Pronatalism - here pigeons, have a cat.....

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25/american-pronatalists-malcolm-and-simone-collins

I've seen a few things about this "culture" over the last couple of years, but kept forgetting what they called it for some reason.

This article is interesting. I tend to avoid judgement on how people live their lives - I mean, nobody gets everything right all the time and life is a continual learning curve.

However - my reservations about this are that it is backed by some of the people with alot of money, alot of power and alot of influence.

And whether you dress it up as "polygenics" because "eugenics" is unpalatable to most, I can't help thinking it's another fast paced incoming "zeitgeist".

Interested in others thoughts.

One thing that got me in the article was when they said she'll keep going with the C-sections until her uterus explodes and she'll have a hysterectomy.

Like WTF would you decide that. Surely the most sane thing to do is stop having kids if it isn't safe for you or the child?

😂 that's exactly what I think

I have more than the typical number of children and I had them because I wanted a family, I love the various stages of development, I love seeing them grow as human beings - their likes and dislikes. I love babies, toddlers, teens - I love the very bones of them. I don’t get this feeling from her.

Like her though, I have a child that is autistic. I probably am also. I have a number of children with autism, have had ED and other difficulties. One thing I have learnt is that you need to be very present and engaged. Even then, I am getting things wrong. They don’t do much in the way of engaging with their children (that is left to the neighbours?), I am fearful that in the pursuit of engineering the perfect human in the future, they are forgetting about the now. If you cannot get the now right, heaven forbid what’s happens in the future!

Wow that article is really shocking. I was feeling uneasy about the whole thing and then the "bopping" bit sent me over the edge.

As much as they say it's not about racism it is fundamentally racist. There are African countries (such as Kenya) that are heavily westernised and influenced by Christianity. If pronatalism was just about creating new generations of humans that share these values then they should be celebrating places like Kenya but they're not. Funny that.

Also I don't understand why pronatalists think we're going to have this massive population of older people starving to death. Many people stay in better health for a lot longer in their lives and will, unfortunately, just have to keep working. My dad is 80 this year and still putting off retirement. Of course this isn't ideal but we are stuck between a rock and a hard place due to limited resources on the planet.

I thought it missed out key (related) points - population levels decreasing is a challenge because of our economic structures. For example, we’ve got a pension system designed around population size staying the same.

And, who are the people who benefit the most (literally) from population levels staying the same or growing? Multi-billionaires. So yes Elon is very fucking worried, worried that his enormous wealth won’t continue to be fed if the number of consumers keeps dropping.

I thought they were probably very smart people in some ways but have fallen into a trap of fixating on keeping things as they are. They also didn’t (in the article anyway) talk about the challenge of over-population and the climate crisis - is their position that more people = finding a fix for that?

My judgy pants really started heating up when they revealed that the two older kids have an iPad each, with a strap so they can carry them round their neck. Though I thought the whole ‘take away the things that make parenting hard’ idea was interesting.

1. Ageing populations are a problem.
2. This pair of abusive eugenicists are not the solution.

Her unusual "style" reminds me of the "perfect Aryan hausfrau breeder" beloved of Nazi ideology (I know, Godwins, but we are talking about eugenics)

They can be at pains to stress what they want but I think they are deliberately saying what they believe might be just about acceptable to some people and that article left me feeling there is more going on there. That's before we get to hitting a 2 year old in the face.

They both clearly have very deep seated issues and I feel for their kids, born and unborn.

It's a fascinating article, I didn't know this position existed, so it was an eye opening read.

For me the problem of an older generation with not enough young people to support them in the manner we have done generations past, isn't actually solved by doing what we have done for generations past, i e. have more children. The solution needs to be new. The fall in birth rates reflects how people want to live now, so solutions to how to look after the older generations needs to reflect the changes in those societies where this is taking place.

There are African countries (such as Kenya) that are heavily westernised and influenced by Christianity. If pronatalism was just about creating new generations of humans that share these values then they should be celebrating places like Kenya but they're not

They explicitly aren’t Christian. So they likely don’t feel like they have much in common with Kenyans (they don’t).

Absolutely.
I will admit to not knowing much about population levels but they don’t seem to particularly like children. iPad round his neck and hitting a 2 year old in the face ?
It reads like there’s no warmth towards their children, they’re just a baby making factory.

I think there are more than enough people in the world if we all just spread out a bit…

Yes ! Just kind of even things out a bit!
Not sure how we’d go about that though…@cuckyplunt

@DunkinBensDonuts he actually comes from a wealthy, privately educated background, I think she does too - the movement seems to have started amongst the wealthy tech culture in Silicon Valley.

He did not have a happy childhood but thinks his life was worth living anyway. So I suppose he is applying this mindset to his children.

He references a book, one I quite like, which basically advocates for parents to stop over parenting their kids. Although I couldn’t really follow it personally, I live in an overly competitive society

It's not legit because we (meaning humans) have zero idea what we're selecting for. We don't have a good definitions of intelligence or of the different kinds of intelligence. We have a very small understanding of how much is heritable and even less of which genes are involved. We don't know whether intelligence is the priority. Possibly it's courage? Or altruism? Or strength in adversity? (Define "strength"....) And so on and so forth ad infinitum.

Then, even setting all that aside and concentrating only on genetics, we not only know next to nothing about how intelligence or almost any other desirable trait is inherited, we therefore also know nothing about which traits it's linked to. To invent an example at random, if intelligence (however defined) depends on overexpression of enzyme XYZ, but the gene for that is near one involved in narrow birth canals, the two traits will be inherited together most of the time. It's a highly techie society and providing caesareans to birth all those geniuses is not a problem. Until it is. A solar storm takes out all the world's electronics, no woman can survive nonsurgical childbirth, and you just drove the human race to extinction.

Yes, purposely far out example. But we really >>>Do Not Know<<< how traits are interrelated. Pretending we can avoid the law of unintended consequences is a guarantee of disaster.

My personal thought is those that want lots of children should have lots of children. Those that don't should not and maybe they will balance out. I actually think the dynamics around population growth and peoples desire to have children are really complicated. When people have gone in with a grand master plan to "fix" the problem its gone horribly wrong - see communist Romania and communist China for 2 extremes. But I saw they like that whole efective altruism movement which is also tied to the movement that clever people (them) can really accurately predict the future and make these really high level decisions on where to put their money for "the greater good". It always seems to ignore the massive complexities in systems and is much less rational than it appears.

I think probably his own childhood is having a massive impact on how he parents. But they are both convinced that their parenting style is based on absolute rationality "this is how animals in the wild do it. We've researched." I think they convinced themselves that everything they do is for rational reasons based on their efficiency formula but are absolutely oblivious to the very obvious ways in which their human messiness is dictating that.
This is what whatisname warned about when he warned against making "reason a slave to emotion." There's none so irrational as those who are convinced they are completely rational.

Yes, purposely far out example. But we really >>>Do Not Know<<< how traits are interrelated. Pretending we can avoid the law of unintended consequences is a guarantee of disaster

Not really. I am sure they are just testing for low hanging fruit, because that is what is possible at the moment. I think it’s mostly the obvious genetic screening and iirc mental health disorders.

We have already decided we are a society believing in eugenics. If you could avoid having a child with Downs, wouldn’t you do this? Sure, nobody is REQUIRED to terminate, but most end up doing so as there is no benefit at all to this condition, and there are many other conditions like this that have no clear upside (unlike, say, sickle cell anemia).

As for intelligence, sure it is polygenic and hard to pin down, but if you could, it is correlated to just about every positive trait. We aren’t like, a table top character with 100 points to distribute among various characteristics.

Postive traits are linked to more positive traits; for example, attractive people are also more likely to be intelligent — and taller too. In short? Life’s not fair …

@DunkinBensDonuts "Postive traits are linked to more positive traits; for example, attractive people are also more likely to be intelligent — and taller too. In short? Life’s not fair …"

Really? You're clearly experiencing a different version of humans than I am. Kelly Loeffler? Tall, slim, blonde, beautiful. (Actually, I have no idea what her real hair colour is.) Corrupt as a dump and, as far as I can see from my distance, dumb as a post. John Thune? Tall, not dark, handsome. Good at remaining in US Senate. Dumb as a doorknob. etc etc etc

I grew up, for reasons not relevant to this discussion, around a lot of big (5+ children) families. Some (most) were great and lovely to spend time with. A few weren't; they were weird, the parents were either burnt out or checked out or both and the children were not having their needs met. They were the ones where the parents weren't having children because they liked children but because there was some ideology driving it.

I'd put this family into the second camp myself. If you like kids and want to have lots, great (IMO). If you think you ought to have lots of kids, despite not really liking them, I would suggest you don't.

I don't think Downs is the same. Fortunately today there are young adults with Downs syndrome who are reasonably healthy (thanks to modern medical advances) and lead happy lives. But still, some babies with Downs are born with severe, very life limiting conditions and other disabilities. And many adults with Down's syndrome will never be able to live independently, and while that is fine while their parents are alive, its a huge worry for parents about who will look after them once they die. Or they feel guilt/worry over the fact that other siblings will be the one to then shoulder the burden out of love.
I chose not to have screening for Downs when I was pregnant because I already knew that I wouldn't choose to abort either way (and because the chances of a false positive in the initial tests were technically higher than the chances of a true positive so why risk additional stress). But I don't think its fair to imply that parents that do, do so because they are concerned with their genetic legacy or some cost-benefit analysis of genetic fitness. Its a very difficult decision about the welfare of the potential child and the rest of the family in the near future.
And yes, like all screenings it could introduce a slippery slope but that's why drawing clear lines/boundaries is important. I wwould draw the line well before genetic screening for looks or intelligence.

Incidentally, as someone who suffered absolutely awful depression in the past, if I could wave a wand and ensure that none of my children could inherit it I would. If I could chose to eradicate it from the human gene pool I wouldn't because, as another post said, unintended consequences. Not that I necessarily follow the "tortured genius" cliche that mental illness is sometimes linked to brilliance/intelligence. But we don't know what benefits different personality traits had in the past or might have in the future. If you want to be incredibly clinical then the more "variety" in the human condition the better from a future proofing perspective.

And I know that makes me selfish/hypocritical because I would, hypothetically, spare my own children suffering if I could while still condemning other people to. But that's also why humans shouldn't have the power to decide this stuff. We are inherently morally flawed.

Although... Bad News for the Highly Intelligent | Scientific American Also, unrelated to this article, apparently the higher IQ you are the messier and generally less bothered about genes. Which is fine if its confined to a few scatty professors and doctors with mouldy cups in their office. Do we really want everyone to be mucky gits like them in the future world? It might backfire.