I'm a happy full time step-mom and yet I still hear an endless stream of 'When are you going to have one of your own?' from co-workers and relatives. It makes me mad for a few reasons. First, it dismisses the fact that I am already raising a great kid (just because she is not biologically mine, doesn't make this less true. She is my daughter. I am her mother. I am raising her.). Second, it's none of their business why I don't have a baby. And third, I never seem to hear this question asked of my childless male colleagues.

You are really reaching. I was giving an example to illustrate the flaw in your statement:

So fine, we can jump species. Take a bee hive. Other than queens, the females are sterile workers. They gather food and maintain the hive. They are essential to sustaining the life of that hive and can't possibly breed. So they are failures.

There is a more global view you are missing.

Yes, any form of life needs, as a group, to reproduce to sustain itself. Not every single one of its members needs to breed.

well, conversely, in order to see my point you're not reaching far enough.


actually that's a really good analogy, and I have to agree, though yes individually they fail, but in the efforts of the collective organism - the hive - to survive, they succeed. This analogy follows to the human scale, verifying yoru assertion regarding Dean Kamen, and that list upthread.

still, though these non-breeders can be shown or argued to have a positive effect in terms of species survival, without that essential core of breeders their efforts are lost.

This doesn't refute my crank not-a-theory, but offers a corollary?

no, I disagree. of the two of us, my view is Life - all species, all entities, - viewed as a single collective organism - the "cell" analogy, a few posts ago - is more congruent with a "global" - as in all-encompassing analogy.


this falls back to eh human scale, and disregards the global, Life-as-one-organism view, see?

editted to fix cheesetit

The rule was an awful mistake of parenting that somehow got credence as a “rule”. It is a parenting theory designed to build individuals who can successfully be on the bottom of a highly hierarchical organization where extreme deference to ones superiors is required. If you were raised that way, please seek counseling. It may be the only hope for you.

And yet by some miracle the kids raised under those anachronistic principles managed to win World War II, set foot on the moon, build the US into a superpower, and in general become "the greatest generation".

this falls back to eh human scale, and disregards the global, Life-as0-one-organism view, see?

you breed, you succeed, you don't, you fail.

Seriously I think your 'breed or fail' theiory falls apart with herd and pack animals. It certainly falls apart in the hive world, where 99.9999% of a given species never breed, ever and yet... we still seem to have bees around, go figger!

DMT

The current crop raised with self-esteem workshops and planned playdates might be psychologically very well adjusted, but I'll vouch for this, you put them in a high stress situation where it's all on them, and they usually can't find their asses with both hands and a flashlight.

Its the essentiality of breeding as neccesary to continuation, not the species-specific breeding behavioural model.

without breeding, creating new individuals, new "Cells" as it were, for the collective organism, the collective organism doesn't survive.

[Finally, the way you state it as some definitive, universal truth is what irks people. Even if you were right, your delivery is annoying and not going to convince others.

Now you're just flailing. I game set matched you brother. Feel free to change tacks though, to more favorable winds.

DMT

how so? how does it fall apart under the conditions you mention?

And yet by some miracle the kids raised under those anachronistic principles managed to win World War II, set foot on the moon, build the US into a superpower, and in general become "the greatest generation".

The current crop raised with self-esteem workshops and planned playdates might be psychologically very well adjusted, but I'll vouch for this, you put them in a high stress situation where it's all on them, and they usually can't find their asses with both hands and a flashlight. They're so busy being special and unique they don't know when to shut up and just get the job done.

Yeah, yeah, I'm an old grouch. Stuck inside this weekend so even more so...

Tell that to the combat soldiers coming home from the war their boomer fathers started in Iraq.

Fact is most folks don't respond well to extreme stress. Now we climbers get to confront some elemental stress in our lives and so develop notions about what we can and cannot handle.

But a lot of your peers, how ever old you are... can't handle stress at all. They are, as a group, fat, stressed out and dying from diseases of obesity.

And these folks would presume to criticize combat soldiers as generationally lazy - merde! Those kids are going to be paying YOUR BILLS their entire lives and still you criticize them.

Talk about biting the (baby) hands that feed you...

DMT

Your own words - breed or fail. You made this at the individual level. As soon as the fatal flaw was identified you started back tracking. Have the integrity to stick to your original argument and stop with the ridiculous qualifications. Its not like this 'theory' is yours anyway.... Sounds way Jurassic Park to me haha. The whole "Life wants to.." bit -= I know you know what I mean haha.

DMT

Also robbovius, you are a dufus

and need to come back down to this planet.

You're probably obsessed with bacteria and other small organisms aren't you.

Oh no, I think my arrogance is quite credible.

there's no rigtheousness to it, really. Consider "Life" itself, as one great, ameobic, non- (or semi-) sentient organism. It has but one imperative, and one motivation, simply to continue its existence, and survive.

viewing Life on the scale of the universe, this imperative to survive and continue is the only thing that matters - the ONLY thing.

Thus, the only meaningful success, in fulfilling Life's agenda, is to propagate the respective species you belong to. you breed, you succeed, you don't, you fail.

Life doesn't care if you climb, or spend your existance in altruistic pursuits, or anything. it only cares that you continue its survival.

Life has its own agenda, and we are only another in the many experiments its tried in its pursuit of continuation and survival. all else, all human-scale endeavours and cares, are a gloss over Life's imperative.

there's no rigtheousness to it, really. Consider "Life" itself, as one great, ameobic, non- (or semi-) sentient organism. It has but one imperative, and one motivation, simply to continue its existence, and survive.

fuck! I can't even find where I wrote that, I mean, I know I did, I thought it had a nice ring, but i want to read thur all my posts and see where my arguments disassociate, but I've been back anf forth thru this stupid thread, and damned if I can find it...wanna link it for me?

then you will never, ever, not ever, fully mature, and will spend your life in a state of arrested adolescense.

....and every other parent reading this thread, knows that for the truth.

the truest fullness of your humanity, the only true measure of success, is in raising children. all else is gloss.

fuck! I can't even find where I wrote that, I mean, I know I did, I thought it had a nice ring, but i want to read thur all my posts and see where my arguments disassociate, but I've been back anf forth thru this stupid thread, and damned if I can find it...wanna link it for me?

How's this... YOU WIN.

I don't know that he's won. All he did was take a nice growing thread about a rant and devolve it into self-indulgent philosophy 101 masturbation that should embarrass any college freshman.

Just asking, not provoking. But it seems to me we enable our questioners with details that in turns provokes their curiousity. Its one of the reasons I do not talk about climbing at work, for example. it IS none of their business and I work to keep it that way.