You know, the winning argument is the email I sent you yesterday.
This is a terrible reason to have kids. True, they'll be like you to an extent. I'm glad your self esteem is so strong. But they're not only going to inherit your favorite parts of yourself.
All your own FLAWS are equally likely to be amplified in your children.
>This doesn’t boost the similarity between normal people and their children; no matter what the parent-child correlation is, parents at the 50th percentile typically have children at the 50th percentile.
This is confused thinking. The similarity effect (distance in z-score) will be stronger for those in the middle, not weaker.
Hanania wrote in his recent Substack post that it is a lot more efficient to have a lasting impact through media than to have kids. I think I disagree, making more people like oneself that way feels a lot more ephemeral
To what extent does this argument explain lower incentives to have kids, relative to the past?
If we take Robin Hanson's view on the world becoming increasingly monocultural — with a single global culture there's less to gain from increasing the size of your own cultural island. And arguably more incentive to instead invest into incrementally moving the global culture towards your target...
"But if you’re a lonely misfit, oddball, freak, or weirdo, then find a like-minded spouse and make new life together. Let the normals laugh at you. You’ll have each other."
Isn't that the whole point of 'natural selection'; to get rid of 'misfits, freaks, weirdos' (however you define those) by making it as hard as possible to find a spouse?
"I’m speaking at Western Carolina University on Friday at 2:30 in the Forsyth Auditorium. If you’re there, please introduce yourself. 🙂"
(don't miss this chance to find other lonely, misfit, oddball freaks and weirdos there)
I suppose a good qualifier is to find a breeding partner that is as similar to you as possible to optimize.
I'm 2 for 3. I admit that for the "successful" 2, I did use a different, more-similar mother.
#1 also fell foul of a birth defect. The other 2 inherited NONE of my flaws, not that I have any in the first place ...
You know, the winning argument is the email I sent you yesterday.
This is a terrible reason to have kids. True, they'll be like you to an extent. I'm glad your self esteem is so strong. But they're not only going to inherit your favorite parts of yourself.
All your own FLAWS are equally likely to be amplified in your children.
My husband and I are bookworms. Our kids are all total bookworms as well…
>This doesn’t boost the similarity between normal people and their children; no matter what the parent-child correlation is, parents at the 50th percentile typically have children at the 50th percentile.
This is confused thinking. The similarity effect (distance in z-score) will be stronger for those in the middle, not weaker.
Regression with centiles is not the correct way of doing things, it's a nonlinear transformation.
Hanania wrote in his recent Substack post that it is a lot more efficient to have a lasting impact through media than to have kids. I think I disagree, making more people like oneself that way feels a lot more ephemeral
To what extent does this argument explain lower incentives to have kids, relative to the past?
If we take Robin Hanson's view on the world becoming increasingly monocultural — with a single global culture there's less to gain from increasing the size of your own cultural island. And arguably more incentive to instead invest into incrementally moving the global culture towards your target...
"But if you’re a lonely misfit, oddball, freak, or weirdo, then find a like-minded spouse and make new life together. Let the normals laugh at you. You’ll have each other."
Isn't that the whole point of 'natural selection'; to get rid of 'misfits, freaks, weirdos' (however you define those) by making it as hard as possible to find a spouse?
"I’m speaking at Western Carolina University on Friday at 2:30 in the Forsyth Auditorium. If you’re there, please introduce yourself. 🙂"
(don't miss this chance to find other lonely, misfit, oddball freaks and weirdos there)
I made a flag. https://open.substack.com/pub/ishayirashashem/p/look-at-cute-babies?r=1hp7xr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true