Digest 715 - Population Control Policy Issues

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Lucio de Souza Coelho
wrote:
> On Thursday 02 October 2003 07:16, avatar643 wrote:
> (...)
>> Hi! Glad you've joined in! As a matter of practicality,
>> with your system you'd only have to sterilize half the
>> population - the other half can't conceive alone.
>
> Indeed. I think that I was unconsciously being politically correct
> myself. Equal rights regardless of sex, you know. (Darn brainwash!
> Will I never get free? :-) Being even more practical, sterilize
> just men; vasectomy is a simpler surgery than the equivalent for
> women, I think.

Good point. Also, does making the colony the proper reposity of
his genetic legacy have any chance of influencing a mans
psychology? What might he risk, for the sake of the colony? Off
point, I know - but I thought it led to some intersting ideas.

>
>> For example, all the stored semen get
>> irradiated - and all your men are permanently sterile. Would a
>> less permanent sterilization - like a sub-dermal implant for
>> example - be acceptable?
>
> Maybe. However, though your hypothetical loss of all semen would
> be problematic (there would be fewer options for insemination), it
> would not be catastrophic in any way - I suppose that there would
> be boys in your colony, and then they would grow and start
> producing semen - in fact, at any time you would have boys
> entering puberty in your colony.

Again, good point - though if your population is sufficently
long lived that the times between conceptions were longer than the
time to puberty, then this could become a problem. In such a case
though, there would be other problems. With existing technology,
you still need a woman of child-bearing age to bring a child to
term; with very long replacement cycles, replacing your women may be
more valuable than replacing your men.
The loss of gametes scenario was also intended to include
deliberate acts - sabotage and warfare; I don't know if these would
require more stringent precautions or not, but it seems likely.
The reason I brought up the sub-dermal implants was that I saw
a chance for todays technology to solve the problem by temporarily
sterilizing the women. I think a corresponding implant is in the
work for men, but I dunno.

>> And, as a matter of curiousity, why the above-
>> replacement rate of 2.2 children per couple? With more children
>> being born than the replacement rate, won't this lead to trouble?
>
> I have seen in many demographic studies that the replacement rate
> is 2.2 children per couple, and not 2 per couple (the obvious
> intuitive guess). I don't know the reason - perhaps they are
> counting just *fertile* couples? Anyway, I accepted the number by
> faith. :-)

If I'd been thinking quicker, I may have realized that not
every healthy baby grows up into a reproducing adult. Sorry. I'll
be happy to go with 2.2 as a replacement rate; but that number may
change as our medical technologies improve....

> (...)
> > Joe.
> (...)
>
> Lucio.

Joe.