(Keltham reminds himself again that the whole afterlife thing is obviously going to lead to different local mores about death, just as the existence of healing magic has led to different local mores about pain; killing babies here does not mean the same thing that killing or cryo-suspending babies would in dath ilan. It wouldn't be surprising if the whole pre-afterlife world operates as a tiny adjunct to a much larger afterlife, only of note to gods and a higher economy because it's the part of reality that provides the afterlife with its intake feed. Some of the attitudes ascribed to countries outside Cheliax definitely give that impression.)
(Keltham also notes that Carissa seems to be able to follow the thread of an argument better than others here. He's not used to thinking of that as an adult capability per se, but maybe it takes a lot more life experience to follow threads of argument if you have, like, very little formal training in it.)
"Ah, well, if you value having more of your own children, then, if the human species had been designed to birth ten times as many female children as male, you might wish yourself to have more male children. It would not necessarily be any better in terms of producing a functioning species; the species could get along fine with each male having to do ten times as much work of fertilizing women. It doesn't take that long, well, if you're doing it right, it takes longer, obviously, but not so long that a male couldn't fertilize another female the next day. Still, if the rest of your species gave birth to ten times as many women as men, and yet you could manage to birth only men yourself, you would have a lot more grandchildren than the average women."
"And yet what difference does any of that make? What difference does it make, as to what some woman wants to herself, when it comes to how the human species works as a whole? At least in dath ilan, women cannot choose the sex of their child by just an act of will. Then how can their wants control the balance of female and male births across the whole species? I'll tell you right now, the answer isn't that there is some mysterious channel by which the emotions of women collectively control the balance of births; you might have to look at things a little sideways to get it. But even if you can't get it, guess anyways -"
"Oh, and don't forget, if you can guess why your guess might be wrong, say that part too! You're not trying to convince me of your guess - this isn't like wacky Chelish books - you're not trying to tell me just one side of a story, like you're selling me your guess as a product and trying to get a higher price on it by concealing information while hoping I don't realize you're concealing information. I mean, if you want to sell me anything in real life, sell me on how good you are at reasoning. That means when you tell me your best guess, you should try to figure out how your best guess might be wrong; if you can see why it's probably wrong, if you can already see something that doesn't fit with your guess, tell me that part too. Remember, when real life hands you a problem, it won't tell you when you guess wrong, the way a teacher in a classroom tells you when you're wrong. In actual real life it's your job to figure out why your best guess might still be wrong. Dath ilani teachers let kids stay wrong about things for years."