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No. Having children is, well, literally the activity most essential to the survival of society and our species itself. Of course people should get extra time of

No. Having children is, well, literally the activity most essential to the survival of society and our species itself. Of course people should get extra time off to do it. The problem isn't that we have too many natalist incentives. The problem is that we don't have enough of them! The replacement rate is below replacement in general, and it's worse in cities. If children, fine. But I don't begrudge people who do.

Sileni 8y ago
That suggests that "more people" is an unmitigated good, which I don't believe. There has never been a time when you were more able to avoid unplanned childbirth. The number of children in foster care has been increasing since 2013.[0]Whatever good could be done by having a child could be done better by acknowledging some of the people already in this world and giving them a real shot. We're all responsible for any situation that becomes a "tragedy of the commons", and we need to start behaving like it. [0]: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/30/567615510/number-of-american-children-in-foster-care-increases-for-4th-consecutive-year https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/30/567615510...
- quotemstr 8y ago
  There's nothing wrong with wanting your kids to be your own, nor with the desire to ensure that part of you makes it to the next generation. I'm sick of anti-humanism backlash against doing the thing that every organism ultimately exists to do.
  - Sileni 8y ago
    Considering humans are the demonstrated reason for climate change, I'd argue some anti-human sentiment is a bit overdue. Nature's going to be fine. Life will recover once we're gone. It's us humans that are going to suffer because of our humanist entitlement.
    - quotemstr 8y ago
      The idea that some environmenal metric is more important than human suffering is bizarre and vaguely masochistic. The environment is an instrumental good for humanity's use, not a legitimate moral object in itself. Human extinction is a maximally bad scenario no matter how well the environment does afterwards
      - Sileni 8y ago
        No, I'm saying pumping more neglected children into the world to satisfy your ego is childish and the exact mentality that put us in this position to begin with, and if we continue to ignore that the mechanism that self corrects for our overpopulation or over consumption is going to cause far more suffering than any human policy could. But keep choking down the cognitive dissonance however it's palatable to you, it's clear you're not responding to what I'm saying but what you're hearing.
crasch4 8y ago
I don't begrudge people having children. If you want to have more children--and pay for them with your own time and money--more power to you. What I begrudge is being forced to donate _my_ time and money to subsidizing those who have children, at the expense of the things that _I_ value. Subsidizing the creation of the 385,001th child born today is quite low on the things that I would spend money on given the choice. I would rather spend that money on anti-aging research, or prison reform, or a new startup. And if I were inclined to give money to help children, I wouldn't give it to the relatively wealthy parents of children in the US, but to the children of parents who make less than $2/day.

Sileni 8y ago

That suggests that "more people" is an unmitigated good, which I don't believe. There has never been a time when you were more able to avoid unplanned childbirth. The number of children in foster care has been increasing since 2013.[0]Whatever good could be done by having a child could be done better by acknowledging some of the people already in this world and giving them a real shot. We're all responsible for any situation that becomes a "tragedy of the commons", and we need to start behaving like it. [0]: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/30/567615510/number-of-american-children-in-foster-care-increases-for-4th-consecutive-year https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/30/567615510...

quotemstr 8y ago
There's nothing wrong with wanting your kids to be your own, nor with the desire to ensure that part of you makes it to the next generation. I'm sick of anti-humanism backlash against doing the thing that every organism ultimately exists to do.
- Sileni 8y ago
  Considering humans are the demonstrated reason for climate change, I'd argue some anti-human sentiment is a bit overdue. Nature's going to be fine. Life will recover once we're gone. It's us humans that are going to suffer because of our humanist entitlement.
  - quotemstr 8y ago
    The idea that some environmenal metric is more important than human suffering is bizarre and vaguely masochistic. The environment is an instrumental good for humanity's use, not a legitimate moral object in itself. Human extinction is a maximally bad scenario no matter how well the environment does afterwards
    - Sileni 8y ago
      No, I'm saying pumping more neglected children into the world to satisfy your ego is childish and the exact mentality that put us in this position to begin with, and if we continue to ignore that the mechanism that self corrects for our overpopulation or over consumption is going to cause far more suffering than any human policy could. But keep choking down the cognitive dissonance however it's palatable to you, it's clear you're not responding to what I'm saying but what you're hearing.

crasch4 8y ago

I don't begrudge people having children. If you want to have more children--and pay for them with your own time and money--more power to you. What I begrudge is being forced to donate _my_ time and money to subsidizing those who have children, at the expense of the things that _I_ value. Subsidizing the creation of the 385,001th child born today is quite low on the things that I would spend money on given the choice. I would rather spend that money on anti-aging research, or prison reform, or a new startup. And if I were inclined to give money to help children, I wouldn't give it to the relatively wealthy parents of children in the US, but to the children of parents who make less than $2/day.