Pro-natalism - what can we learn from Israel?

Terraformer · 2020-01-21 11:44:30

As countries have become more prosperous and educated, their fertility rates have tended to decline, to the point that Israel stands alone as the only developed country to have a fertility rate above replacement.

Mars, of course, will be a highly educated and developed world from the start, so it will not be immune to the anti-natal effect of prosperity. If space colonisation is to be considered a success, it can't be a population sink that relies on continued immigration from Terra to keep numbers up. We will have to learn from the Israelis about how to promote fertility.

https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/israel … c-miracle/

Calliban · 2020-01-21 14:45:27

Want to raise national fertility rates? Close down the abortion clinics and restrict access to the contraceptive pill. The contraceptive pill was a disaster for national fertility. Not because it allowed sex without fear of pregnancy. It is precisely because it allowed unprotected sex without fear of pregnancy. It allowed the full intimacy of unprotected sex, whilst denying the biological consequences of unprotected sex. Women crave that intimacy and the pill allowed them to avoid the consequences.

louis · 2020-01-21 16:08:06

It's an interesting question. If we want to grow the population of Mars we should be encouraging large families.

But on the other hand the strong likelihood is that most women on Mars will be highly educated and highly independent-minded - precisely the sort of women who don't have large families on Earth.

One lesson I think we could take from Israel, from the Kibbutz movement, is to provide full childcare. In the Kibbutz movement the commune took over the lion's share of the responsibility for raising the child. However, over time the Kibbtuz has tended to be supplanted by more traditional family structures. People like to feel part of a close family, not part of a social commune.

Of course there is a bigger issue of whether we can procreate successfully on Mars. The answer is probably yes - even if we have to resort to artificial 1G environments (maybe in LMO).

Scientists have been able to keep premature lambs alive in artificial wombs:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 … r-4-weeks/

One day it may be possible to transfer a human foetus at an early stage in pregnancy to an artificial womb, so minimising the difficulties for the mother in terms of pursuing her career.

It might be possible to use fertility treatment methods to create multiple pregnancies - maybe non-identical twins would be standard.

Perhaps there could be strong financial incentives for large families as well as extended child care. A woman might be prepared to have two twin pregancies - one in her mid 20s and one in her mid 40s.

Last edited by louis (2020-01-21 18:39:26)

Dayton3 · 2020-03-07 10:43:28

If one thing in recent years regarding this issue has become clear is that governmental policies have relatively little effect on the decisions about women having children and how many they have. Government policies are way down the list on the major factors influencing those kinds of decisions. Family, culture and various other factors are far, far more prominent.

louis · 2020-03-08 08:47:41

Really? Not so. Take a look at this article about Hungary.

Dayton3 wrote:

If one thing in recent years regarding this issue has become clear is that governmental policies have relatively little effect on the decisions about women having children and how many they have. Government policies are way down the list on the major factors influencing those kinds of decisions. Family, culture and various other factors are far, far more prominent.

SpaceNut · 2020-03-08 10:28:07

This is the ideology of politics of a culture and unless you are living in a bubble you will carry this with you to mars even if you try to supress it from being visible to others. It is why allowing cummunities in America small areas of like kind people are such an issue as they are keeping the bad of the culture still growing with hate and not lessoning it in deversity.

louis · 2020-03-08 15:24:48

China is a one race - one culture state (Han Chinese). The USA is probably the most diverse country that has ever existed but is built around a fairly minimalist core culture: loser consent democracy, free speech, rule of law, and loyalty to the Republic. Trying to build a working society on diversity alone without that central focus of loyalty is a doomed enterprise. You end with either civil war or dictatorship.

SpaceNut wrote:

This is the ideology of politics of a culture and unless you are living in a bubble you will carry this with you to mars even if you try to supress it from being visible to others. It is why allowing cummunities in America small areas of like kind people are such an issue as they are keeping the bad of the culture still growing with hate and not lessoning it in deversity.

Last edited by louis (2020-03-08 15:25:15)

Quaoar · 2021-04-12 11:37:16

I'm sorry to have noted this very interesting topic a bit later.
I've some question to discuss about birth rate in a martian colony where the life support system can sustain a limited number of people.

We like to imagine our colonies as brave free people settlements like the Galt's Gulch of Atlas Shrugged. But if our Mars Town life support can keep alive 1000 people and no one more, the birth rate will be very likely regulated by law: every time an old colonist die, a couple of young colonist will get the permission to procreate, to maintain constant population. If new domes are in construction, the colonists will get the permission to generate the right number of child to populate them, but no one more. And probably it will be also implemented some mechanism to equate males and females (i.e. artificial insemination with X or Y spermatozoa).

I know it seems very orwellian and dystopic, but what if air and food are not enough for all?

Last edited by Quaoar (2021-04-12 11:46:28)

tahanson43206 · 2021-04-12 12:38:35

For Quaoar re #8

Thank you for posing an interesting question that deserves further thought...

As you are an experienced science fiction writer, you would not be surprised that the theme has been explored by many authors, and in many venues, and it will never get old.

The Earth itself has been thought (by some) to already be beyond the carrying capacity of agricultural institutions, and indeed, the day of reckoning has been postponed in some locations by using technology, but in other locations people are starving.

I recognize that were people are starving it is due to a combination of failed agriculture and failed human institutions, but the combination is clearly fatal.

(th)

louis · 2021-04-12 13:30:12

Depends what you mean by "relatively". Hungary has had success in raising its fertility rate significantly. Housing, childcare, and
child-related income support are all important in encouraging families to have children. On the other side the example of China shows that the state can certainly deter people from having children.

In terms of Mars, the culture would be dominated by the idea of terraformation and the creation of a second home for humanity. I couldn't think of a culture more conducive to child bearing.

Dayton3 wrote:

If one thing in recent years regarding this issue has become clear is that governmental policies have relatively little effect on the decisions about women having children and how many they have. Government policies are way down the list on the major factors influencing those kinds of decisions. Family, culture and various other factors are far, far more prominent.

Last edited by louis (2021-04-12 13:30:42)

louis · 2021-04-12 13:33:21

Why wouldn't a Mars community be able to expand life support? Makes no sense to me, though it might be an interesting plot device!

Quaoar wrote:

I'm sorry to have noted this very interesting topic a bit later.
I've some question to discuss about birth rate in a martian colony where the life support system can sustain a limited number of people.
We like to imagine our colonies as brave free people settlements like the Galt's Gulch of Atlas Shrugged. But if our Mars Town life support can keep alive 1000 people and no one more, the birth rate will be very likely regulated by law: every time an old colonist die, a couple of young colonist will get the permission to procreate, to maintain constant population. If new domes are in construction, the colonists will get the permission to generate the right number of child to populate them, but no one more. And probably it will be also implemented some mechanism to equate males and females (i.e. artificial insemination with X or Y spermatozoa).
I know it seems very orwellian and dystopic, but what if air and food are not enough for all?

SpaceNut · 2021-04-12 17:17:47

Quaoar, that is a question that would arise in conditions that are strained and early most likely when the extra energy needs to go into making surplus of everything to be used down the road when more crew and supplies arrive.
It does raise the question of command law until there is a counter part in civilian control to assure that communications of the facts occur so that all can make the correct decision and not make them with no concern to the out come to others.

tahanson43206, possibly the people are starving due to a combination of failed agriculture and failed human institutions but long ago we did it and it was our up bringing that has changed such that we take the easy way and no longer will do the hard work that it takes to feed one's self from our own labor even if its assisted by machines.
Failure of support institutions has another issue as its fund driven to not supply to all in need.

Quaoar · 2021-04-13 08:46:06

louis wrote:

Why wouldn't a Mars community be able to expand life support? Makes no sense to me, though it might be an interesting plot device!

You can expand the life support but it will always have a limit. If the birth rate exceeds the rate of expansion of the life support, the legislators will be forced to intervene.
If you add to this the sad fact that people in command are usually very willing to control and regulate the life of the other people, it would be unlikely they would not overuse the new formidable power tools that a closed ecosystem give them, easily turning a libertarian dream in an orwellian nightmare.

P.S. I wrote a novel about a 3 million people closed cycle building where only the firstborns inherit the right to marry and procreate from their parents. It was not set on Mars but in a post atomic Italy (if you go outside the building you will be eat by cannibals). When I have time I'll translate it in English.

Last edited by Quaoar (2021-04-13 13:39:29)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-10-10 15:55:50

'Live long and prosper' a version of a traditional Jewish blessing used character Mr. Spock and actor Leonard Nimoy, himself Jewish, actors also know of Romeo and Juliet which contains the line, "Live and be prosperous: and farewell good fellow",described the gesture as a "double-fingered version of Churchill's victory sign" now a forever phrase as the greeting of the Vulcan people.

'Amish men carrying forbidden cell phones outed by national emergency alert test'
https://nypost.com/2023/10/07/amish-out … ncy-alert/

Projected To Overtake The Current US Population the Amish Religion types take over in 215 Years. The Italians and Japanese now have a big problem, the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán in 2019 announced incentives which included eliminating taxes for mothers with more than three children. Higher fertility rates, Judaism, expanding family from Islam, and major branches of Christianity, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Catholic Church. After some time the USA is All Amish or Mormon or one of those birth big family religion type?

How would they keep busy, do something while everyone is busy with video games or when the rest of the world goes shopping, smokes weed, drinks booze, goes to the Baaskletball or NFL or gambles or is watching tv

the other tragic lesson, with conflict, ethnic hatred and religions and war

Canadian-Israeli peace person Vivian Silver who socialized with Arabs is believed to be among the dozens of civilian hostages held by Hamas

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/son-of-ca … -1.6595638

,

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/worl … srael.html

In places of high crime and economic trouble, the private security industry in South Africa starts to help protect the family, it is one of the largest in the world, with over 9,000 registered companies, 450,000 registered active private security guards.

Driver of armoured vehicle evades South African armed robbers in brazen highway heist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGZLYx8StWk

and as other African nations see unrest and war, they have many illegal entries

tahanson43206 · 2023-10-10 20:35:50

For Mars_B4_Moon re this topic ...

Thanks for bringing this important topic back into view ....

A science fiction story published recently (and soon to appear in book form) took up the Earth-Disaster-Go-Somewhere theme and developed it in interesting ways. One aspect of the story might be pertinent to this topic. The crew of the star ship was made up of all women. The freezer banks in the body of the ship contained a huge repository of semen from all populations on Earth. The challenges of setting up shop on a new world that was way off spec from Earth almost took out the entire expedition, but they survived with about half the original crew still functioning. At ** that ** point they began making babies.

Something like that might work for Mars or other Solar System destinations, if women are interested in becoming mothers. After the population has gained some size, the hope might be that normal productivity would become possible and socially accepted.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-04-06 10:57:21

Talk about Amish way of life given at Bainbridge Historical Society
http://www.chagrinvalleytoday.com/commu … 9e666.html

when another cultural side has more kids?

Israel's Demographic Time-Bomb: An Arab-Majority State?
https://www.ibtimes.com/israels-demogra … ate-213933

Utah

Occultic and Masonic Influence in Early Mormonism
https://mit.irr.org/occultic-and-masoni … -mormonism

In Mormonism, the endowment is a two-part ordinance (ceremony) designed for participants to become kings, queens, priests, and priestesses in the afterlife. There are many similarities between Smith's endowment ceremony and certain rituals of Freemasonry, particularly the Royal Arch degree. These specific similarities included instruction in various signs, tokens, and passwords, and the imposition of various forms of the penalties for revealing them. The original wording of the penalties, for example, closely followed the graphic wording of the Masonic penalties.
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/article … eremony-2/

Captain Morgan and the Masonic Influence in Mormonism
http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/mor … luence.htm

LDS ENDOWMENT AND MASONIC INITIATION
http://www.mormonismi.net/jamesdavid/masendow.htm

The LDS Church - Rituals & Worship
https://www.patheos.com/library/mormoni … -symbolism

‘Word of Wisdom' is a law revealed for the physical and spiritual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_U_rzlVVdA

1833 section of the Doctrine and Covenants, a book considered by many churches within the Latter Day Saint movement to be a sacred text. The section defines beliefs regarding certain drugs, nutritious ingredients in general, and the counsel to eat meat sparingly; it also offers promises to those who follow the guidance of the Word of Wisdom.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-04-06 11:56:53)

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#1 2020-01-21 11:44:30

Pro-natalism - what can we learn from Israel?

#2 2020-01-21 14:45:27

Re: Pro-natalism - what can we learn from Israel?

#3 2020-01-21 16:08:06

Re: Pro-natalism - what can we learn from Israel?

#4 2020-03-07 10:43:28

Re: Pro-natalism - what can we learn from Israel?

#5 2020-03-08 08:47:41

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#6 2020-03-08 10:28:07

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#7 2020-03-08 15:24:48

Re: Pro-natalism - what can we learn from Israel?

#8 2021-04-12 11:37:16

Re: Pro-natalism - what can we learn from Israel?

#9 2021-04-12 12:38:35

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#10 2021-04-12 13:30:12

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#11 2021-04-12 13:33:21

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#12 2021-04-12 17:17:47

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#13 2021-04-13 08:46:06

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#14 2023-10-10 15:55:50

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#15 2023-10-10 20:35:50

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