61–70 of 109 posts
"the whole world": - economists & businesspeople who can't conceive of a world without growth - religious people who think God wants them to be fruitful and multiply - atheists who think we have some kind of evolutionary imperative - parents who think that being childfree is an affront to their choices
"the whole world": - economists & businesspeople who can't conceive of a world without growth - religious people who think God wants them to be fruitful and multiply - atheists who think we have some kind of evolutionary imperative - parents who think that being childfree is an affront to their choices
That listing of people seems pretty comprehensive. If that’s not the “whole world” it comes pretty close! And to be clear, us parents think that being “childfree” is shallow and selfish, like being one of those sovereign citizens who doesn’t want to pay taxes. It’s basically being the ultimate hipster—thinking of oneself as being too special for something hominids have been doing for millions of years.
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I suppose it's a subject I've long wondered about - am I just some sort of biological robot fulfilling some pre-determined program? Or have I actually been equipped with some sort of agency? I guess it's the old free will question and it may be unanswerable. That said, I can't say I've ever really felt much instinctual desire to reproduce, and if I have, perhaps I have reasoned myself out of the idea in some way. Eit…
Free will is so self-evident that deniers of free will have to give lectures at universities to convince everyone else that the universe is making illusions for fun at the cost of thermodynamic efficiency.
I've yet to meet anyone able to do so coherently.
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wow, that’s really quite reductive. It sounds more like this might be a choice you feel strongly about but are projecting selfishness on to others? This can be a totally fine choice for someone to make personally (which I support), but also not good for society as a whole. Both things can objectively be true.
Are you saying it's selfish to not have kids? Other than accidental parents, I've never met any who didn't have kids because they wanted them. How were they not acting selfishly?
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Free will is so self-evident that deniers of free will have to give lectures at universities to convince everyone else that the universe is making illusions for fun at the cost of thermodynamic efficiency.
Define it in a way that doesn't mean it is just an illusion, and that actually explains something then. I've yet to meet anyone able to do so coherently.
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Define it in a way that doesn't mean it is just an illusion, and that actually explains something then. I've yet to meet anyone able to do so coherently.
It’s impossible to define it or do anything requiring verbs if you don’t have free will, so it’s tautologically impossible to satisfy this class of solipsistic ideas.
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Define it in a way that doesn't mean it is just an illusion, and that actually explains something then. I've yet to meet anyone able to do so coherently.
It’s impossible to define it or do anything requiring verbs if you don’t have free will, so it’s tautologically impossible to satisfy this class of solipsistic ideas.
You've also presented no argument for why it is impossible to define. If free will is possible, there should be no reason you can't define what it is.
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I always hear this from people who are unwilling to fix current problems. They always push it onto some future genius that is going to pop up and act as the second coming of Jesus. In reality the average person is already more intelligent both in terms of education and IQ than people from a hundred years ago. The difference is that you are no longer losing them to mining accidents. Meanwhile the growth strategy glori…
The average person has a higher IQ, true, but the problems we face also require a higher IQ (and higher specialisation) than in the past. It might sound misanthropic, but the average person is average. Nothing wrong with it, morally or otherwise, but they won't be doing revolutionary work in specialist fields, they will be raising families and be happy. Like I said in my original comment, we can get by with a smaller…
Edited for grammar.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
wow, that’s really quite reductive. It sounds more like this might be a choice you feel strongly about but are projecting selfishness on to others? This can be a totally fine choice for someone to make personally (which I support), but also not good for society as a whole. Both things can objectively be true.
Are you saying it's selfish to not have kids? Other than accidental parents, I've never met any who didn't have kids because they wanted them. How were they not acting selfishly?