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A point that might be overlooked in discussions of adoption is that paternal/maternal love might be partially mediated by biological signals (pheromones? hormones? knowing that your partner is pregnant?) that are not present when you adopt. I don't know what research has been done in this field, but it's worth looking in to.
This is a sort of terrible analogy, but I'm going for it anyway: I recently adopted a cat and feel extremely powerful positive emotional feelings for him just by virtue of being around him and caring for him all the time, not to mention that he is incredibly cute and loving. But I don't feel for him the way I would expect to feel for a biological child of mine. I imagine one's feelings about an adopted child might be similar at first.
more: I'm not sure if you are saying parental love is a good thing or not, or merely factually stating that it could potentially be absent in an adoption scenario, but for the sake of conversation let's say you (or some imaginary interlocutor) are suggesting there would be some net detriment to child-rearing if parental love is removed: I wonder if one couldn't make more rational and intelligent decisions in the absence of the potentially-clouding fog of parental love. Is it necessarily a good thing for an established adult to want to die so that a 1-month-old infant could survive (insert imaginary scenario here)? Is it a good thing that parents see their children, the object of their overwhelming parental love, less objectively and with profound biases due to that love? Etc. - there are many examples of the biasing effects of biological love.
It's an interesting topic I think... non-biased (or at least less-biased) child-rearing as a result of reduced instinctual biological parental love.
Clarified; the dependency isn't upon a "rationality" gene, but rather on those genes which make rationality possible. To whit, if every human is rational, and it isn't rational to reproduce, there will rapidly cease to be humans, and there will rapidly cease to be rationality.
That's not "winning" by any definition I'd choose to use. It makes rationality dependent upon irrational people choosing to reproduce in spite of its irrationality.
there will rapidly cease to be humans
What is the problem with that?
Rationality seems more like an idea that can spread from person-to-person than an innate property you are born with. Rationality would be more like a communicable disease in this model (ignore the negative connotations of disease for a moment, and just consider the "doesn't help the host reproduce, but spreads itself well enough that it doesn't have to" part).
I agree with you that rationality can be spread independent of genetics. In that sense, rationalists don't have to fear their "kind" being wiped out by anti-natalism.
And: I'm not sure, but I think maybe the implied idea in OrphanWilde's comment is that rationality is not dependent on genetics. If I am right though, then I don't see the point he/she is making. Maybe OrphanWilde can clarify.
How about introducing a Podcast Thread?
Here are some good ones: EconTalk, Rationally Speaking, This American Life.
I'll add: Stuff You Should Know.
They don't always do the best fact-checking and the topical nature can be unsatisfying, but it's a generally entertaining introduction to some things of which you may not be aware.
I really enjoyed the recently released game Bioshock: Infinite. It's a pretty linear FPS but it has a fun and fairly original story (or at least a story that combines familiar tropes in an original way), powerfully presented (if somewhat heavy-handed) themes, beautiful graphics, a fun companion character, and often exhilarating battles.
It's occasionally a bit inconsistent, perhaps symptomatic of a troubled development process (apparently they threw away a lot of material and rewrote some parts of the story considerably), but overall I'd say it's one of the best story-driven games I've played.
So it's not just a long babysitting mission? I was afraid of that.
In response to
April 2013 Media Thread
Music Thread
I've recently started listening to Q2 (Click "Q2 Music" in the top player bar) streaming online. It is:
A New York-based online station devoted to the music of living composers
It's often described in different ways, sometimes called "contemporary classical". Give the station a few hours worth of listening - they play a variety of genres within the umbrella of contemporary music and you may like some more than others.
I appreciate the lack of a poppy "hook" in most of the music they play.
In response to
Group Rationality Diary, April 5-14
I'll kick it off:
I've begun to seriously consider the anti-natalist views of philosophers like David Benatar. My two sisters recently each had their first child and while I've given thought to the idea of having my own children in the past, closely seeing the process play out from beginning to end has somehow updated my thoughts on the topic. I haven't read much yet (I'm about a quarter through Better To Have Never Been and would relish some suggestions from LWers on the matter.
Currently my thinking is that as much as I would like the experience of raising a child who shares my own DNA, I am becoming more and more convinced that I can't feel like I am making a morally-correct decision by bringing a new human into existence. If I had never been born I necessarily wouldn't have been harmed in any way by not existing - and now that I am here I can enjoy life as much as possible (which is a lot, don't get me wrong), but I still must endure some measure of suffering and I also must face mortality.
I was never interested in the idea of adopting children before, but in light of my updated viewpoint on conception I can see the benefit of adopting an already-born person.
Another part of it I think about: As far as utility to society goes, I already know that I have certain inclinations or aspirations towards rationality and a general motivation to attempt to better society in some small way if I can. There's no guarantee that a new person I create will match or exceed the possible positive impacts on society that I make. That uncertainty-for-positive-change along with the fact that a new person will necessarily impose some negatives on society also makes me wonder how I could justify the decision to make a new person.
As I'm sure it is clear, I'm in the early stages of considering these topics and haven't done much research at all into writings and analysis of the issues I'm raising. I am open to any and all suggestions of avenues of research.
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To paraphrase Robin Hanson, rationality should exist.
Personally, in terms of utility functions, I'm inclined to give my own suffering positive utility (it's just, y'know, substantially lower than the utility of pleasure). But then, I write poetry on the beauty of the meaningfulness of pain. It's curious what a few years of systematically killing emotion will do to you when it reawakens with a vengeance.
Sure, if humans exist then rationality should exist.
But my question stands, why should humans exist? If I'm reading correctly your post assumes that a rapid cessation of humans would be somehow a bad thing.
Stop me if you feel this is entering into uselessly nihilistic territory and we can call it quits here.