31–40 of 97 posts
That was the only one thing me and my wife were in complete agreement - 0.5 sons (either 0 or 1). Did vasectomy 2 months after kid was born, because I knew she would change her mind :D And no, I won't reverse, I am deadly afraid of needles and doctors.
Look up the work of Richard Lynn, get that reversal, and do it for civilisation :-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me the ideal is 3 kids, but I don't want to raise 3 kids.
Even though responsibility is what gives life meaning. I feel like many men are 'checking out' of society's responsibilities (which need not be related to raising children) for a number of factors.
Today, what do you get by raising a kid that you then have to support for an extended period of time, maybe until he/she is in his/her mid-twenties? If there's nothing to be gained there's no surprise more people are opting to delay it, sometimes to the point of no return.
Ethical question - is it unethical to contribute to a charity/foundation/whatnot that works towards people having fewer children, given that such would inevitably be most effective in third-world countries where the birth rate is highest? Or would that be western imperialism pushing our values on the less developed world?
Such a charity would possibly educate women or increase access to safe sex, how is that a problem? Speaking as a citizen of a developing country, I personally wouldn't mind at all.
> Although fertility has stabilised at levels above two children per woman in some countries, in the countries of Central Asia, the fertility rate (which had been close to two) has risen to around three children per woman. This is linked to the fact that many women there are having the number of children they want to have. That last fact is interesting. The average ideal family size reported by adults in the US is 2.…
My pet theory is that humans are poorly adapted to modern life. More specifically, there is something about the information environment that scrambles whatever mechanism we have for determining if we are doing well enough to bring more children into the world. I mean, it has to be that, since objectively speaking families in the developed world are able to provide for children at a level higher than anywhere else in…
> Although fertility has stabilised at levels above two children per woman in some countries, in the countries of Central Asia, the fertility rate (which had been close to two) has risen to around three children per woman. This is linked to the fact that many women there are having the number of children they want to have. That last fact is interesting. The average ideal family size reported by adults in the US is 2.…
My pet theory is that humans are poorly adapted to modern life. More specifically, there is something about the information environment that scrambles whatever mechanism we have for determining if we are doing well enough to bring more children into the world. I mean, it has to be that, since objectively speaking families in the developed world are able to provide for children at a level higher than anywhere else in…
The situation, at least in NYC where I live, seems reversed for the very rich, where more kids is a clear signal that you have a lot of money and yet spare time for your kids.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My pet theory is that humans are poorly adapted to modern life. More specifically, there is something about the information environment that scrambles whatever mechanism we have for determining if we are doing well enough to bring more children into the world. I mean, it has to be that, since objectively speaking families in the developed world are able to provide for children at a level higher than anywhere else in…
> yet we are having less children than we want. How so? Evolution has not programmed into us any sort of drive for careful family planning to optimized the number of offspring. We simply have a drive to have sex. For the vast majority of human (pre)history, optimization of offspring number occurred the same way as with all sexually reproducing species: natural miscarriage and child mortality. Now that we have control…
What? Take even a cursory glance at any IVF, PCOS, or infertility support group, and observe the outpouring of fundamental NEED and the grief of unfulfilling that need. Humans absolutely have a drive to have children, not simply sex.
Sure, there are some people who lack this desire. Usually men, sometimes women, almost always young. The childfree movement (of which I was once a part) definitely epitomizes this. The proportion of people who don't care for kids does appear to be slowly rising, but make no mistake, they are still very much a minority. Humans, almost universally, want children.
Ethical question - is it unethical to contribute to a charity/foundation/whatnot that works towards people having fewer children, given that such would inevitably be most effective in third-world countries where the birth rate is highest? Or would that be western imperialism pushing our values on the less developed world?
A wise person here once suggested viewing the world population as a parallel computer, with each human mind working to move us forward. With this view in mind, as soon as space travel opens the solar system Malthusian philosophy dies forever -- we are going to need as many people as possible both to colonize and to discover answers to all the new problems that will arise. What would technological growth look like wit…
That was the only one thing me and my wife were in complete agreement - 0.5 sons (either 0 or 1). Did vasectomy 2 months after kid was born, because I knew she would change her mind :D And no, I won't reverse, I am deadly afraid of needles and doctors.
Highly intelligent and conscientious people (which I presume as a HN reader you are) having fewer children leads merely to Idiocracy :-( Look up the work of Richard Lynn, get that reversal, and do it for civilisation :-)