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By your logic, wouldn't adopting be a better way to help the world? You would still be able to pass on your knowledge and attempt to create a better version of

By your logic, wouldn't adopting be a better way to help the world? You would still be able to pass on your knowledge and attempt to create a better version of yourself, but you wouldn't be producing yet another person straining the resources of the world. Not to mention the massive value added to the life of your adopted child.

mhermher 9y ago
Yes, possibly, and we have lightly considered it in the past. It is a really difficult process though, and I am not sure we really wanted to wait some indefinite amount of time and go through all the difficulty of the process. Maybe that was selfish in a way.
- lprubin 9y ago
  I understand that the adoption process is a big pain. But compared to the massive physical strain on the body of the mother and the risk of death / debilitating injury / birth defects / trauma of losing a pregnancy / risk of postpartum depression etc etc etc, I really can't understand how that could possibly even compare to dealing with an annoying and slow bureaucratic process.
tendersej 9y ago
Do you really consider having kids and adopting to be interchangeable? I am asking honestly. I think it is hard to raise a kid, and adoption makes it much much harder (opinion based on anecdata)
- lprubin 9y ago
  I don't consider them interchangeable. But the thread is about people's reasoning for deciding to have children and so I asked a followup question about a specific reason where I thought for that particular reason, adoption might have been the "superior" option." I understand it's a complicated decision. That being said, I can definitely see why adopting a "troubled teen" would be more difficult than having your own kid. But is adopting a baby really that much different than having your own?
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  My wife works at the extreme end of the foster system: special needs kids with trauma. For the most part, kids are kids. You have a non-trivial chance of a special needs kid if you make it or adopt it. The bio-parents are generally the problem, which iswhymanyadoptive parents refuse all contact with them and move to a different city, oradopt from a different city.
- threatofrain 9y ago
  I think in general you rarely get to adopt someone tabula rasa, so to speak.
lhnz 9y ago
> You would still be able to pass on your knowledge and > attempt to create a better version of yourself That depends on how much you believe children to be a blank slate which can be equally imprinted with knowledge. If you don't believe in a blank slate, and believe that children are genetically similar to their parents mentally as well as physically then this doesn't make much sense. Psychologically, I see a lot similarities between myself and my parents, and so I expect that when I at some point have my own children, my own experiences will guide me in how I understand and help them. When I have children I will do so because I love my partner and would like if there were more people like her and because I feel like I'm a decent and strong person that should focus my life on more than just my own desires. I also know that both of our parents would like to be part of a larger family -- the people that you love, and that love you, generally want to see you multiply. Finally, I think that having a family could be a total laugh: it's great to experience good times together and it makes bad times lighter, too.
- lprubin 9y ago
  That's a good point and it depends on where you fall on the nature vs nurture scale. But in terms of passing on knowledge and morality, I would think nurture would be vastly more important than nature. However, I admit I don't have the research to back that claim up.
  - lhnz 9y ago
    I reckon even morality is affected by personality. I can imagine that it will be much easier to teach my future children to fight against vices that I've had to deal with, than to pass on morality or knowledge that came absolutely naturally to me.
brownbat 9y ago
Agree adoptive parents are doing something great for a child in need, but I don't accept the Malthusian corollary you often see taken as granted, that having kids is a net cost on the planet. People in the '80s were certain we'd soon exhaust global coal supplies. The 1880s. Now we are more likely to replace it with alternatives as run out. Before that it would have been kerosene or whale oil. This isn't unique to fuel. Minerals were harder to come by in the 1930s, when we had 2 billion people, than they are today, with 7.5. We've made them more abundant not less: http://www.aei.org/publication/julian-simon-still-more-right-than-lucky-in-2013/ http://www.aei.org/publication/julian-simon-still-more-right... This is counterintuitive at first, but we're really good at finding more efficient ways to do things. Or... economies of scale kick in when you have enough people, especially once you don't need to dedicate almost everyone to farming, when you can add some inventors and chemists, say. Maybe that's why historically humanity has had far more to fear from population crashes than booms. Turning matter into MIPS is not a sin. Adding processing power is one of the best ways to make stuff more valuable.
- lprubin 9y ago
  Do you think that the average earth ecosystem is better or worse off with modern human civilization?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    I don't think it makes any sense to anthropomorphize ecosystems. “Better or worse off” only applies to things that have utility functions.
  - brownbat 9y ago
    It depends what you value. Measured by capacity for processing information? Much better. Measured by incidence of cholera and dysentery? Much better. Measured by the net increase in sublime human experiences minus human suffering? Much better. I know a lot of people don't find these values very satisfying and are looking for something else though. When you imagine a world untouched by humanity, what is the foundational good, the bedrock value that it represents? Stability? A dead rock is stable, I don't think that's it. Biodiversity? Biodiversity is just correlated with heat, highest around the equator where there's more abundant energy for systems to incorporate into replication. I don't think you just want a warmer planet. Maybe sustainability? To preserve a habitat for humanity? I just suspect inventiveness is more helpful for humanity's long term survival, of the sort you get from an abundance of people so that we can put some to work not just on farms, but on space stations.

mhermher 9y ago

Yes, possibly, and we have lightly considered it in the past. It is a really difficult process though, and I am not sure we really wanted to wait some indefinite amount of time and go through all the difficulty of the process. Maybe that was selfish in a way.

lprubin 9y ago
I understand that the adoption process is a big pain. But compared to the massive physical strain on the body of the mother and the risk of death / debilitating injury / birth defects / trauma of losing a pregnancy / risk of postpartum depression etc etc etc, I really can't understand how that could possibly even compare to dealing with an annoying and slow bureaucratic process.

tendersej 9y ago

Do you really consider having kids and adopting to be interchangeable? I am asking honestly. I think it is hard to raise a kid, and adoption makes it much much harder (opinion based on anecdata)

lprubin 9y ago
I don't consider them interchangeable. But the thread is about people's reasoning for deciding to have children and so I asked a followup question about a specific reason where I thought for that particular reason, adoption might have been the "superior" option." I understand it's a complicated decision. That being said, I can definitely see why adopting a "troubled teen" would be more difficult than having your own kid. But is adopting a baby really that much different than having your own?
killjoywashere 9y ago
My wife works at the extreme end of the foster system: special needs kids with trauma. For the most part, kids are kids. You have a non-trivial chance of a special needs kid if you make it or adopt it. The bio-parents are generally the problem, which iswhymanyadoptive parents refuse all contact with them and move to a different city, oradopt from a different city.
threatofrain 9y ago
I think in general you rarely get to adopt someone tabula rasa, so to speak.

lhnz 9y ago

> You would still be able to pass on your knowledge and > attempt to create a better version of yourself That depends on how much you believe children to be a blank slate which can be equally imprinted with knowledge. If you don't believe in a blank slate, and believe that children are genetically similar to their parents mentally as well as physically then this doesn't make much sense. Psychologically, I see a lot similarities between myself and my parents, and so I expect that when I at some point have my own children, my own experiences will guide me in how I understand and help them. When I have children I will do so because I love my partner and would like if there were more people like her and because I feel like I'm a decent and strong person that should focus my life on more than just my own desires. I also know that both of our parents would like to be part of a larger family -- the people that you love, and that love you, generally want to see you multiply. Finally, I think that having a family could be a total laugh: it's great to experience good times together and it makes bad times lighter, too.

lprubin 9y ago
That's a good point and it depends on where you fall on the nature vs nurture scale. But in terms of passing on knowledge and morality, I would think nurture would be vastly more important than nature. However, I admit I don't have the research to back that claim up.
- lhnz 9y ago
  I reckon even morality is affected by personality. I can imagine that it will be much easier to teach my future children to fight against vices that I've had to deal with, than to pass on morality or knowledge that came absolutely naturally to me.

brownbat 9y ago

Agree adoptive parents are doing something great for a child in need, but I don't accept the Malthusian corollary you often see taken as granted, that having kids is a net cost on the planet. People in the '80s were certain we'd soon exhaust global coal supplies. The 1880s. Now we are more likely to replace it with alternatives as run out. Before that it would have been kerosene or whale oil. This isn't unique to fuel. Minerals were harder to come by in the 1930s, when we had 2 billion people, than they are today, with 7.5. We've made them more abundant not less: http://www.aei.org/publication/julian-simon-still-more-right-than-lucky-in-2013/ http://www.aei.org/publication/julian-simon-still-more-right... This is counterintuitive at first, but we're really good at finding more efficient ways to do things. Or... economies of scale kick in when you have enough people, especially once you don't need to dedicate almost everyone to farming, when you can add some inventors and chemists, say. Maybe that's why historically humanity has had far more to fear from population crashes than booms. Turning matter into MIPS is not a sin. Adding processing power is one of the best ways to make stuff more valuable.

lprubin 9y ago
Do you think that the average earth ecosystem is better or worse off with modern human civilization?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  I don't think it makes any sense to anthropomorphize ecosystems. “Better or worse off” only applies to things that have utility functions.
- brownbat 9y ago
  It depends what you value. Measured by capacity for processing information? Much better. Measured by incidence of cholera and dysentery? Much better. Measured by the net increase in sublime human experiences minus human suffering? Much better. I know a lot of people don't find these values very satisfying and are looking for something else though. When you imagine a world untouched by humanity, what is the foundational good, the bedrock value that it represents? Stability? A dead rock is stable, I don't think that's it. Biodiversity? Biodiversity is just correlated with heat, highest around the equator where there's more abundant energy for systems to incorporate into replication. I don't think you just want a warmer planet. Maybe sustainability? To preserve a habitat for humanity? I just suspect inventiveness is more helpful for humanity's long term survival, of the sort you get from an abundance of people so that we can put some to work not just on farms, but on space stations.