Yes it does follow from your argument. You said that that obeying our genes makes us happy and not obeying our genes makes us sad. That presumes that our genes our selected to promote behaviors that make us happy. And many people do not think they will be happier with kids and the prevalence of such a belief is not merely genes but massive socialization coercion to have kids. Also, the happier people are prior to having kids, the less likely they are to have them, because kids reduce one's ability to engage in other pleasurable activities. That is why it is mostly people made unhappy by poverty or by living in oppressive countries that are having most of the kids.
And when people have kids, most of the time their happiness actually decreases, which is why most couples wind up having fewer kids than they planned.
No, it doesn't follow from my argument. I don't know if you're on purpose trying to misunderstand? Do you know how desire works in humans? "If only we have one more kid, then we'll be happy". When we think about getting kids we're rewarded. When we do things that might lead to having children (like sex) we're rewarded. But it's very short. Once we have the kid, that turns off. Because there's no point in placing someone in constant happiness. That's why people on heroin don't do shit.
That's why people who have kids are unhappier, even though they're genetically re-enforced for happiness whenever they do anything that promostes it.
I recommend reading Thomas Metzinger's, the Ego Tunnel, if you want to learn more about how we're genetically controlled to do stuff.
It is as much a choice as humans can possible make. People choose things that lower their happiness every day. Emotions are just one type of information that informs choices, and it's not just a matter of increases positive emotions and decreasing negative one's. People often act to do things that increase their sadness (like sticking with a miserable job or relationship) in order to decrease fear of uncertainty. Unlike most animals, humans do not simply react to immediate emotional states. We delay gratification and often reduce our net gratification for the sake of others. That's because people focus their attention of isolated features and isolated goals rather than their current or even long term net gratification. For example a mother who endures a life of abuse and misery on a daily basis resulting in a net reduction in positive emotion by every type of measure, b/c she focuses solely on an isolated goal of staying in the role she thinks is her duty.
Failing to optimize net gratification doesn't mean a choice has not been made, unless you use the tautological assumption that choices require optimizing net gratification.
You're confusing us choosing between different parallel emotional gratifications with other stuff. If dopamine isn't triggered when you make the less happy choice, you won't make it. As you seem to understand when you mention avoiding fear. So you seem to understand what I'm saying, agree with it... yet argue against it... for some reason? Very confusing.
No it won't. Plenty of people actually become unhappy, depressed, and even suicidal after fulfilling the evolutionary task of procreating. Societies have created cultural systems to shame and incentivize people into having kids, because plenty of people would not naturally choose the stress and other negative emotions often caused by procreating. Also, we only have one "happiness system". Any individual act only contributes a small % to overall happiness, and that contribution is itself multi-faceted because an act can have countless consequences, some of which reduce happiness and some increase it, and those effects differ in being long or short term. So, how any act impacts happiness is determined by how and what consequences a person chooses to focus upon. IOW, happiness is a choice and under a person's control, not simply an byproduct of genetically determined actions.
Again... I'm not, sure what you disagree with? You seem to be saying yes, we're genetically remote controlled by our genes, so therefore we aren't. It's quite confusing.
I am not arguing with the OP, but with assertions about "faux choices" and the role of emotions in those choices and in human evolution, which is irrelevant to whether our society would put up with controlling births, which in turn is irrelevant to the question of whether it would be morally acceptable to have such policies.
People in China kept having more children than they should. Kept making stupid decisions that led to children, and ended up being punished for it. There was mass abortions etc. China proved the degree of draconic measures that were needed in order to do this. This is strong genetic programming. People don't learn.
And the widespread view that having children is the greatest achievement in life is not simply genetically determines but the result of massive social coercion and indoctrination. There wouldn't be so much effort to promote that notion by every sector of society, pop culture, and authoritarian religion, if our genes were sufficient to dispose us toward it naturally. The more free people are to choose their actions without social coercion or being constrained by poverty, the fewer kids they have.
I think the social pressures about getting kids are about re-enforcing beliefs that are inherrent. Much like the Christian's claim that their morals come from the ten commandments even though they simply list stuff that's genetically pre-programmed into us, that we can't not agree to.
If some people develop a revulusion to contraceptives and it's genetic they'd over time out compete the rest of us.
But that is a big improbable "If", because Lamarck was wrong and traits do not appear in the genome just because they would be evolutionary useful. Odds are low that such a genetically determined revulsion would ever appear in the genome, because of the infinite things that could be useful, only a tiny fraction of a fraction of a percent of them ever appear in the genome. What appears is a small subset of random alterations constrained by the biochemistry of what is in the genome already. Sure, given infinite time, it would happen, but there is not infinite time in the future of humans who will be extinct before such a variant has the chance to arise. Betting on what genetic variations will arise in order to be selected for is a sure fire way to lose.
Again.. you agree with me. Not sure why you keep doing this.
One of the most common female sexual fetishes is the feeling of being ejaculated inside. Nature can be quite intricate in how it programmes us
And evolution is extremely sloppy, and has equipped the human brain with capacities that regularly undermine the goal of procreation and make things like that fetish less likely to lead to procreation. Many of the women with that fetish also have an instinct to rid themselves of threats to their well being, and as a byproduct of evolution there are many activities that increase their well being which are hampered by a child, thus making a child a threat to well being and the desire to get rid of it a byproduct of evolved traits.
Again... we seem to agree.
