Nick, No one made any claim about effectiveness. Just an observation that if you do year-by-year plot of birthrate in a given population you will see an annual increase leading to the onset of a war, an obvious decrease during the war, and a surge immediately after the war ends. The surge more than compensates for the drop during the war years, so effectiveness is out the window.
I think — haven't checked recently — that there was a gradual increase in birth rate between WWI and the onset of WWII, a 2-4 percent decrease during the war years, and a huge baby boom immediately after. Father Smith had similar statistical measures for dozens of other conflicts. Population pressure / "birth control" are but one of a multitude of factors that lead to war. All kinds of arguments can be made about the "validity" of Father Smith's statistics — few pre-modern peoples kept comprehensive public health records, ... davew On Sat, May 2, 2020, at 11:21 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote: > David, > > Basic fact of demography. Killing men is not a particularly effective means > of population control. > > You want war to serve in that capacity, you have to get women in the > military. > > Nick > > Nicholas Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology > Clark University > thompnicks...@gmail.com > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ > > > > *From:* Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Steven A Smith > *Sent:* Saturday, May 2, 2020 8:00 PM > *To:* friam@redfish.com > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question > > Dave - >> I once taught an honors course, with Father Smith at St. Thomas on the >> Anthropology and Theology of War. One of the prime forces behind war — since >> prehistory — had been nothing more than birth control. > Do you meant literally *birth* and *control*, or rather *population* and > *reduction*? > The more literal usage works well too. Controlling Births. I think much > warfare culminates (or did before modernish times) in the victors killing the > men and raping/impregnating and enslaving the women either in-place, > inhabiting the conquered lands or taking them back to their homeland. > Children alternatively would have been killed or enslaved. Thus the genetic > heritage of Genghis Khan... > One step more sophisticated than the rats? > I don't think we have to go there, no matter how much the gun hoarders want > their chance at being unequivocally "on top" at least for one round of the > grande iterated prisoner's dilemma that is human civilization. > - Steve >>> Well, in a sense that’s correct. But their method of “birth control” >>> <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238356686_A_Utopian_perspective_on_ecology_and_development> >>> is not one that I am prepared to take as a model. Just imagine the worst >>> sort of dystopian post apocalyptic novel. See the description of the >>> Calhoun experiment on p 224. >>> >>> Nick >>> >>> Nicholas Thompson >>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology >>> Clark University >>> thompnicks...@gmail.com >>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Marcus Daniels >>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 2, 2020 12:15 PM >>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> >>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] ill-conceived question >>> >>> < You recall that I invoked as a model that experiment in which 24 rats >>> were put in a quarter acre enclosure in Baltimore and fed and watered and >>> protected to see how the population would develop. They never got above two >>> hundred. > >>> >>> Maybe the rats were right? >>> * * >>> Marcus >>> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... >>> .... . ... >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >>> unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >>> >> >> >> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... >> .... . ... >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >> unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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