Yes, that’s true. The thing is this: it is rational for each of us to be childless, even though childlessness is not collectively rational for us all. It’s sort of like a prisoner’s dilemma with many people in it.
Very important. Any memeplex that has aims that happen to produce kids will have a edge. It just so happens few if any secular memplexes have made this possible.
But this is odd especially since values are arbitrary, is there really no value one can pursue that is best served (among other things) in having children (and perhaps attempt to imprint the same values on them)?
This, however, explains people who get incredibly upset at the notion of others not wanting children and brand them “selfish”.
Its the same kind of upset a different kind of people have when they don’t see someone ,who has already heard all the arguments for it, recycling.
Very important. Any memeplex that has aims that happen to produce kids will have a edge. It just so happens few if any secular memplexes have made this possible.
Another way a memeplex can succeed is by being very good at converting others. Note that such a memeplex if left unchecked could cause humans, or at least whatever culture it spreads in to evolve to extinction. As such leaders of other memeplexes may take extreme measures to suppress it.
From which I think it follows that atheists in those countries must either raise their birth rates or be very efficient at getting new immigrants from elsewhere to abandon their religions for these to be sustainable.
Its not theism in itself. And I would argue its not rationality in itsef for a sufficient value of well… values.
Compare the fate of the very pious and irrational Amish (a table of who’s demographic success I present in another comment) to the very pious and irrational shakers.
Membership in the Shakers dwindled in the late 19th century for several reasons: people were attracted to cities and away from the farms; Shaker products could not compete with mass-produced products that became available at a much lower cost; and Shakers could not have children, so adoption was a major source of new members. This continued until the states gained control of adoption homes. Some Shaker settlements, such as Pleasant Hill community in Kentucky, and Canterbury, New Hampshire, the latter of which died with its last member, Ethel Hudson, in September 1992,[6] have become museums.
Although there were six thousand believers at the peak of the Shaker movement, there were only twelve Shaker communities left by 1920. In the United States there is one remaining active Shaker community, at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, which as of September 2010 has only three members left, Sister June Carpenter, Brother Arnold Hadd, and Sister Frances Carr [7] [3][8]. The Sabbathday Lake community still accepts new recruits, as it has since its founding. Shakers are no longer allowed to adopt orphan children after new laws were passed in 1960 denying control of adoption to religious groups, but adults who wish to embrace Shaker life were welcome. This community, founded in 1782, was one of the smaller and more isolated Shaker communities during the sect’s heyday. They farm and practice a variety of handicrafts; a Shaker Museum, and Sunday services[9] are open to visitors. Mother Ann Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of August. The people sing and dance and a Mother Ann cake is presented.
As a note of interest let me just point out that both groups where for a extended period of time of a size comparable to the number of regular LW readers.
The labour involved in raising kids has a higher opportunity cost for more competent people. Also due to regression to the mean, very intelligent people are unlikely to have children smarter than them so this may reduce rewards.
Intelligent, rational people not having kids is basically a tragedy of the commons. Everyone is better of (including the unintelligent and irrational) if this group has more children, but for each individual it is a pretty burdensome undertaking (even when taking into account selfish reasons to have kids) And our whole modern status system is unfortunately built in such a way that it exacerbates the problem rather than alleviating it.
I would guess that fertility would correlate most strongly with precisely average intelligence and precisely average levels of rationality. There’s a reason the normal distribution tapers at both ends.
This may not be true depending how much we’ve changed our selection pressures with this “civilisation” palaver. That said, I too would like a citation please.
From what I know people of below average intelligence have higher fertility than people of average intelligence. I think modern civilization has changed the selective pressures massively from the ones that produced the current averages.
The pattern though it holds overall obviously isn’t uniform for all groups, Black males for example do seem to in the US to be enjoying slight positive selection for a higher mean IQ (I need to crunch the numbers to see if this is so) or at least have peak fertility at about the US mean IQ, which is good. What concerns me however is the gender difference in these pressures (graph from the paper I link to). I fear that we will be selecting for gender dimorphism in abilities until we hit better reproductive technology. Prolonged education in a meritocracy is bound to eat up more female than male fertility due to the lost peak years of reproduction. Also we have the problem of men caring less about the socio economic status of the partners they choose to reproduce with than women. Extra status buys men more reproductive options later in life than it does for women in the same age bracket. This sucks quite a bit.
The artificial uterus can’t come quick enough. Thought I think life extension and rejuvenation tech could also help if we could make pregnancies in the 50s and 60s healthy and convenient.
Mutation-selection equilibrium. We get dozens of new mutations each generation, and it takes generations of selective pressure to expunge new deleterious ones.
If this is true for all memplexes, values and natural personality variations and the singularity doesn’t come in the next 30 years humans are pretty screwed.
And this is why theists always outnumber atheists.
Yes, that’s true. The thing is this: it is rational for each of us to be childless, even though childlessness is not collectively rational for us all. It’s sort of like a prisoner’s dilemma with many people in it.
I find this statement highly questionable standalone. Rational given what aims?
This, however, explains people who get incredibly upset at the notion of others not wanting children and brand them “selfish”.
Very important. Any memeplex that has aims that happen to produce kids will have a edge. It just so happens few if any secular memplexes have made this possible.
But this is odd especially since values are arbitrary, is there really no value one can pursue that is best served (among other things) in having children (and perhaps attempt to imprint the same values on them)?
Its the same kind of upset a different kind of people have when they don’t see someone ,who has already heard all the arguments for it, recycling.
Another way a memeplex can succeed is by being very good at converting others. Note that such a memeplex if left unchecked could cause humans, or at least whatever culture it spreads in to evolve to extinction. As such leaders of other memeplexes may take extreme measures to suppress it.
Agreed. However very virulent memeplexes are unlikley to be attacked, they will quickly gain sympathy in nearly any organization.
Also known as a “Tragedy of the Commons”.
You can also think of it as evolution selecting against atheism.
You can think of it as evolution selecting against people who don’t want children.
Eliezer discusses a situation like this here.
France, the Nordic countries, the Czech Republic, the Baltic countries, am I forgetting someone? oh, yes, and China beg to differ.
I would simply like to mention that all those countries have sub-replacement fertility.
From which I think it follows that atheists in those countries must either raise their birth rates or be very efficient at getting new immigrants from elsewhere to abandon their religions for these to be sustainable.
Its not theism in itself. And I would argue its not rationality in itsef for a sufficient value of well… values.
Compare the fate of the very pious and irrational Amish (a table of who’s demographic success I present in another comment) to the very pious and irrational shakers.
As a note of interest let me just point out that both groups where for a extended period of time of a size comparable to the number of regular LW readers.
Nevertheless, fertility is inversely correlated with most measures of intelligence and rationality.
Citation?
You can look at the wikipedia article Fertility and intelligence and its references for starters.
The labour involved in raising kids has a higher opportunity cost for more competent people. Also due to regression to the mean, very intelligent people are unlikely to have children smarter than them so this may reduce rewards.
Intelligent, rational people not having kids is basically a tragedy of the commons. Everyone is better of (including the unintelligent and irrational) if this group has more children, but for each individual it is a pretty burdensome undertaking (even when taking into account selfish reasons to have kids) And our whole modern status system is unfortunately built in such a way that it exacerbates the problem rather than alleviating it.
I would guess that fertility would correlate most strongly with precisely average intelligence and precisely average levels of rationality. There’s a reason the normal distribution tapers at both ends.
This may not be true depending how much we’ve changed our selection pressures with this “civilisation” palaver. That said, I too would like a citation please.
From what I know people of below average intelligence have higher fertility than people of average intelligence. I think modern civilization has changed the selective pressures massively from the ones that produced the current averages.
One of the sources off the top of my head
The pattern though it holds overall obviously isn’t uniform for all groups, Black males for example do seem to in the US to be enjoying slight positive selection for a higher mean IQ (I need to crunch the numbers to see if this is so) or at least have peak fertility at about the US mean IQ, which is good. What concerns me however is the gender difference in these pressures (graph from the paper I link to). I fear that we will be selecting for gender dimorphism in abilities until we hit better reproductive technology. Prolonged education in a meritocracy is bound to eat up more female than male fertility due to the lost peak years of reproduction. Also we have the problem of men caring less about the socio economic status of the partners they choose to reproduce with than women. Extra status buys men more reproductive options later in life than it does for women in the same age bracket. This sucks quite a bit.
The artificial uterus can’t come quick enough. Thought I think life extension and rejuvenation tech could also help if we could make pregnancies in the 50s and 60s healthy and convenient.
Mutation-selection equilibrium. We get dozens of new mutations each generation, and it takes generations of selective pressure to expunge new deleterious ones.
I wonder how much fertility varies with beauty?
If this is true for all memplexes, values and natural personality variations and the singularity doesn’t come in the next 30 years humans are pretty screwed.
The odd thing is that the Shakers seem to have been unusually rational about designing what they made.