virus: Re: Future man, immortality and memes
xybnw@ttacs1.ttu.edu
Thu, 28 Mar 1996 10:50:47 -0600 (CST)
I am intrigued by the attitude I have read on this newsgroup in the
past month that reproduction, while obviously a biological imperative, is not
personally desirable. Children do take a lot of time, money and energy, and
are often not any fun, but they are probably one of the few ways we have at
present of continuing our personal memes, not to mention genes.
Children don't become carbon copies of their parents in the way that
they think, any more than the way they look, but if children are nurtured
intellectually and worked with instead of plopped in front of a television set,
they do tend to pick up their parents' interests and world views. This sort
of influence on future generations is the only way we have at present of
continuing our own intellectual exploration and enjoyment.
I will be dead and rotting in a box in one hundred years, but I
hope my children and their children will continue exploring the natural
world. I want them to enjoy the same books and music and games that I
have, and to use my interests as a strong foundation for their own
intellectual growth. I hope that they build on what I have learned in
order to create something bigger than what was before.
Children are the only way I see of continuing my intellectual
pursuits after death, albeit in an amorphous fashion. Therefore I think
they are the only way we have at present to achieve memetic immortality
(for those of us who are not writing the books, papers, symphonies,
etc).
I am disturbed because more people who think like I do don't share this
same feeling towards children. Courtney Love and Roseanne and their ilk will
continue to have kids, and will give them their own sets of values and
intellectual guidence. But many of us who are "free thinkers" are
choosing not to have children, and I want to question that-- gently, and
in the spirit of friendly discourse.