What is the acceptable level of tragedy to impart upon a non-consenting progeny? I vote for zero
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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When in human history was ever a good time to have children?
Is there an objective "this was the best year/decade/century"?
Always whatever year you never lived
Ten years BEFORE you lived. Being a white male adult through the 80s must be peak?
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Why do you think the politicians that are accelerating inequality are the same politicians that are trying to outlaw abortion?
They want babies because they need more workers to distribute inequality and produce more wealth for the shareholders. Foster kids are less likely to go to college, so they’re perfect fuel for the machine.
Don't forget soldiers. As George Carlin said, "Live babies make dead soldiers."
The catch-22 is that if the people with environmental values don't have kids, those values aren't passed on to the next generation (unless they become teachers or media personalities).
Any society that doesn't impart those values across the board to its citizens will devolve into shit regardless.
It's basically just math.
People with zero values are going to fuck like rabbits and people with values aren't.
If trash family has 5 kids they can't take care of and a dad that leaves, that's at least 4 really mad poor kids that are going to blame a lot on somesuch minority for their problems in 18 years.
For all those values, even in yourself. There’s no better motivator to make an effort for the future, than having a kid you want the best for. If you don’t have a kid, you’re not passing your environmental values, or you educational values, or all the other values you may have for what makes a better society. Nor do you have any reason to hold to them yourself.
I don’t mean to try to push anyone toward having kids, but if you do want to have kids but give up thinking the world is getting worse, that decision is part of the world getting worse. If you do want kids, there’s all sorts of opportunity to make this a better world for both yourself and them, and longer, and plenty of opportunity to make an actual difference
Just passing along the value of the bidet may be worth it, according to the comic
By that rote though everyone that has had children in the past has cared for their future and the future of the social and actual environment they will inherit. We wouldn’t be having this discussion if any semblance of that was true.
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If you don’t have a kid, you’re not passing your environmental values, or you educational values, or all the other values you may have for what makes a better society. Nor do you have any reason to hold to them yourself.
...
Why does it have to be my kid for me to care?
Like actually. Are you seriously saying being a parent somehow intrinsically makes someone a better, more caring, and impactful, person? Or that parenthood is the only way to achieve true conviction? That's literally not how any of this works.
Not bringing children into the world in no way prevents you from caring about making the world a better place, and acting to make it so. And doing the things that make the world better doesn't functionally require having a kid. All it takes is some basic fucking decency.
Which is something people already have, but get taken away by the grind of survival or material success. That is maybe why you have this fucked up idea that people get it by having a kid, but in reality that's just a huge life event that wakes some people up enough to take a look around and start caring again.
And passing good things on doesn't require having descendants. If you've ever changed someones mind on something for the better, you've successfully passed on "values you may have for what makes a better society". The person whose mind you changed doesn't even need to be younger than you, thought doesn't procreate through fucking genetics.
Plenty of parents are made no more profound than they were before by the act of procreating, and will conently continue to do nothing to improve the world. There are parents who will protect their own to the detriment of everyone else.
Kids though, if raised by caring parents, care from the start, but then have that heart crushed by society until they too have a kid of their own.
But in there is way for everyone to care, all the time.
The whole idea that it's ok not to care about and deal with bad stuff unless you personally are somehow impacted is the whole reason we're in this mess, and it's perpetuated by people being forced to live in a constant scramble of stress and consumerism.
Not by people not having children.
I would add that the sentiment is also wrong in the other direction. I’ve personally encountered multiple parents and grandparents who hit me with the “well it won’t affect me, I’ll be long gone” reasoning regarding climate change.
So yeah. What a stupid and offensively self centered thing to say. If you personally didn’t give a shit about other people before, that’s actually a character flaw, not a rite of passage you complete by roping children into this mess
I don't need to have a child to care about passing down a habitable planet to the next generation.
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No, noone is under any obligation to do so.
Remember what they say on airplanes. Secure your own mask before helping others.
This entire thread sums up the utter misery of Lemmy.
Exactly. I love it. These people are basically self pruning their evolutionary branches all by themselves!
There should be a Darwin awards category for this
Intelligence pruning itself out of a malicious environment isn't really a great showcase of evolution.
It's not technically incorrect - we are changing, but a species actively taking steps backwards by inflating itself with idiots doesn't quite hit that stronger/faster/smarter progression that the concept of evolution implies.
These are darwinism's death throes.
Evolution determined by mating is basically over for humans. In the time it takes a species to meaningfully change, humans will be genetically engineered.
I'm all up for that
So...have kids in a dying world so you have mating success? That's an asinine reason to procreate.
Give me a break. How about the people having kids in:
- -900,000: Whatever happened to kill off almost all humans
- -1177: Bronze Age collapse
- 535: Volcanic winter of 536
- 1347-1351: Black Death
- 1914-1918: WWI and Spanish Flu
- 1929-1939: Great Depression and Dust Bowl
- 1962: Great Leap Forward
- 1943-1945: Worst killings and bombings of WWII
- 2020: For our lifetimes. COVID and 100 other disasters. So bad most have forgotten it started with Australia burning to the ground, 1 billion animals killed.
As to racism, we watched Mississippi Burning last night. My wife isn't from America and was horrified. "Honey, that was happening when our parents were kids."
2024+: Climate change, water wars, resultant mass migration, worldwide rise of fascism.
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Im amazed at how much X has had kids. Seems nuts. Then I realize I might have done it if I had went 4 years to college and started working right after and if within a few years made a family raising type of wage. That double major and one year in a PhD may have saved me.
I’m not.
Well you can have them, then just say "screw them" cause you got your own problems to deal with as western society would prefer you act.
Their only purpose is to support you when you get old anyways. Everyone knows that.
Honestly if I have a kid it would only to raise them to be a post apocalyptic war lord and hopefully give them a tragic enough backstory to survive the wasteland on.
hopefully give them a tragic enough backstory
What the fuck? Like abuse the shit out of them to toughen them up?
I know you're not being serious but damn what do you mean by this?
Maybe I will hold back a wave of marauders and while they see the door buckling I tell them I love them and they need to fix the world to be a better place where kids don't have to lose their parents then throw them down the escape slide as I turn around to start going with a chainsaw through the enemies.
Maybe I will just name them Chadderick...
I dunno, guess will see what works best in the moment.
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These keywords are not prevalent in my country (not the us) but this or a couple of nukes doesn't really make much difference
It doesn't matter where you live. Even if you're in the perfect geography and latitude to make climate change no big deal locally; the mass migration, wars, and production disruption will certainly affect you and especially your children.
I look forward to the end of the world.
The afterlife, it will be glorious and reward us with all we were denied.
Edit: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Do you not look forward to the new lives we'll have in the world to come?
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