I read that the Japanese aren't even having much recreational sex. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-j...

Sex isn't recreational. But having said that, this is true of the West as well. So-called "casual sex" (again, does not exist), sleeping around, etc. is occurring at lower rates today than in the past. People are instead becoming porn-addicted shut-ins unable to have any sexual relations, let alone a healthy sexual relationship.

Is that trolling? Or did a time machine from the 1800's get invented while I wasn't looking?

No, really, almost all sex today is both those things, like it or not. Semantic struggling notwithstanding.

Of course sex is (also) recreational. I’m guessing you’re coming from a religious angle, so I’ll ask: is it a sin for a married woman to have sex after menopause?

> Sex isn't recreational

It is, if done well. Otherwise I suppose it's just a chore or a duty?

Maybe there’s a competitive league but it is invite-only and they haven’t told us :(

Ah, the competitive sex tournament scene! I forgot about that.

It's a very challenging contact sport, for a few gifted people.

In my head, this post was read in the voice of Matt Berry (Lazlow from What We Do in the Shadows) and it was great.

What do you mean? A lot of people use contraception so they can have sex without procreating. Most sex today is of this type.

It's obtuse to conflate biological/gene-driven purpose with human motive.

It depends on the reasons why people do not have kids. This technique would allow gay couples to have kids for example which currently they cannot without adoption in the male case.

I wonder as well how many people do not have kids because they simply cannot find a suitable partner. Maybe this will cause a further drop in the rate of marriages and partnerships.

Of course the above solutions will only create a marginal increase but an increase none the same.

I also think that if things get bad enough the government will intervene and create institutions where these kids would get born and educated. A very brave new world scenario but if the technology allows it, i would not put it past governments to solve their problems.

> . A very brave new world scenario but if the technology allows it, i would not put it past governments to solve their problems.

This is incredibly dangerous. From an American perspective, a government exists to serve its people. That is to say... government exists at the pleasure of its citizenry. If the government started actually making the babies (i.e., its population), then this is creating a whole other entity, one which we've not really considered before. What does it mean to be a government of the people when the government is creating the people? How can a government derive its power from the people, if the people only exist because the government created them. This would be a great inversion of the liberal democracies that have been the source of our immense progress over the last few decades.

I did not actually think that far. It would pose the question of education with the government potentially brainwashing the new born to keep the current government in power. Is it still a democracy if people have free vote but the government mass produces electorate fodder?

And let us say if the old generation starts seeing the truth they might turn the production slightly higher to compensate. You can go even darker and speculate that the government might keep the life expectancy low genetically to avoid this kind of issue.

Obviously it presupposes that the technology will reach that stage. I hope we will never reach the industrial scale. As long as you need a woman's body to carry the child to term you will not scale it.

Assumes 'the government' is effective and focussed. Mine can't get the garbage picked up on time. Not gonna worry about that one.

It could become focused if the situation justifies it. It does not have to start immediately as the dark plot described. Let us say we have a massive amount of casualties due to some accident. So as an emergency the government suggests to create a new crop of humans to replace the dead as a stopgap solution to get the country running normally again in 15 years or so. I think you could sell that to the population and companies would cooperate to achieve that goal initially.

Now again afterwards you would need to somehow conspire to continue the program to undermine your democracy. Probably this extreme case will never happen. But we could get into a sort in between zone where we still have an immoral usage of the technology but not as bad as it could be.

Note however that existing dictatorships will definitely try to use this to further their own goals.

Unlikely. It's so, so much cheaper and decades faster, to affect the minds of existing voters.

I often hear this argument, and while I (an american) often make this about my local government or even my local federal bureaucrats, the idea that the American government in particular is not effective and focused is just... completely wrong. No government in modern history has been so able to simply enforce its will via sheer force. The top brass of the American government is the epitome of effective and focussed. It really doesn't matter what the manager of your local DMV is like.

Government babies? Raised by the state, to serve the state.