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Romashka comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 20 April 2015 12:02AM

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Comment author: Romashka 20 April 2015 06:33:35PM 1 point [-]

Interesting. 1 compared to what animals? 2 what does your theory predict regarding infanticide/cannibalism in intelligent species? 3 at what level of reproduction effort would childbearing remain viable, given a lifespan of twenty max and high children mortality? 4 ...genes effectively - in what way? Polygamy?

Comment author: [deleted] 20 April 2015 06:42:43PM *  0 points [-]
  1. primates 2. no idea, must think about it, how did you localize it in hypothesis space i.e. why does it sound interesting at all? 3. no idea, this is really where I lack the training, but will think about it, but it is probably a complex math problem including ever longer gestation periods and all that 4. yes clearly
Comment author: Romashka 20 April 2015 06:55:04PM *  0 points [-]

2 well, if a trait has some visible manifestation, what prevents the offspring from being eaten before reaching reproductive age? Competition still works. 3. I don't know, too. Just thought someone might give it their best shot. 4. If only the sons can use it effectively, then does it not mean that daughters having this gene would be outcompeted, dying in childbirth always (if it's a dominant allele) or a fixed % of times (if it's not), and so the allele will just reach some equilibrium in the population? And the 'intelligent' males will seek to have children from 'not-intelligent' females, since some offspring is strictly better than zero? (That's probably what Vaniver said.)