I get the urge to quantify everything, but please: just relax, enjoy your children, and stop worrying about calculating life like this.
75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
451–460 of 479 posts
Re: 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion plenty of people just use kids as a scapegoat for meaning of life. My question would be why you value your kids time more than bouldern? Because you made them? Because they consume so much time with them? Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it? Unfortunately for me I'm not sure if I would end like you or the other poster who regrets it sometimes. A…
> Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it? It is totally this. We are biological creatures and we cannot escape that. Love, sex, friendships, relationships, parenting, happiness, and so forth are all aspects of our biology. We are not automatons living a purely rational life. Satisfaction in life depends on those biological mechanisms and shouldn't be seen throug…
Yes but is it fair to the new human?
Oversimplified: would you be okay to create a new human if you know they have only 100 days to life? 5 years? 20? Suffering in school, sleep problems etc etc?
Just because it's evolutionary pre programmed?
Re: 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion plenty of people just use kids as a scapegoat for meaning of life. My question would be why you value your kids time more than bouldern? Because you made them? Because they consume so much time with them? Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it? Unfortunately for me I'm not sure if I would end like you or the other poster who regrets it sometimes. A…
>I have the opposite though: perhaps I need to not to have kids to stop the cycle of creating meaning through procreation. You won't stop the cycle though, others who do actually have kids will simply continue it, and the single biggest way in which you could have had and influence on the future of the world and the human race will have been eliminated. And that's before you get into any religious implications of hav…
At least I would stop it for my gen pool.
I'm not responsible for potential suffering of others.
Re: 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somewhat disputing definitions - he’s talking about the low stakes idle hedonistic “happiness” from commonly thought of as pleasurable things (brunch, camping, food/drinks with friends, etc.) vs. the type of more difficult stuff that while maybe less pleasant in the day to day moment is often more fulfilling over longer time horizons. Not worth arguing about the word meaning rather than just taking the underlying arg…
> he’s talking about the low stakes idle hedonistic “happiness” from commonly thought of as pleasurable things (brunch, camping, food/drinks with friends, etc.) But it doesn't sound like they were happy even by this definition..
This is a mistake in my original comment above. My first use of "happy" should have been replaced with "satisfied" or "fulfilled." My sloppiness confused the message a bit.
Re: 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it? It is totally this. We are biological creatures and we cannot escape that. Love, sex, friendships, relationships, parenting, happiness, and so forth are all aspects of our biology. We are not automatons living a purely rational life. Satisfaction in life depends on those biological mechanisms and shouldn't be seen throug…
Yes but is it fair to the new human? Oversimplified: would you be okay to create a new human if you know they have only 100 days to life? 5 years? 20? Suffering in school, sleep problems etc etc? Just because it's evolutionary pre programmed?
Not everyone who struggles in life would rather not live. I think it's quite arrogant to contemplate whether living is worth it for another human being.
Re: 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it makes you feel any better I delayed having kids and spent my 30s dating and hanging out and going to bars -- and it was terrible. I was never more depressed. I got tired of dating. I got tired of bars. I was lonely. My life had no meaning or direction. I had a nice career and could go anywhere and do anything I wanted, but it turns out none of that made me even a little bit happy. I remember one summer making p…
I don't really believe happiness exists without kids. Happiness can exist when you are a kid and it can exist when you have kids. It cannot exist otherwise. You can be satisfied at any point of your life, with or without kids, but you can never be happy. I remember being happy --- I was a kid. I remember when it stopped --- gradually when I became a teenager and completely when I became an adult. I had a career, I ha…
I think you are trying to fit the narrative to your own bias and experience. Tolstoy thought the opposite, to offer a countervailing outlook.
> I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false. The two drops of honey which diverted my eyes from the cruel truth longer than the rest: my love of family, and of writing -- art as I called it -- were no longer sweet to me.
Tolstoy
Now, as to how he dealt with this angst, that's a story for another time
Re: 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are also tangible benefits. Economic models needing to adjust to non-perpetual growth is not an impossible nor existential crisis.
Adjusting economic models? We’re significantly below replacement level. That means population collapse and, eventually, actual extinction. We’re not headed toward a future where we just stop growing. We’re headed for a future where populations shrink by more than 50%. It takes decades to create this problem, and even more decades to fix it. People aren’t paying attention because from a raw numbers perspective our pop…
Do you have some models you're looking at that cause you to believe with such certainty that this is what the future holds? I have not seen, nor can I even really fathom, a scenario in which declining birth rates leads in of itself to extinction (unless the birth rates drop to basically zero for some reason), but certainly this could be due to a failure of imagination. A declining population would certainly look different, but I don't see it causing the end of civilization, much less the species.
Re: 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but is it fair to the new human? Oversimplified: would you be okay to create a new human if you know they have only 100 days to life? 5 years? 20? Suffering in school, sleep problems etc etc? Just because it's evolutionary pre programmed?
Not everyone who struggles in life would rather not live. I think it's quite arrogant to contemplate whether living is worth it for another human being.
When I'm the maker of another human it's definitely worth considering before if it will be worth to do so
Re: 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not everyone who struggles in life would rather not live. I think it's quite arrogant to contemplate whether living is worth it for another human being.
When I'm the maker of another human it's definitely worth considering before if it will be worth to do so
Even so, that person will not be you. Even if they will go through exactly the same things you've been through they may not have the same experience. You cannot know if it was worth it for them.
I think it's fine if people don't have kids, I just find the reasoning "what if they suffer, etc" a cop-out. You cannot know that beforehand and even if they suffer, they may still find meaning in life.
Re: 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
Earth to Mars: you're a freak and your beliefs are freakish
> I still strive to treat others with kindness and respect and have largely been successful at this. Recall that you wrote this in a comment recently, and then reconsider what you wrote above, regardless of how you might feel about what the parent wrote.
calling schools, which are just filled with normal-fucking-people "indoctrination camps" is ridiculous and ignorant and is a framing that attempts to justify violence. "indoctrination CAMPS", like "concentration CAMPs", implying teachers are nazis.
If you want to espouse freakish beliefs i am going to ridicule you. Sorry freaks.
To quote the same comment: "Learn to identify these types of people, and do not share your light with them."