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Post by whollygoats on Aug 11, 2013 15:03:27 GMT
It's crap, basically. IQ is a flawed concept, so to be using it in this context is a sure bet this whole thing is crap. Then, anybody with any acquaintance with species population patterns, and the realization that humans are merely another species, would see that 'voluntary' non-reproduction could well be a rational response to anticipated resource shortages and attendant immiseration and population collapse. Hey...non-reproduction even might set us apart as a more aware, intelligent, and, dare I say it, provident, species?
I think some women deciding that they will not reproduce is a noble thing. A huge commitment to the wider community and a blow for their own genetic materials in the gene pool...I think that's altruism, isn't it? Anyway, I'm a NPG man myself and a Malthusian practitioner of the dismal science, so my opinions on these matters are colored by education and polemics...and, of course, my masculinity.
And to those women who limit their reproduction to one, or even just two offspring: Thank you. Even though negative population growth is best, zero is a fine goal.
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Post by tangent on Aug 11, 2013 16:01:59 GMT
Not for me. What kind of connections? How many connections should you be able to make in order to qualify as intelligent? I'm sure I could come up with more questions, but then I'd have to know what kind of connections you're talking about first. You can look at it in two ways, neural connections or pathological connections or inferences. It works for me. I didn't say it would work for anyone else
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Post by juju on Aug 12, 2013 12:06:58 GMT
It's true, however, that if you take people like Catholics out of the equation, the people with the highest number of kids tend to be from the lowest strata of society. I think that perhaps young girls without education or prospects simply don't know what else to do with their lives. That may be true, but in my experience there is another group who have lots of children, which I suppose you could categorise as 'middle class earth mothers' (or 'muesli mums' as my husband used to call them). I know several people in this category - a few have four kids, one has five and one has ten. Yes, ten. They are all educated and intelligent women that have made motherhood their vocation, I guess.
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Post by Mari on Aug 12, 2013 12:56:58 GMT
Well, as I said, I'm intelligent and would ideally like to have about 5 kids, though that would include foster- and adopted kids.
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Post by Alvamiga on Aug 12, 2013 21:59:50 GMT
There is a programme that was on TV this week called something like "17 and counting" about a family which has basically had one a year. I dread to think of the population explosion if their kids keep that up!
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Post by Mari on Aug 13, 2013 7:43:04 GMT
I saw some small parts of it and basically all those kids called their parents insane and it has made some of them never ever want kids
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Post by tangent on Aug 13, 2013 10:05:04 GMT
Johann Sebastian Bach had 17 children but in those days it was common to have lots of children because many of them died while quite young.
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Post by juju on Aug 13, 2013 10:28:11 GMT
I saw some small parts of it and basically all those kids called their parents insane and it has made some of them never ever want kids My aunty (my dad's sister) had eight kids. Of those, only two chose to have their own children - one had one, the other had twins. So from eight children she only had three grandchildren (and actually one of those tragically committed suicide ) . My mum only had two kids but now has 6 grandchildren and two step grandchildren.
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Post by Moose on Aug 13, 2013 17:56:36 GMT
Ultimately too before contraception women did not have much choice, if they or their husbands did not fancy abstinence for long periods of their life
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Post by Alvamiga on Aug 13, 2013 19:17:16 GMT
My dad's side of the family is huge. My dad is one of seven and they have had many kids each, and so on. At my sister's wedding, our side of the church was filled to the back and many rows back up the other side and their side was only about 10 rows of seats. There were no young kids there, either, or it'd have been chaos!
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Post by tangent on Aug 13, 2013 23:35:07 GMT
Ultimately too before contraception women did not have much choice, if they or their husbands did not fancy abstinence for long periods of their life Yes, there's reality. Whatever the world says, non-abstinence says otherwise.
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Post by Sarah W. on Aug 14, 2013 3:50:22 GMT
...if you take people like Catholics out of the equation... Yeah, we mess everything up.
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Post by whollygoats on Aug 14, 2013 4:12:56 GMT
...if you take people like Catholics out of the equation... Yeah, we mess everything up. Yeah, that happens a lot with people who believe patently stupid stuff.
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bill
Senior members
Posts: 891
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Post by bill on Aug 15, 2013 13:29:28 GMT
There is a programme that was on TV this week called something like "17 and counting" about a family which has basically had one a year. I dread to think of the population explosion if their kids keep that up! It's actually Nineteen Kids and Counting but she lost the twentieth so I expect that they will not have any more.
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Post by Alvamiga on Aug 15, 2013 19:46:43 GMT
I said "something like"
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Post by Sarah W. on Aug 16, 2013 17:57:13 GMT
Yeah, we mess everything up. Yeah, that happens a lot with people who believe patently stupid stuff. Indeed.
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Post by spaceflower on Aug 17, 2013 23:30:56 GMT
Why are only (intelligent) women responsible for not having (more) children? Where i come from, children are still created by a man and a woman. (Cloning is not allowed.) What about their (presumably intelligent partners), don't they want to have children? Maybe the women know that their men are not that interested and certainly not are going to share the work. Maybe intelligent men lack "paternal instinct"?
"I'm not sure why he dismisses the link between higher education and fewer kids as there's census data that shows women with advanced degrees are less likely to have children. (I should probably note that Kanazawa's judgement has been called into question in the past, regarding a study in which he found that black women are less attractive). His ultimate conclusion, however, is that intelligent women's failure to reproduce is bad for them because they are flying in the face of their biological destiny and it's also bad for society because fewer intelligent moms means fewer intelligent kids and that may have drastic implications for the nationwide IQ."
Maybe if American voters were not that afraid of taxes and instead cared about good education for everyone, they would find out that many more people have high intelligence.
Of course, what is intelligence? Is it the ability to make yourself rich and don't give a damn about other people? Is this good for America (or any other country)? I'd say intelligence is looking ahead and caring about environment, stopping war etc. But this surely has more to do with education and moral values. IQ is not only genes (Flynn effect).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2013 13:40:21 GMT
I do think that maybe, to intelligent women (those who officially count as intelligent, having done A-levels or graduated from good schools), it might be more important to finish their education and maybe start a career because they can. A girl who hasn't finished school might not really feel like she has a lot of opportunities in that direction, so there is nothing that keeps her from having babies. But I've also heard that a lot of these young girls are single mums since the men who make the babies are often not very keen on taking responsibility for their babies at such a young age. I'd rather be certain I have a man at my side who is willing to take care of his babies as well (and with Frank I would have no worries in that direction) and graduate from university.
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