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Comment by guard-of-terra | Hacker News Reader

"your belief that I should just kill myself right now"

My belief is that you don't have do anything, because it doesn't matter anymore. Might as well stay technically alive.

"For a few thousand years now we are in the process of out-growing our original substrate"

We're still not there. If we had uterine replicators, the problem we're discussing would be a non-issue.

But, we don't. So it's a huge issue. We have to stay alive, and we're all dead in less than 100 years. Therefore, we have to reproduce. Surely we also have other goals, but reproduction is a sanity check on those.

Maybe we can tear this chain apart one day, but we didn't yet.

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> If we had uterine replicators, the problem we're discussing would be a non-issue. But, we don't. So it's a huge issue. We have to stay alive, and we're all dead in less than 100 years

How can you look at this world and come to the conclusion that it's essential - and indeed the sole reason for being here - for everyone to spawn offspring? Is there an underpopulation problem I'm not aware of? Is the human race in danger of dying out?

> My belief is that you don't have do anything, because it doesn't matter anymore. Might as well stay technically alive.

In the light of your answer above I can't square this logically. You're asserting that my life would suddenly become meaningful again if we had "uterine replicators"?

"Is there an underpopulation problem I'm not aware of?"

Actually there is. A lot of developed societies face shrinking population. And the population of young people capable of spawning offspring will decrease much faster.

And I'm not sure that undeveloped societies are capable of both "carrying the flag" and not falling into the same trap. They don't have a good record if you ask me.

"You're asserting that my life would suddenly become meaningful again if we had "uterine replicators"?"

Yes, because now you (or I) have choice to procreate. You may for some reason refuse to do it, but you can. Now, when you no longer have this choice, you're a "human minus procreation" which is less than "human".

> Yes, because now you (or I) have choice to procreate.

This is bizarre, because we're talking about the same mind, doing the same things for society (or not) - it's just that in one case testicles have a function and in the other they don't. So depending on the overall state of gonads in our civilization I'm worthless now - but if we didn't need gonads, my mind would suddenly start having a value?

That is truly and epically twisted.

> Now, when you no longer have this choice, you're a "human minus procreation" which is less than "human".

Well, to be labeled subhuman by you in this context feels almost like a compliment.

I'm not saying that you're worthless. I'm just not sure you're alive by strict standards. I'm not sure I will be - in fifteen years.

So now you think that I've "labeled" 1000 - 1 to be less than 1000? So much for math.

Even without passing on your own genes directly, you can:

1) help make sure those copies of your genes in others survive (help out relatives who did reproduce) - evolutionarily, this is equivalent to reproducing, if slightly attenuated;

and 2) have a lasting memetic impact.

And that's if you're focused only on the long term, which you seem to be - there's plenty more shorter term reasons to be alive.

Just to chase down this train of thought a little more: there are lots of ways to benefit your clan (and therefore some of your genes) without reproducing. Look at bees and termites, where the vast majority of them never reproduce, yet the queen is driven to produce them because they help the colony survive. That's selection too.

Or how about a gene that drives non-reproductive young males to be restless, jump on a horse and ride over the horizon on a whim. Sometimes they come back, say "There's buffalo over there!" and the whole tribe benefits. That's selected for too.

Sad thing is, I don't have a clan. I don't have a beehive, a community. So it seems that the only way for me to "keep the money in the bank" is reproduce physically.

That's why nuclear family is called nuclear. And today we often have "subnuclear" people without any strong bonds.

If I had a kind of clan, the situatiou would be different.

So if we take as given that you're going to be focused on the evolutionary component, if you can no longer reproduce then walk up your family tree until you find your closest relative with progeny.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection#Hamilton.27s_rule

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_fitness

I'm not a walking set of genes. I'm a human being.

What if I don't feel that my "closest relative with progeny" is in any way related to me?

I don't care about inclusive fitness. Let the nature do that trick. I care about reproducing something resembling of myself. If my nearest genetic relatives don't resemble myself in any way, I don't care if they reproduce.

"I'm not a walking set of genes. I'm a human being."

Certainly. But then I'd say that a huge portion of what makes you you is not genetic at all, and like I said much earlier you can always pass on memes.

I can't reliably pass on memes because I don't have a clan. I'm a lone nation of one (well, two, anyway), and this nation is going to disappear once we die.

I can give memes to other unrelated people but I don't know whether they use those for good.

You don't know that your children will "use those for good" either. Focus on spreading memes that promote doing good, however you define "doing good".

I don't think that promoting doing good works. It seems that bad things are much easier to promote these days. I don't believe in it anymore.

Children are safe bet in that regards (if you failed - means you just passed your failureness to them, good)

"It seems that bad things are much easier to promote these days."

I don't see why that doesn't mean you should work harder at it. Maybe the marginal benefit is minimal, but if the marginal benefit of everything else is zero then it might still be the best option.

It's humiliating trying to walk thru the wall by fruitlees effort.

You have a culture that produced you. Maybe we can craft a cultural-selection story.

I don't happen to particularily like that culture. It's toxic for most part. There are some nice touches here and there, but I can't tie myself to it fully.

Come on now. There's the whole 'civilization' thing, and hospitals, and Bach, and Led Zeppelin, and eating with a fork... you can go on and on. Culture is more than politics.

The culture will go without me badly enough. I don't feel that I contribute to it in a meaningful way, even less that I had any say on how things were.

You're going to have a disasterous time if you discover you are infertile.

You might want to develop a different ideology to help you cope in that event.

The CD suggests that male fertility problems are not rare.

> Many couples struggle with infertility and seek help to become pregnant; however, it is often thought of as only a women’s condition. A CDC study analyzed data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and found that 7.5% of all sexually experienced men younger than age 45 reported seeing a fertility doctor during their lifetime—this equals 3.3–4.7 million men. Of men who sought help, 18% were diagnosed with a male-related infertility problem, including sperm or semen problems (14%) and varicocele (6%).

http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/infertility/#a

Most of that is accurate, but careful you don't drift into group selection, which (as I understand it) isn't well supported by the available evidence. To be selected for, a trait needs to differentially increase the likelihood that genes for that trait are passed on, so there needs to be a sufficiently close relationship that the person being benefited is likely to share the gene responsible for the help (or greater effectiveness of the help, or...). Of course, there is another leap from "X causes a trait to be selected for" to "we should individually be valuing X", but guard-of-terra seems to be thinking in those terms to begin with (and others have questioned that point).

Well, other than bees and termites I guess? What is that but group selection.

Due to inbreeding, termites are more closely related to their siblings than to their children. You can approximate it as group selection, but it's not a separate thing that's going on - it can be reduced to selection on individual genes.

>We have to stay alive, and we're all dead in less than 100 years. Therefore, we have to reproduce. Surely we also have other goals, but reproduction is a sanity check on those.

You're discounting the value of information that people can leave, separate to their DNA chain. A great many scientists, artists, philosophers, etc. bore no children. They still expressed a change in the behaviors, ideas, and lives of a great many people after them.

Actually, one might argue they are, by and large, more effective at continuity of their own goals. How many children have you seen carry on the worldviews and goals of their parents? Even throughout history?

Yes, we need SOMEONE to reproduce or there won't be anyone to read the damned work. But, the work is still there, unto itself, after it's author has passed away.

tl;dr: The production of children is not the only way affect the Universe after your death as a human.

I personally do not trust that kind of "SOMEONE" we have that they'll produce and nourish the offspring capable of "carrying the banner".

And I can't associate with them and their offspring.

That's a valid pursuit, and I think it noble of you. Your associations are your own, and I don't intend to suggest they be any particular way at all.

Still, your point doesn't take away from those non-SOMEONE's that do not bear children, and the net impact they have left on humanity and the Universe. I can't believe that Leonardo DaVinci, Michelangelo, and so many other contributors to the works of humanity that had no children were "lives wasted" for their lack of reproduction.

Udo said this:

> But I highly doubt that you really believe this, because you're here, on HN, thinking about and debating matters that are far removed from the static archaic society whose values you ostensibly subscribe to.

You didn't reply to it initially; I was hoping to see your thoughts on that point.

No, I don't subscribe to the values of a "static archaic society". I think those values are self-defeating bullshit.

But I think we haven't got a new stable set of values either. We're literally doing the same thing to demographics as we do with oil - eating away future generations' prospects. But the same people who shun oil overusage and pollution praise demographic "overmining" and "waste".

However I really believe that I would feel dead when I strike 50 without descendants. And that's a pretty likely outcome.

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