fertility issues

[lumberjim]

so now you're saying that overpopulation IS a result of technology....at least indirectly?

[FileNotFound]

No I'm saying that it's a result of care bear mentality.


It could happen without technology just as well.

Imagine a successful tribe giving a fraction of its food to tribe that sucks. The sucky tribe breeds like rabbits because they sit on their ass all day expecting food from the other tribe. The successful tribe does not have overpopulation nor technology. The unsuccessful tribe on the other hand has overpopulation because it cannot support itself thanks to breeding like rabbits and becoming dependant on the successful tribe...

Technology doesn't have to be involved at all.


We have condoms and a sense of responsiblity to control population. Over population is a problem were those things do not exist. Yet food exists thanks to care bears.

[lumberjim]

gotcha.....

so, who wants to go care bear hunting?

[FileNotFound]

I want to start with that guy who does those:

"For as little as $1 a day you could feed this girl and give her a nice <christian> education."

Yeah? Can you go tie her and her mothers and sisters tube for $2 a day? If so I'd be tripping over myself to get to the pone.

[kerosene]

This is sort of going back to that "The wrong people are breeding" conversation we have danced around in other threads. Interesting topic.

Does anyone know anything about these charity organizations ($2.00 a day to feed this little girl ones)? My guess would be that most of these end up collecting a lot more money than they end up giving to the starving children. I don't think they are altruistic enough to really effective care bears. Or, it could just be my own cynicism causing me to question that.

[FileNotFound]

Well you see...funds like the "Christian Foundation" are really nasty. They claim that 90% go to "serving the children" of course of that like 70% goes to building churches and funding religion...which by the way doesn't approve of birht control...cause god has a plan for every sperm.

[kerosene]

I suppose we could take comfort in the fact that churches aren't edible.

[juju]

Originally posted by lumberjim
when I say nature, juju, i mean what would happen naturally if a human did not intercede using science or medicine.

Science and medicine are nothing but man (who is a part of nature) getting a further understanding of the world around him. How can you imply that this is bad?

I argue for the following points:

• man is a part of nature
• science, medicine, and technology are a part of nature
• everything is natural, therefore rendering the word meaningless.

Now, it <i>might</i> be true that we are fucking up the world. I would argue that we are <i>changing</i> it, and that is not the same thing. In fact, the world has gone through massive changes many, many times in the past. If you look at the history of the Earth, change is actually a constant. We're not fucking it up, we're changing it. Species will adapt to the changes we have made. Life will go on. Nothing we have done goes against the rules of natural selection.

(edit: of course, we can't violate the rules of natural selection because they're not actually rules, but selective forces. Selective forces that our so-called "unnatural" actions are helping to create.)

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by hot_pastrami

2) "They could have adopted." Adopting is great if you want a kid to raise. But if you want YOUR kid, and the survival of the genes, medicine's answer is better.

This is the only part I had a problem with.

But if you want YOUR kid, and the survival of the genes, medicine's answer is better.
These genes the same ones that say you can't reproduce without benefit of medicine? Why would you want to pass on those genes? That's insane.

Then YOUR child that you spent $40,000 to have and god knows how much to raise can have infertility problems too, and have to pay to have kids, then those genes go to their kids, ad infinitem?

I really have to disagree on that point, HP.


I understand jim's point about "natural", meaning, if it's in the genetics of the couple in question not to be able to conceive together, then, in a science free world, those people don't have kids and that defective gene dies with them. Natural Selection.

My daughter has Hemoglobin-C that she got from her father (who wasn't aware there was a problem, despite testing). This has no health detriment other than that she needs to be careful who she breeds with, because if he even has a recessive Sickle-cell type trait, their children WILL have Sickle-cell. Medicine tells us that. So science is good, in that we have warning, and there are tests that can be done. In a science free world, she would mate with whoever and it's a crap shoot whether her children have sicklecell or are healthy. If they die off, the genetics die with them. Natural Selection.

[lumberjim]

Originally posted by OnyxCougar




Then YOUR child that you spent $40,000 to have and god knows how much to raise can have infertility problems too, and have to pay to have kids, then those genes go to their kids, ad infinitem?

do you think the same applies to eyeglass wearers? if the people that have to wear glasses didn't wear them, they would probably have fallen into a ditch and been killed at a young age. they wouldn't have lived long enough to reproduce, and therefore, the bad eyesight gene would die with them.

this lends itself more toward juju's argument. it is natural for people to learn to invent things that prolong our lives and overcome natural disadvantages. has been from the beginning......ex....fire, tools, weapons, animal domestication, farming.....

this could very easily turn into a deep philosophical discussion about man's effect on darwinism, complete with circular lines of thought that keep leading back to the fact that "unnatural" is an oxymoron. As juju said in the earlier attached thread, everything on earth is,, by definition, natural....it all comes from the earth.....whether it occurs with no help from us, or it occurs as a direct result of the imaginings of our oversized brains......like the computer you're looking at.

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by lumberjim
i am as unsuperstitious as they come.....i don't believe in "GOD" in a conventional sense......i do, however beleive that nature should not be trifled with lightly.

"It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature!!!" *cue thunder clap*

Sorry, couldn't resist...

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by lumberjim
do you think the same applies to eyeglass wearers? if the people that have to wear glasses didn't wear them, they would probably have fallen into a ditch and been killed at a young age. they wouldn't have lived long enough to reproduce, and therefore, the bad eyesight gene would die with them.

In a world with no science, the people with poor eyesight were (I presume) required to do other things in the hunter/gatherer society. In that world, there were no cars to drive, no books to read, no television to watch from afar. So speaking in that context, yes, the same applies to eyeglass wearers. Although I'd venture to say, if your eyesight is so bad you'd fall and kill yourself in a ditch, it IS natural selection, and probably for the best. A smart bllind person in those days would figure out how to use a stick for a cane (assuming he wasn't left to die as an infant by it's parents, a la Jean M. Auel).

To clarify, I don't think science is bad. I think we can do alot of good things with it. But I *don't* think we should be playing around with genetics as far as cloning and making babies on demand. I beleive that if a couple cannot have a child without serious medical intervention, then they should adopt. Just because we CAN do a thing doesn't mean we SHOULD do a thing.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally posted by OnyxCougar
These genes the same ones that say you can't reproduce without benefit of medicine? Why would you want to pass on those genes? That's insane.

There are many, many factors that can prevent a couple from having children which aren't passed on genetically (sterilization from some disease, smoking too much weed, seeing Rosie O'Donnell nude, radiation exposure)... your argument only applies to a minority of all cases. Moreover, your later comment, if properly applied, sort of nulls your argument anyway:

Originally posted by OnyxCougar
A smart bllind person in those days would figure out how to use a stick for a cane (assuming he wasn't left to die as an infant by it's parents, a la Jean M. Auel).

Well, a smart infertile person in these days will figure out how to seek medical help in order to procreate. How is that different? Is it because they need help from others to accomplish it? Well, who found the stick for this blind dude, or trained his seeing-eye dog? A decade or so from now, we'll probably have fully artifical eyes that can be implanted in the blind to restore their vision, they have semi-working prototypes now. Will THOSE be too "unnatural," and you'll argue that the blind should remain that way? If the technology exists to make a person more whole, and their life more fullfilling, I say Hell Yeah. That is EXACTLY the point of technology.

It seems to me that humans (and all living things, really) are built to procreate, and all other functions are secondary. Of course human intelligence has allowed us to find joy in many things besides making babies, but that still seems to be the primary goal our bodies are designed to acheive. Why else would sex be so pleasurable? Why would people go to the effort and expense of procreating if it wasn't a hard-wired behavior? One could easily argue that of all of the things a person could lose, the complete loss of the ability to reproduce would be among the most profoundly negative. So why not fix it when we can?

[juju]

It's also important to remember that natural selection is NOT a moral system. It's just what happens. If something is selected for or against, it's not "good" or "bad". It just is. The goodness or badness is decided by you and me.

[dar512]

LumberJim, I think you're thinking with your guts and not your head. This subject has a big ewww factor for you and so you think it's wrong.

I don't think people should have more kids than they can afford. But people who can afford the heroic measures are not going to have trouble affording to raise a kid or a whole litter. It's terrifically expensive to do even once and the success rate means you likely have to do it a bunch of times (~25% IIRC).

My wife and I didn't have to go through 'in vitro', but did need help. I've got two wonderful girls out of the deal and wouldn't give them up for the world.

In the end it all comes down to "does an action leave the world in a better or worse place?" If your friends want and can afford kids, -- and can afford the medical stuff, I can't see why it would bother you at all.

If the real issue, as Jinx hinted, is that the problem really has to do with sharing a vacation, that's a whole other thing. I can understand that you guys would be disappointed, but if you've had an easy time conceiving your kids, you have no idea how big an issue it can become when you want kids and are worried that you can't have them. Everything revolves around the issue until it is resolved.

On the other hand, are they sticking you with the bill for the cabin? That would not be cool.