I wonder if you could analyze internet discussions for an effect.

  • TheFogan@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    22 hours ago

    idiocracy intro?

    (IE the theory it pushed was in short, smart people do family planning, try to wait for everything to be perfect… and forget to get around to having kids).

    Meanwhile on the less intelligent spectrum. Shit I’m pregnant again!!!.. Oh and I got the girl in the trailer next door pregnant.

    Or for a real world example… look at Lauren Boebert, the 35 year old grandmother in congress.

    • A_A@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      21 hours ago

      Yes absolutely (and i was afraid to say it out loud).
      But now, we have also to explain why it did not so much apply in the past millennias … or tens of past millenias. (again, i am afraid to say it … don’t want a shitstorm)

      • TheFogan@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        20 hours ago

        The massive lowering of the bar of “good enough to stay alive”. Life expectancy was consistantly in the 30s up until the 1870s. Simply having kids was life threatening… doing so while malnourished even more so.

        Natural selection favors traits that increase the odds of having offspring, as well as those that avoid death before having offspring. Avoiding death is a lot easier than it used to be.

        • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          edit-2
          20 hours ago

          For what it’s worth the average life expectancy was 30-something. That didn’t mean that everyone, or even the mostly everyone, just dropped dead at 30.

          It did, however, involve an awful lot of people dying in childhood. Often due to diseases that these days we’ve almost stamped out, but now antivax morons are working hard on bringing back!

          • TheFogan@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            19 hours ago

            Yeah, I at least assumed that was understood with just “expectancy”, obviously people live longer than expectations, and some die unexpectedly young. Key point is if you were given a mission where you must become a baby, and carry on life until you have 6 kids reach the age of 18. But you could chose what time to be born in (but not pick location, class or race), the lowest difficulty mode of that game would almost certainly be after 1950s… and prior to the 1800s would be viewed as very hard mode.

      • obviouspornalt@lemmynsfw.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        19 hours ago

        Part of the answer is that mortality rates were far higher 150 years ago. A couple might have 5 children but only 2 survive to adulthood.

        • A_A@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          19 hours ago

          Because i agree with this, i encourage you to push this idea further to its conclusion.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        20 hours ago

        If you have an idea that you regularly get called out on, you should probably say it and be willing to truly listen to what people are saying about it…lol

        • A_A@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          19 hours ago

          i did it often enough. Now someone else did it for me and I’m very happy they did.

          P.S. : Often it’s not my ideas but the harsh direct way i express them 😆