I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.
“Nothing new under the sun” I suppose!
I think that, no matter when you were born in history, there were trials and tribulations.
My children are still very young, but oh are they happy!
They are enjoying their life and no future suffering will ever take that away from them.
I wouldn’t want to deny those awesome humans their right to play as merrily as they do. To create, to enjoy life. They exist right now as well, in 2025 and 2026.
The end of life is always painful. Life is still worth it.
It’s a very personal decision and I’m glad about every human that’s not born on this crowded planet. But collectively not having children feels pretty bleak to me. Are we as a species already giving up, rolling on our backs and wait to go extinct? Come on! There is so much beauty and so much to do in this world.
My children are having a great time, they bring joy, purpose and chaos to my life. I love having them around, even though their future scares me. That has always been part of becoming a parent.
I feel like some doomer lemmings need to go outside a little more, instead of telling themselves and their screens how awful everything is. Life was brutal a century ago.
It’s the main reason I’m not having children. While there are other reasons the main one is a combination of global warming made worse by late stage capitalism and the resulting political instability that comes with that.
While I refuse to make the choice to bring someone new into this world myself I do see it as my duty to help as many of the kids around me who were brought into this world regardless. The world they were bron into is not their fault and I appreciate being able to use my resources to help them and their parents.
Absolutely I do. And I don’t understand what makes a person think that bringing a new life into this disaster is a good idea.
Well, hopefully you at least feel thankful that so many of your ancestors brought children into a world much more filled with pain and suffering and death than today.
I’m not, lmao. My life sucks. Wtf is with all the breeders here trying to justify their contributions to climate change!? There is immensely more pain and suffering in our immediate future than there was at any point in human history. We are literally looking at the end of humanity here.
Oh, and are you not contributing to climate change? Ok for you tho, just not kids?
Breeders, oy… So wtf you still doing here if so miserable and zero hope?
Lmao, did you really just tell someone to kill themselves because they don’t want to have children?
And you think you respect life. What irony.
I’m here because I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in your head. You’re trying to justify having children when we’re barrelling towards the most dire point of humanity’s history, one that will potentially cause the extinction of our species, while the powers that be are putting their foot on the gas. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Yeah, I’m going to call you a breeder because it appears that your not practicing responsible parenthood, you’re just breeding like an animal.
…unless you were trying to indirectly tell me to kill myself. If so then grow a pair and say it to my face. I’m still here because I know I’ll hurt the people around me if I end my life. That’s it. That’s the only reason why I still live. I’m a trans gal in Texas. I don’t have much to look forward to.
Do the rest of the world a favor and get yourself neutered, breeder.
Since the industrial revolution, fossil fuels were the only affordable energy sources that could meet the demand of industrialized countries. Until 5-10 years ago.
We’re now in a situation where most people can still pretend that climate change isn’t serious, and the fossil fuel lobby is stronger than ever. And yet over 90% of new electricity generation is already renewable, because it has simply become cheaper than coal and gas power in the last years.
As climate impacts worsen, the pressure to decarbonize will only get larger. The lobbies have been fighting tooth and nail against the energy transition for over 40 years, but they are rapidly loosing ground now in most countries.
It’s right to be alarmed about climate change, there will be serious long-term impacts, but it seems irrational to be completely fatalistic. Just comparing the battery prices and solar panel prices and ev market with 10 years ago reveals a truly massive shift. And this is just the beginning of the energy transition.
I think the next generation is going to start feeling it hard. Current generation will slip by but barely. I’m not pressuring my kids to have their own. Just do you fam.
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Yes
I mean, I made a conscious decision not to have children, so…
If you were born 20 years earlier you’d get to destroy the planet and die before there was any consequences?
The kids will be fine, they are smarter and more capable than those that came before them, every time. The real problem is people living so long they aren’t making room for the young people. Think turnover at a restaurant, and all the diners finished eating and paid but won’t leave.
I was born in the 90s and I feel sad about being born to this day, can’t imagine the poor kids who are gonna grow up now
Windows 11 laptops requires a webcam. The internet now wants selfies to prove that you are a certain age.
The kids now will grow up thinking that this is normal. That is what I am worried about.
We definitely need to be loud about counter-education campaigns against this.
Pushing the masses and the corporate status quo is a Herculean task, but even things as simple as retro computing and electronics / maker clubs and endeavors like Archive.org keep that spirit alive.
Heck, “The Indie Web” is even making a resurgence, many times in pure opposition to what the web has become. Things like this make me hopeful!
That and the impending societal collapse from Climate Change lol
Can I get a source?
Not the original user and can’t find anything since but that requirement seems to have been around for new models https://www.windowscentral.com/starting-2023-windows-11-will-require-laptops-have-cameras
Climate change is the only true existential reason to feel that way.
Everything else is just over focusing on a short term dip. On average things are getting better over the long term. The British Empire collapsed, and so will the American one, and the world will keep on turning and progressing.
Hell kids born these days may have legitimate cures for most forms of cancer by the time they’re old. We won’t.
is there anything substantial being done about climate change right now though?
Yes.
exemplify?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1jOqyjcO4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUA1kFSJnYQ
I was going to say more, but basically, watch those videos (or read their references).
Good news sells bad, solar energy is being deployed really quickly and accelerating exponentially, solar has a higher return on investment than gas, coal or oil (about 8x as much in developed markets, according to the IEA), nowadays, green energy is the better one for the economy, and the billionaires just want money, so if it is the green energy that has higher returns, they will invest in that.
Green energy has had 2x as much investment as fossil fuels, and about 80% of that investment is private.
In september 2024 the UK shut down its last coal powerplant.
And I forgot the most important! There have been days where energy has a NEGATIVE COST in some places in the world because of renewables, doesn’t that sound like a financial incentive to use renewables?
you could go on for days, there is a lot being done, we just don’t know about most of it.
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My grandma was born pre world war 2, she was literally born during the rise of fascism, then lived through her family getting conscripted and some killed, having to flee to the country side during the bombing raids, then through years of post war rationing.
She then travelled around the world during the 50s, raised a family during the 60s and 70s, and enjoyed a long, happy, fruitful, and fulling retirement / art career from the 80s, through the 90s, and 00s, and just passed away this year.
And there was zero chance she regretted being born.
It’ll be over within the next century or so
I’d argue that technology also, because it is consolidating wealth and power in the hands of fewer and fewer. This creates a positive feedback loop to further entrench their power. They have widened the divide and pulled up the ladder.
Oh, only climate change. Well that’s alright then. /s
Climate change is going to influence everything in our society for the worse: politics, economics, living standards, everything, including the amount of resources available to use for research.
and the world will keep on turning and progressing.
The world will keep on turning, but there is absolutely no factual basis for claiming it will keep on progressing. If anything that is one thing we can learn from history.
Climate change is going to influence everything in our society for the worse: politics, economics, living standards, everything, including the amount of resources available to use for research.
Cite the numbers that make you pessimistic.
If you don’t have numbers, then keep your crystal astrology bad vibes to yourself until you have something to back them.
I’m fucking sick of leftists acting like being moody and pessimistic is a valid political stan stance that does anything.
What kind of numbers are you going after?
I mean, probably you want numbers to prove that climate change is changing politics and economics, etc. for the worse, or maybe just numbers for proving that climate change is real.
But both of these seem like such trivial information that I’m probably just guessing wrong. But because of that, I’d be curious to know: what kind of numbers did you mean?
I can probably help digging up some for you, but not if you just meant “prove that climate change exists”. But, numbers proving that economy will suffer from climate change should be easy to find. (And I think you could just search for them yourself…)
The goal posts are just going to be moved if you produce anything with numbers on it.
I think things will make a turn in about ten years. Yes, climate is very critical, but the kids of today will have a better shot at shaping the world in a time when the last old ideas from the fossil fueled age have finally died.
It’s going to get rough, but at least they have a chance of changing it. We never did get a chance, because the boomers were kept alive with improved healthcare. It’s the same people who have all the wealth and power today as it was in 1980s.
So maybe Gen-X and millennials will be the next old assholes, but at least they’re better educated and their views are much better aligned with younger generations than the old ones. We might finally be able to work together across generations politically in just a few years time. It’s much needed, and it’s hard work, but I envy the kids who get to be the creators of the post-boomer society.
We need more optimism, for sure. But I can’t get my head around the idea that the new generation will be better than us.
The 70 years of relative stability has been exchanged by a few dickheads to make as much money over the expense of everyone as possible. Those people mean to keep it that way.
Even if I am being pessimistic, social media has made everything so depressing. We used to believe in continuous progress, we used to be excited about the future.
No, we have to funnel money to that lizard bot so he and his buddies can build their private bunkers because they know what they’re doing is fucked up, but the money is too enticing.
Yeah the problem is with all the deregulation on generational wealth and workarounds for rich people to stockpile and keep their money, the offspring of the ruling class will be the same kind of assholes. Look at Sam Altman, he’s not old. Look at mark whateverthefuck. He’s not old. Now, those people didn’t exactly inherent their money, but you can’t tell me these guys won’t be around for the next 40 years fucking shit up. And their kids? And the kids of all the Murdochs, the bush kids, the Koch offspring…there are a lot of shitty families able to reproduce and spread their sickness. This isn’t going to wind down and give us a fresh start. These rich people will be protected by an increasingly violent state and they will all burn it down before they let it change. They’re not weakening over time. They’re amassing even more wealth and the regulations and ideas around capitalism are only getting more virulent and violent. We aren’t about to ride off into the sunset on the backs of a new generation. They are going to be focusing on surviving, more than we ever were.
Every single generation talks about how good it was when they were young. This generation will ultimately be no different. And as a parent, I am doing whatever I can to ensure my kids are happy.
On top of that, you can’t miss what you never had. Humans are adaptable and resilient, and kids’ imaginations are unstoppable, and my own kids, despite the constant intrusion of digital dopamine, still love to build forts, and play with Lego, and dolls, and just run around being goofballs.
Just gotta hang on.
how good it was when they were young
Sorry did I miss a decade? My youth consisted of hanging chads -> 9/11 -> The War on Oil -> 2008 financial crisis -> the death of Hope via congressional fuckery -> Trump. When were things good…? I had hope for universal healthcare with Obama and hope for Bernie before Trump 1.0 but now I’m not sure what to look forward to. That said; can’t stop won’t stop.
I honestly and truly hope you and yours remain healthy and happy. I don’t begrudge you that or wish you ill. But I haven’t seen good times and at this point don’t really expect to.
Yeah I was 14 for 9/11, for frame of reference. I’m somehow able to look back at the last 25 years or so and glean some positivity from it, because I’m unwilling to burden myself with global problems. And that doesn’t mean they’re not issues I’m interested in and care about, but I try to comparmentalize my life. I don’t bring work home and I sure as shit don’t bring politics to bed with me. I spend time with my friends, and now I have a family of my own, and we make memories, and we create glour own good times.
I just feel like it’s useless to base my life on these big problems. I am not 9/11, though I live in Jersey and know many who were affected. I’m not the wars in Iraq, though I served and know people who came home unwhole or not at all. Even though shit is bleak, I’m not going to allow it soil my life, because then I become bleak, and then what’s the point.
So yeah, I can’t stop trying to positivity in my life, and I won’t stop, because then I’m fucked.
And so I’ve said it many times here and on Reddit, that my fights are local. In my town, and county, and State (not that big) are the things that I can personally get involved in and see the fruits of my labor.
I think we are in for a very hard 30-50 years politically and economically speaking.
Current young people are already poorer than their parents, and that’s not getting solved. Next generation will be poorer and we will have to factor in a lot of tensions and unsolved problems that I think will derive in violence, a lot of violence. And very heavy societal collapses.
Maybe I’m dramatic, but the other day I thought that’s not unlikely that a “western” country will experience a famine in the next 50 years. Many don’t produce enough food for themselves by far, the moment they don’t have the money or the possibility to buy it from other countries… Starvation it is. And with a growing population getting near the 10 billion humans, a few years of globally bad crops could devastate humankind.
So, yep, I think kids today are in for really hard times.
Maybe I’m dramatic, but the other day I thought that’s not unlikely that a “western” country will experience a famine in the next 50 years.
Drought and famine are coming for everyone in the next 50 years.
Global freshwater demand will exceed supply 40% by 2030, experts warn
Yup, the fossil fuel foundation that enabled us to reach 10 billion is going away. Sunshine and puppies won’t sustain 10 billion eaters.
The carrying capacity of a renewable energy system is not the same as a system that uses massive amounts of surplus energy coming from the ground.
It’s lower. Far far lower. And getting there will be ugly, and your time frame is correct IMO.
Renewable energy production is increasing exponentially.
Electrical, yes. Oil is a feedstock for pretty much anything you can see in your house.
Please fertilize modern agri-business with electricity.
I’ll wait.
In the meantime, try the trick of flying across the Atlantic in 6 hours with batteries.
No doubt we’ll have electricity for as long as we can, but… the underlying civilization that uses it will not look a thing like what we have now.
Do you not already see housing supply issues, inflation, war everywhere?
War everywhere? See WW1 and WW2. Although there is certainly a risk with a large war across Europe it isn’t guaranteed and generally seems like most don’t really want one.
Maybe not societal collapses but costly upheavals certainly.
