Subject: devour our young

insights

"Devour Our Young"

Is it a mystery?

What other species... devours their youth?

Or, is it a mystery?

Or, is there any other species that destroys their youth?

And, would you be inclined... to define... the regrets... to the generations that follow?

Will there even be a tomorrow?

And, is it a mystery... our history? Or, are we the only species on the planet Earth... that tries to eliminate half of those we birth?

And, do you think we're aware... that we're already there?

Do we care?

And, is it such a mystery... are we gonna go down in history... as the only species that loves to kill and maim its young.

I hated to say it... but, it had to be sung.

Will it be too late when we solve this mystery? ... will we all be history?

Which led to:
sidd called up alex... she's a biologist, right?

and, we talked about animals and their kids.

seems like we're fairly unique... the only comparisons that we came up with were:

1) some large cats kill other prides male cubs (and adult males)
2) some birds... like eagles... have a siblings thingie... where if more than one chick hatches... one will kill the other.
3) some fish will eat the sperm of other fish

can you think of any others?

Followed by:
i don't think this is at all comparable to the human phenomenon

these fail to meet the human scourge test by virtue of two distinctions: *transgenerational* growth in propensity for this problem, and *institutionalization* of it (followed by underpublicized program closures)

we ignore, abandon, abuse, prostitute, kill, slave- laborize, sexually enslave, and otherwise institutionalize acceptance or apathy about these atrocities transgenerationally.

in every other venue of the animal world that i know of, such incidents are just that: incidents... or abnormalities occurring with relatively infrequency.

if you look at the history of this problem, even recent history (as i hope to do in a documentary on the subject which i first mentioned to you last month), you see advents of orphanages and mental institutions during, for example, the industrial revolution and gilded age in this country. these were, at best, a catch all knee jerk reaction rather than a solution to the cause of the problem... but at least they were concerted reactions.

but, in the 1960's and 1970's, orphanages and mental institutions were de-funded nationwide, and their wards were discharged into the streets over those two decades. this is the primary reason for the public's perception of an "abrupt" appearance in the 1980's of homeless people on the streets nationwide. the lag time of ten years caught up with us, and those disenfranchised eventually found no other places to go but the streets.

i propose that the same is about to happen with the abrupt increase in homeless and abused children cast into the world in the last 20 years, victims of war, family deaths by disease (AIDs in africa and asia), and poverty (in south america and europe), the scourge of drug and weapons trafficking, the economic displacement attendant to "globalization", and other abruptly convergent phenomena forming a confluence of disunity and violence visited on our children.

And, then someone sent in this from an old newsgroup:
"bjarne.braastad@nlh10.nlh.no" "Bjarne O. Braastad" 21-OCT-1996 02:53:34.67 To: "applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" Subj: RE: mis-mothering in mammals.