skull_bearer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skull_bearer) wrote2013-07-27 09:27 pm
skull_bearer) wrote2013-07-27 09:27 pm
Entry tags:
A fat-phobic encounter
So I was at a really great house party run by an old professor of mine, and it was a really good time, a lot of really friendly fannish people, loads of fellow geeks, so I was wandering around chatting to just about everyone and it was really enjoyable.
However, you know that horrible feeling when you start talking to someone and it slowly dawns on you that their opinions are not only utterly unlike yours, they're downright opposed?
I was talking to two people in the sitting room, and they suddenly went on a rant on how more people died last year from overeating than undereating. Being the glass-half-full person I am, I said 'oh, that's good right? It means less people are dying of hunger.' And they shot back 'no it's bad, I hate humans and want them to die'. Then they went on about how if fat people die it's a good thing because they're clearly not putting in the effort to lose weight and are all lazy and just don't want to try and stay alive. 'If you see a bus coming towards you, you get out of the way, right? So why aren't these people doing the same?'
And I was just internally going WTF and trying to point out that there are a lot of socio-economic factors involved in food availability, and that bad food it typically cheaper than good food, and that a lot of people in lower economic brackets not only find it difficult to get access to good food, but often lack the time to prepare it.
Their answer: Well, they had time to go to McDonalds, didn't they? And Oh, I was in this position when I was an undergrad, and I didn't have any problems making the change.
These people, note you, are white, vegan, and very clearly middle class.
So after a few minutes of hearing this sociopaths discussing why fat people dying was a good thing and they deserved it, I left in disgust. I have to admit, it coloured the rest of my evening a bit. I was not expecting people like that at the party.
However, you know that horrible feeling when you start talking to someone and it slowly dawns on you that their opinions are not only utterly unlike yours, they're downright opposed?
I was talking to two people in the sitting room, and they suddenly went on a rant on how more people died last year from overeating than undereating. Being the glass-half-full person I am, I said 'oh, that's good right? It means less people are dying of hunger.' And they shot back 'no it's bad, I hate humans and want them to die'. Then they went on about how if fat people die it's a good thing because they're clearly not putting in the effort to lose weight and are all lazy and just don't want to try and stay alive. 'If you see a bus coming towards you, you get out of the way, right? So why aren't these people doing the same?'
And I was just internally going WTF and trying to point out that there are a lot of socio-economic factors involved in food availability, and that bad food it typically cheaper than good food, and that a lot of people in lower economic brackets not only find it difficult to get access to good food, but often lack the time to prepare it.
Their answer: Well, they had time to go to McDonalds, didn't they? And Oh, I was in this position when I was an undergrad, and I didn't have any problems making the change.
These people, note you, are white, vegan, and very clearly middle class.
So after a few minutes of hearing this sociopaths discussing why fat people dying was a good thing and they deserved it, I left in disgust. I have to admit, it coloured the rest of my evening a bit. I was not expecting people like that at the party.
no subject
They'll put less pressure on said social collective?
Clearly we need some people to have children and plenty of people WANT to have children. Some people are DESPERATE to have children and prepared to pay enormous sums of money on fertility treatments if need be.
That a few hipsters decide that they've got some kind of moral imperative for their decision not to have children, hardly matters much in the scheme of things. Sure, if the majority of the community thought like them we might have some serious backlash - and heck, simply the decision to have LESS children is causing problems of an ageing population. But so long as they remain a minority, they are causing nobody any real bother and in a way they are right to say that they are decreasing the number of children that society must support.
Look, perhaps you'll think I'm completely missing the point, but I think my main disagreement is with this:
However, personally choosing not to have children doesn't help the situation, because other persons who understand how to play the game better will just have more children
Nobody ever decides to have more children specifically because a few hipsters decided to have none. That is nonsense. Yeah, sure so those few people won't be able to spread their own values directly to their progeny.
But in any society there will be some people who do not have children and why should it not be by choice? Are people any lesser for not having children (in a moral sense)?
no subject
They'll put less pressure on said social collective?
Indeed that individual will put less pressure on said social collective, but that individual is paying a high price (eliminating all of her genetic and much of her memetic extension into the future) for a rather small gain (the slight easing of pressure will hardly be perceptible to her), and worst of all (because of the effects on the genetic and memetic composition of future generations she is doing so in a manner which increases the future influence of those who choose to breed. Thus the long-term effect of their choice is to increase population pressure, even though its short-term effect is to reduce it. In a system running under this rules for enough generations, one will see the vast majority of the population being utterly unrestrained breeders.
And no, nobody is morally-compelled to have children. But since future generations are (almost) entirely descended genetically from those who choose to have children (*), and are largely descended memetically from those who choose to have children (**), this forbearance, even if widely practiced, will not only not lead to a future of greater reproductive restraint, but will actually lead to a future of less reproductive restraint. And this will be the more true the more widespread the practice of deliberate restraint.
This may be counter-intuitive, but it follows quite inexorably from evolutionary logic. The easier one makes it (both biologically and culturally) to avoid biologically reproducing, the more certain it is that those who do reproduce will do so because they really, really, really want to have babies. In other words, making it easy to avoid reproduction strongly selects in the long term for extreme fertility.
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(*) Some people simply get pregnant, one way or another, and do not choose to get abortions. This will be less and less the case as our contraceptive technology further evolves.
(**) Parents in most societies are the principal memetic influence on their children.