Hi, Bell Fen! - Luminous Hyaena

akaltynarchitectonica asked:

average number of kids is the same, but average happiness is lower. I'd rather have lots of couples happy but not ecstatic with an average number of kids than plunge some people into pointless misery to make a few rich people mildly happier

colorjustice:

luminousalicorn:

It’s not to make rich people happier, that’s not the point.  It’s to evolve us so we can get *planets sooner*, right?  A smarter next generation could be the difference between getting there in ten years or thirty or worse.

I buy this as an argument for having more greens, period, and for getting the smartest greens more money or directly giving them permissions of something. It doesn’t make sense for anything else. Credit auctions among blues aren’t selecting for competence, they’re selecting for willingness to take bribes. And genius purples won’t get you planets. 

And auctions don’t even select well for intelligent greens! Last time I picked on Makel Alasi I got a lot of hate mail so, okay, take Hana Tis - $3.4 million to appear in all the rest of the Heritage Cycle movies. Don’t tell me we’d get planets slower if the next generation only has two children with her admittedly striking cheekbones.

I disagree. You could sell me on more greens, sure, but purples matter - who’s going to build the ships, once they’re designed? If they blow up or take longer because the pipeline for random alloys or whatever isn’t the best it can be that hurts us. Greys are going to fly them. Yellows are going to program them. Maybe Voan system for blues would be fine, maybe nerd greens should get their own auction, but you have to have the eugenic element in there.