the child is born to produce and promote the growth of technology. — schopenhauer1
This is the least persuasive of reasons for reproduction that you have come up with. In our long history of mindless reproducing, very very few children have produced any growth in technology. For most of our history (as the species we have been for several hundred thousand years--and before that, millions of years) children duplicated the existing technology--knapping pieces of rock into tools, cooking birch bark to get a strong pitch adhesive, food preparation, etc. We know they duplicated technology (rather than innovating) because the styles of knapping rock change very slowly.
Reproduction is the essence of life: the first life forms (simple one celled animals) reproduced. Life has been doing that for billions of years--not because it is in favor of reproduction. Life has no choice in the matter. It is designed from the molecular level and up (maybe the atomic level and up? Sub atomically and up?) to reproduce. — Bitter Crank
The same logic can apply all the way down to the reduction ladder. Natural selection is not the real reason things happen, the selfish gene is. Oh, no, it's not the gene, it's the molecule. No, it's the atom. Maybe it's the second law... all the way into the abyss! — Πετροκότσυφας
No, there's no "need" to reduce something to something else. — Πετροκότσυφας
And the fact, if it is a fact, that you can't have happiness without technology, does not mean that happiness is the same as technology. — Πετροκότσυφας
And yes, you're not saying we are born to produce technology, you're saying we use technology to reproduce to use technology to reproduce, to infinity. — Πετροκότσυφας
those claiming to have kids intentionally, in order so that a new human can experience happiness, but are really doing it to advance technology. — schopenhauer1
But then, were you ever positing that parents "individually apart from society" imagined that their children would find happiness and nice technology? — Bitter Crank
The rational "parent" brings new children into the world so that — schopenhauer1
I agree with a lot of your down-beat points. People who are consciously and deliberately upward mobile start planning their child's glorious career before ovulation. They already have the money (or they have a plan) to thrust this baby into the upper class if at all possible and they pursue it from the get go. Pregnant mama eats well, listens to Mozart, all that. Then attention showered on the baby, and early childhood education (way before first grade), private schools, tutoring, dancing lessons or whatever the fuck, push, push, push. If all goes well, these great expectations pan out pretty well, on a local basis, anyway. — Bitter Crank
Thanks for recommendations. They do fit the theme it seems. Fiction can often paint the picture, that a monograph can't quite get at.The book and series I suggested won't change your mind -- I think you will find Kunstler's approach affirming. His non-fiction books, Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation and The Long Emergency (among others) develops ideas about the logic of STUFF that you expressed. Mostly I suggested the books because they are great post apocalypse fiction and are far, far more pleasant than Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD which made me very uncomfortable. I watched the first few minutes of the movie The Road and decided it was going to supply too many intolerably vivid images of ghastliness. CLICK! — Bitter Crank
We and pack rats seem to have a similar urge. — Bitter Crank
Are you familiar with Thorsten Veblen? He published his Theory of the Leisure Class in 1899. It is a slim volume. One of the themes in the book is about "conspicuous consumption". People consume in order to display their excess capacity. His classic example are fields of grass upon which no sheep are allowed to graze, yet the grass is short. "Lawns" are a demonstration that one can afford to grow grass for appearance and pay someone to cut it short. It's a totally non-productive pasture. The manicured pasture surrounding stately homes was quickly copied by the middle class (even the working class) who propagated much-fussed-over small pieces of pasturage upon which no cow will ever graze. — Bitter Crank
Fiction can often paint the picture, that a monograph can't quite get at. — schopenhauer1
Try to make an argument against the fact that the most valuable people are the technology originators? — schopenhauer1
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