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Romashka comments on Open thread, Sep. 28 - Oct. 4, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: MrMind 28 September 2015 07:13AM

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Comment author: passive_fist 28 September 2015 10:59:48PM 1 point [-]

Extrapolating from the current situation, feminists, liberals, environmentalists and the highly educated don't have kids, while conservatives and religions people do. In the unlikely case that there is no singularity or genetic engineering or brave new world style babies in tubes for the next few hundred years, the world turns back into a medieval theocracy, with nukes.

This is a commonly-repeated point which I have seen no evidence for. Specifically, I am aware of no evidence that propensity to believe in religion is passed on as a hereditary trait. Indeed, there are many human behaviours that would seem to be highly selected against in evolutionary terms but still persist to a high degree in the population (homosexuality, etc.) The reason of course is that these behaviours have a strong developmental component that is independent of genetics.

As an anecdotal example, I am the child of very religious parents and I have zero belief in religion, and I have always had zero belief in it ever since I remember.

People always make the implicit assumption that children are going to be identical to their parents. In practice, culture, environment, and other factors play a huge role. The key to securing the future success of a society lies less in getting 'smart' people to breed and more in providing a good and intellectually stimulating environment for future children to grow up in.

Comment author: Romashka 29 September 2015 09:30:31AM 4 points [-]

This is a tangent, but I just caught myself thinking, 'If my religious parents had a less amorphous image of religion - although maybe in their heads it really is so - a more structured way of how the world should be, instead of is, I would find religion more to my liking. After all, they taught me to doubt, they taught me to tolerate incompatible beliefs when they don't likely lead to what I consider 'bad outcomes', they taught me to be curious about the world, so they have to have these values themselves! But no, it was as if they just thought religion is something you pick up with age... Maybe religious and unreligious people are more concerned about their own generation, and the respective vocal minorities who 'go after the children' are regarded as truce-breakers?