Don Ashley (dashley at TENET.EDU) wrote:
: 1000 year pre-puberty. That is an original population management idea for
: this thread.
: Hope you don't mind if we publish it on hard copy. Perhaps you have more
: ideas on parenting.
Yes I do. What triggered THIS thought was the emphatic way it was stated
elsewhere that "the ONLY way to save this planet is to send the excess
population to another
planet", "aresol DEATH spray", forced birth control, no life extention etc.
It has been a life quest of mine to find workable solutions to problems not
just wring my hands and say this has never been done before, we better
not try cause something bad *may* happen.
BTW the longer puberty would be just the first of many reasons for a longer
adult life span, to take care of your kids. I know for some people that
sounds like a living HELL, but if you are better prepared to be a parent then,
speaking for myself, I would love it. If my family wanted to live with me
forever (not sponge off me) great, I have already done everything I
wanted to for myself.
When a new Idea can be used on a problem then the course of events can be
changed sometimes radically in ways that cannot predicted. Issac Asimov
called it the "elevator effect".If you asked a science fiction writer
before 1850 what the turn of the century would look like in New York
city, he might have replied that there would be tall buildings all over
with all the rich people living onthe bottom floors and all the poor
people living in the upper floors with the poorest of them living on the
top floors. Then, presto, along comes the elevator and everything is
turned upside down.
Linear thinking is ok but we need more quality lateral thinking for our
new ideas.
: Thanks for your contributions. Keep them flowing.
: >
: >
: > On Thu, 16 Feb 1995, Robert Luly wrote:
: >
: > > I have a simple computer program that I got from somewhere that allows
: > > you to vary different peramiters and see the effect on a breeding population.
: > > An interesting thing you can do is delay the age of PUBERTY and see its
: > > effect over 1000 years. If you go too far the species goes EXTINCT.
: > > Could this be a "harmless birth control???
: > > Luly
: >
: > It could certainly help but think of what this would mean in terms of you
: > as a parent. You would be taking care of your children for however long
: > it took for them to mature. Instead of 18 to 22 years of rearing per
: > child, you could end up with 20 to 30 years of parenting per child. Of
: > course, such a daunting reality might itself lead to a lower birthrate as
: > people who couldn't handle the extra time opted out of having kids.
: >
: >
: >
: >
