Legal Age in the SR world, no minors after 8:00pm... Options

[Brahm]

Question that just occured to me.


How can you have an age law for the SINless? They have, by definition, no legal identification for proof of age.

[stevebugge]

[FrankTrollman]

Interesting note on marrying cousins:

A friend of mine is fully intent on marrying his 1st cousin. All of our friends teased him about it of course, and many still feel that is breaking a taboo even after they've been engaged for some months. And we still tease him about incest and will probably continue to do so for years.

But... medically speaking there's nothing actually wrong with doing that. And when I talked to some of my friends in England about it, none of them even had a problem with it. A cousin is only 12.5% related to you, after all, and that's only barely noticably different from a random person you met on the street. Now, his children will be 15.625% related to their first cousins (and so on), so if cousin marrying became a habit, eventually we'd have to intervene.

Often you find more exotic exogany rules in places where people are more inherently related (like islands and valleys). A cynical evolutionary biologist might say that societies in such circumstances that didn't have exciting exogany rules simply don't exist any more - but I honestly believe that rules against incest snap up when people notice screwy results from incestuous pairings, and smaller (more related) societies are going to notice such results with more distant branches of the family tree than genetically diverse populations are.

-Frank

[September]

Now, if your cousin has Goblinized or SURGEd, would that change your response? Would it matter?

[Kyoto Kid]

[hyzmarca]

It is interesting that although incest is an almost universal taboo it is common in mythology for gods to engage in incest themselves. Zeus married his sister. Adam and Eve's kids got it on with each other and Adam was Eve's biological father to begin with Bramha married his daughter. Ra married his daughter. Jesus, as both the son of God and God incarnate commited the penultimate act of incest by being his own father (The ultimate act of incest, being both one's own father and mother, has thus far only been accomplished in a Robert Heinlein novel).

Thus, one must ask, if gods can do it why can't people? In some ways incest in an act of arrogance that attempts to place oneself on equal footing with the gods. It is more an afront to social order than to a biological imperative, something one could only get away with if one were a divine god-king or queen.

Personally, I would think that exogany rules are tied to economics as much as to biologoly and society. Those marriage between distinct groups increases resource pools giving both groups better odds of long term survival.

[Cold-Dragon]

I suspect incest became taboo more along the time that they finally figured out how many mutations you got from it if you were persistant. Then there's the fact that even if you stopped, your gene pool 'corrupts' for a few more generations due to the inbreeding already related to you...


or something like that. I'm not a geneologist, lol. THe practical aspects of the issues is what I use to say "mmmm, Sorry Mom, you're just not my type."

It's mainly because you keep sorting out the various genes in the gene pool that the subtle incest you would commit with any person not 'related' to you that it doesn't matter - as long as you quit swapping the same things over and over again, mutations stay at a relative low.

...and again, I'm not a geneologist, so I may have just said complete and utter balogna. :P

Not every day you talk about incest on a game board though - it was fun!

[Brahm]

Adam, Eve, and their children, along with Noah's family, were prisoners of their situation of not having any other dance partner options.

Jesus and the Holy Trinity I think can be explained as more a metaphorical expression, or at least not falling into the same catagory as mortal labels. Also immaculate conception would seem to niftily skirt around the issue of incest. :D

The Greek gods on the other hand lived in a manner that would put the blush in any after primetime hours soap opera. Likewise incest occurs in other mythos.

The real people of the Egyptian ruling class dabbled heavily in close relative marriage. At least the females did. There is some question about how prevalent it was with the males. They were not the only ruling class in history to do so.


Screening Out The Problems

When I said we aren't at the stage of filtering out potential genetic problems, I left out some exceptions. There is a narrowed gene pool with specific problems, and arguably benefits as well which can happen. They are beginning to address some of the problems with DNA assisted family planning.

[hyzmarca]

Incest doesn't cause mutations; ionizing radiation does. Mutations are normal, natural, good and quite impossible to avoid since ionizing radiation is literally everywhere all the time.

It isn't that incest corrupts the genepool it is that incest increases the probability of receiving two matching recessive genes. Oftentimes, these recessive genes are harmful when expressed.

For example, red hair is a recessive trait. One of my uncles had red hair so there is a chance that I have one copy of the gene, although not entirely certain. Assuming that I do, if I make a baby a women who also has a copy of the gene there is a 25% chance that the baby will have two copies of the gene and thus will express red hair. If I mate with a woman who has red hair then there is a 75% chance that the child will have red hair. If I myself had red hair and the woman also did then there is a 100% chance that the child would have red hair. However, If I don't have the gene then there is a 0% chance that the child will have red hair.

If I married a sister then the probability that she has the red hair gene is as good as mine. If she does and our children marry the chances that they would both have a copy of the red hair gene is even greater.

Let us assume for the sake of simplicity that we have 4 children who are hermaphrodites. One has red hair, two have the gene, one does not.
The probability that they will have children who express red hair is (1/3)(3/4) + (1/6)(1/4) + (3/6)0 or 7/24, slightly more than a quarter. The chance of a child having the gene is (1/2)1 + (1/6)(1/2) + (1/3)(1/4) or 2/3, more than half.

Eventually, every person in the family will have red hair, given enough time.

Consider that instead of red hair the gene in question is for tay sachs. Now, tay sachs wouldn't have the same probability model since the people who express it won't live long enough to reproduce. Still, it has a pretty good probability model.

If two people have one copy of the gene then the chances of passing one copy on to a child are 50% while the chances of passing two on are 25%. A child with two copies will die.

Let us assume for the sake of simplicity that we have 4 children who are hermaphrodites. Two have a copy of the gene, one doesn't, and one is dead.

Out of three possible incestuous combinations that are two that have a 25% chance of passing on the gene and one that has a 50% chance. Therefore, the chances of these children passing on the gene are in total (1/2)(1/3) + (2/3)(1/4) or 1/3 while the chances of passing on two copies are (1/4)(1/3) + 0 or 1/12.

Now, let us assume an incestuous orgy in which they have three children. Zero express tay sachs and one has a copy of the gene. The chances that they will pass on two copies through incest are zero.


These two separate probability models show the dangers and the benefits of incest. With habitual incest genetic traits that kill in childhood die off quite quickly according to the numbers. However, those recessive traits that do not effect fertility eventually reach complete saturation. This is an incomplete model, of course. It doesn't take into account many factors but the basic premise is there.

Catastrophic genetic diseases from multigenerational incest are unlikely. However, minor defects and quirks will add up over time.


Edit: Religious nitpick here, Jesus was not an immacuate conception. Mary was. Every human being inherited the Original Sin from Adam and Eve. However, when Mary's parents were getting it on God was there and who told heaven's estate lawyer to jip her out of her share. Thus, Mary was the only mortal human who is not a sinner and the only mortal human who doesn't need to believe in Jesus to get into heaven.

Jesus was the virgin birth, meaning that Mary never had intercourse. This, of course, is not that spectacular today. All you need to achieve a virgin birth is a turkey baster.

And yes, Egyption royalty didpractice incest but they were living gods.

[Crusher Bob]

For example, note the common occurance of hemophilia among many of the royal families of Europe.

[Ophis]

Look its simple, if you are either a God or Royalty incest is fine, possibely even mandatory.
Just look at the british royal family for an idea of what happens over time...

Actually it mostly seems to badly affect the men, who tend towards idiocy, the women seem fine. Strange.

[Taki]

[ThatSzechuan]

[Kremlin KOA]

[hyzmarca]

[Ophis]

I was thinking on that line my self, but idiocy seems to me a more than singel gene problem, so I suspect it has to do with more than one chromosone. Then again since anne is the only one of the royal I have time for mayb there is something in it.

[Brahm]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Upbringing in the environment of distortion, passed on from generations, of the family's position in society certainly is at play in the British Royal family.

As an infant and toddler Charles had so little contact that he barely knew his mother, and the old bat gave similarily cold instructions for raising him. As much as an airhead as Diana was, at least she was a mother and one that imparted some sense of humility, compasion, and humanity to temper that infamous stiff upper lip mentality.

[Kyoto Kid]

Yoikes...!

How a simple question ends up as a debate on sexual mores and heredity.

As Mr. Spock would say...

"Fascinating"

[Space Ghost]

[stevebugge]

QUOTE (Kremlin KOA)

You know, in Perth there is a Nightclub that is Infamous for letting 13 year old girls in

It gets shut down every fe wmonths by the cops, the manager loses his licence, and someone else gets the licence and rents out the property for a club with a new name... but the place is always the same

funny you get a lot of adult men there, and many adult women... it is very financially successful

it wouldn't be the ame for all clubs, but there would be a few like that. they make money from catering to the Pedo community


But would a Johnson want to do the deal at a place like that?

It would certainly make me question who the Johnson was and what they were up to. Johnsons tend to try to set up meets in friendly locations that they are comfortable in, if this fit their criteria......

[hyzmarca]

[Space Ghost]

[stevebugge]

[hyzmarca]

[nick012000]