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Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

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Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#621

Post by silverquiet »

dghughes wrote: post #604
datavirtue wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with plenty of people who have no visible significant other, even. It's fucking weird. Thirty+ (40+) year old guys living alone in huge houses, never married. I'm guessing they are just hitting up sex workers. These are smart, well adjusted people who would have made good fathers.

I'm one of those. Very shy even into my late 20s. Then my Dad got sick so I was his support for nearly 20 years. Life went by and now it's too late to have kids. No woman of child bearing age wants to date a middle-aged man 10 years her senior. So really why bother even trying to have a relationship at this point?

Maybe just having a friend; as I've said elsewhere in the thread, I never really got the whole marriage/kids idea myself, but perhaps now that I'm also aging out of childbearing age, dating will be less complicated once any expectation of children are out of the picture.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#623

Post by rightbyte »

vsnf wrote: post #613
rightbyte wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find any amount of "so hostile" comments. I think what makes the vibe hostile it that this is the sound of social cohesion tearing apart and there is the implied worry that "it might get hostile" unless things are fixed. But that is not the same thing as hostile. It is discussing a problem.

I regret not coming in my original post armed with evidence. Accusation of being inhuman: > The - natural - way - of - being - a - human!!! ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39343369 ) > Biological organisms not procreating despite living in material and caloric abundance is cosmically weird. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39341358 ) (less hostile, still a swipe) Attack on one's validity as a member of s…

Ok ye that's some.

Given the amount of comments I would still not say the topic is particularly hostile? Or am I desensitised maybe?

I mean, if the question is React frameworks, there is way less risk for philosophical fistfights and outbreaks, rather than a discussion about how people live their lifes.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#624

Post by alexpotato »

My dad was one of 5 and my mom was one of 6.

I grew up with 20+ cousins ranging from 10 years older than me to almost 30 years younger than me. It was simultaneously like having lots of older brothers and sisters but also having multiple siblings only a couple months older or younger than me. It also meant I got a LOT of experience being around small children which carried over well to being a parent.

On the flip side, my father-in-law has 7 grandkids and they were all born in a 5 year window.

I also worked with woman from China and due to the "1 child" policy, the first baby she ever held was her own baby b/c she had no cousins, nieces/nephews etc.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#625

Post by the_only_law »

vsnf wrote: post #613
rightbyte wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find any amount of "so hostile" comments. I think what makes the vibe hostile it that this is the sound of social cohesion tearing apart and there is the implied worry that "it might get hostile" unless things are fixed. But that is not the same thing as hostile. It is discussing a problem.

I regret not coming in my original post armed with evidence. Accusation of being inhuman: > The - natural - way - of - being - a - human!!! ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39343369 ) > Biological organisms not procreating despite living in material and caloric abundance is cosmically weird. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39341358 ) (less hostile, still a swipe) Attack on one's validity as a member of s…

> I regret not coming in my original post armed with evidence.

This site is full of liars and sophists, among other scum. It frankly doesn’t matter whether you bring evidence or not.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#626

Post by silverquiet »

em-bee wrote: post #204
silverquiet wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they just never met the right lady. Calling it "fucking weird" seems a bit over the top, and contradictory to your statement about working with plenty of them.

if you don't meet the right lady by 40 then you haven't been looking hard enough. meaning, you were not really interested or focused on getting married. i am the only male among all my cousins that i know of to be married with children. and i am your proverbial geek who has a hard time meeting women. which my cousins or brothers are not. they had more opportunities to meet women than me (as far as i can tell), but fo…

There's an entire culture of "incels" who seem to have trouble with this.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#627

Post by conradludgate »

batushka3 wrote: post #587
conradludgate wrote: post #353

Why are people so obsessed about it I have children? I'm married and we've decided we don't want to have kids. It really bothers me when people say "oh you're missing out, that's such a shame". Please think about what you are saying. It doesn't matter if I'm gay, infertile, poor, depressed, or just don't want them. Please keep your judgements to yourself or even just stop judging others.

Whats the point of marriage then if being able you refuse kids? It's designed as a secure hub to build greater things like children bearing family. Why to subject yourself to lonely elderly life, tied to aging partner? Be like gay/bachelor people and enjoy hundreds of partners, why try to mimic family being afraid for full experience?

Wow... Where to start...

Assuming that you're not trolling: 1. Plenty of gay people have stable monogamous relationships/marriages. 2. Marriage isn't only for children. Marriage has legal and tax implications. 3. I like having a stable relationship, I don't like dating and switching partners. I like deeper connections with my partners.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#628

Post by nkrisc »

toasterlovin wrote: post #400
up_o wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a funny question. Avoiding tangents, for all intents and purposes, I'm secular. Though I've only had two children with no intention of having more, I was raised Southern Baptist, the oldest of six. I love our big family. My mother was one of seven, and all her siblings have many children as well. I look back fondly on our holiday gatherings and miss them dearly. my aunts were guardian angels through so many d…

Yeah, wanting a secular natalist movement is where I was for a while. But then the truth of it hits you at some point: it will never exist. The secular way of life exalts the individual, but raising a large family is about subduing your own desires and devoting yourself to something more important than yourself. Well, guess who already does that: religious people.

The secular way of life is an individual way of life, in the sense that it’s different for everyone. Some choose rugged individualism, some choose to devote themselves to their community.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#629

Post by kredd »

PeterisP wrote: post #411
nox101 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is the great filter.

Not really - there are various self-correction mechanisms which simply aren't active (yet?) because the low birth rate isn't actually resulting in a shrinking population (due to immigration) so there is not problem to fix (yet). Many people mention housing and real estate as a problem, well, if there was a population problem, we'd see loads of available empty homes and falling prices of real estate - we're not, so th…

In North America / Europe, you’re correct. In Japan, China, South Korea, they’re losing population, everyone knows they’re losing population, but self-correction mechanisms aren’t working or not working fast enough. Japan been trying to throw random stuff on the wall to see if anyone sticks, but the birth rate only keeps dropping. And well, young people really don’t want children.

Re: Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood?

#630

Post by trashtester »

silverquiet wrote: post #161
xyzelement wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds familiar, perhaps you and I have discussed it before. My life matters to me as a vehicle for what truly matters: if my descendants are thriving, and my values are upheld, whether I am physically here once I've contributed to it, is completely irrelevant to me. I will fight to live as long and as well as I can, but only because that increases my opportunity to contribute what I want. Merely "existing" is n…

It's certainly possible, but I've seen others here express the same sentiment. Another poster once posted a quite insightful comment about Nietzsche that really described a lot of the problems of nihilism that captured the feelings that I've had since realizing the unreality of religion at a young age, so I'm not exactly alone even if I am a bit of an outlier.

> Nietzsche

It goes back further than that. "To be or not to be" is indeed THE question, or rather THE choice, especially if you have the type of personality that tends to lead to an existential crisis at some point in your life.

In the end, as far as I can tell, there is no obvious "meaning" in life beyond what we decide to attach meaning to. And "to be" is a prerequisite for most objectives we may attach it to.

Having offspring can be seen as an extension to this. It is to decide that "beeing" will go on even after you as an individual dies.

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