Birth

Questions of Human Birth and Reproduction

My crude exploration and thoughts on perhaps one of the more important decisions we will make within our lives.

Question

Why do we have children?

 

 

What are the purposes of having children? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can’t we as a society (or at least a portion of society) move beyond this somewhat primitive biological urge as the impetus for having children to something that seems more harmonious?

 

 

 

 

 

What is the optimal human population level?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do I see as the issues, problems, or areas for improvement in the status quo?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who amongst in us in society should have children?

 

 

 

 

Should the raising of children be specialized or generalized?  That is, should there be a small number of people who bear and raise children, or should it be spread more generally?

 

 

 

 

When should we have children in life, and should it be natural or technologically assisted?

 

 

 

How would such a system of reform of human reproduction ever be implemented?

 

 

What the hell am I even talking about any more?

 

Posit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part of it is a biological urge (for sex, and perhaps more for women, the biological urge to nuture, which is referenced in Brave New World in the birth surrogate procedure, or whatever it is called).

 

To meet/fulfill our biological urges.

For the continuation of the human race, our societies, and our communities.

For the creation of new kin (that is, those more likely to think like you, to support you, to amuse you).

To increase the size of ones group.  This can be to sustain or grow the group, and could simply for growth’s sake.  It could also be viewed as a military contest in which group size is a proxy for power/capability, and so that if the another group has one million people, your group needs to also have a million people so that you can reasonably not be overrun by them upon their whim.

For the entertainment of the parents and community, to bring their youthful energy to the community, to provide purpose and activity to the parents (and to the broader community).  

Because you want them to carry on your spirit, soul, purpose, mission, or beliefs.  Because the parents and community believe what they are doing is good and should therefore be perpetuated.

For the life of the child, as a gift to them, that they may have a good life.

For god, for the gods, for nature, for the wonder and mystery.

 

I guess I’m thinking something of the Malthus, that unwanted pregnancies bring misery (suffereing, wickedness, I can’t remember the exact word he uses), and that it does seem sometimes that bringing more children into a situation where they can not be provided for or have the chance for a good life only brings suffering to the child.  Perhaps though life’s messiness is essential, and too much rationality is opposite to life.  I do believe in diversity and tradition, and therefore that not all should do everything the same way, and that there should be at least a part of our society that maintains tradition as a working link to the proven ways of the past.

I don’t think there is an answer to that.  I once asked Charles Mann that at an event, and what I understood from his answer was that it was too fraught of a question for people to try to answer directly (his direct example was that it involved too much subjective judgement that would border on something like racism, and that the answer would seem a lot like there should be less brown and black people and more white people).  As I have written on this topic before, I believe the world can support many ranges of human population numbers, and that there isn’t necessarily an inherent good or bad to any of them, but that each will necessitate differing styles of life (for example, a higher human population level necessitates higher population densities and likely less individual autonomy).

 

It seems that many have children without giving it much thought, because it what people do, and what they see others doing.  To me, it is one of the larger decisions one makes in life, and should be treated accordingly (and not equivalent to the amount of weight as to what type of car we should buy).  

I cynically view most of us as breeder reactors for the system.  When the system is able to have ex-utero gestation (think the hatchery centers in Brave New World) it will no longer need to rely on parents having children to replenish the system, but for now it does.  We are fed cues and incentivized to have children because that is what the system needs.  Having children for the benefit of the system may be good for the system, but not so beneficial to the life of the child.  

The parents and the community seemingly have little say in how a child is raised, and instead the child is turned over to the system to raised with the system’s values.  I do not see that as parenting in any meaningful sense, but rather as one of the more deplorable forms of vassaldom in which you are so abject that you would be willing to be bear children into a condition of subservience.    

I do not think it is fair for a child to have to bear the burdens and beliefs of their parents and community, but I also do think it is fair to the child not to have been born on whim, or carelessly, or frivolously (though perhaps that is better, is more natural, and embraces less of a controlling nature, and celebrates the mystery and uncertainty of life, but still to me it seems irresponsible to the life of the child).

I would think that we would seek to replicate the best, but it seems like that might be good in theory, but harder in practice.  For example, how do we determine “the best”?  I don’t think we have such divine knowledge as to be able to do that, and I think we can never understand fully who or what is valuable, so that our human perception may fail us.  It also seems to be un-diverse, in that our “best” will fall into a set pattern to the exclusion of all else.

 

On first impression, it would seem the answer should be a mix of both.  In some ways you want the specialization (people who have seen how to do things because they have done it many times before), but also the diversity and wisdom of crowds (people who will try new things out, who have outside perspective, who will intentionally or unintentionally raise their children in different ways).

 

I think this will and should vary depending on the parents and community.  There are likely some benefits to having birth younger and older, and to being closer to a more natural birth process and also to a more technologically supported birth process.  It would probably be helpful at a social level to have some balance and diversity amongst these.

 

One could try to do it by force, by subterfuge, or by means of bio-pharmaceutical methods, but it would seem to be best to do it by persuasion and by providing the bulk of one’s support to those who follow the system.  

 

I have no idea.  🙂  The questions of birth are the questions and life brought to a point, and involve the same large unanswerable questions such as the purpose and meaning of existence, and whether to be or not to be.  It does occur to me that the whole restriction and reduction of birth movement (some call it anti-natalism) is duping others into not having children so that their group can instead or for the benefit of their group.  Perhaps, and perhaps we are always being duped.  Perhaps there is no good without evil, and that therefore diversity and difference is always needed.  There seems to be a need for more rationality and control of the human reproduction method, while still allowing for uncontrolled and irrational methods of human reproduction (that is, not letting human arrogance of its omniscience to  completely supersede an allowance for mystery, randomness, nature, God, gods, and forces beyond human comprehension and control).  I don’t want to have to pit our children against one another in a death match because there aren’t resources enough for all.

 

 

 

 

Proposal

I think ultimately we want to be able to provide a good life for a child, and to further a vision of the good for the future.  

I don’t want to give up on the mystery of life and nature, nor succumb to the arrogance of omniscience.  I do however want to avoid pointless, foreseeable suffering, and work to support the better rather than worse elements of ourselves.

I think our earth can support (with reasonable prudence) wide range of population levels, but do not think that we should wantonly and carelessly become mass replicating locusts who despoil and then perish.

I would like there to be more of a recognition that human reproduction and birth is a choice, and that is not something that is just done (though it can be, and I think that can be good too, it doesn’t have to be that way, and that there are perhaps advantages to choice and decision on birth).  This choice of life or no life is a choice that biologically we are perhaps forced to make too soon, and that it perhaps in some ways might be better to make when we have more life wisdom (though perhaps in other ways there is good in impulse and emotion rather than over rationality).

One critique I have with utilitarianism is that some adherents seem to presuppose all future lives will be good, and therefore that more is better.  If however, future life is in a condition of suffering, than more life might be considered worse.  To me, this consideration of the potential for future suffering needs to be taken into account as well.

Perhaps we should have birth be more based on preconditions being met rather than just being able to do so.  For example, perhaps we should have to demonstrate our morality, or ability to provide for the child until they reach some level of maturity and age where they might be expected to fend for themself, and that we have space for them and general social acceptance for adding them amongst us (this assumes that there are purposes and values to the community itself, and that the community believes itself to be generally working toward a good).  I think we should also have a plan or vision of why and how we seek to raise and are raising our children.

I would like to support good lives, and I do think that it necessarily follows that I have biological children of my own to do so (that is, I think I can meaningfully  support raising good children in a limited support role).

In practice this happens some already in that we generally give jobs to and support those we think are good, and therefore they are (perhaps) more capable of having children.  I don’t know how a mechanism for such a system would work, other than a general idea of supporting the good, and that the more support and encouragement one has to have children the more likely they may be to do so.

I believe people must have some element of choice/free will and freedom of religion/belief/action.  We should bear a child for their individual good, and then the general good, and not primarily for the good of the system.  

Perhaps the mechanism to implement such a birthing system is through communities, and community choice mechanisms, and the communities making commitments and agreements to support the child as a pre-condition to its birth.  I think we should have more diverse, self-reliant and self-sustaining communities, and that perhaps our birth choices should reflect more of these life choices rather than be as automatons or implements of the system’s choices.  I don’t want to perpetuate a cycle of bad.

Let’s (generally) make a choice on whether or not to bear children, for what purpose in what way.  Let’s make (reasonably) sure we can support that child and raise them along the path that we see fit.  Let’s raise the child for their own good and the general good, and not for the good of the system or of the evil.  Let’s work to foster the notion that life is precious and beautiful, and not miserable, capricious, and senseless.  Let’s be courageous and brave believers in our lives, and not be cowed nihilist machines.

The basis seems to start well before birth, with values, beliefs, community, production, security, and morals, and perhaps it is those we should seek for the rebirth of ourselves (the finding of our own values rather than just unquestioned acceptance of what came before) before we seek a birth for another.