[jstarfish]

While it has its issues, I'm not altogether convinced that the nuclear family is a bad thing.

We seem to function best at tribal scale. Jokes aside, most family units are functional.

Family scales well. Large-enough families invite dysfunction jokes, but they have a shared genetic interest. You can always coerce or compel family to do things like share resources or settle disputes against their own self-interest.

More than a few families together become a community, and this is where the problems start.

We look to colonizing space as the solution to overpopulation and resource depletion. Space is not a forgiving environment.

When water is running low or other critical challenges arise, a colony bound by blood will figure that shit out quicker than the space equivalent of your HOA.

[whatshisface]

>You can always coerce or compel family to do things like share resources or settle disputes against their own self-interest.

Huh?

[pjc50]

Someone is claiming that coercion and abuse are good aspects of the extended family system rather than bad ones which have led to people choosing to escape it when they have the economic opportunity.

[jstarfish]

Abuse is a malicious application of it and not what I was advocating.

It's more about bypassing the politics normally associated with these sorts of situational negotiations-- a failsafe against one (or more) persons holding the rest of the colony hostage.

It is a paternalistic foil to malingering and selfishness.

[fleddr]

I don't think it's a bad thing either. The African village model is sometimes glorified but it has major downsides too. You depend on the village for everything and it tends to be governed like a tiny dictatorship. You might have very little say in huge aspects of your life.