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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28496 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 2024

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There's no reason we can't have both, with people having children the old-fashioned way and then vat grown children to supplement the TFR to above replacement. You could even put them up for adoption, and while the demand for such isn't infinite, a good number of them would find their way into decent homes.

I mean, we can already subsidize local fertility by importing migrants from areas with higher fertility. I don't think that replacement is a good thing. You're system would prevent that replacement and instead replace some amount of local family raised humans with institutionally raised humans. They will be more alien to me than foreign born humans, in so far as at least foreign born humans have a family.

There's no reason we can't have both, with people having children the old-fashioned way and then vat grown children to supplement the TFR to above replacement.

Having both is irrelevant. If the system gets off the ground you'll radically disrupt society to the point that it is unrecognizable. The lab grown kids will either be radically more effective than normal kids, in which case they will replace them. Or they'll be less effective than normal kids and fill the same role as replacing locals with immigrants, except instead of immigrants (who at least have the normal human background of being raised in a family are even more alien) you'll have the lower local caste replaced by clones with all the bizzare effects that would have. Bad outcomes either way.

Still, I don't see this system as being worse than the alternative, and probably on par in terms of outcomes with situations like millions of children who are/were punted over to boarding schools for most of their lives and having disinterested parents. They do alright. The biggest issue with most orphans is the genes they've inherited, and we can fix that.

How is this system better than total collapse? What does high technology offer that could possibly be worth replacing the family unit?

What does high technology offer that could possibly be worth replacing the family unit?

Do you have all day?

Honestly, this is not something I can expect someone who asks this kind of question to understand by being explained, not any more than you could explain to me why intelligent people adopt Christianity as adults in the year 2024. When you see the world not as an ineffable force of nature to cope with and accept, but as a puzzle to mold into the optimal shape while attempting to keep as much of the original shape as you want, it is plainly obvious that such a system is, in fact, better than total collapse.

I do not like the "original ecosystem we evolved for", we could do better by changing both the ecosystem and the pressures by which we evolve to match it.

Do you have all day?

I have time. This is an asynchronous forum.

not any more than you could explain to me why intelligent people adopt Christianity as adults in the year 2024.

That sounds like a pretty interesting conversation to me, to be honest. We would disagree but we could still communicate I think.

I feel like that runs contrary to the purpose of this forum. Communication and argument across perspectives is what makes it interesting to be here.

When you see the world not as an ineffable force of nature to cope with and accept, but as a puzzle to mold into the optimal shape while attempting to keep as much of the original shape as you want, it is plainly obvious that such a system is, in fact, better than total collapse.

For most of my life I had that standard nerd perspective that the world was improved by technology. It's only been experience that has lead me to question the upside of technology. Its only been experience that has lead me to the more conservative position that modernity is not so great.

I have nothing against attempting to manage nature as "a puzzle to mold into the optimal shape while attempting to keep as much of the original shape as you want" but in my experience that isn't what civilization has done. It has not made something optimal. There are some good things about advanced tech. Medicine maybe, and certainly space flight - the hope of creating extraterrestrial colonies still appeals to me deeply - but beyond that, is life for the individual improving due to technology?

I'm not a luddite. Technology is great. But if it is incompatible with human flourishing, I don't think I see the point. Replacing the standard system of humans being raised by parents seems to empower the technological system too much. Religion is, itself, a form of technology. If we have outrun our ability for our social technology to maintain a healthy social system due to rampant material technological growth, than perhaps we need a reset.

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