LESSWRONG
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All of Richard_Pointer's Comments + Replies

The Bottom Line
Richard_Pointer00

Can anyone give me the link here between Designing Social Inquiry by KKV and this post, because I feel that there is one.

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Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization
Richard_Pointer30

I think the fictional evidence misses a key factor in raising kids. At least for some people the continuation of a line, that line either being blood or values. I think most soon to be parents don't look forward to the nasty sleepless evenings with newborns or such. But give the availability of abortion, we still do not see L'Dolce Vita culling all humans from the reproducing herds.

People do enjoy long term endeavors. I find the idea that my line will stretch far into the future to be a very good driver in my quest for higher education and wealth attainmen... (read more)

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1frankybegs
But for most people, those drivers are not the result of abstracted thought to the point where they could not be satisfied by an artificial child. Most people, it seems to me, just experience the symptoms of the biological imperative, as opposed to any higher-order desire to propagate their genetic material. So I would expect it to be possible to overcome the preference for genuine biological offspring by, for example, designing the artificial replacements to look like the "parents"- especially if that resemblance was actually derived *from* the parent e.g. by scanning their features- thereby satisfying one of the symptoms of the imperative.
0elriel
Whether the fictional evidence actually misses that factor or not, I can't say. However, the fact that the text mentioned that the extermination was for biological homo sapiens leads me to think that those artificial kids weren't supposed to be just substitutes for emotional purposes but could actually act as full member of your family. That is, you wouldn't consider them pets or slaves, but family.