The Death of Shulamith Firestone and the Inevitability of Machine-Based Human Reproduction

[jordan179]

Shulamith Firestone (1945-2012) was found dead on the 28th, an event of which I first learned from reading Nicola Griffiths' blog entry "RIP Shulamith Firestone."  Griffiths' entry is something of a commemoration:  my own opinion of Firestone and her effect on society is a lot lower.

Firestone was one of the founders of "radical feminism," a

Comments

[maxgoof]

All of these predictions forget one amazingly important fact:

Children grow best when raised by the people who conceived them.

Eliminating pregnancy will also eliminate the desire to raise the child.

Society will collapse when that happens.

[ford_prefect42]

You really think it'll take that long? looks to me like the collapse is going pretty apace now.

[marycatelli]

People can adopt and raise children quite happily.

Though, to be sure, the question is whether society is not merrily collapsing already, so that this is just icing on the cake.

[jsl32]

the shakers are a pretty good test case for adoption being just as good, since all their children were adopted/foundlings.

there are 2-3 (can't remember if one died recently) remaining.

[marycatelli]

That's because they had to bring up the children to live in a very peculiar way. Standard edition adoption works just fine. Infant adoptees are better of than any other child except children raised by their own biological married parents. Adding that they are, in fact, the biological parents, so the only element missing is the pregnancy, would only strengthen that.

[jsl32]

we're still awaiting the results of ivf rearing, as those children are mostly still children and not yet adult aged.

and is there data on whether adoptees reproduce at replacement rate or better?

[jordan179]

Children grow best when raised by the people who conceived them.

Why would alternative reproduction systems prevent people from conceiving their own children? Conception and bearing are not the same thing.

Eliminating pregnancy will also eliminate the desire to raise the child.

Why?

[maxgoof]

How often have you heard of women who get pregnant, put the unborn child up for adoption, then have a change of heart at the time of birth

[marycatelli]

The question is whether the State -- which is, to say, the rest of us -- will be willing to assume the burden for something that was indeed self-inflicted. And raising the child has powerful effects -- fathers, after all, do bond with the child.

[maxgoof]

Oh, they certainly would, if it meant they could then shape that populace to timidly accept The State as the fount from which their very existance flows.

[marycatelli]

ah, but the sort of people who do that are the sort of people who don't have children. Conservatives have more kids than liberals.

[headnoises]

Wouldn't that tend to lend itself to a distopian "make babies that are from the best of genetic backgrounds, raise them in State Approved Ways, and why the heck is this handbasket moving?" type result?

Heaven knows there's enough folks willing to loudly point at the right, especially large families, and say "those people think the wrong things, they shouldn't be allowed to have children." (Not sure if you've had the misfortune to run into the really crazy stuff aimed at the Druggars, but-- wow.)

[marycatelli]

How? If the liberals outnumbered the conservatives now, they could indulge in that. As it is, conservatives are powerful enough to ensure that the kids are kept with their families. Yes, the liberals resent it, but for all their complaints about evolution and the right, they haven't got the power now, and seem to be ignorant of all practical implications.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the more your side touts the Great Importance of evolution, the less your actions will contribute to keeping your side viable in evolutionary terms.

[headnoises]

How? : Slowly.

Always for the good of the children, too; keep encouraging single motherhood, and have the state take over more and more of the process of actually raising the kids, and when they can offer to take the pains of pregnancy away entirely, they'll have folks lining up for it.

Start putting birth control into the water; eventually, the only ones that DO reproduce will be those doing it artificially, and the tiny number of rural folks.

[marycatelli]

You seem to think there is a magic self-reproducing elite that will somehow keep this going over the centuries.

The people who favor this scenario are breeding themselves out of existence.

[headnoises]

No, I'm familiar with the self-appointed elite recruiting new followers, even if they never bother to reproduce themselves.

Plus, those of the "elite" that do reproduce tend to be hypocrites when they do so-- the things they do for their own kids don't match up with what they tell everyone else to do. Single motherhood is an example-- other than the headline grabbing examples, the statistics show that wealthy, educated, liberal folks tend to have kids inside of a marriage. (And the headline grabbers tend to have enough money that it doesn't matter so much that there's not a dad or attentive mom, they're raised by nannies.)