Boys and Girls in Space

Hi Janet,

As an "old fashionated" Latin America I agree with you fully!

Without responsabily of both men a women there is not family. Men
must assume the responsability. If they want the process of making
kids, they have also to assume the responsabily to allow them to
live and to grow.

Without children there are not families. Without responsable and
forgiving grand-parents, that take care of those "non-wanted" kids
of their teen girls, a large part of the population dissapears.

Governments won't boost population. Governments only want taxes to
be paid so they have money to mantain the politicians, and if a
population refuse to reproduce, governments just import people to
replace it.

Only families can maintain alive a people. And only societies with
strong family values survive in the long term, because only those
produce new generations.

Tech can help to produce kids, but without families where those kids
will grow? Without parents willing to have kids not even "artificial
wombs", or other high tech gear, will help much.

Families will never be "out of fashion". Romans tried once and the
whole Empire falled.

Please think about it. The core of society is not the government,
the heritage or the tradition. The core is the family. No replace
exist for it.

Omar,
An "old fashionated" South American

> The family is a tough little package, and those cultures which
foster
> the family over the commune have proved to be resilient. Vernor
Vinge
> in Darkness of the Deep proposed that space would be conquored by
> family dynasties operating in an economic system of young,
expanding
> capitalism where the concept of "return business" is the unifying
> secular morality, and like enough to the golden rule to work just
> fine. (Free trade among equals is cheaper than enslavement.)
>
> Let's say Vinge and others are right and the family is the unit
that
> will carry humankind to the stars. I wonder what it will take to
get
> boys and girls together again in the baby-making business. I
wonder if
> we're too far down the road already. If so, you can forget the
space
> colony. All the tech talk is just jerking off, because neither the
> government nor business will be able to take over reproduction
from
> living, breathing men and women, in spite of of those test tube
uterus