Her Lucky in Love blog post (1) includes this premise:
> Even after all her years of research, she’s still excited by love. “You’re trying to win life’s greatest prize — which is a life partner and a chance to send your DNA to the future..."
How novel! I met my now-partner a long time ago and we quickly agreed neither of us wants kids. 16 years later, we're pretty happy with each other. I guess you could call this a powerful extinctive adaptation.
The fact that humans took control over the most fundamental evolutionary adaptation and are capable of satisfying our urge to have sex without it resulting in children will cause the end of our species maybe.
It's not quite that straightforward; since close kin also share genetic heritage anything you do to benefit your near kin also propagates some percentage of your own DNA. Kin selection has been part of evolutionary theory since Darwin:
> "This difficulty, though appearing insuperable, is lessened, or, as I believe, disappears, when it is remembered that selection may be applied to the family, as well as to the individual, and may thus gain the desired end."
Eusocial insects are doing quite well, for example, despite the tiny subset of the species that reproduce.
> If I and all my descendants have 2 kids, by the 6th generation, there will be 64 people with 1.56% of my DNA, which adds up to one full person.
If 64 people drink 1.56% of a bottle of wine, it adds up to one drunk person.
At some point, a value turns insignificant.
To be clear: I am very much aware we do need kids, although a slight population shrink wouldn’t be too terrible. But people who tell themselves “the childless are removing themselves from the gene pool” are pulling wool over their own eyes if they think they are contributing all that much.
Life out there is everything but mere numbers and statistics. Having kids is not about just propagating genes, but raising another generation that will take care of this planet and mankind's future, or fuck it up further with stupid selfish approach.
You can have a say in this, a largely thankless say, but with kids we imprint ourselves and our values in mankind's future. Smart folks giving up on kids are removing smart genes from future gene pool, who then gets more diluted by illiterate farmers having 10-15 kids. Of course smart & broken ain't the same value proposition as smart & functional.
You don't have to care about any of this of course, that's highly individual. But raising kids well (which requires tremendous continuous effort with no guarantee of success) is extremely rewarding experience that no mere words or just brief encounters within friends/family can explain. I speak as participant of quite a few extreme mountain sports, which can be massively rewarding but there is just no comparison. To not have kids just because of chasing some career... no respect there, its a common story that brings some deep regrets later. Not to expect anything back, just doing something good, charity in a way. It requires certain character traits to appreciate, and ie selfish folks won't ever grok this part which then translates into what sort of parents they are and what sort of kids they raise, but its there.
Anyway its just smart folks discussing pros and cons of having kids while world and its population moves forward without any care of such topics. Life with no kids is like a computer game played on easy mode. Sure, some folks can't even finish nor enjoy it on higher difficulty, its just too much for them. But that higher difficulty brings much more rewarding experience, every achievement is much harder won one, and we all know challenges build & sustain good character. So there is some angle even for selfish folks (although yeah if even one recognizes oneself as selfish, having kids are probably not the brightest idea).
What if they all have an exact copy of the same 1.56% of you DNA and the rest is lost forever?
In reality .. A) it doesn't work that way and B) for the bit that does work that way it is as unlikely for the same 1/64 "fingerprint" to be all that is shared as it is for a complete "fingerprint" to be exactly split into 64 parts, each to one of 64 descendants.
The only purpose to life is to propagate more life. Anything else we might attribute to life is simply a coping mechanism for this abyssal vapidity.
Life also selects for more life, for the obvious reason.
Marriage-less and/or childless people hold no equity in the future and will be naturally selected out for those who do. The birth rate "problem" will resolve itself.
Note for context: I'm 35, never married nor intend to and never had nor intend to have children. I hold no equity in the future and I sincerely couldn't care less; I'm busy living as it is.
Only if we also manage to increase education. It appears the more you know, the less you are likely to have children. Combined with the pill, this is indeed a recipe for extinction, albeit slowly.
I sometimes wonder, but have never researched, if the long-term consequences of the pill were considered before aprooving it. Hell, dont get me wrong, its very very convenient. But the question is, will it kill humanity in the long term. Statistics on birth rate in the west definitely confirm that now.
