Birth Control

[Mr. Blonde]

The Revolutionary New Birth Control Method for Men | Magazine

This story has been in the news for a while now, but just in case nobody has seen it...a scientist in India has come up with a new and cheap birth control method that is completely reversible and lasts 10 years.

Basically, they inject a positively charged polymer into the tubes of each testicle which immediately neutralizes (kills) all of the sperm cells that pass through it, because they are apparently negatively charged.

It involved two needle pricks into your balls, takes 15 minutes, will presumably be really cheap if anybody in the States ever starts doing it, and will give men literally all the power in birth control situations (not having to pay for condoms, not having to pay for birth control, not having to worry about your girl actually taking the birth control, and not having to worry about her bitching about taking birth control).


I would really like to get something like this done.

[thekremlin]

Saw this. Thought about it.

[Repugnant Abomination]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

The Revolutionary New Birth Control Method for Men | Magazine



Basically, they inject a positively charged polymer into the tubes of each testicle which immediately neutralizes (kills) all of the sperm cells that pass through it, because they are apparently negatively charged.

It involved two needle pricks into your balls, takes 15 minutes, will presumably be really cheap if anybody in the States ever starts doing it, and will give men literally all the power in birth control situations


I would really like to get something like this done.

I have my reservations.

[Mr. Blonde]

Quit being a pussy. I made it a personal project to force myself to stare at every injection I get. It has made injections far less of a cringeworthy experience and more of a personal challenge. Watching your blood get drawn is the most interesting, especially when you donate and you see how much they're actually taking from you.

That being said, I forgot to mention I would obviously want to wait until all the approps tests were done to make sure it's for sure safe.

[Repugnant Abomination]

I prefer to hold my breath and cringe while looking away and counting to ten.

[thekremlin]

I prefer to pull out.

Hey-oh!

[Ugly Bastard]

I'll almost certainly get something like this done at some point. The stress of two needle pricks in your nuts are more than offset by the absence of stress from preggo sweats.

[angry pancake]

I'll pass.

[f3lix]

Has anybody here considered what long term affects of birth control on the human species and our evolution?

[Cocktooth]

Evolution? Say it isn't so. Who would believe that non sense! (10)

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by f3lix

Has anybody here considered what long term affects of birth control on the human species and our evolution?

It's very difficult to consider the long term effects of anything when it comes to evolution, as it usually takes thousands or hundreds of thousands of generations to notice any significant change. But I would not be worried much, given our birth rate as a species and our exploding population. As long as humans keep churning out at least 2 children per lifetime, I human fitness will turn out just fine. Even if the human population bottlenecks or a vast majority of humans are somehow wiped out, we're still the (so far) best thing that the Earth has churned out, and could probably re-take the Earth again after a couple hundred or thousand years, given that no other force starts selecting against us heavily.


However, it does raise an interesting question I've thought about for years now, in that with the development of self-awareness and our high cognitive faculties, we've effectively stopped, or at least slowed to almost a standstill, human evolution. Everything is technically evolving all the time, but a HUGE amount of our selective pressures have been almost entirely removed by mercy and medicine.

For example, if an animal is sickly in nature, they usually just die off before they can breed and pass on their sickly genes. If an animal is born mutated or retarded, it will probably get killed or eaten before it can a pass on their genes. But we humans, given our compassion for others and our scientific ability, have been able to allow even the most "inferior" of our race to propagate their species. I am by no means suggesting we resort to eugenics, I had this discussion with a professor in university once and he said basically it puts us in an awkward and important position for our species, where we have to remain as ethical and moral as possible towards fellow man, and focus on science and medicine in order to eradicate deleterious genes from our genetic code, in effect removing it from the gene pool, and accomplishing the same thing various selection pressures do.

It's probably going to take another hundred years or so before we get to that stage, though. And with the concept of Capitalism and the colors most governments show now, it will probably be very Gattaca-like.

[f3lix]

The average height of the human species would heavily argue against your "thousands of years (minimum) argument.

[Mr. Blonde]

It depends on whether or not you want to call the historical difference in height a significant change, on terms of survival capability.

What is the world average for height? What are you comparing it to?

You could, of course, possibly be right, but one would have to put forth a solid argument on two different fronts:

* Whether height is mostly a result of sexual selection or natural selection. If it has to do with sexual selection (which I would wager it does, as being a few inches taller would not be what I would call a significant change, compared to something like the development of teeth, to one's survival ability), I don't think that quite matters in regard to birth birth control, which was your original question.


* How do we know recent height differences are an evolutionary development at all and not something that is already "hard wired" (by past evolutionary changes) into our genes with a better diet and lifestyle? Easy example, if you look at many older Koreans, who were around for the Korean war or in the generation after it, you will see that many of them have a very small stature. But once Korea became modernized and on it's way to being "first world" in the 70's, you can see almost immediately the change in just one generation. That, by very definition, is not evolution, but it is definitely a phenotype that I think would be worth studying.


I'm not saying you're wrong, but this is one of the reasons why evolutionary biology (and evolutionary psychology) are such difficult and controversial fields...the HUGE number of variables that go into figuring things like this out. Really fun to think about, though.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

...the HUGE number

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by f3lix

Has anybody here considered what long term affects of birth control on the human species and our evolution?

We already have a pretty good case study with women taking the pills.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by f3lix

The average height of the human species would heavily argue against your "thousands of years (minimum) argument.

Humans have gotten taller over time as food as become more available; it's that we are no longer largely malnourishment, not that our DNA has changed.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

* How do we know recent height differences are an evolutionary development at all and not something that is already "hard wired" (by past evolutionary changes) into our genes with a better diet and lifestyle?

Originally Posted by Beebs

Humans have gotten taller over time as food as become more available; it's that we are no longer largely malnourishment, not that our DNA has changed.

This

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by f3lix

The average height of the human species would heavily argue against your "thousands of years (minimum) argument.

Average height is drastically affected by diet.

[ninjaface]

A good example is the fact that second generation immigrants to the United States are typically taller than their parents because they have access to better nutrition.