their coats during the winter. My father didnt have any shoes until he was 15 or so. So, to put it shortly, It wasnt really easy for her to raise my parent and his sibling. Now, she is dead, her sons are dead, and I am her only grandchild. I'm all whats left of her. There is nothing else. Is it really up to me to say-- hey, there are probably better genes than mine outthere, plus some Africans and Asians are struggling to feed their standart 10 kids, plus its expensive and troublesome as hell to have kids--why don't I just end my bloodline (along with my parent&grandparent's)?
My bloodline is 4 billion years old or so, and none of my trillions of ancestors has failed me.
The genes you have are not really yours. You are just a messenger. You can throw the message away, you can fail to deliver, you can crap on to it or add something (shitty mostly) from yourself, but you still just a messenger. The message is not yours.
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 6:23 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Pretorian wrote:
My grandmother was a slave at one of the Soviet collective farms since she was 11 or so ... my bloodline is 4 billion years old or so, and none of my trillions of ancestors has failed me. The genes you have are not really yours. You are just a messenger. You can throw the message away, you can fail to deliver, you can crap on to it or add something (shitty mostly) from yourself, but you still just a messenger. The message is not yours.
Sorry your grandmother had a tough life, but millions had equal or worser lives. You're not getting any tears from me. Passing my bloodline and let my decendents have the life of your grandmother is very selfish, disrespectful and inconsiderate to say the least. Since there are 6.7 "messengers" on the planet and we all came from the same "4-billion old" originator, it doesn't take but 1 to pass the "message". The message we are passing with infinite and uncontrollable reproduction is we don't care for our decendents. _________________ 9/29/08, cube, The Dow will drop to 4,000 within 2 years
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 339 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:37 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
VMarcHart wrote:
Newfie wrote:
Please try to reread the posts. My comments are about the way the world works, not you or me.
Please re-write your posts; they sure don't read like you intend.
Where ever the fault lies, I agree that we are talking at cross purposes.
The central point of my argument is that natural selection tends to favor higher reproduction of a genetic line.
This works against voluntary population controls. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Newfie wrote:
The central point of my argument is that natural selection tends to favor higher reproduction of a genetic line. This works against voluntary population controls.
But we haven't had natural selection for 200-300 years at least. We're having high reproduction rates and no natural selection to speak of. _________________ 9/29/08, cube, The Dow will drop to 4,000 within 2 years
Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 6:38 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Bah. That assertion is just plain ignorant, vmarchart.
Wikipedia wrote:
Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes.
I might add that what is favorable and unfavorable is dependent entirely on circumstance.
At any rate, if reproduction is occurring, natural selection is as well. If you're trying to make some kind of point about human exceptionalism, imagined or otherwise, you need to find another basis with which to do so.
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 7:37 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Devin wrote:
Bah. That assertion is just plain ignorant, vmarchart.
Wikipedia wrote:
Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes.
I might add that what is favorable and unfavorable is dependent entirely on circumstance. At any rate, if reproduction is occurring, natural selection is as well. If you're trying to make some kind of point about human exceptionalism, imagined or otherwise, you need to find another basis with which to do so.
Which of these --lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride-- "unfavorable heritable traits became less common" in the last 200-300 years? _________________ 9/29/08, cube, The Dow will drop to 4,000 within 2 years
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 339 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:05 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
VMarcHart wrote:
Devin wrote:
Bah. That assertion is just plain ignorant, vmarchart.
Wikipedia wrote:
Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes.
I might add that what is favorable and unfavorable is dependent entirely on circumstance. At any rate, if reproduction is occurring, natural selection is as well. If you're trying to make some kind of point about human exceptionalism, imagined or otherwise, you need to find another basis with which to do so.
Which of these --lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride-- "unfavorable heritable traits became less common" in the last 200-300 years?
Jarred Diamond, in Guns/Germs/Steel and Collapse asserted that we Westerners were becoming less smart and adaptive than the New Guinea tribesman.
His point, if I recall correctly, was that the tribesman have to stay alert to live, hence they are going through natural selection. We Westerns, on the other hand, by keeping less fit people alive and through our social services systems are encouraging retention of the less fit.
He does not go on about this at great length nor is he very direct in his assertions. Probably toned down by his publisher. Anyway I take that a pretty good authority figure.
So, I guess the point is that, just because Westerners are not evolving (if that is true) does not mean those in other cultures are not evolving.
And, natural selection WILL take place as the die-off ensues, fast or slow. So, just because it has not happened HERE in the last little bit (200-300 years) does not mean it will not happen in the (near?) future. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
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