The future of oil was: What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS 2031

(keith) writes:

I suppose this explains the black market for abducted babies. The sight of a cute little baby could induce a longing that might trigger such a kidnapping - just like the sight of any other valuable might cause someone to commit some other form of theft. Figuring out that maybe you should work and earn money to purchase a bauble of your own is an abstract concept that even some humans have yet to master.

My wife didn't want babies. That's what attracted me to her; I didn't want them either. Our love drives are quite intact, though - if she hadn't had her tubes tied, or I wasn't otherwise careful, babies would probably have happened regardless of what our conscious minds were thinking.

Well, for the sake of this discussion it does. What I'm trying to get at is what's going through the mind (if any) of a unpleasant woman in heat: is she thinking "I want puppies" - or just "C'mon over here, handsome, and jump my bones"? IMHO the latter is enough - and Mother Nature has a tendency to trim excess baggage. (Note the word "handsome" above - that's critical.)

But that perceived need is at quite a high level in a (semi-)reasoning mind. How do lower species - who haven't developed such powers of reasoning - manage to reproduce?

Sure, but it seems like a stretch to think that they're thinking, "I want more babies" - a highly abstract concept - when all they really need is an instinctive drive to perform the acts that will eventually result in babies whether they're aware of it or not.

The love drive - at least in females - has been highly tuned by natural selection. But that still isn't the same as a desire to have babies - it's just a desire to have love with someone who's likely to father some healthy, robust babies.

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