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[wierd]

To take the 'no down season' bit, why aren't wealthy people breeding like rabbits? They'd have plenty of 'down season' to have sex if they wanted to.

The most obvious answer is probably that they choose not to breed like rabbits despite being wealthy enough to support it.

No, the most obvious answer is that their wealth and power permit them to avoid the consequences of their improprieties.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-sex-assault-weinstein-cosby-1010-story.html

Weinstein, Cosby, et al-- are more the rule, than the exception. (It's why hollywood ignored them for decades.)

[nenjin]

The wealthy don't breed like jack rabbits because they don't need to.

Some people, mainly religious people, will have stupidly large families for their own reasons.

Most everyone else though in the middle class keep it to a few children though.

In primitive and agrarian societies, there is a direct pay off for having children. They are labor. How costly that labor ends up being depends on a lot of factors, but they are a source of labor that someone (their parents) own and can control. They need this extra labor so they can provide for themselves better, not have to work as hard and have someone to take care of them as they age.

Rich people don't need any of that. Unless someone is breeding for the purposes of a family dynasty, they don't need the labor. They just hire people. They don't need help in their labors; they work as hard as they want to, not need to. They don't need someone to take care of them.

Unless someone's objective is to out-breed [insert political/religious/ethnic group here]s, having "as many children as you possibly can" simply isn't worth the pay off for all the pain and, even though they're rich, sundry time and costs to be a decent parent. (Doctor's visits, preschool, summer camp, etc.....x12.) The pay off of warmth and a connection to your kin even diminishes the more kids you have. Listen to any stand up comic talk about coming from a large (6+) family and what you generally won't here is anecdotes about a high degree of parenting.

[wierd]

The wealthy breed a whole lot more than you would like to accept nenjin.  Just not normally with their spouses.

See for instance, the laundry list of people Trump has apparently had sexual conquests with, coming out of the woodwork now.

Or, if you think that is exceptional, do a little cursory examination on the historicity of the phenomenon, and just how "celibate" the clergy really has been over the centuries. (the church got to be so big, by being a political power, and prominent clergymen were power brokers/players in prior eras. In modern eras, the 'problem' is still quite extant, with the catholic church battling scandal after scandal to the point of being a cliche.)

Wealthy and powerful people have lots of sex. LOTS of sex.  They just use gag orders, and other legal instruments, and outright coersion to prevent the evidence of their trysts from being public knowledge.

They have legitimate heirs for their financial fortunes/dynasties, and then they have their mistresses and pool boys. When discussing reproduction, it is improper to focus exclusively on the former, and ignore the latter. The wealthy have the resources to deny and obstruct evidence of their trysts.

See also, Steve Jobs, and his daughter (that was "totally not his.")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Brennan-Jobs

[nenjin]

You seem to have gotten off on some tangent where you're arguing that the wealthy like to have sex. (Everyone likes to have sex, protected, pilled or otherwise.) I thought we were talking about legitimate child birth.

Wealthy people do all sorts of shit because they're out of touch with reality, like spreading their seed far and wide because they think they're like Greek gods, or not keeping their celibacy because they get off on sinning as the clergy. By definition none of that actually matters in this discussion because they're not taking responsibility for these children or bringing them in to their family unit. They breed because of ego, and that is an outlier to the rest of humanity who has actually attachment to their offspring and have to bear the cost of raising them. It's in the same ball park as families that breed like crazy because they think they have a religious mission to populate the Earth with people who agree with them.

[smjjames]

I was thinking more of the rich women, not the rich men, but yes, rich men banging on the side is absolutely nothing new.

And none of this really has to do with the original topic at hand, which is effective resolutions to climate change.

Yeah, we wandered so freaking far from it. It happens.

[SalmonGod]

Yeah, the whole thing is a tangent.  Relevant, but nitpicking one aspect of one part of the topic that initiated it.  That's pretty typical, though.

[nenjin]

Is it Climate Change Friday already?!

I was just saying he was strenuously arguing a point I don't think anyone would really disagree with. Rich women have very little incentive to breed all the time, because who the hell wants to be perma-preggers if you don't need or want to be?

[Il Palazzo]

I thought the topic has moved on to ol' Cosby and legions of his illegitimate spawn?

[wierd]

Well, there's this bit from vanity fair-- which basically lamplights that it is systemic.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2011/05/beyond-arnold-and-dsk-wealthy-ladies-with-voracious-sexual-appetites

with this cute little one liner:

The nearly simultaneous occurrence of these high-profile controversies has focused a spotlight on the profligate behavior of wealthy and influential men.

before going into the gritty about how influential WOMEN do the exact same thing.  In fact, have done so for centuries.

There' Gladys Deacon-- Who openly boasted about her sexual verve with european aristocracy before landing the duke of Marlborough, for instance. (and before she had her appearance permanently defaced by botched early cosmetic surgery involving parafin wax injections)


------

Ninja ninja ninja.


No-- more that I was answering the question of "Whence the children of aristocrats? Why such small families?"

Answer:  The ones you know about are the ones you know about, because they are the ones they tell you about.

[wierd]

I'm not even sure anymore. I think his original point was the usual Malthusian bullshit that we've put down time and time again.

MALTHUSIAN?!

When ever did I mention Malthus here, exactly?  Care to cite an example for such a claim?  If I am to be subject to pedantry at every whim, I reserve the right to return the favor.

[wierd]

No....

Malthus's claim was that there is a finite carry capacity based on the agricultural practices of the time.
Specifically, it is based on the arguments of linear growth of agricultural output in the face of exponential population growth.

See for instance:
https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/malthusian-theory/

Malthus stated that population growth is exponential with no upper bound.  That is certainly NOT what I said at all.

I said that population will level out from population stresses, and that the result will be equilibrium, but the equilibrium achieved belies high quality of living, which was the stated goal of the initial poster.

Can I has apology now?

[Il Palazzo]

So, uh, are you saying that when fertility rates drop with higher HDI, it's because quality of living in developed countries is lower than in poor ones? 'Cause it kinda looks like you do.

[wierd]

The resource in shortage is NOT material wealth, jackasses.

Which I have stated I dont know-- maybe 8 times now.  Material wealth is at all time highs.

However, access to affordable healthcare is dropping, --as cited, people are having less sex in total as well, all stemming from a decided lack of actual quality personal time, due to the increased demands of maintaining the society that has been created.

Which is what I was *ACTUALLY* arguing--  at least in the latter part of the argument.  "Resources" take more forms than things you can hold in your hands, fellas.  Theres intangible ones, like 'quality time', and 'value of labor.' that you are conveniently neglecting.

Nitpicks about "whence all the wealthy's babie then?" were pedantry brought up by YOU jokers, necessitating answers.

Complaining about the derails that you yourself caused is bullshit, M'kay?

[smjjames]

Lets chill out a bit here, passionate is fine, but lets not go there with personal attacks or calling people jackasses.

[Reelya]

In short, we would need to find a way to produce matter and energy from nothing, then move into outer space.

We don't really. There's abundant energy even here, we just need to get much better at utilizing it.

Everything really does come down to energy in the long run. We wouldn't have "matter" issues if we recycle what we use, and the only reasons we don't do that come down to the energy costs too. For example "clean water" is a finite resource only because we're not yet able to apply energy well enough to make more clean water.

The amount of global solar energy capacity (captured through various means) that we currently utilize is a ridiculously small percentage of the total capacity. In the long run, that capacity will dwarf everything else, so we'll have absolutely insane amounts of energy-per-person at some point in the future. The thing about solar is that it's insanely scalable.

Hopefully, it reaches the long-term point at which artificially-created clean water is so cheap that naturally-occurring clean water can't compete in the market and we stop draining rivers off, which would have environmental benefits. Similar to how coal power is actually dying because it's just obsolete and too expensive vs newly developed energy sources.