Thread: Vegetarianism and Human Nature

There is a very high correlation between the introduction of mains electricity and falling birth rate in all cultures. No-one knows why.

When the mains are laid on, you can stay up and watch the telly. Without electricity, all you can do when the sun sets is go to bed.

Come in, spinner!

Originally Posted by spider8

I think we won't be living on pills in a few years time, we'll be eating each other - there'll be nothing else the way things are going. Eating the aged.

Are you sure you're not on pills already?

Originally Posted by Mermaid on the breakwater

Are you sure you're not on pills already?

Of course I was joking. I read a bit about Stalingrad in WW2 and the food shortage in the UK in WW1. Unlike the ruskies, we never quite degenerated to cannibalism in WW1, but the result was hundreds of thousands of malnutrition-related deaths. Mothers having no milk, spanish flu', etc.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Come in, spinner!

Actually I was serious, it is an often quoted stat. Gaza's explanation is unsatisfactory of course, as Billy Brag says "The time it takes to make a baby is the time it takes to make a cup of tea", and it can be done any time of day.

I like my explanation. It gives me another reason not to have a tv in the house.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

Actually I was serious, it is an often quoted stat. Gaza's explanation is unsatisfactory of course, as Billy Brag says "The time it takes to make a baby is the time it takes to make a cup of tea", and it can be done any time of day.

I should imagine that would be unsatisfactory as well.

The coming of household electricity in a community is rarely an isolated event. Paved roads, improved schools, better access to health care, and a general move toward what is seen by many as a 'higher standard of living' often happen within a narrow time frame. Education levels go up, the infant mortality rate goes down, and within two or three generations infrastructure development leads to changes in the society. Old beliefs are forgotten, and one of those is the belief that for the family to survive many children need to be born into that family.

I really don't know all the sociological theory, but I do know what I've seen and learned over the years in developing countries on three continents.

Or the desire for white goods is greater than the desire for children where the economy is not sufficient for both, there are so many variables it can nott be tied down to one.