Last night, I watched half of the movie version of early 1960s puppet show from the UK, "Thunderbirds Are Go!" on TCM: seeing the patriarch of the clan, the Ben Cartright-type guy, I thought "THAT is what Elon Musk is after!" He wants 5 strong sons to fly his rocket ships from his secluded Mediterranean Island fortress (with one of them launched from underneath the swimming pool that slides out of the way) and do big splashy rescues with his crazily awkward rockets/airplanes.
Father of soon 5 here. yep, 3 rather different mothers, thus at least one way to resemble Musk ;)
I agree with most of the post, but
1. I doubt that in Musk's case the IVF is mainly due to sperm-issues. He might be thinking from first principles and using IVF for embryo-selection. Sounds far-fetched? Hey, this guy wants "to die on Mars, but not on impact"! And is at times the 2nd richest man on earth ("after Putin").
2. Loving kids, esp. your own, is quite enough reason to have them. The rest is rationalization (though all the reasons you give, are valid). See also Bryan Caplan "Selfish reasons to have more kids" (tl;dr: The ONE selfish reason is that you love them. The main upside is: There is not nearly as much downside as all those silly people want to make you believe.)
If you put the population curve in the U.S. and the population curve in South Africa side to side, would they about balance each other out? Then open immigration from South Africa to the U.S. and your problem is solved, with a lot less effort than making a bunch more babies. ;-)
I know, immigration has its challenges-- just saying, in concert with Antoinette below, that on a global scale, the population is already excessive for the rapidly degrading environment-- and "underpopulation" is only an issue if you consider some people more worthy than others.
I have a beef with Elon's thinking, though, not the article. Engaging, thought-provoking article!
More local fertility to avoid a backlash - what kind of a remark is that ?!
What the locals want is not to pay considerably higher prop. taxes. Is not a shortage of houses and the higher rents etc. caused by that. Is not having their jobs taken and newcomers bringing down the wage level. Etc.
Tomas, you should check out the new book SUPERABUNDANCE by Tupy and Pooley. They show quite convincing evidence that increasied population drives more wealth, so much more that the wealth per person increases. Further, these wealthy people will now care about the environment.
Each person is a gift to the society and (in the aggregate at least) a benefit to the environment.
Apparently Mr. Musk also ascribes to the idea that more people are good for a society.
Then why does he not protest LOUDLY against the H-4 visa that ruined and ruins so many lives - mainly women, usually from India. Against the long, long, waiting times because of the per country quotas (again hitting people from India the hardest). Why does he not protest that legal (!) non-immigrant children are kicked out when they turn 21 ?
He is one of the richest people in the world, no doubt he has cloud in Washington.
You probably are familiar with the saying that there are half-truths, outright lies, and then there are statistics. For every academic who proves A (more immigrants equal more wealth) there is another academic proving non-A (more immigrants equal less wealth).
The book you mention is published by the CATO institute, a libertarian think-tank.
No country wants more immigrants. Believe me, as I have lived, and still live, this simple truth.
Sep 14, 2022·edited Sep 14, 2022Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Antoinette,
First, you have a beautiful name! Thanks for your response.
I am not familiar with the saying about half-truths, etc. But I do know of a similar saying attributed to Mark Twain: There are three kinds of lies. Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics! Here is another one attributed to Twain, "It's not what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know for sure that ain't true." https://quotepark.com/quotes/693078-mark-twain-its-not-what-you-dont-know-that-kills-you-its/
My point is this, just because CATO publishes a book does not make it untrue. I have read true facts in publications as diverse as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and even Pravda. There is even a story (true, I believe) that a newspaper called the National Enquirer made up a story about a presidential candidate named Gary Hart. They published the story and found out to their surprise that it was true.
For many years we have believed that animal populations like bison, antelope, etc. make a great model for human population. When there is more food their population grows until there is not enough food and they die.
Those animals, as beautiful and majestic as they are don't plan ahead, barter with each other, develop technologies to store food, or do many other things which we do. As the cost of transportation, communication and energy go down (I know, energy costs are soaring in Europe right now, but that has been caused by Putin and by a rush to green energy that does not take into account the need for reliable power when one of your sources is controlled by a brutal dictator.)
If you look at the environmental situation of the world over decades, as Bjorn Lomborg (not a member of the CATO institute as far as I know) has done, you will see that the world is actually doing better than it was a century or half-century ago. But that does not make the news. I have never seen a TV news report where the reporter says, "As you can see behind me, there is no war, famine, hunger or flood happening right now. It is supper time and most everyone is eating." Hat tip to Tupy and Pooley for that word picture.
Their book, at least what I have read so far, does not advocate for increased immigration, but does advocate for higher, or at least stable, population.
This is pretty much off topic, but I find it interesting. Something like a third of the Nobel Laureates in the US immigrated here. Most would have been screened out by "reasonable" measures like requirements to speak English, have enough money to be self-supporting, etc. It turns out that one of the best predictors of an immigrant's ability to successfully assimilate into a new country is having an established family member who can sponsor the newcomer.
My quote was a translation from how I heard the saying in my country, which apparently was a translation from a quote by Mark Twain. Ha !
I should have explained better. I did not mean to say that the text in the book is untrue, but that statistics can be explained and interpreted many ways.
I never saw bisons - hunted into extinction bytheway - put forward as a model for human population models (could be my Eur. education). I have seen models based on rats.
No surprise to find immigrants assimilated thanks to already established family. It is how the US immigration system is set up. Having a US family member is for the majority of immigrants the only way to enter into the US.
There is no screening by "reasonable measures" like speaking English. For the family based categories (FI 1-4) there are no requirements re. education, work experience, skills, fin. assets, age, health. English is not the official language of the US (on Fed. level) so (some) fluency in that language cannot be asked for either.
For all others (people without a US family member) it is very hard, almost impossible, to immigrate into the US. The borders were tightened in 1996 (the "anti-immigrant" law enthusiastically endorsed by Dems), leading to more illegal immigration and to more dead bodies.
Most illegal immigrants have family members here, even whole communities. So why not allow them in, to stop wasting resources trying to catch them. Put a system in place to process immigrants in order to weed out the criminals. Find the spots where new workers are needed, etc. Make sure they are not abused. Offer secondary education. Immigration is an issue of Congress/Fed. Government. But when it comes to what is needed to help the newcomers find their place here, private initiative can do much good.
This Earth already has enough people, so when someone starts to advocate making more people, immigration immediately comes to mind. If you want more people, import them.
Sin duda es muy dificil acertar en el cuestionamineto,no olvidemos que hitler queria una raza superior ,la fecundacion in vitro tambien tiene sus ventajas como elegir las caracteristicas de cada uno de los bebes y asi suponer que no desea tener hijos con deficiencias.No olvidemos que Elon sufre de síndrome de Asperger ( sintoma de la perfeccion entre otras ),
Sep 13, 2022·edited Sep 14, 2022Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Translation:
Without a doubt it is very difficult to get the question right, let's not forget that Hitler wanted a superior race, in vitro fertilization also has its advantages such as choosing the characteristics of each of the babies and thus assuming that he does not want to have children with deficiencies. Let's not forget that Elon suffers from Asperger syndrome (symptom of perfection among others),
As always, your editorial is excellent.
(Daniel: If you have a prob with this LMK and I will delete.)
Currently about 200 Million people are looking for another place to live. They are fleeing wars, famine, ecological disasters. Mr. Musk is free to adopt each and everyone of them.
ELON MUSK: “this is a very important problem and I think the way to solve this issue is not through private initiative. Economists have already proven that simply lifting immigration limits would dramatically increase global wealth. And high fertility would help there, because otherwise locals might feel displaced. So these two goals are not at odds, quite the opposite. We need both. I fulfill my part on fertility, and I wish governments pull their weight on the immigration side.”
Underpopulation is going to be one of the big challenges of the next century, without a doubt. But I can't help but raise a skeptical eyebrow when I see techbros, male economists, and the like try to tackle the so-called "fertility challenge". We know that fertility drops as women's political and economic power rises; that's a good trend for women's human rights and freedoms, their material wellbeing, and the economic development of the places in which they live. But it's not hard to see some twisted evo psych interpretation of the problem and its solution as being women's (un)willingness to participate in procreation; a technocrat incel analysis in which women are talked about as units, assets, resources, or chattel that must be more "effectively utilized" to create humans - regardless of their rights or interests as individual human beings. This article, even unintentionally, contributes to a discussion in which women, their agency, and their dignity are not valued as a factor or even as a perspective. That's exceptionally dangerous and not actually helpful to addressing underpopulation and its risks to growth. If we are to engage in the fertility discussion as honest brokers, the work needs to be led by the sex that does the reproductive labour - otherwise women are nothing but slaves.
Sep 13, 2022·edited Sep 14, 2022Liked by Tomas Pueyo
There is no "fertility issue" or "underpopulation". We have more than enough people on planet Earth and the number is still growing. What we need is more health-care, education, housing, infrastructure, etc. for the existing population and their offspring. Make the people we have healthier, they will live longer, and thus have more productive years.
Is Mr. Musk worried the number of white people is going down - as he talks about the US fertility rate. The downward spiral in his graph started (of course) after birth control became available.
Some boy-men want to go to Mars or even to outer space (in a metal penis). But we have on earth more than enough spots that look "alien" because of the unimaginable poverty.
Also, the number of enslaved people has gone up worldwide.
I think the article was informative and a bit tongue-in-cheek (see the graphs about Leonardo DiCaprio). If every point of view has to be included in a story it will quickly become lengthy and unreadable - something much US journalism already suffers from IMHO.
It is not the topic of the article, which is about Musk, but I appreciate your point and agree with it.
2 things to add:
- the penalty in careers from having babies is not the babies, it’s the maternity leave. As such, I’m a big proponent of forced equal maternity leaves for both parents
Some European countries have better maternity leave/help systems than the US. These have not resulted in bigger families. But then, everything is rather cramped in those countries so we see every day the issues of limited space and scarcity of resources (clean air/potable water).
I saw artificial wombs in China ? Women in that country were forced into abortions (even late in term) not too long ago.
Wow. All about Elon and the children, and NOT A WORD about the MOTHERS of his children!! not a word about the possibility that he has children with these partners because they wanted to have children and he wants to comply with their wishes! Being conceived by IVF does not mean that these children do not have mothers! Personally I think the man is a snake and I am not attributing "good" characteristics to him when I say that part of his "personality dynamics" might be to comply with his partners' wishes; and/or to try to forge a strong bond with them (that strategy generally doesn't work, but people keep trying!); haven't you seen all the pictures of Elon with his MOM? doesn't that tell you something about his relationships with women?
I was thinking about the same lines but regarding the children. This article is a good exercise in logic, but the conclusions just confirm that Musk is an egomaniac, a narcissist, similar in many ways to the orange menace.
Elon enjoys having children (I would like to know if his children enjoy having Elon as a father). Elon thinks having children is good for the environment, and to solve a -very debatable- "fertility crisis." And Elon is concerned about his genetic legacy.
So much for Elon and so little for the (his) children. I really pity them. I do not believe a person like Elon can be a good father. Having children is a question of quality, not quantity. It is how much time we can dedicate to them, not how many we can "make," whether "directly," via IVF, or through surrogate or artificial wombs. How much money we have to support them (food, clothing, schooling, entertainment). Overall, major world problems are related to quality, not quantity, and Antoinette makes excellent points regarding this.
Oh, and I forgot the reason I started this reply in the first time. Children mostly need to be LOVED, not to be used as solutions to problems we and previous generations have created.
Since you asked, the oldest child petitioned a CA court immediately after turning 18: ‘I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form."
Hi Tomas, I love your articles but disagree that population needs to grow. I’d love your views on Dennis Meadows’ The Limits To Growth, whose 1972 thesis was that there is overconsumption of material resources and that without policies limiting the said consumption, we are headed to an abrupt halting of growth, a “prediction” that sadly came to pass recently with the disastrous effects of climate change. What do climate change and COVID 19 have in common? They both are the result of human pressure on a planet with finite resources. If you could press a button and make climate change disappear, another global issue would take its place, eg droughts. We can limit our material consumption so we can sustainably live on the same planet (by sacrificing our way of life) or we can maintain our way of life and live sustainably with a population of 1bn. I hope this makes you curious enough to dedicate some articles to the issue as I’d really, genuinely would love your views :)
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I have not published on it because it’s a very hard problem, not because of lack of interest.
The right concept for what you discuss is “carrying capacity” of the Earth. My current analysis hasn’t gone in enough depth so I haven’t reached an independent opinion on carrying capacity, but my current sense is that it’s closer to 100B humans than 1B.
A 5th reason: musk's followers are probably on average buying more teslas... If They reproduce more they will buy even more cars (likely also Teslas) both for their big families and for theie kids as soon as they are at the right age ;-) clearly a "longtermist" approach
One has to have some serious cognitive blind spots not to see the fact that more humans on earth means destruction of flora and fauna, ancient forests, extinction of species.
And does he popularize urban walkable car-free lifestyle built around mass transportation? No, his vision is built on American car-centric lifestyle which can't scale to a planet of 9 billion people if they all live American lifestyle of one person per one ton car!! And maybe 1-2 people living in a 2000-5000 sq ft mansion!
Does he popularize plant-based diet which can support more human population without destroying the planet? Do you want 9 billion folks to eat like Americans? Can the planet support it?
Also, folks seriously try taking a suburban train in Indian cities like Bombay or Calcutta before telling others to keep multiplying like rabbits. Even tourist spots ( where folks go to escape urban crowded human-infested life to see "nature" in some places) are heavily human-infested and hard to walk without bumping into people.
Venice is so over-crowded with all the tourists that the city is trying to impose quotas. London had to impose congestion pricing.
Last night, I watched half of the movie version of early 1960s puppet show from the UK, "Thunderbirds Are Go!" on TCM: seeing the patriarch of the clan, the Ben Cartright-type guy, I thought "THAT is what Elon Musk is after!" He wants 5 strong sons to fly his rocket ships from his secluded Mediterranean Island fortress (with one of them launched from underneath the swimming pool that slides out of the way) and do big splashy rescues with his crazily awkward rockets/airplanes.
Yep. A true Mr. Tracy. I think he is having kids with different women to hedge his bets. Well, he can afford it. It does not endear him to me.
Father of soon 5 here. yep, 3 rather different mothers, thus at least one way to resemble Musk ;)
I agree with most of the post, but
1. I doubt that in Musk's case the IVF is mainly due to sperm-issues. He might be thinking from first principles and using IVF for embryo-selection. Sounds far-fetched? Hey, this guy wants "to die on Mars, but not on impact"! And is at times the 2nd richest man on earth ("after Putin").
2. Loving kids, esp. your own, is quite enough reason to have them. The rest is rationalization (though all the reasons you give, are valid). See also Bryan Caplan "Selfish reasons to have more kids" (tl;dr: The ONE selfish reason is that you love them. The main upside is: There is not nearly as much downside as all those silly people want to make you believe.)
Congrats!
1. I didn’t say that musk did it for semen problems, but your thought that IVF is for genetic quality is sensible.
Mr. Musk and his first wife, Justin Wilson, started using IVF after their firstborn died of SIDS at 10 weeks old.
If you put the population curve in the U.S. and the population curve in South Africa side to side, would they about balance each other out? Then open immigration from South Africa to the U.S. and your problem is solved, with a lot less effort than making a bunch more babies. ;-)
I know, immigration has its challenges-- just saying, in concert with Antoinette below, that on a global scale, the population is already excessive for the rapidly degrading environment-- and "underpopulation" is only an issue if you consider some people more worthy than others.
I have a beef with Elon's thinking, though, not the article. Engaging, thought-provoking article!
I think Musk would agree, and these things are not mutually exclusive. More immigration also requires more local fertility to avoid a backlash.
Also South African fertility is about to go below 2
More local fertility to avoid a backlash - what kind of a remark is that ?!
What the locals want is not to pay considerably higher prop. taxes. Is not a shortage of houses and the higher rents etc. caused by that. Is not having their jobs taken and newcomers bringing down the wage level. Etc.
Tomas, you should check out the new book SUPERABUNDANCE by Tupy and Pooley. They show quite convincing evidence that increasied population drives more wealth, so much more that the wealth per person increases. Further, these wealthy people will now care about the environment.
Each person is a gift to the society and (in the aggregate at least) a benefit to the environment.
I was looking for a good summary of the evidence and it looks like that’s a good one. Thx!
Apparently Mr. Musk also ascribes to the idea that more people are good for a society.
Then why does he not protest LOUDLY against the H-4 visa that ruined and ruins so many lives - mainly women, usually from India. Against the long, long, waiting times because of the per country quotas (again hitting people from India the hardest). Why does he not protest that legal (!) non-immigrant children are kicked out when they turn 21 ?
He is one of the richest people in the world, no doubt he has cloud in Washington.
Are you sure he is against the H4? I would be surprised
I did not say he is. I said he should be.
You probably are familiar with the saying that there are half-truths, outright lies, and then there are statistics. For every academic who proves A (more immigrants equal more wealth) there is another academic proving non-A (more immigrants equal less wealth).
The book you mention is published by the CATO institute, a libertarian think-tank.
No country wants more immigrants. Believe me, as I have lived, and still live, this simple truth.
Antoinette,
First, you have a beautiful name! Thanks for your response.
I am not familiar with the saying about half-truths, etc. But I do know of a similar saying attributed to Mark Twain: There are three kinds of lies. Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics! Here is another one attributed to Twain, "It's not what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know for sure that ain't true." https://quotepark.com/quotes/693078-mark-twain-its-not-what-you-dont-know-that-kills-you-its/
My point is this, just because CATO publishes a book does not make it untrue. I have read true facts in publications as diverse as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and even Pravda. There is even a story (true, I believe) that a newspaper called the National Enquirer made up a story about a presidential candidate named Gary Hart. They published the story and found out to their surprise that it was true.
For many years we have believed that animal populations like bison, antelope, etc. make a great model for human population. When there is more food their population grows until there is not enough food and they die.
Those animals, as beautiful and majestic as they are don't plan ahead, barter with each other, develop technologies to store food, or do many other things which we do. As the cost of transportation, communication and energy go down (I know, energy costs are soaring in Europe right now, but that has been caused by Putin and by a rush to green energy that does not take into account the need for reliable power when one of your sources is controlled by a brutal dictator.)
If you look at the environmental situation of the world over decades, as Bjorn Lomborg (not a member of the CATO institute as far as I know) has done, you will see that the world is actually doing better than it was a century or half-century ago. But that does not make the news. I have never seen a TV news report where the reporter says, "As you can see behind me, there is no war, famine, hunger or flood happening right now. It is supper time and most everyone is eating." Hat tip to Tupy and Pooley for that word picture.
Their book, at least what I have read so far, does not advocate for increased immigration, but does advocate for higher, or at least stable, population.
This is pretty much off topic, but I find it interesting. Something like a third of the Nobel Laureates in the US immigrated here. Most would have been screened out by "reasonable" measures like requirements to speak English, have enough money to be self-supporting, etc. It turns out that one of the best predictors of an immigrant's ability to successfully assimilate into a new country is having an established family member who can sponsor the newcomer.
Thank you, agreed with everything you said!
My quote was a translation from how I heard the saying in my country, which apparently was a translation from a quote by Mark Twain. Ha !
I should have explained better. I did not mean to say that the text in the book is untrue, but that statistics can be explained and interpreted many ways.
I never saw bisons - hunted into extinction bytheway - put forward as a model for human population models (could be my Eur. education). I have seen models based on rats.
No surprise to find immigrants assimilated thanks to already established family. It is how the US immigration system is set up. Having a US family member is for the majority of immigrants the only way to enter into the US.
There is no screening by "reasonable measures" like speaking English. For the family based categories (FI 1-4) there are no requirements re. education, work experience, skills, fin. assets, age, health. English is not the official language of the US (on Fed. level) so (some) fluency in that language cannot be asked for either.
For all others (people without a US family member) it is very hard, almost impossible, to immigrate into the US. The borders were tightened in 1996 (the "anti-immigrant" law enthusiastically endorsed by Dems), leading to more illegal immigration and to more dead bodies.
Most illegal immigrants have family members here, even whole communities. So why not allow them in, to stop wasting resources trying to catch them. Put a system in place to process immigrants in order to weed out the criminals. Find the spots where new workers are needed, etc. Make sure they are not abused. Offer secondary education. Immigration is an issue of Congress/Fed. Government. But when it comes to what is needed to help the newcomers find their place here, private initiative can do much good.
This Earth already has enough people, so when someone starts to advocate making more people, immigration immediately comes to mind. If you want more people, import them.
Musk..such a genius but he hasn’t yet gone vegan nor convinced others to do so..and that’s definitely a good way to help the Earth…bah
Sin duda es muy dificil acertar en el cuestionamineto,no olvidemos que hitler queria una raza superior ,la fecundacion in vitro tambien tiene sus ventajas como elegir las caracteristicas de cada uno de los bebes y asi suponer que no desea tener hijos con deficiencias.No olvidemos que Elon sufre de síndrome de Asperger ( sintoma de la perfeccion entre otras ),
Como siempre excelente tu editorial.
Translation:
Without a doubt it is very difficult to get the question right, let's not forget that Hitler wanted a superior race, in vitro fertilization also has its advantages such as choosing the characteristics of each of the babies and thus assuming that he does not want to have children with deficiencies. Let's not forget that Elon suffers from Asperger syndrome (symptom of perfection among others),
As always, your editorial is excellent.
(Daniel: If you have a prob with this LMK and I will delete.)
Currently about 200 Million people are looking for another place to live. They are fleeing wars, famine, ecological disasters. Mr. Musk is free to adopt each and everyone of them.
ELON MUSK: “this is a very important problem and I think the way to solve this issue is not through private initiative. Economists have already proven that simply lifting immigration limits would dramatically increase global wealth. And high fertility would help there, because otherwise locals might feel displaced. So these two goals are not at odds, quite the opposite. We need both. I fulfill my part on fertility, and I wish governments pull their weight on the immigration side.”
As said in another comment, private initiative could do a lot to make more immigration - to currently richer /less troubled countries - an option.
And it is not the locals who feel displaced, it is Mr. Musk who seems to think some offspring is more valuable than other offspring.
Underpopulation is going to be one of the big challenges of the next century, without a doubt. But I can't help but raise a skeptical eyebrow when I see techbros, male economists, and the like try to tackle the so-called "fertility challenge". We know that fertility drops as women's political and economic power rises; that's a good trend for women's human rights and freedoms, their material wellbeing, and the economic development of the places in which they live. But it's not hard to see some twisted evo psych interpretation of the problem and its solution as being women's (un)willingness to participate in procreation; a technocrat incel analysis in which women are talked about as units, assets, resources, or chattel that must be more "effectively utilized" to create humans - regardless of their rights or interests as individual human beings. This article, even unintentionally, contributes to a discussion in which women, their agency, and their dignity are not valued as a factor or even as a perspective. That's exceptionally dangerous and not actually helpful to addressing underpopulation and its risks to growth. If we are to engage in the fertility discussion as honest brokers, the work needs to be led by the sex that does the reproductive labour - otherwise women are nothing but slaves.
There is no "fertility issue" or "underpopulation". We have more than enough people on planet Earth and the number is still growing. What we need is more health-care, education, housing, infrastructure, etc. for the existing population and their offspring. Make the people we have healthier, they will live longer, and thus have more productive years.
Is Mr. Musk worried the number of white people is going down - as he talks about the US fertility rate. The downward spiral in his graph started (of course) after birth control became available.
Some boy-men want to go to Mars or even to outer space (in a metal penis). But we have on earth more than enough spots that look "alien" because of the unimaginable poverty.
Also, the number of enslaved people has gone up worldwide.
I think the article was informative and a bit tongue-in-cheek (see the graphs about Leonardo DiCaprio). If every point of view has to be included in a story it will quickly become lengthy and unreadable - something much US journalism already suffers from IMHO.
It is not the topic of the article, which is about Musk, but I appreciate your point and agree with it.
2 things to add:
- the penalty in careers from having babies is not the babies, it’s the maternity leave. As such, I’m a big proponent of forced equal maternity leaves for both parents
- artificial wombs would further solve the issue.
Some European countries have better maternity leave/help systems than the US. These have not resulted in bigger families. But then, everything is rather cramped in those countries so we see every day the issues of limited space and scarcity of resources (clean air/potable water).
I saw artificial wombs in China ? Women in that country were forced into abortions (even late in term) not too long ago.
Wow. All about Elon and the children, and NOT A WORD about the MOTHERS of his children!! not a word about the possibility that he has children with these partners because they wanted to have children and he wants to comply with their wishes! Being conceived by IVF does not mean that these children do not have mothers! Personally I think the man is a snake and I am not attributing "good" characteristics to him when I say that part of his "personality dynamics" might be to comply with his partners' wishes; and/or to try to forge a strong bond with them (that strategy generally doesn't work, but people keep trying!); haven't you seen all the pictures of Elon with his MOM? doesn't that tell you something about his relationships with women?
I was thinking about the same lines but regarding the children. This article is a good exercise in logic, but the conclusions just confirm that Musk is an egomaniac, a narcissist, similar in many ways to the orange menace.
Elon enjoys having children (I would like to know if his children enjoy having Elon as a father). Elon thinks having children is good for the environment, and to solve a -very debatable- "fertility crisis." And Elon is concerned about his genetic legacy.
So much for Elon and so little for the (his) children. I really pity them. I do not believe a person like Elon can be a good father. Having children is a question of quality, not quantity. It is how much time we can dedicate to them, not how many we can "make," whether "directly," via IVF, or through surrogate or artificial wombs. How much money we have to support them (food, clothing, schooling, entertainment). Overall, major world problems are related to quality, not quantity, and Antoinette makes excellent points regarding this.
Oh, and I forgot the reason I started this reply in the first time. Children mostly need to be LOVED, not to be used as solutions to problems we and previous generations have created.
Thank you for your kind remark.
Since you asked, the oldest child petitioned a CA court immediately after turning 18: ‘I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form."
Thanks to you, Antoinette! Somehow, I am not surprised...
Hi Tomas, I love your articles but disagree that population needs to grow. I’d love your views on Dennis Meadows’ The Limits To Growth, whose 1972 thesis was that there is overconsumption of material resources and that without policies limiting the said consumption, we are headed to an abrupt halting of growth, a “prediction” that sadly came to pass recently with the disastrous effects of climate change. What do climate change and COVID 19 have in common? They both are the result of human pressure on a planet with finite resources. If you could press a button and make climate change disappear, another global issue would take its place, eg droughts. We can limit our material consumption so we can sustainably live on the same planet (by sacrificing our way of life) or we can maintain our way of life and live sustainably with a population of 1bn. I hope this makes you curious enough to dedicate some articles to the issue as I’d really, genuinely would love your views :)
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I have not published on it because it’s a very hard problem, not because of lack of interest.
The right concept for what you discuss is “carrying capacity” of the Earth. My current analysis hasn’t gone in enough depth so I haven’t reached an independent opinion on carrying capacity, but my current sense is that it’s closer to 100B humans than 1B.
A 5th reason: musk's followers are probably on average buying more teslas... If They reproduce more they will buy even more cars (likely also Teslas) both for their big families and for theie kids as soon as they are at the right age ;-) clearly a "longtermist" approach
Possible. Very indirect.
One has to have some serious cognitive blind spots not to see the fact that more humans on earth means destruction of flora and fauna, ancient forests, extinction of species.
And does he popularize urban walkable car-free lifestyle built around mass transportation? No, his vision is built on American car-centric lifestyle which can't scale to a planet of 9 billion people if they all live American lifestyle of one person per one ton car!! And maybe 1-2 people living in a 2000-5000 sq ft mansion!
Does he popularize plant-based diet which can support more human population without destroying the planet? Do you want 9 billion folks to eat like Americans? Can the planet support it?
Also, folks seriously try taking a suburban train in Indian cities like Bombay or Calcutta before telling others to keep multiplying like rabbits. Even tourist spots ( where folks go to escape urban crowded human-infested life to see "nature" in some places) are heavily human-infested and hard to walk without bumping into people.
Venice is so over-crowded with all the tourists that the city is trying to impose quotas. London had to impose congestion pricing.
We need to die to change our mind? This is not always true…