R and K Culture
The r/K spectrum for reproductive strategy is one of the most critical concepts in of biology. If you aren’t familiar with it, go read the Wikipedia page now. I’ll wait…
So basically, r strategy means large numbers of offspring, no parenting investment, and quick maturation. K strategy means a small number of offspring, heavy parental investment, and slow maturation.
Biologically, humans are pretty extreme K strategists, they do vary along a spectrum. Women tend to be more K and men tend to lean more toward r. People in rural environments tend more toward r, and people in urban environments are more K. Our reproductive strategy has a huge impact on our psychology and, ultimately, on the culture.
Consider the culture that emerges when pioneer people move to new frontiers where rapid population growth is possible. In these situations people tend a little more toward r strategy. Parents have as many children as possible. Kids need to grow up fast and largely take care of themselves.
By contrast, in crowded urban environments, people tend to lean more toward K strategy: have a small number of kids, invest a lot in education, allow children to mature slowly.
The difference between r and K is probably a major factor in a lot of cultural phenomena. For example, you may have heard that kids these days are dating less, drinking less, working less (see, e.g., this article). People often blame this on social media and that is probably one cause. But ultimately it looks a lot like people sense (subconsciously) that our population is near carrying capacity and so they mature more slowly.
As described here, when people start to adopt K strategy they also seek higher status before reproducing. In some cases, they nearly stop reproducing altogether. The thing that blew my mind about this article is that our bodies interpretation of our environment can cause us to adopt a different reproduction strategy — even to the extent that with extreme enough stimulus we might stop reproducing altogether.
Extending the Self
Ok, so your reproductive strategy impacts psychology and culture. But let’s talk about the recent push toward life extension, which could result in people eventually becoming immortal, or close to it. Fundamentally, immortality is the ultimate K strategy. Instead of investing in multiple children, you can invest all of your resources in a single entity — yourself.
Now, you might argue that preserving your own life is fundamentally different from creating a new life. And of course you are right. But maybe not as right as you think. The reason is that psychologically, the only thing one ever experiences is the present moment. But at each moment we have a model — a narrative — of what we are doing. This includes a sense of self, which is an imagination of a future that includes some sense of causal connection. But in principle, this sense of self doesn’t have to be limited to what we traditionally consider our own body.
Many people who have taken psychedelics drugs have experienced a feeling of dissolution of the self and reconnection to a broader concept of identity. But there is a more prosaic way to expand the self: having children. Throughout history it has been quite common for people to identify very strongly with their progeny as part of their own identity. In fact, our sense of self is highly influenced by our biology. It is our brain that produces our sense of self and our brains evolved to enable our reproductive strategy.
In any case, it is possible to cultivate a sense of self that includes your children, but in a modern urban environment that promotes extreme K strategy, this sense of self can become quite limited. If people live in an society close to carrying capacity (or at least if they subconsciously feel like they do) and they simultaneously begin to imagine that they can preserve their body indefinitely, they will be inclined ever more to an extreme version of K strategy: investing everything in preserving their own lives.
The Psychology of Immortality
I’m not the first person to wonder if the prospect of immortality will have an influence on psychology and culture. Consider the thought-provoking short story “Pop Squad” in Netflix’s Love, death & Robots series:
In the story, people have traded the ability to reproduce for immortality. A cop is tasked with hunting down people who have children, but begins to question his role. Watch it. It’s cool.
Anyway, my contribution to the discussion is that we can understand the impact of immortality on culture better if we view it as a strategy for reproduction. In r strategy, immortality of any individual is pointless. There is no reason to invest in yourself more than any of the 1,000 eggs you create. In r strategy animals, life is brutal and short. No individual matters. In the limit of K strategy, the individual is all that matters.
This is not necessarily a good thing. If you do not have children, know this: in many ways, caring about children and experiencing the joy that comes from investing and guiding another person is better than your own life. You know the joy and exuberance that only children seem to have? That is largely a display for their parents. Children are not psychologically mature enough to experience true joy. Their emotional displays, like their inherent cuteness, are for adults.
Even marriage will not make sense in a society where individuals preserve their own existence indefinitely. Although people often deny this now, marriage is an extension of a sexual reproduction strategy. If your reproductive strategy does not require someone else genes, marriage will become unnecessary. You will be alone.
Eternal Family
I come from a Mormon background, and two of the most important things in Mormon theology are eternal life and family. These have been combined in the concept of the eternal family. And yet Mormon culture has not resolved the inherent conflict between these two concepts. If you are immortal, you do not need family. If you have family, you do not need immortality.
Of course, there may be some kind of synthesis where an individual can survive indefinitely and continue to have children. But there are immense problems with this model. Consider the following:
Every bit of energy you invest in preserving your own existence is withheld from your children. If your highest priority is self-preservation you will eventually devote all your resources to that. If not, you will eventually die.
If you continue to have children forever, eventually your genetic code will become obsolete. Your children will be better adapted than you and you will be nothing but a burden.
If you can, somehow, continue to adapt, eventually you self will bear little resemblance to your current self and you will have little more reason to identify with that self than with your future children. In other words, your immortality will be superfluous.
The whole concept of eternal family that includes both immortality and family life is a bit of a chimera that results from a societal transition to K strategy and the increasing desire for individual immortality that comes with it. But the psychology of immortality is ultimately inconsistent with sexual reproduction.
A Biblical Perspective
There is something special about the language of the Bible. One of my favorites passages is the parable of the unjust steward:
There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
As with any parable, there are many interesting interpretations. But my favorite is that the money represents life. Our life is not our own. Currently, we are not “strong enough to dig” and preserve it. The best we can do is give it away, even though it is not ours. by giving it away we achieve eternal life. The primary recipients of the life that we give is our children. But what happens when we do gain the power to “dig”? That is, what happens when we can preserve life for ourselves?
In a subsequent verse, it is written:
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
Similarly, when humans achieve the power of immortality we will have a choice. But we will ultimately be unable to choose both immortality and family. Therefore, to paraphrase another scripture: choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods of reproduction, from whence we came, or the gods of immortality, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Family.