Maybe they should have left us a better world if they wanted their genetic line to continue lol
Blame the Renaissance.
Blame Canada
Those damn Canadian’s know what they did!
I blame the agricultural revolution.
It’s a good idea to not have kids with your siblings.
Sweeeeeet home!
Not one of them cares tbh. Besides, not having kids, is the best environmental friendly option of them all.
I’d guess that having children, in the long run is more environmentally harmful than you eating meat the rest of your life.
Pretty much.
“Oh … But I want kids”, adopt why bringing another being to this fuckshow when u could improve the life of one currently in the bottom of the barrel.
“You never know. I mean, what if my baby cures cancer?” —Someone paraphrased to me one time
Most do care imo. This Christmas with relatives it was asked many times like no one cares about any other part of my life
Most of your ancestors are dead. And even among the living ones I’d argue that the majority don’t really care. Never the less, who cares if they do.
I live in a land where the “Founding Fathers” are mentioned on the news at least once a week
I’d guess that having children, in the long run is more environmentally harmful than you eating meat the rest of your life.
This just strikes me as silly. What is the “environment” but children of various species? Obviously an environmentally harmonious life is best, but life isn’t just what the environment is for, it’s what the environment is. This is the same mindset as people who have a couch that no one’s allowed to sit on.
When one species growing prevents others from doing the same there is a problem in that ecosystem. For example too many wolves in an area can cause a reduction in prey which is also bad for the wolves. We’re just smart enough to see what we’re doing is harmful to the world around us and we can do things to limit our damage.
And not enough wolves causes an unchecked increase in prey which is bad for the rest of the environment. As I said, harmonious coexistence is best. We have the knowledge and tools to live harmoniously. My problem is with the trend of un-nuanced universal anti-natalism.
That’s not really a salient argument. Can you think of even one place where it would be appropriate to say there aren’t enough humans? Besides that, humans and wolves have completely different impact on the environment.
Additionally, after the advent of agriculture and industrialization, I think there is a fair argument to be made that humans are no longer capable of living an environmentally harmonious life. Think of all the resource depletion and fossil fuel consumption required just for you to post that argument on the internet.
Until we regain the ability for, not just individuals, but entire societies to live in harmony with the environment, I believe there is a strong argument for reducing your impact by not having children.
All I’m saying is that there’s a logical breakdown at play. Any argument in favor of “the environment” had to be based on the value of individual life. I’m not even saying that we shouldn’t be moderating our population growth, we should. I’m just saying the environmentally friendly angle is a logically strange argument, from first principles.
And what do we do with the prey when there are too many? Let them keep living or sell more hunting licenses?
We moderate, not eradicate. The middle path, not extremism.
Choosing not to have a child is extremism?
Didn’t say that. Un-nuanced universal anti-natalism is extremism.
Humans have not only sat on that couch; we’ve slept on it, puked on it, taken a dump on it, taken it outside and set fire to it.
As does every other life form, given the chance. We are the only one, that we know of, which even has a concept of conservation. We have the power to consciously regulate our behavior.
In the end, my point is that either life is valuable for its own sake, including humans, or it isn’t, including the rest of the ecosystem. Any philosophy which posits that the existence of other life forms is more valid than that of humans is foundationally inconsistent. I’m certainly not saying that human life is more valid than others, but either life is valid or out isn’t. Humans aren’t special one way or the other.
That’s just garbage talk. Sure we can enjoy life now and not consider the future of the planet but is your life more worth than the future of our own species? I find it deeply concerning that we as humans know what to do to not go extinct, buy don’t do it.
is your life more worth than the future of our own species?
Where exactly does the future of the species come from if no one has kids?
It’s not black or white. Or on and off
I don’t expect all human reproduction to just stop. But cutting down on the human population by either having no children or only one, would substantially reduce the load humans place on the planet and mayne even increase quality of life. Not to mention that it would improve the chances of other species to thrive.
Sure. But your framing of not having children as “environmentally friendly”, if embraced, results in only the unconscientious people having kids. That’s literally the premise of Idiocracy.
There is absolutely no scenario in which everyone stops having children. If everyone who could be convinced not to have children is convinced, there will still be plenty of human beings.
As I’ve said, if you convince everyone who considers their environmental impact to not have children, who does that leave having children? What becomes of the environment when it’s only the environmentally negligent raising future generations?
If having children is bad for the environment, then fuck the environment
Then how will said kids survive without the environment, or are you okay with them suffering and dying later.
if the environment is fucked so are you and your kids
Perhaps they should have set up a world where its possible to have kids without ruining yourself financially.
fuck around and find out economics were NOT fucking around, and i am NOT finding out
Or set up a world where it is not cruel bringing a kid into because you know their life will be even more fucked in the future
When I was a teenager I wanted kids. I fully bought into ‘the American dream’ being sold. I’d get me a wife, kids, house, and a career. Helped that I actually like kids. Made it my life’s goal to try to be the best provider, best dad, best husband I could be.
Put myself through college, I have a good career, bought a house when I was 24, and still love kids. But I gave up on dating when I was like 28(?). It just became not worth it for so many reasons.
This last fall marked 20 years since I left my hometown to start my life… And I felt like a failure (still do). I exist to work and pay bills.
I asked my wife if she wanted kids and she just waved around and said “look at this shit, do you really want to put a someone through this?” Yep, the world is screwed. But I believe people have to make their own, conscious choice. No sense in forcing them to either have kids or not.
you wont catch me raising children both because im a mess, and i refuse to raise children in a dysfunctional society that hasn’t got its shit together.
Do you want to have kids?
We had a long talk about it and the above statement is just the gist of it. If we lived in better times, sure. But not in this timeline. We both came to that conclusion and it is perfectly fine.
Not to butt in your business, but if that’s your only reason to not have children, and you’re otherwise financially capable and willing to raise kids, have you two considered adoption? Instead of brinnging someone extra into this shit as you put it, you’d just be helping one of the people who’re unfortunally already in it.
Sorry for the late reply, was night here. Yes, we actually thought about that. But while it is easy to just have a kid, adoption (at least here in Germany where you only have around 4000 adoptions per year) comes with quite the list of requirements. We are both working full time and just recently found a very nice apartment, but without a seperate room for a kid. Then again my wife is a kindergarten teacher, so she already has like 20 kids ;)
As the parent of a current Kindergartener (and also a former one myself), give your wife a big hug for us. Her job is so important, a especially if we want this world’s society to turn around and fix the problems it’s made for itself.
Fuck yes. Thank you for doing your part to not make this place worse for your woulda-been kids and for me.
Vasectomy is up there in the top 5 best things to happen in my life.
Highly recommend if you are sure you want to go child-free. There is nothing quite so worry free as shooting blanks instead of using condoms and birth control.
Not sorry at all. These genetics are just a dead end. I’m making the human race better. Addition by subtraction.
I know!
Considering my ridiculously high-magnification contact lenses, my ancestors have no idea what I’m up to. They couldn’t even see across the room.
Ok so just self eugenics 🙄
Absolutely nothing wrong with eugenics when applied properly. Like nuclear power, AI, the internet, eugenics would fix a lot that’s wrong with humanity. If I could generically engineer myself into someone with no anxiety disorder or adhd or no postural tachycardia or naturally muscular body maybe even different color eyes and a different voice, I would. My genes aren’t unique and my traits don’t need to be passed on. I’m not a chinchilla.
What you are describing is gene therapy, not eugenics. When eugenics was a thing, it was mostly voluntary in liberal countries. Propaganda was used to convince “inferior” people to sterilize themselves, including black people. How is that different than reinforcing the idea that “dysgenic” people are doing the right thing by not having kids?
My genes aren’t unique and my traits don’t need to be passed on
I never said they did. Some people will never have kids and that’s fine. That’s not the issue at hand with eugenics. Eugenics is treating people like chinchillas actually, animals that must be bred and selected for the best traits.
If I could generically engineer myself into someone with no anxiety disorder…
That’s the thing, you can’t. Not synthetically at least. The current gene framework is a house of cards and it will be replaced by a better system of understanding. Look into Denis Noble’s work. Also look into epigenetics. The genes you pass on to your children are not the genes you inherit from your parents, they change, and they are changed by your body in response to your environment for the better. No organism is doomed to the fate of inferior genes, they are naturally mutable. But perhaps your environment and lifestyle is not serving you well, and that may be your real problem.
Mine are looking up and nodding in approval.
“That son of a bitch lars finally put a kink in our crazyhose. Blessed be.” —my dead peeps probs
You’re not your ancestors’ only descendant
At this point I think I’ll just adopt. Plenty of kids to go around, no need to make more.
This is kind of my family. My brother and I have not fathered any children, he’s a step dad, with no intention to have any of his own, I’m happily in a childfree relationship.
The only (sort of) exception is that my eldest brother (of three), had four kids… All girls.
So our biological lineage will continue, but our family name ends here, since once my niece’s get married, our family name will be dead.
The closest continuance of our family name is through my one male cousin on my dad’s side. I don’t keep in touch with him enough to know if he has kids or he’s planning to have kids, or to even be informed as to whether or not those children would be boys or girls, etc.
After that, you would have to go back about 3 generations to find someone of the same lineage that’s actually continuing the family name. Second or third cousins… I believe. I’m unaware if my grandfather had any siblings, or cousins… So that part of my family tree is a complete unknown.
For my brother, he wasn’t in a stable relationship long enough to get married and have kids (though, he’s on his second marriage, the first did not last very long… It’s a long story as to why)… And since his second wife (his current wife) already had children from a previous marriage, he has no interest. For me, I never cared either way, and stuck to the philosophy of “I’ll let my wife decide”. My current, and longest, relationship, under which we’ve been together for nearly a decade now, is with a beautiful woman who has been very childfree for a long time, and I support her in that. I also wouldn’t be able to financially support children, which is why I kept waiting for marriage before kids. I at least wanted the illusion that someone was going to stick around before making that commitment.
My oldest brother got married pretty young and to his credit, they’re still together. I’m mostly estranged from him, but I’m aware of some of the details of his life. His children are at the age where they can start having kids of their own now (which should give some indication of how old I am… I’m “great uncle” age). I don’t have any pressure to have kids at this point because my SO doesn’t want them, my breeder brother is estranged, my father is dead, and I’m estranged from my mom. The only time I even hear about kids is either from my sister-in-law taking about her (now post-teen) children, and from my SO’s family, who we see online only a few times a year at most.
I don’t feel like I’m missing out.
I mean real talk, how many generations back are you actually disappointing? Like I’m only going to disappoint my dad, as once you go up to grandparent level I have plenty of cousins who can and have already passed “our line” down.
All good things must come to an end.
Also, I said this before as a parent and I will say it again- please do not have children unless you really want children. No child deserves to go through their childhood neglected and unloved. Which is going to be a major result of the end of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. and why abortion rights are vital.
No one should have to be a parent unless they absolutely want to be a parent.
Ah yes, see someone who might become unhappy, just checks notes murder them?
Who is being murdered?
In an abortion, the unborn child. In a partial birth abortion in an unbelievably brutal way, involving a drill to the base of the skull as the baby is writhing in pain. But even with earlier methods, it’s still murder. I know, you’ll say you’re fine with it, like to call it something else, pretend since it hasn’t breathed on its own it’s not a child. Deep down though, you know.
Do I know deep down? Or do I not give a shit whether or not it’s considered murder by you because no one should be forced to give up their bodily autonomy for someone else and if you consider it murder, then it is a person using someone else’s body for their own personal gain against that person’s will. Which is slavery. And you’re fine for that.
Either it is not a person, so it isn’t murder, or if it is a person, a slaver killing the person enslaving them is also not murder. Not in my world.
That anger comes from knowing deep down you’re on the wrong side of this, it’s the inner conflict. I’m very sorry you’re too entrenched politically to listen to your conscience. I’ll leave you alone with your enemy, yourself.
What anger? I’m not angry that you are fine with slavery. But I am amused at your silly attempts at armchair psychology.
