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Yikes. I’m sorry you’re suffering. Is it systematic oppression? To what degree is it your choices and actions? What are you grateful for? There’s no perfect ti

Yikes. I’m sorry you’re suffering. Is it systematic oppression? To what degree is it your choices and actions? What are you grateful for? There’s no perfect time to have a child. We eventually decided to just go for it and scrambled to make it work. I reckon I’ve grown up more in the last three years than the previous twenty, and I’m olay with that. When I was heavy into videogames I couldn’t imagine not being so, and now I’m more free to shed/change habits since I focus on the wellbeing of someone other than me. Regarding huge areas/acres of unpopulated land and “largely empty” states: there are other, non-human persons living there, and I think that’s grand. We may not agree on this. I’m all for rewilding (see E. O. Wilson’s “half earth” idea and George Monbiot’s book Feral) and letting a lot of land be relatively empty of human settlement (with room for stewards, and tourism). I’m thankful for this life, and I feel the amount of resources I consume does not scale well, given my values.

proc0 5y ago
> Is it systematic oppression? Yes, in that I was unlucky to have been born with a physical trait where I'm the "oppressor", when in fact I'm an immigrant having nothing to do with U.S. history. This affected my social and economic life in ways that I feel are unfair, but FML I guess. > the amount of resources I consume does not scale well, given my values. So you're solution is to scale back on humans instead, when other countries are scaling up their population with impunity. Where is the outrage at China's child policy update (unless you're Chinese, in which case, good for you I guess)? Is that side of the world somehow immune to over-population?
- meristohm 5y ago
  I favor reducing our collective impact so that other life may also thrive. If enough of us scale back our resource-use enough then we don’t need to intentionally limit our numbers. I’m not outraged, but saddened by what we’ve done and continue to do. I’m also excited/interested/awed by what we’ve done and contribute to do, and curious about our potential. I’d like for us to stretch our collective story unbroken (unlike what my ancestors did to indigenous groups in North America, for example, significantly reducing language and oral-history diversity) for another ten thousand years or more, why not? I try not to be outraged (nor to dwell in sadness) over things I have little to no influence over. I’m practicing letting the waves of emotion crash and subside.

proc0 5y ago

> Is it systematic oppression? Yes, in that I was unlucky to have been born with a physical trait where I'm the "oppressor", when in fact I'm an immigrant having nothing to do with U.S. history. This affected my social and economic life in ways that I feel are unfair, but FML I guess. > the amount of resources I consume does not scale well, given my values. So you're solution is to scale back on humans instead, when other countries are scaling up their population with impunity. Where is the outrage at China's child policy update (unless you're Chinese, in which case, good for you I guess)? Is that side of the world somehow immune to over-population?

meristohm 5y ago
I favor reducing our collective impact so that other life may also thrive. If enough of us scale back our resource-use enough then we don’t need to intentionally limit our numbers. I’m not outraged, but saddened by what we’ve done and continue to do. I’m also excited/interested/awed by what we’ve done and contribute to do, and curious about our potential. I’d like for us to stretch our collective story unbroken (unlike what my ancestors did to indigenous groups in North America, for example, significantly reducing language and oral-history diversity) for another ten thousand years or more, why not? I try not to be outraged (nor to dwell in sadness) over things I have little to no influence over. I’m practicing letting the waves of emotion crash and subside.