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I believe people who do not want to have children and yet plan to depend on the social safety or their own savings are either being selfish or being ignorant ab

I believe people who do not want to have children and yet plan to depend on the social safety or their own savings are either being selfish or being ignorant about how these programs work. It is not sufficient to just pay your taxes, because they go to fund the current beneficiaries. When it is your turn to use these programs, you will need a new set of people to pay taxes to fund your retirement / maintain stock market valuation of your portfolio by working in those companies / produce food or entertainment or service which you are going to consume. These people need to be born and raised, either in your society or in other societies. And no, robots are not coming anytime soon to take care of your finances and consumption in your retirement.

HelloMcFly 6y ago
I will acknowledge that this is the best community-minded argument for having children that I've seen, but it also has the distinction of being the least convincing on influencing personal decisions. You may as well be selling me on a Ponzi scheme. Your argument presents raising children as if you're farming a resource to ensure our half-asses social safety net doesn't collapse. This point is not lost on me, but it does lose some power when I'm working for actual systemic change that doesn't create such a stratified, ponzi-scheme style social structure. I'm not going to be a human resources bot to keep the SS fund liquid (which is a far larger problem than just me), but I'm also not just sitting around watching the world crumble without taking action. I'm sure we can yadda yadda yadda our way into the inevitable debate about the parallels, perils and pitfalls of a society built on unending economic growth, but let's not. A broken system creates an obligation to fix the system, not keep it on life support with my sex organs.
- RestlessMind 6y ago
  Thanks for your insight that this is not going to change anyone's minds. And frankly, "being selfish" has lost a lot of its stigma, so planning to enjoy one's retirement while relying on the labor of the future generations raised by someone else can be a totally acceptable plan in many parts of our society. Question to you - if you think current system is broken, what would you replace it with if you had all the power?

HelloMcFly 6y ago

I will acknowledge that this is the best community-minded argument for having children that I've seen, but it also has the distinction of being the least convincing on influencing personal decisions. You may as well be selling me on a Ponzi scheme. Your argument presents raising children as if you're farming a resource to ensure our half-asses social safety net doesn't collapse. This point is not lost on me, but it does lose some power when I'm working for actual systemic change that doesn't create such a stratified, ponzi-scheme style social structure. I'm not going to be a human resources bot to keep the SS fund liquid (which is a far larger problem than just me), but I'm also not just sitting around watching the world crumble without taking action. I'm sure we can yadda yadda yadda our way into the inevitable debate about the parallels, perils and pitfalls of a society built on unending economic growth, but let's not. A broken system creates an obligation to fix the system, not keep it on life support with my sex organs.

RestlessMind 6y ago
Thanks for your insight that this is not going to change anyone's minds. And frankly, "being selfish" has lost a lot of its stigma, so planning to enjoy one's retirement while relying on the labor of the future generations raised by someone else can be a totally acceptable plan in many parts of our society. Question to you - if you think current system is broken, what would you replace it with if you had all the power?