Genetic Success

Every now and then I find myself coming back to the topic of genetic success. It's one of a subset of ways of thinking that I call "Life Scoring." These are various ways of thinking about the world in which your life is scored in pretty simple terms. This one is evolutionary, where the question is "How many genetic offspring do I have?"

It gets into another system of thought which occurred to me while I was outlining this post in my head before class yesterday. That is the idea of cognitive management of genetic/instinctual needs. It sounds pretty profound off the bat, but the more I think about it the more I realize it's basically just neo-freudianisim where I credit the id to instinctual and physiological drives rather then unconscious ones.

Anyway, I've come back to this discussion recently because it's lined up with the much more important discussion of "How can I get more money?" I've been doing a lot of work as a research participant, which has been good, but for the real research money I either need to be part of a set of genetic twins raised apart, or a girl with HPV. I found another alternative though, selling sperm.

It's an interesting subject because it's one that seems like it should have a lot of discussion with it, but to me it never really did. I have no problem with the thought that there will be some person out there who is my genetic offspring, because to me that doesn't even come close to making me their father. I'm also just generally confident in my genetics. I'm offering the hybrid vigor cocktail of Samurai, Highlander and Native American backed up by a Professor and a Department administrator, backing up further to a patent lawyer and a Green Beret. It's physical power, mental power, and dare I say even charisma. Plus the things I have in my family history (depression, diabetes) can both be overcome with diet and exercise. As it stands right now pretty much the only thing that makes me qualified to procreate is my genetics.

Also, every time someone is genetically related to me the average height of the world goes up a little bit, and I can't help but thinking that for some reason that's a good thing.