X-Message-Number: 31784
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:48:19 -0700
Subject: Re: Celebs: Too Cool to be Cryo-Preserved
From: Keith Henson <>

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 2:00 AM, Mark Plus wrote:

> In Cryonet #31776, Dr. Harris writes:
>

>>Heinlein was one of the great visionaries of the future, and (by his own 
estimate, at any rate) one of the brilliant and intelligent men of the age.

As someone who interacted with RAH while he was on the board of the L5
Society, in my opinion he was one of the "brilliant and intelligent
men of the age."  That didn't make him God of course.
>

> And the more I've read into Heinlein, the more absurdities in his world view 
I've noticed. For example, Heinlein, who to the best of my knowledge never had 
children, writes repeatedly about baby-making as the highest value, while also 
showing that civilizations experience recurring Malthusian catastrophes. Uh, 
excuse me? What about preventing these catastrophes by not haphazardly 
procreating in the first place?

There is nothing wrong with a growing populations as long as the
economy is growing faster.  Also Heinlein was aware (theme of Beyond
this Horizon) of the need for genetic selection.  I think he would
have been fascinated by Dr. Gregory Clark's work
http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf
and by evolutionary psychology.


> The emphasis on baby-making could also account for the absence of extremely 
long-lived women in Heinlein's stories about Lazarus Long.

What?  A number are part of the story, including Lazarus Long's mother.


>Given the ideology in that society, what woman would seek rejuvenation 
(assuming that it restores her fertility) so that she could bear dozens of 
children a century over an indefinite life span?

Those who want to, of course.

Here is a story of a time where the "powers that be" whoever and
whatever they are, are trying to increase the population and having
very little luck.  http://www.terasemjournals.org/gn0401/kh1.html  It
is partly from the viewpoint of a woman who has had 13 kids and (so
far) not increased the physical state population at all.

Keith

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