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This is probably mostly covid related. But I personally don’t even consider kids. Kids are a life long commitment. I’d only make that commitment if I felt long

by ianai 6y ago

This is probably mostly covid related. But I personally don’t even consider kids. Kids are a life long commitment. I’d only make that commitment if I felt long term stability or at least optimism. Austerity and cynicism dominate the US right now though. It’s a recipe for strife, struggle, and things that rip families and countries apart. It doesn’t have to be this way in the US.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
> Austerity and cynicism dominate the US right now though. This is greatly exaggerated by news media and social media, especially with everyone stuck at home. The contrast between what I read online and what I see in the real world has never felt larger. Austerity refers to reduced government spending, which is the opposite of what we’re experiencing right now. We’re spending so much that my CPA friends are working overtime to help businesses figure out what to do with their stimulus money. Prices for goods like lumber are through the roof because construction demand is off the charts. My local construction companies don’t have any availability until Q4, if they’re taking bids at all. Obviously we have problems that need to be addressed, but the combination of 24/7 news media and politicians competing for our attention has exaggerated these issues to the point that we’re losing our ability to put things in perspective or judge the absolute scale of social issues.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  What I experience in real life is pretty bad. My extended family went from being really close and compassionate to hateful and unable to be in the room with others. Your world might be nice, but not everyone else's is.
  - seneca 6y ago
    > My extended family went from being really close and compassionate to hateful and unable to be in the room with others. I can't speak to your personal situation, but from what I've seen this is usually driven by the exact trends the person you're responding to is pointing out. Exaggerated media and politics.
  - oflannabhra 6y ago
    (I'm sorry about your family. I'm not trying to discount your experiences, just bring the GP comment proper context). I don't think you understood the parent comment. They weren't saying that everything is rosy, they were saying that the economic doom and gloom portrayed in the media (especially surrounding COVID) does not make the current economic reality. The context was not social polarization.
    - a_wild_dandan 6y ago
      Ultimately people are the cause and our media is a symptom. Folks want to hear doom, outrage, oversimplified & radical takes, and the reinforcement of their beliefs. That sells. Supply and demand. So your outlet can play ball or get steamrolled by someone who will. I think mywittyname is right to focus on the people, not the media symptom.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
        I'd argue doom and gloom isn't what people want to hear. It's a weakness in our psychology, we're entertained by drama and it sells well.
- ok_coo 6y ago
  This is not meant to be a cynical take, but where do you see investment in America right now that's not being done in a corporation? All I see is "we can't afford to do this" while the military wastes trillions of dollars on pet projects. When I look at how other countries treat their citizens, I can't help but think of the guy who calls us, "human capital stock." That, IMHO, is how the U.S. views its citizens.
  - wsostt 6y ago
    Borrowing rates have never been lower and corporate debt issuance has never been higher. Companies are investing.
- r00fus 6y ago
  > We’re spending so much that my CPA friends are working overtime to help businesses figure out what to do with their stimulus money. So really what you and @lanai are talking about seem to identify you both are in completely different strata. As the US experiences more and more social/economic stratification, these separate realities become more divergent (canonical YMMV). It's peak ignorance to pretend everyone has the same conditions as you. Stats show many people are suffering.
  - EVdotIO 6y ago
    This is pretty much the crux of why we see unrest and increased polarization. There are the afore mentioned CPAs with just too much stimulus money to spend, people buying houses faster than they can be built, or the high net wealth individuals that might as well be aliens on mars (and coincidentally can't wait to do). Meanwhile people are falling deeper behind on rent payments with delinquency figures at 25% in NYC, unemployment figures hovering around 10%, small businesses forced into insolvency, and a radically different landscape when this is all said and done. Those at the very top made out like a bandit, and there are a cohort of the PMC that will to be fine. For this group to be so out of touch with reality to downplay or outright ignore these issues is a direct path to a very angry segment on society.
refurb 6y ago
Makes sense. Time are certainly filled with more strife and struggle than the Great Depression, Dust Bowl, polio epidemics and two World Wars.
- Dirlewanger 6y ago
  Seriously, people need some fucking perspective. Yeah, things aren't too hot right now, but that's because all you do is consume the 24/7 newscycle and worry about what some nobody on Twitter is agonizing over about Disney's latest TV show. The world is the safest it's ever been. Aside from Covid, many massive killers of the past are no longer a problem. Our ancestors would be shaking their heads if they saw the prosperous times we live in now, but don't choose to have children.
  - carapace 6y ago
    I was reflecting just this morning how glad I am that I don't have children. (And I don't follow the 24/7 newscycle or use Twitter.) You want perspective? The Doomsday Clock is still set to 100 seconds before midnight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock > Aside from Covid ... Covid isn't the last virus. And the tools we use to fight it are also the tools we could use to make worse ones. (Every tool is also a weapon. As long as people are willing to hurt each other technology is fraught with danger.) Here's a brand new failure mode to worry about: "A puzzling lack of thiamine is disrupting some marine ecosystems." https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/the-oceans-mysterious-vitamin-deficiency/ https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/the-oceans-mysterious... We don't yet know how bad it is nor what's causing it. And where the hell are all the bugs!? It's warming up now and there's nobody out there. That should scare the fuck out of you. It does me. How many habitable planets are there? One. There is one habitable planet.
    - gruez 6y ago
      >The Doomsday Clock is still set to 100 seconds before midnight. >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock The same article points out it's not exactly objective, and I'm inclined to agree. It's more of a political (ie. subjective) statement that the world is fucked rather than an objective measure. >Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker harshly criticized the Doomsday Clock as a political stunt, pointing to the words of its founder that its purpose was "to preserve civilization by scaring men into rationality." He stated that it is inconsistent and not based on any objective indicators of security, using as an example its being farther from midnight in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis than in the "far calmer 2007". He argued it was another example of humanity's tendency toward historical pessimism, and compared it to other predictions of self-destruction that went unfulfilled.[24]
gadders 6y ago
That's a valid perspective, but times have been a lot worse in the past. It's a good job our ancestors didn't think like this.
- Teever 6y ago
  It's not that they didn't think like this but that they couldn't. Thanks to readily available and affordable birth control individuals have much more freedom to make reproductive choices that benefit themselves. What those individual freedoms do to society as a whole is another issue but it is entirely within the ability of western governments to increase birthrates through policy. The fact that they don't is most interesting.
  - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
    This isn't true. There were ancient, relatively effective methods of birth control. And if you really couldn't care for kids they became orphans. Also with larger extended families and closer knit societies many people would "gift" their kids to others who were barren. 5 out of my mother's 15 cousins were adopted (without their parents dying).
    - JasonFruit 6y ago
      Hey, you're dead, though I'm seeing a lot of perfectly fine comments from you that contribute valuable things to discussions. You might want to do something about that.
      - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
        Thanks for letting me know. I may create a new account :)
  - beaner 6y ago
    Ehh... I wouldn't assume that's the whole reason. It's been known for a pretty long time how to not have a baby if you don't want one, physically. Two other factors are religion, and the fact that children are now expenses into their mid-twenties rather than income-generating/household-contributing in their teens.
keiferski 6y ago
Pretty much every single generation other than your parents (assuming you’re 25-40) had a tougher time and lived in a world with a more uncertain future. Every generation, going back millions of years.
- carapace 6y ago
  That's not even remotely true. The vast majority of humans had very very stable futures. Like tens of thousands of years stable. Civilization as we know it is very very recent and unstable.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    The Cold War seems to have evaporated entirely from the collective imagination. For nearly half a century, people had a not unreasonable expectation that a nuke might end the world at any moment. Prior to that, you had WW2, the Depression, WW1, slums and brutal industrial factory jobs and before that mostly subsistence farming. The idea that life today is so precarious and difficult is absurd. We just aren’t used to difficulty.
    - carapace 6y ago
      The Cold War is still going on. We are still at risk of nuclear destruction. Not only are the old weapons still around but we are making new ones for some crazy reason. (Check the Doomsday Clock, I'm not the only person who has noticed that atomic war is still threatening this planet.) You have to take the long view: For approximately a million years we lived in very stable societies (as judged by the artifacts and art left behind.) In fact the people of Sentinel Island and some other places still live this way. Very recently, since roughly 10k to 15k ago, we started doing agriculture and cities. Since then things have been rough: wars, famines, societies collapsing, etc. Despite that, in the last 400-500 years, we have developed science and technology, which has increased and accelerated civilization but not stabilized it. Now of course some people have had it pretty good for, say, the last century or so (I date it from the ready availability of hot and cold running water in the tub. If you can take a hot bath you're ahead of the game, IMO.) And that's great! And more and more people are getting in on that, which is also great! But if you want to say, as you did, that "Pretty much every single generation other than your parents (assuming you’re 25-40) had a tougher time and lived in a world with a more uncertain future. Every generation, going back millions of years." that's wrong. It's only going back a few thousands of years, at most, and then only for a small fraction of the people on Earth. That's before the problem that luxury the few are enjoying is bought at the cost of the life or our whole planet! Is it really so great after all if some people get to live well for a generation or two but then everybody (that survives) has to live in post-apocalyptic hell? Sentinel Island will be destroyed by the rising ocean in a few decades or so. The folks that have lived there for some 40,000 years will die or be forced to migrate. That's on us, not them.
opwieurposiu 6y ago
I did not want to have kids. Then one day I realized that for the past 3 billion years my ancestors had been passing the torch. I was not going to be the one to let down the team. I felt a duty to give my genes a chance to fight it out in darwin's cage match. I can not guarantee my genes will win, but if I fail to reproduce I guarantee they will lose. Looking back, I am not sure this justification makes any sense, but it was how I thought at the time. In any case it's moot now because it turns out kids are great fun to have around and generally make life better. Except the car seats, car seats are a pain in the ass.
- rimiform 6y ago
  Kids might make your life better, but they probably would have been better off had you stuck to your plan of not having them.
  - conductr 6y ago
    Not existing is better than existing? Suicide rates should be 99% then right, because if you’re not a 1%er it’s not worth living. That said, I do fear my kid will live to see something we’ve made apocalyptic movies about. Hell, we all might.
    - tenacious_tuna 6y ago
      I think you're making a leap in OP's reasoning: they didn't say that for _currently existing_ people it's better to not be existing. I suspect the point is more that it will be better for future generations to limit the _size of_ future generations, lest we increase the amount of strain on the climate/energy production/water scarcity/etc. I also think OPs reasoning has more to do with the considerations of inflicting the potentially post-apocalyptic future on those future generations: there is an arguable moral duty to ensure that whatever offspring you have will have a (generally) good life, and that if you aren't reasonably sure of that it's A Bad Thing to have said offspring.
      - conductr 6y ago
rimiform 6y ago
That's a very sensible perspective. Unfortunately, you will probably, as most people do, change your mind about this and decide to have children anyway.
jseliger 6y ago
http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html
oh_sigh 6y ago
Following this logic, Niger must be filled with stability and optimism, and Norway is similar to the US in instability and pessimistic outlook for the future.

by ianai 6y ago

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

> Austerity and cynicism dominate the US right now though. This is greatly exaggerated by news media and social media, especially with everyone stuck at home. The contrast between what I read online and what I see in the real world has never felt larger. Austerity refers to reduced government spending, which is the opposite of what we’re experiencing right now. We’re spending so much that my CPA friends are working overtime to help businesses figure out what to do with their stimulus money. Prices for goods like lumber are through the roof because construction demand is off the charts. My local construction companies don’t have any availability until Q4, if they’re taking bids at all. Obviously we have problems that need to be addressed, but the combination of 24/7 news media and politicians competing for our attention has exaggerated these issues to the point that we’re losing our ability to put things in perspective or judge the absolute scale of social issues.

mywittyname 6y ago
What I experience in real life is pretty bad. My extended family went from being really close and compassionate to hateful and unable to be in the room with others. Your world might be nice, but not everyone else's is.
- seneca 6y ago
  > My extended family went from being really close and compassionate to hateful and unable to be in the room with others. I can't speak to your personal situation, but from what I've seen this is usually driven by the exact trends the person you're responding to is pointing out. Exaggerated media and politics.
- oflannabhra 6y ago
  (I'm sorry about your family. I'm not trying to discount your experiences, just bring the GP comment proper context). I don't think you understood the parent comment. They weren't saying that everything is rosy, they were saying that the economic doom and gloom portrayed in the media (especially surrounding COVID) does not make the current economic reality. The context was not social polarization.
  - a_wild_dandan 6y ago
    Ultimately people are the cause and our media is a symptom. Folks want to hear doom, outrage, oversimplified & radical takes, and the reinforcement of their beliefs. That sells. Supply and demand. So your outlet can play ball or get steamrolled by someone who will. I think mywittyname is right to focus on the people, not the media symptom.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
      I'd argue doom and gloom isn't what people want to hear. It's a weakness in our psychology, we're entertained by drama and it sells well.
ok_coo 6y ago
This is not meant to be a cynical take, but where do you see investment in America right now that's not being done in a corporation? All I see is "we can't afford to do this" while the military wastes trillions of dollars on pet projects. When I look at how other countries treat their citizens, I can't help but think of the guy who calls us, "human capital stock." That, IMHO, is how the U.S. views its citizens.
- wsostt 6y ago
  Borrowing rates have never been lower and corporate debt issuance has never been higher. Companies are investing.
r00fus 6y ago
> We’re spending so much that my CPA friends are working overtime to help businesses figure out what to do with their stimulus money. So really what you and @lanai are talking about seem to identify you both are in completely different strata. As the US experiences more and more social/economic stratification, these separate realities become more divergent (canonical YMMV). It's peak ignorance to pretend everyone has the same conditions as you. Stats show many people are suffering.
- EVdotIO 6y ago
  This is pretty much the crux of why we see unrest and increased polarization. There are the afore mentioned CPAs with just too much stimulus money to spend, people buying houses faster than they can be built, or the high net wealth individuals that might as well be aliens on mars (and coincidentally can't wait to do). Meanwhile people are falling deeper behind on rent payments with delinquency figures at 25% in NYC, unemployment figures hovering around 10%, small businesses forced into insolvency, and a radically different landscape when this is all said and done. Those at the very top made out like a bandit, and there are a cohort of the PMC that will to be fine. For this group to be so out of touch with reality to downplay or outright ignore these issues is a direct path to a very angry segment on society.

refurb 6y ago

Makes sense. Time are certainly filled with more strife and struggle than the Great Depression, Dust Bowl, polio epidemics and two World Wars.

Dirlewanger 6y ago
Seriously, people need some fucking perspective. Yeah, things aren't too hot right now, but that's because all you do is consume the 24/7 newscycle and worry about what some nobody on Twitter is agonizing over about Disney's latest TV show. The world is the safest it's ever been. Aside from Covid, many massive killers of the past are no longer a problem. Our ancestors would be shaking their heads if they saw the prosperous times we live in now, but don't choose to have children.
- carapace 6y ago
  I was reflecting just this morning how glad I am that I don't have children. (And I don't follow the 24/7 newscycle or use Twitter.) You want perspective? The Doomsday Clock is still set to 100 seconds before midnight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock > Aside from Covid ... Covid isn't the last virus. And the tools we use to fight it are also the tools we could use to make worse ones. (Every tool is also a weapon. As long as people are willing to hurt each other technology is fraught with danger.) Here's a brand new failure mode to worry about: "A puzzling lack of thiamine is disrupting some marine ecosystems." https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/the-oceans-mysterious-vitamin-deficiency/ https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/the-oceans-mysterious... We don't yet know how bad it is nor what's causing it. And where the hell are all the bugs!? It's warming up now and there's nobody out there. That should scare the fuck out of you. It does me. How many habitable planets are there? One. There is one habitable planet.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >The Doomsday Clock is still set to 100 seconds before midnight. >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock The same article points out it's not exactly objective, and I'm inclined to agree. It's more of a political (ie. subjective) statement that the world is fucked rather than an objective measure. >Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker harshly criticized the Doomsday Clock as a political stunt, pointing to the words of its founder that its purpose was "to preserve civilization by scaring men into rationality." He stated that it is inconsistent and not based on any objective indicators of security, using as an example its being farther from midnight in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis than in the "far calmer 2007". He argued it was another example of humanity's tendency toward historical pessimism, and compared it to other predictions of self-destruction that went unfulfilled.[24]

gadders 6y ago

That's a valid perspective, but times have been a lot worse in the past. It's a good job our ancestors didn't think like this.

Teever 6y ago
It's not that they didn't think like this but that they couldn't. Thanks to readily available and affordable birth control individuals have much more freedom to make reproductive choices that benefit themselves. What those individual freedoms do to society as a whole is another issue but it is entirely within the ability of western governments to increase birthrates through policy. The fact that they don't is most interesting.
- notsureaboutpg 6y ago
  This isn't true. There were ancient, relatively effective methods of birth control. And if you really couldn't care for kids they became orphans. Also with larger extended families and closer knit societies many people would "gift" their kids to others who were barren. 5 out of my mother's 15 cousins were adopted (without their parents dying).
  - JasonFruit 6y ago
    Hey, you're dead, though I'm seeing a lot of perfectly fine comments from you that contribute valuable things to discussions. You might want to do something about that.
    - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
      Thanks for letting me know. I may create a new account :)
- beaner 6y ago
  Ehh... I wouldn't assume that's the whole reason. It's been known for a pretty long time how to not have a baby if you don't want one, physically. Two other factors are religion, and the fact that children are now expenses into their mid-twenties rather than income-generating/household-contributing in their teens.

keiferski 6y ago

Pretty much every single generation other than your parents (assuming you’re 25-40) had a tougher time and lived in a world with a more uncertain future. Every generation, going back millions of years.

carapace 6y ago
That's not even remotely true. The vast majority of humans had very very stable futures. Like tens of thousands of years stable. Civilization as we know it is very very recent and unstable.
- keiferski 6y ago
  The Cold War seems to have evaporated entirely from the collective imagination. For nearly half a century, people had a not unreasonable expectation that a nuke might end the world at any moment. Prior to that, you had WW2, the Depression, WW1, slums and brutal industrial factory jobs and before that mostly subsistence farming. The idea that life today is so precarious and difficult is absurd. We just aren’t used to difficulty.
  - carapace 6y ago
    The Cold War is still going on. We are still at risk of nuclear destruction. Not only are the old weapons still around but we are making new ones for some crazy reason. (Check the Doomsday Clock, I'm not the only person who has noticed that atomic war is still threatening this planet.) You have to take the long view: For approximately a million years we lived in very stable societies (as judged by the artifacts and art left behind.) In fact the people of Sentinel Island and some other places still live this way. Very recently, since roughly 10k to 15k ago, we started doing agriculture and cities. Since then things have been rough: wars, famines, societies collapsing, etc. Despite that, in the last 400-500 years, we have developed science and technology, which has increased and accelerated civilization but not stabilized it. Now of course some people have had it pretty good for, say, the last century or so (I date it from the ready availability of hot and cold running water in the tub. If you can take a hot bath you're ahead of the game, IMO.) And that's great! And more and more people are getting in on that, which is also great! But if you want to say, as you did, that "Pretty much every single generation other than your parents (assuming you’re 25-40) had a tougher time and lived in a world with a more uncertain future. Every generation, going back millions of years." that's wrong. It's only going back a few thousands of years, at most, and then only for a small fraction of the people on Earth. That's before the problem that luxury the few are enjoying is bought at the cost of the life or our whole planet! Is it really so great after all if some people get to live well for a generation or two but then everybody (that survives) has to live in post-apocalyptic hell? Sentinel Island will be destroyed by the rising ocean in a few decades or so. The folks that have lived there for some 40,000 years will die or be forced to migrate. That's on us, not them.

opwieurposiu 6y ago

I did not want to have kids. Then one day I realized that for the past 3 billion years my ancestors had been passing the torch. I was not going to be the one to let down the team. I felt a duty to give my genes a chance to fight it out in darwin's cage match. I can not guarantee my genes will win, but if I fail to reproduce I guarantee they will lose. Looking back, I am not sure this justification makes any sense, but it was how I thought at the time. In any case it's moot now because it turns out kids are great fun to have around and generally make life better. Except the car seats, car seats are a pain in the ass.

rimiform 6y ago
Kids might make your life better, but they probably would have been better off had you stuck to your plan of not having them.
- conductr 6y ago
  Not existing is better than existing? Suicide rates should be 99% then right, because if you’re not a 1%er it’s not worth living. That said, I do fear my kid will live to see something we’ve made apocalyptic movies about. Hell, we all might.
  - tenacious_tuna 6y ago
    I think you're making a leap in OP's reasoning: they didn't say that for _currently existing_ people it's better to not be existing. I suspect the point is more that it will be better for future generations to limit the _size of_ future generations, lest we increase the amount of strain on the climate/energy production/water scarcity/etc. I also think OPs reasoning has more to do with the considerations of inflicting the potentially post-apocalyptic future on those future generations: there is an arguable moral duty to ensure that whatever offspring you have will have a (generally) good life, and that if you aren't reasonably sure of that it's A Bad Thing to have said offspring.
    - conductr 6y ago

rimiform 6y ago

That's a very sensible perspective. Unfortunately, you will probably, as most people do, change your mind about this and decide to have children anyway.

jseliger 6y ago

http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html

oh_sigh 6y ago

Following this logic, Niger must be filled with stability and optimism, and Norway is similar to the US in instability and pessimistic outlook for the future.