To Breed or Not to Breed? • Hacker News Board

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#41

Post by mikewarot » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #9

These types of movements never really go anywhere, in large part because their proponents remove themselves from the genepool. It's the same reason that people having been saying for generations that religion is going to disappear, but it never actually does. Non-religious cultures tend to have below-replacement rate births while religious ones have higher birthrates. The main thing that not having children does is e…

>The main thing that not having children does is ensure a future that is full of people with very different values from yourself.

The first thing you need to accept if you want to have kids, is that they will NOT live the life you want them to live, nor will they accept your values at all, unless you can convince them that your values have merit.

How well have you been able to convince your friends of something? Yeah, you'll have slightly better odds with kids, because in the beginning you have full control over their environment, until school starts.

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#42

Post by bckr » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

gibbonsrcool wrote: post #10

It's the economic insecurity that does it for me. Everytime I see "we're a team not a family" or the like, I realize how dispensible I am. It's not the content of the message, it's the fact you have to say it. It's a gentle nudge that, hey, remember you don't mean shit to us, ok?

> we're a team not a family

I actually prefer to have boundaries at work. The whole "family" thing is often a way of saying "you'd better work you ass off to serve this business"

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#43

Post by pydry » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #5

bagacrap wrote: post #3

have kids and raise them to be awesome enough to solve modern world problems

To use an analogy, human beings in general and children in particular should be viewed as assets, not liabilities. Of course they require investment, of time, money, or both, but that's true for most if not all other investments too. And the potential payout is massively asymmetrical. One could raise the child that cracks economical nuclear fusion, discovers a cure for pancreatic cancer, becomes the next Michelangelo…

>children in particular should be viewed as assets, not liabilities

maybe we could try to not see the future of the human race through a financial prism at all.

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#44

Post by bitwize » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

The major problems the human race is facing all have a single solution: fewer humans. It's like fasting for individual health: simple, and solves so much. So maybe this is just nature running its course.

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#45

Post by del_operator » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

I thought this was going to address the burden of finding affordable childcare, rigors of child development, family insurance, and maybe even a stark anecdote about a toddler or teenager. Then I hear a story about climate change and feel super frustrated that’s where this conversation is starting.

I see the anxiety, but I just didn’t anticipate this from the title.

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#46

Post by confidantlake » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

Auracle wrote: post #31

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #2

I've heard this kind of commentary a lot, but I still believe it's much more of a case of "people not wanting to have kids and then giving climate change as the reason" than climate change actually being the deciding factor in not having kids. I think in most cases it's more akin to virtue signaling. The modern world, especially in the US, is quite unfriendly to having kids. Both parents have lots of other opportunit…

A common thing I’ve heard is people saying “I wouldn’t want to bring a baby in to THIS world,” which I think shows that we really need to do a better job teaching history. It’s literally the best time there’s ever been to bring a child in to the world. There’s no constant threat of nuclear annihilation, no giant world wars, a large portion of childhood diseases have been eradicated, the chance of the mother dying in…

There is a constant threat of nuclear annihilation. It never went away.

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#47

Post by SyzygistSix » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #17

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #4

Only very rich and very poor people in this world can afford to have kids.

When people cite money as a reason for not having children, they just usually just don't want children, but don't want to admit it. The fact is there has never been a better time in human history to raise children. People talk about climate change, but back in the 50's it wasn't any better -- we were in the midst of a nuclear standoff that could have gone apocalyptic at any second. Before that, there was a world war,…

>Raising kids is hard, even now, but it's still easier than it's ever been.

I think the amount of two income households and longer work hours says otherwise. It's still a great time to have kids but there is a lot of time and financial pressure that we did not have in the 60s and 70s. In addition, kids commonly walked to school, went out to play without supervision, etc. I think children cost more and require more time than in the past.

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#48

Post by Dracophoenix » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

jah242 wrote: post #21

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #2

I've heard this kind of commentary a lot, but I still believe it's much more of a case of "people not wanting to have kids and then giving climate change as the reason" than climate change actually being the deciding factor in not having kids. I think in most cases it's more akin to virtue signaling. The modern world, especially in the US, is quite unfriendly to having kids. Both parents have lots of other opportunit…

'you want to be more selfish with your time and money' - from my perspective having children is up with the most selfish things an individual can do - you are spending a huge amount of time and resources replicating yourself (to as greater degree as possible with current technology) and then usually trying to give that replication as much advantage over other people's as possible. From my experience parents are often…

I don't think lacking a child would make someone any more considerate of society than they are. As the poster above you mentioned, many young couples don't want to have children because the economic and QoL calculation is unfavorable to doing so. They have no concern for the utilitarian needs of society (and for that matter, most people don't).

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#49

Post by gibbonsrcool » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

bckr wrote: post #42

gibbonsrcool wrote: post #10

It's the economic insecurity that does it for me. Everytime I see "we're a team not a family" or the like, I realize how dispensible I am. It's not the content of the message, it's the fact you have to say it. It's a gentle nudge that, hey, remember you don't mean shit to us, ok?

> we're a team not a family I actually prefer to have boundaries at work. The whole "family" thing is often a way of saying "you'd better work you ass off to serve this business"

The way this phrase is used, as popularized by Netflix, they mean to say they don’t hesitate to fire underperformers.

Re: To Breed or Not to Breed?

#50

Post by throwaway292961 » Sun, Nov 21, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

Personal anecdote: My wife and I got married assuming that we would eventually want kids. We were pretty young, and that's what people do, right? We kept checking in with each other and kept not wanting to have kids. 5 years into our marriage, we were certain enough that I chose to have a vasectomy. We were so certain that my biggest fear was NOT that we'd change our minds later, but that my vasectomy would be one of the 0.1% that failed.

Our reasons were mostly personal, and it ultimately wasn't a responsibility we felt equipped to take on. There's some personal traumas that we experienced as kids and didn't want to pass along. There were some "selfish" reasons and things that we gave a higher priority in life than raising children. We had enough executive dysfunction between the two of us that we didn't think we'd be able to give kids enough attention while also juggling our other priorities. There is also nothing so special about our genes that compelled us to procreate--we could have adopted if parenthood called to us later in life. The usual reason we give is "we can barely take care of our pets, we're not bringing kids into this." That's the most concise way I can put it without opening up an argument.

A couple of years after the vasectomy, my wife ended up getting diagnosed with multiple chronic (but not terminal) illnesses, so that became a contributing factor after we had already made our decision. Economic concerns have also always been a factor--not something that I viewed as completely unsolvable, but it obviously requires a huge sacrifice to raise kids today. Climate change and overpopulation eventually became extra reasons to be thankful that we're not bringing kids into this mess, but if we ever felt a strong drive to have kids in the first place, I don't think that alone would be enough to deter us.

The article frames the whole discussion around climate change and current events, and I suppose my personal outlook for humanity has become darker over the years, but the decision to have (or not to have) kids is largely driven by personal circumstances. Some of our closest friends are fabulous loving parents, and the world needs more parents like them. Some of us, IMO, made the right choice by opting out. People love to make value judgements about this decision, as if there should be a default choice, but one thing we don't need more of is parents who don't want to be parents.