reproducing society
Aug. 17th, 2012 07:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliA further reflection on one of jordan's essays that I've already pondered. . . but two other discussions I've seen have sent me whirling off on a completely different tangent to it.
In it, he observes
Well, in one sense, yes, but in another, it would turn on: are these abilities of theirs hereditary?
If they are, of course, you have prime aristocracy territory, particularly if acquiring your own from mundane origins is rare and difficult. If they are a random grab bag that, say, normally hit about puberty, things are different. If they are a random grab bag that could hit at any stage in life, things are different again -- you could always, in theory, join their ranks, and you know that their children are no more likely than yours to do so. I would expect parents (in the first scenario) and random individuals (in the second) to seek out any way to trigger it, even if that means haring after improbable or even impossible causes.
I note that having the children of the supers be unpowered will not be all to the good. Elective monarchs are more likely to loot the country for the benefit of their own family, because it's hereditary monarchs who can expect any good they do their country to profit their children.
Most super-worlds seem to go both routes: random individuals get it, but usually their children do afterwards. This would, at the very least, lead to a very permeable aristocracy. Anyone could dream of it. In most, in fact, anyone could aspire to it. To be sure, money and brilliance are both needed to trump dumb luck, but there are "super heroes" who got that way by the dint of working real hard in most super-worlds. Like, say, Batman.
This is one thing that I often see overlooked in world-building: how your societies reproduces itself. For instance, in a world where child-bearing is completely voluntary, wanting to have children selected for, hard. Wanting to have lots and lots of children is selected for even harder. When the ability is new, there can be those who do not want children, but that trait is being selected against -- and it's just a change within a species, not a new species. Evolution will occur. Because this will increase the percentage of those who want children, it will also produce a society in which wanting children is the normal thing -- which, ironically, by social pressure may keep the "do not want children" genes going on, by pressing those who do not want to be parents into the task.
Raising the children also matters. A cyberpunk society can indeed maintain itself by letting children run feral in the streets; indeed, too much TLC for too many children would do much to undermine a cyberpunk society. But if a society needs well-disciplined, well-educated children, it can't let parents raise their children on whims, and freely sacrifice the children's education and upbringings to the adults' desire. At least, it can't allow it long. The majesty of the law, or the disapprobation of society has to discourage it, strongly. (Enclaves can have it, but they are going to be problems.)
In it, he observes
Superbeings would of necessity in any system of government evolve into a sort of aristocracy.
Well, in one sense, yes, but in another, it would turn on: are these abilities of theirs hereditary?
If they are, of course, you have prime aristocracy territory, particularly if acquiring your own from mundane origins is rare and difficult. If they are a random grab bag that, say, normally hit about puberty, things are different. If they are a random grab bag that could hit at any stage in life, things are different again -- you could always, in theory, join their ranks, and you know that their children are no more likely than yours to do so. I would expect parents (in the first scenario) and random individuals (in the second) to seek out any way to trigger it, even if that means haring after improbable or even impossible causes.
I note that having the children of the supers be unpowered will not be all to the good. Elective monarchs are more likely to loot the country for the benefit of their own family, because it's hereditary monarchs who can expect any good they do their country to profit their children.
Most super-worlds seem to go both routes: random individuals get it, but usually their children do afterwards. This would, at the very least, lead to a very permeable aristocracy. Anyone could dream of it. In most, in fact, anyone could aspire to it. To be sure, money and brilliance are both needed to trump dumb luck, but there are "super heroes" who got that way by the dint of working real hard in most super-worlds. Like, say, Batman.
This is one thing that I often see overlooked in world-building: how your societies reproduces itself. For instance, in a world where child-bearing is completely voluntary, wanting to have children selected for, hard. Wanting to have lots and lots of children is selected for even harder. When the ability is new, there can be those who do not want children, but that trait is being selected against -- and it's just a change within a species, not a new species. Evolution will occur. Because this will increase the percentage of those who want children, it will also produce a society in which wanting children is the normal thing -- which, ironically, by social pressure may keep the "do not want children" genes going on, by pressing those who do not want to be parents into the task.
Raising the children also matters. A cyberpunk society can indeed maintain itself by letting children run feral in the streets; indeed, too much TLC for too many children would do much to undermine a cyberpunk society. But if a society needs well-disciplined, well-educated children, it can't let parents raise their children on whims, and freely sacrifice the children's education and upbringings to the adults' desire. At least, it can't allow it long. The majesty of the law, or the disapprobation of society has to discourage it, strongly. (Enclaves can have it, but they are going to be problems.)
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 01:41 am (UTC)If it's semi-hereditary but not detectible until it emerges (say at some point in puberty) then these kids would have nightmarish adolescences unless it emerged early. Imagine the tension of not knowing if you had a power or when it would emerged or what it might be! Imagine the horrible jealousies and resentments that might spring from such a situation ...
As for free-range children, that's enough of a nightmare in real life -- imagine how horrible it would be for everyone if some of them were metahumans!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 07:39 am (UTC)But is this actually a geneticly-defined trait, or is it a cultural/personal foible one? Even if it is genetic, is it a simple trait that can be easily bred out, or is it recessive or the result of a particular combination of otherwise beneficial genes?
no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 12:35 pm (UTC)Even if it's a particular combination of otherwise beneficial genes -- well, they would have to be very, very, very beneficial indeed to counter the deleterious effects of the combination. It amounts to sterility.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-19 08:07 am (UTC)I am not sure that cultural evolution is usually quite that simple either. A society where it is considered acceptable for some people to choose not to have children might actually survive better than one where everyone is expected to reproduce - for example, maybe having a percentage of non-reproducing workers helped them survive a famine better, because they had fewer children, but better fed ones, because the non-reproducing people in the population still work to produce extra food? Maximum population growth in the minimum time is not always a good survival strategy.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-19 01:41 pm (UTC)Eh, in famine situations you put the kids to work, too. They can do enough to make up for the people who have to look after those young enough to not have children. Anyway, that effect would only kick in after the desiring no children trait has already been squeezed out of the population, so it's too late.