The Need to Breed

[Angrboda]

Well, ignoring this spat and assuming problematic population growth, an interesting puzzle occurred to me.

It's in response to Ryantology's musing about the point of it all. A common view from the position of biological evolution is that there is no point; life is a statistical phenomenon. More, better, faster, is blind to truth and meaning. Evolution cares about what works, not what's right, or what's important. (I don't agree with this estimate, but it's a useful starting point.) As someone else mentioned, life aims to live longest and fullest. The more a specimen can sustain itself, the more likely it's genes will outcompete its less stalwart rivals in being represented in the gene pool. But this raises a quandary. (And yes, I'm blurring some lines between viewing evolution at the species level and at the individual level, which isn't technically valid, but bear with me.) By definition, those who voluntarily or otherwise limit their reproduction are deliberately reducing that sustainability. If we look at evolution as an individual phenomenon (bad, bad, bad), then those who do not limit themselves reproductively, have a better chance of their traits — mayhaps including the traits which made them less willing to limit their reproduction — being well represented in the next generation of the gene pool than those whose traits lead them to limit themselves reproductively (or to be limited by others). It would seem, at this level, and ignoring the technical faults, that traits that lead to reproductive manageability are self-limiting, and not genetically robust. (Anyway, I'll leave it to Chuck or some science whiz to demolish my pretensions).

I think, ultimately, what this world needs is a predator that is a match for man. It's not customary to think in these terms, but a virus, bacteria, self-destructive set of memes, famine or other deadly shortage would probably be the most expeditious. If the phenotype of the psychopath is largely genetically caused, perhaps a race of psychopaths. There's also a few possibilities that are hard to predict. We may have sufficient knowledge of genes or brains within the relevant window to redesign humanity to rectify the problem. Unlikely that such would be expeditiously implemented, but perhaps if the re-engineered human also doubled as a predator, it might work.