16 ms·

I always wonder about what goes on in the heads of people who claim that. I've never had any desire to have kids. Is it a case of something like pluralistic ign

by Kye 5y ago

I always wonder about what goes on in the heads of people who claim that. I've never had any desire to have kids. Is it a case of something like pluralistic ignorance, or do they really feel a strong overriding drive here?

ASalazarMX 5y ago
How many of us who didn't want children have siblings that had children in our place? The drive for reproduction wins, even without considering that without the drive for reproduction of our parents we wouldn't even exist. More so, the drive for reproduction isn't necessarily about kids, but sexuality. Sex sells. A big chunk of our civilization is about food and sex.
- jl6 5y ago
  Not having children is very common and always has been, and yet seems to me a somewhat radical decision when you think that you represent an unbroken line of reproduction going back 4 billion years, and somehow that line ends with you.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    If you fail to reproduce (voluntarily or otherwise), only a small mutation in a giant cross-breeding pool is lost, not some great bloodline of ancestry. Provided, of course, that you're not literally the last living descendant of some genetic bottleneck. The total genetic consciousness of humanity cares for your particular genes about as much as you care for a single hair or cell of skin falling off the greater whole.
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    A branch. A tiny, insignificant, microscopic branch is ended when one doesn't reproduce, the main line keeps going strong.
apocalypstyx 5y ago
There's a difference in the individual level and the species level. An individual does not necessarily have to be concerned with direct propagation to participate in propagation. A bee that kills itself stinging something that is attacking the hive potentially increases the overall survival of the genes which it shares with the hive, even at the expense of its own particular genes. An individual human who assists in the aid of other adult members or children in the group, even though they themselves do might not mate successfully, does something similar. It is all-consuming in the sense that it is fundamental to life by definition. (Unless we are to posit some organism arising from proto-life and just 'hanging out' until the end of the universe.) And it is the second half fundamental to evolution -- the other being death.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
panzagl 5y ago
First you get married, then one day you run out of things to talk about. Nine months later, kids!
dr_dshiv 5y ago
I’m assuming you’re male. The desire comes from both sexes but some women need babies.

by Kye 5y ago

ASalazarMX 5y ago

How many of us who didn't want children have siblings that had children in our place? The drive for reproduction wins, even without considering that without the drive for reproduction of our parents we wouldn't even exist. More so, the drive for reproduction isn't necessarily about kids, but sexuality. Sex sells. A big chunk of our civilization is about food and sex.

jl6 5y ago
Not having children is very common and always has been, and yet seems to me a somewhat radical decision when you think that you represent an unbroken line of reproduction going back 4 billion years, and somehow that line ends with you.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  If you fail to reproduce (voluntarily or otherwise), only a small mutation in a giant cross-breeding pool is lost, not some great bloodline of ancestry. Provided, of course, that you're not literally the last living descendant of some genetic bottleneck. The total genetic consciousness of humanity cares for your particular genes about as much as you care for a single hair or cell of skin falling off the greater whole.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  A branch. A tiny, insignificant, microscopic branch is ended when one doesn't reproduce, the main line keeps going strong.

apocalypstyx 5y ago

There's a difference in the individual level and the species level. An individual does not necessarily have to be concerned with direct propagation to participate in propagation. A bee that kills itself stinging something that is attacking the hive potentially increases the overall survival of the genes which it shares with the hive, even at the expense of its own particular genes. An individual human who assists in the aid of other adult members or children in the group, even though they themselves do might not mate successfully, does something similar. It is all-consuming in the sense that it is fundamental to life by definition. (Unless we are to posit some organism arising from proto-life and just 'hanging out' until the end of the universe.) And it is the second half fundamental to evolution -- the other being death.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

panzagl 5y ago

First you get married, then one day you run out of things to talk about. Nine months later, kids!

dr_dshiv 5y ago

I’m assuming you’re male. The desire comes from both sexes but some women need babies.