starexplorer wrote:

 
I think you are right that an artificial external uterus to benefit baby and mother may be a valuable technology. This has already been developed in research using sheep:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15421734/artificial-womb-fetus-biobag-uterus-lamb-sheep-birth-premie-preterm-infant

If were limited to that, and not to the rest of the eugenic story, maybe we’re good to go. The whole business of increasing the birth rate and population through technology like this seems both dangerous, and not what the world needs to sustain its environment and ecosystems.

I think that there are two issues at play here in this discussion.  One is the question of eugenics and ethical implications - a subject that does indeed require a serious and considered discussion of actions and consequences.  Ken Macleod's Intrusion is another novel that addresses this subject, btw.

The other issue is falling birthrates - a topic that is causing much of the present angst in the world even before Covid came along.  The Russian misadventures in Crimea and Ukraine were and are driven as much by Russia running out of ethnic Russians as other causes.  And the situation in Iran is at least partly due to the falling birthrate pointing to an existential crisis in that country within a couple of generations.   A choice of nationalism over what is best for the world as a whole.  Misguided, imo.

 

I think there are two different scenarios where artificial wombs could be justified.

One is where potential parent(s) are unable to give birth themselves. It could replace the current solution of having a surrogate mother and would avoid some of that procedure's pitfalls (e.g. the birth mother not wanting to give up the baby). I'm assuming in this case that the parent(s) would be active in the process, visiting their child-to-be frequently, for example.

The other has already been mentioned, where there's an on-going population crash and additional people are desperately needed to maintain the society. This "solution" does have serious problems to be resolved, though. Group homes are far from ideal and the lack of sufficient social contact for babies is known to cause serious psychological problems. But not having enough people willing or able to act as parents is the underlying problem already. Birthing farms are not going to be a good solution, I fear. Maybe parental AIs? But the TV series "Raised by Wolves" certainly points out some of the potential problems with that "solution."

Another thing Bujold's Vorkosigan arc brought up is how the differing attitudes towards reproductive technology created a fresh cultural divide among the human population as they dispersed through space exploration. It's almost how she summarizes each, that one sorta-standalone story about a society that had eliminated women (but still needed a 'donated' ovary for the procedure) being the most extreme of that sort.

Blond Tekikin wrote:

Another thing Bujold's Vorkosigan arc brought up is how the differing attitudes towards reproductive technology created a fresh cultural divide among the human population as they dispersed through space exploration. It's almost how she summarizes each, that one sorta-standalone story about a society that had eliminated women (but still needed a 'donated' ovary for the procedure) being the most extreme of that sort.

On one hand, you have Athos, where there are no women, just their ovaries, and I'm not sure if they have a breeding program for a particular type of individual, with Terrence Cee being an exception because he was a product of Jackson's Whole, coveted by the Cetagandans, who were the ultimate in gene manipulation.  A haut was a haut forever (except for Vio), but a ghem could never become a haut.  Besides, the Cetagandans were notorious racists - if you weren't Cetagandan, you weren't human.  That was one of Miles' questions very early in his dealings with them.  I'm not sure how you'd classify the Athosians, other than misogynistic through whatever education system they had.  Recalling all of the hilariously misguided assumptions Ethan had about Ellie Quinn.

Anyway, I'd agree, without those ovaries from off-planet women, Athos would have died out on its own.  That it was tolerated by the other societies tells me they realized it, and were staying away from Athos lest the Athosians came to that conclusion that the other societies would no longer trade with them.  That's mere speculation, though.
 

Last edited by joekc6nlx (1/20/2023 10:35 am)

Surtac wrote:

starexplorer wrote:

Declining birth rates are having adverse effects on the economies of some countries. I personally do not think the solution is increasing birth rates. I don’t want to litigate climate change here, but one of the central issues is too many people doing too much consuming. As a teen I was impressed by the estimate that if all humans lived like people in the west, we’d need four Planet Earths. Now I understand the number is five. And a look at the steep decline in animal populations has resulted in many biologists regarding the current moment as one of "The Sixth Extinction".
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250062185/thesixthextinction

The word “sustainability” has sadly become a platitude. But if we cannot transition from a growth economy to a sustainability economy, I’m afraid Earth herself will reduce the population. It’s first a conceptual problem, and then a practical one.

I think the Earth may have already started down that path, Star. 

I'm sitting here mid-morning on what should be, at this specific time of year, a typical bright hot sunny summers day in Canberra, but which is in fact unseasonally cold, windy and potentially wet. We had a storm go through the area yesterday which flooded parts of the civic centre. This not normal for the Canberra I relocated to some 35 years ago.  I look around at what the so-called mainstream media deigns to show me of events in the rest of the world and I see similar dissonances occurring almost everywhere.  It seems to be a universal phenomenon.  I never really subscribed to the Gaia theory but I'm seeing a few more black swan events these days than I am comfortable with.  The Earth is overall a chaotic system and we as a species are playing at the edges in too many potentially disruptive ways.  Continued stability is not guaranteed.

The almost universal worship of national economies over citizen well-being is a signal to me that capitalism has reached its use-by date.  I fear Gibson is right and we are already living in the time of the jackpot.

 

Well, yes, of course. Agreed. It’s just a question of what the final bill will be. I have trouble seeing the problem improved by having more people on the planet.