What if Human Reproduction took 3 times longer?

Knowing our history, would humans have made it to the year 2020 if it took 3 times longer to reproduce?

All opinions welcome. Let's discuss.

Yes, and I think such a situation may have been in our better long-term interests.

The standard (average) length of gestation is nine months, give or take.

If it were to take almost two and a half years for a child to be born, from time of conception to birth; I'm not sure that human society would have been centered as much on war and conquest as it historically has been. I believe that the worth of human life would be substantially more than we presently know it to be, because the repercussions for loss of life would be far greater.

I also believe our medical and health infrastructure would be far more advanced, because again the price related to loss of life would be far more devastating in relation to disasters which are known to cause mass casualties; such as earthquake, flood, fire, etc.

@Kohadre

Exactly. Very well articulated.

Follow up question.

How do you think human behavior under that scenario would be different compared to the fictional premise of The Handmaid's Tale?

ZealotX wrote: @Kohadre

Exactly. Very well articulated.

Follow up question.

How do you think human behavior under that scenario would be different compared to the fictional premise of The Handmaid's Tale?

I guess that would depend somewhat on the time period and availability of resources.

If you look at it from a developing society side of things, where tribes and clans are learning basic technologies such as farming and animal husbandry; I think women may be more likely to be treated as depicted in "the handmaids tale". However, there is also the option that in such a early society women could be elevated to near godhood; similar to matron deities in certain pagan cultures. In that case, women could likely be among the ruling and governing class of such cultures and societies.

Even within some Native American cultures, hierarchy is based primarily on matriarchy; where women are seen as the highest and most respected sources of authority. The women of these cultures are tasked with and given the responsibility to make all major decisions within their communities.

However, when you move over to a post industrialized society which has for the most part mastered all essential technologies and begun to develop advanced technologies such as computers, robotics, telephone; I think that the necessity to control reproduction will diminish to a substantial degree. Hopefully in such a situation, this would naturally carry over in additional liberties for Women and those tasked with childcare.

In either case, I think there would be a legitimate possibility of a "guardian" societal class similar to the guards shown in the aforementioned show. Such individuals would likely be trained over a long term period, possibly selected at birth for the task. Whether guards would be individually assigned, or rotated in groups would be another element to consider.

@Kohadre

again. Another excellent response. You're good at abstract thinking.

So again... with the premise being human reproduction took 3 times longer and let's say this is not a sudden change or shift. It is from the very beginning like you were thinking out in your first response.

Would we even develop the very concept of warfare as a... kind of an avatar of collective violence. What I mean by that is a single person kills another person, its murder and that comes from some personal motivation. A tribe or nation kills another tribe or nation and its "war" and that typically comes from a group motivation or the personal motivation of a leader representing that group.

but how might things have developed different if human reproduction took 3 times longer since you know there would be less people because you're not over lapping generations quite as much. Parents would be that much older when they actually had the child and would have the added benefit of extra time for their own maturity.

So in the macro sense you've already wisely reasoned that there might be less war if any. But on the micro sense would that translate to less violence over all, and if there's less violence over all would the need to develop defense equally change? Would weapons have developed the same? Would tactics be the same? Would people even know how to fight? Especially if women were in charge (and I'm not saying that would be good or bad).

Would battle be replaced by an emphasis on talking and sharing feelings?

And of course women making the decisions, if they weren't choosing men based on their need for protection, would they simply use their choice of who to mate with to structure society in a completely different way and what would that look like? More competition? More cooperation? What might it look like?

I believe the population would be much lower and an illness such as the plague would be more likely to cause extinction.

woah...interesting.


But with less people would we have the same relationship to sickness and disease that we do now?

If life was treated as something more precious and societies knew they could easily end because of illness and disease wouldn't that motivate more research into health, better nutrition, and more focus on clean water etc.? Instead of concentrating on curing illness perhaps they would concentrate on prevention. The profit motive would be, in my mind, superseded by the instinct to survive, and healthcare would get funded probably more than how the military is funded today.

Think about this.

According to CMS.gov we're spending $3.5 trillion in healthcare or $10,739 pp. Of course this includes the overhead and profit margins of both hospitals, drug companies, and insurance companies because since healthcare is almost a requirement hospitals know they can charge more and pass it on to the insurance companies who don't mind that much because they pass it on to their consumers and manage to still make a profit. By the same token Trump requested $639 billion in defense spending. We spend around another $100 billion on policing and another $80 billion on incarceration. And all these numbers COULD be lower with different laws in place. I'm not trying to argue this stuff but rather get us to think about vastly different possibilities where money was put to other uses. How much would prevention cost vs dealing with people who are already sick, morbidly obese, etc.? And you can minimize the threat to those smaller human populations by meeting the survival needs of each individual through cooperation rather than competition and survival of the "fittest". At some point we should evolve to the point that fittest means operating collectively the same way that a single human body has almost 40 trillion cells. I've never seen an ant colony with a prison.

So I wonder how much we could minimize the threat to human life if human life was harder or took longer to reproduce.

So I wonder how much we could minimize the threat to human life if human life was harder or took longer to reproduce.

case in point. I remember when I found out that Magic Johnson had contracted HIV. I remember kind of feeling sorry for him like he wouldn't have long to live and we'd lose a basketball legend and icon.

To my utter shock, this man has lived with HIV longer than a bunch of other people lived who I thought were healthy. Do you realize that was 1991!?!?

That's freakin' unbelievable. It makes you wonder if:
1. was he misdiagnosed?
2. is there some secret multi-million dollar cure?
3. did he make a pact with the devil?
4. is there some secret multi-million dollar cure?

But because he wanted to live and his life is precious to him he changed his way of living to give him the best chance at survival and he did it!

I think a side effect of this discussion just might be that we start to expose how spoiled we, as humans, can be just taking for granted the freedoms we have and the freedoms we waste because there's just so many of us that we don't have to care how many individual humans survive, or how, or what the quality of that survival is. We have the benefit and privilege of having billions of us and so if you or I don't figure all this stuff out, all of our problems out, what does it matter because wont one of the other 7-8 billion of us do it?

Lol
There would be less woman willing to have children..
Nine months is more than enougth
And the birth...... oh geez the birth
Nope I for sure wouldnt of had kids.

elizabeth wrote: Lol
There would be less woman willing to have children..
Nine months is more than enougth
And the birth...... oh geez the birth
Nope I for sure wouldnt of had kids.

See? Excellent contribution. I hadn't even considered that angle. Thank you!

As a man... I'm trying to be careful here because a woman's opinion in naturally far more weighty on this subject than my own... but... I think.... based on what I've heard... that 9 month period is also a bonding period that the mother forms with the child. I could also be wrong but I think the longer that period is the more that mother may potentially bond with and be connected to their offspring. I think a lot of women say they will never have kids. My sister said it and now she has two. And if everyone took over 2 years and you didn't even know it could take less time so you didn't have anything to compare it to... would you still feel that way? Isn't that time relative? It only takes dogs and cats 58-68 days to gestate new offspring. Knowing this, would you say "no, 9 months is just too long!" ?

And what if the pot was sweetened and once you got pregnant you were assigned .... not slaves but indentured servants to wait on you hand and foot? I mean I've had a butler suite at a sandals resort and let me tell you... that was almost worth me getting pregnant. I'm kidding of course.

ZealotX wrote:

elizabeth wrote: Lol
There would be less woman willing to have children..
Nine months is more than enougth
And the birth...... oh geez the birth
Nope I for sure wouldnt of had kids.

See? Excellent contribution. I hadn't even considered that angle. Thank you!

As a man... I'm trying to be careful here because a woman's opinion in naturally far more weighty on this subject than my own... but... I think.... based on what I've heard... that 9 month period is also a bonding period that the mother forms with the child. I could also be wrong but I think the longer that period is the more that mother may potentially bond with and be connected to their offspring. I think a lot of women say they will never have kids. My sister said it and now she has two. And if everyone took over 2 years and you didn't even know it could take less time so you didn't have anything to compare it to... would you still feel that way? Isn't that time relative? It only takes dogs and cats 58-68 days to gestate new offspring. Knowing this, would you say "no, 9 months is just too long!" ?

And what if the pot was sweetened and once you got pregnant you were assigned .... not slaves but indentured servants to wait on you hand and foot? I mean I've had a butler suite at a sandals resort and let me tell you... that was almost worth me getting pregnant. I'm kidding of course.

Well from personal experience you would have to factor in the cost of pregnancy. I mean I had monthly scans, doctor appointments because I had depression because of the pregnancy, I couldn't work after a few months. And as a man, how would it affect you? A much longer pregnancy with the mood swings and cravings. Would it affect relationships more leading to seperation. Waiting that long for a baby that what isnt really a baby as we understand it now having been in the womb that much longer. Would they come out walking? How much more would they grow? If its too much then how would we give birth, if it would be natural would women look different to how they do now so that their bodies were able to give birth to a child much larger than one we give birth to now?
Funny ideas and I understand you looking at it from a different perspective but from mine all I can think is blimey, it hurts, like crazy hurt that if we actually remembered clearly would downsize the population trust me haha.

I know I was sick of being pregnant by nine months, couldn't imagine how hard a longer pregnancy would be.
On the plus side servants sound nice, but, who is paying for them? And I would imagine being pregnant for longer means a larger weight gain, so again we would be bigger, as a whole, women. And would they need milk when they were born? Oh my life, haha I breastfed my daughter and that was a bonding experience like no other.. It was also the means of loosing the babyfat. But if the baby was older would they need different substance? Proper food? So I guess we wouldn't need breasts as such right?
Haha this is a very strange conversation
What do you think?

elizabeth wrote: Well from personal experience you would have to factor in the cost of pregnancy. I mean I had monthly scans, doctor appointments because I had depression because of the pregnancy, I couldn't work after a few months. And as a man, how would it affect you? A much longer pregnancy with the mood swings and cravings. Would it affect relationships more leading to separation. Waiting that long for a baby that what isn't really a baby as we understand it now having been in the womb that much longer. Would they come out walking? How much more would they grow? If its too much then how would we give birth, if it would be natural would women look different to how they do now so that their bodies were able to give birth to a child much larger than one we give birth to now?
Funny ideas and I understand you looking at it from a different perspective but from mine all I can think is blimey, it hurts, like crazy hurt that if we actually remembered clearly would downsize the population trust me haha.

I know I was sick of being pregnant by nine months, couldn't imagine how hard a longer pregnancy would be.
On the plus side servants sound nice, but, who is paying for them? And I would imagine being pregnant for longer means a larger weight gain, so again we would be bigger, as a whole, women. And would they need milk when they were born? Oh my life, haha I breastfed my daughter and that was a bonding experience like no other.. It was also the means of loosing the babyfat. But if the baby was older would they need different substance? Proper food? So I guess we wouldn't need breasts as such right?
Haha this is a very strange conversation
What do you think?

I love where your mind went. When I was thinking about the topic I wasn't thinking of it as "extra time"... meaning that the whole process was slower. So the birth would be normal. The baby would be normal size. Everything would be normal. It's just that to get to that point would take 3 times longer. So I don't know. You wouldn't even know you were pregnant for like 6 months and you'd still be small probably the first year. I can't mentally do the calculations for what stage you would be when exactly. But you wouldn't look 9 months pregnant after 9 months and still have to wait longer. So you getting tired and all the weight gain and all that would be mitigated somewhat by the difference in time.

And let's say that because it took longer it was less of a strain/burden on your body. I know that might not make tons of sense logically, but it was basically pulling 1/3 the normal amount of nutrients from you, etc. Would any of this make a difference to your decision to reproduce?

Okay so just growing slower, but normal size..
(I was having fun then imagining what women would look like )
Okay, if I knew it would take longer to have a child, and if everything else was normal, ( natural aging for all I guess) then I would have to consider getting pregnant at a younger age. Especially if I wanted my child to have siblings, ah but having them close in age is sometimes a blessing. There would be at least say a three year gap, pregnancy then birth then getting pregnant again.
It probably wouldnt affect the decision to reproduce more than affect when.
And it would give more time for a stronger foundation between parents, togeather or not, to prepare.
The only downside I could see is if the baby was growing slowly would we be able to see problems and deal with them while the embryo was so fragile? And if the mother was aging naturally, eighteen months is a long time and feelings, circumstances can change so much..
So I can see good and bad in a longer timeframe but I dont think it would affect having a child for most just maybe give some a slimmer timeframe in which to reproduce.
There are many children born now who are unwanted and thinking about a longer pregnancy brings up the question of mothers who drink or use drugs or generally dont take care of themselves. If its a longer timeframe the risks are greater no matter how much more slowly the baby ages.
And if you didnt know you were pregnant for the first six months say, then you could damage the embryo without knowing. Huh,
I think it would make me think more about relations, ha, maybe,
You know what I dont imagine it would create a more responsible world.
We would still be selfish, we would still act as we do now. In my opinion having fewer humans would be easier but wouldn't necessarily mean that we would be more caring or more grateful for each one.
What makes me think this is more, its not that we are selfish or that its easy, throwaway life now. Its the disconnection we have with ourselves and each other.
If we teach our kids that every life is important, no matter how hard or easy it is, that every person has value and we are connected and show them this, passing this on from one generation to another, then we help create a world where we are taking responsibility and solving the problems now.

I don't know how much difference it would really make, not as much as you are suggesting, methinks.

Yes, the "cost" of life may be seen as higher - all the more reason to claim land for your precious children..
Perhaps the wars would have been a third of the size, or happen a third as often, but I suspect it would be on par for the available population at any point in time....

Queen Vic had nine kids, eight of which lived long enough to have kids of their own..

if she had had three, would it have changed the last few hundred years?

in more modern terms - I can only think of one couple in my "circle" who have reliably pushed out kids at a solid rate (7 in 16 years...)
Everyone else I know would not be overly hampered or altered by the longer period.

The main loser in this is the prophylactic industry - once the misso is up the duff, you've got two and half years of carefree savings!