4 ms·

There's an implicit value judgement that having children means you have "bloomed". You may have indeed, just into someone who has children. There's nothing more

There's an implicit value judgement that having children means you have "bloomed". You may have indeed, just into someone who has children. There's nothing more to it than that. Intellectually I understand why society values breeders. I understand the need for fostering the betterment of humanity by having a future generation. I just disagree that it requires or merit biological birth unless we have a population crisis. As far as I am aware, the US does not have that problem, so I won't judge someone for forgoing baby making. I hate the pretense that baby making for normies is anything other than creating workers for the ruler class. Maybe they're optimistic that somehow their children will become part of that? On average, that's simply not the case.

yieldcrv 3y ago
Historically, “breeders” have been useful or necessary. This is less true now, but perhaps only for now.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  See the change in Israeli politics for how useful breeders are in democracies.
  - no_time 3y ago
    Can you elaborate? I'm not familiar with their politics but this seems interesting.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/world/middleeast/israel-ultra-orthodox-parties.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/world/middleeast/israel-u... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-02-06/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/empowering-rabbinical-courts-in-israel-they-seek-to-set-women-500-years-backward/00000186-2686-dd37-add7-eee638550000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-02-06/ty-article-ma... >The coalition agreement PM Netanyahu signed with ultra-Orthodox party Shas promises to broaden the reach of Israel’s rabbinical courts far beyond family law – and grant them a status equal to that of civil courts
DrThunder 3y ago
Don't use the term "breeders" that's weird and seems like you're trying to apply a negative term to it. I'm not sure why it's become acceptable to refer to it this way. I suspect it's a modern movement to discredit having children as a valuable, worthy life goal and make it sound more like it's a dirty animalistic behavior that we're too smart for. "As far as I am aware, the US does not have that problem" Not true, we don't have a replacement population. This means all of your welfare programs and retirement programs will not have enough people in the younger generation to pay into them and support them. "I hate the pretense that baby making for normies is anything other than creating workers for the ruler class." Where did you pick this view up? Yes people have to work to survive. What do you think society would look like if you just did away with all the modern conveniences and the "ruling class". Do you just assume you'd be able to sit around doing nothing or pursue your "creative goals"??? No, you'd be gathering firewood and hunting all day, hoping you don't die of starvation or freeze to death. This is such a silly naive stance. I hear it all the time and it sounds so childish. I assume it's some Marxist trope young people pick up from college sociology class and think they sound smart. What you want is a class of plebs doing the manual labor for you so you don't have to do be a "worker". Someone has to do the shit work, just not an elitist like you right? My suggestion to you is to find an actual purpose and stop stewing in your hateful anti-humanist outlook. Having kids can be that purpose, but you could actually just go out and do something to be helpful to other humans too.
- csdvrx 3y ago
  > This means all of your welfare programs and retirement programs will not have enough people in the younger generation to pay into them and support them. So step 1 for sustainability: remove said programs, as the alternative is either A) acknowledging they are just a pyramidal scheme or B) removing individual freedoms and forcing people to have children they don't want to have, just to support the programs you want to have.
  - DrThunder 3y ago
    Step 3, don't enforce your borders or immigration laws and bring in a "replacement" population. You're right, they are pyramid schemes. Which is why I think it's dangerous to put important programs like this in the government's hands and make your population reliant on them.
rcme 3y ago
To me, there is more to having children than breeding. Having children is something that, generally, ages well. You see your children grow, become adults, start their careers, start their own families, etc. You find new satisfaction and joy as your children age and progress in life. Compare this to a child-free lifestyle. I know many child-free people. Fundamentally, their lives at 50 are not so different than their lives at 30. The main differences are they have more money, but they’re also fatter, uglier, have less energy, and are more jaded. The law of marginal utility dictates that, while they are still happy, they enjoy their life less over time. My decision to have children was less about breeding and more about not living an ever-shittier version of my late 20s life.
- hdhdhsjsbdh 3y ago
  I can’t help but feel that your reductive description of child-free people says more about how you see your own choices than it does about theirs. Surely a sufficiently-motivated child-free person can use their advantages wrt time and money to not be fat, ugly, and jaded. More time for exercise, more money for travel, etc. And there are plenty of people with kids who are fat, ugly, low-energy, and jaded – I’d argue that number taken proportionally is probably even higher than it is for people who chose not to have kids, provided they made that choice consciously and they take initiative in life to make meaning out of it.
  - rcme 3y ago
    Whether or not someone can use their time to not be fat, not be ugly, etc. is irrelevant. The could have done those same things in their early 20s and been less fat and less ugly. My point is that as you age, without kids, most peoples’ options for spending time is the same subset of things they could do in their late twenties and early thirties, except they will do those things worse as they age. Is travel at 50 really fundamentally different than travel at 30? Other than having a bit more money, my opinion is not really. In many ways, travel at 30 is better, even with less money.
    - jolmg 3y ago
golemiprague 3y ago
[dead]
throwaway202351 3y ago
You may be interested in reading about the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. [1]. [1] https://www.vhemt.org/ https://www.vhemt.org/ but also, yes, I totally agree with you that some of this "oh you're a late bloomer, you'll want to do it when your older" stuff comes off as condescending if you actually just don't want to own a house with 2.5 kids.

yieldcrv 3y ago

Historically, “breeders” have been useful or necessary. This is less true now, but perhaps only for now.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
See the change in Israeli politics for how useful breeders are in democracies.
- no_time 3y ago
  Can you elaborate? I'm not familiar with their politics but this seems interesting.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/world/middleeast/israel-ultra-orthodox-parties.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/world/middleeast/israel-u... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-02-06/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/empowering-rabbinical-courts-in-israel-they-seek-to-set-women-500-years-backward/00000186-2686-dd37-add7-eee638550000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-02-06/ty-article-ma... >The coalition agreement PM Netanyahu signed with ultra-Orthodox party Shas promises to broaden the reach of Israel’s rabbinical courts far beyond family law – and grant them a status equal to that of civil courts

DrThunder 3y ago

Don't use the term "breeders" that's weird and seems like you're trying to apply a negative term to it. I'm not sure why it's become acceptable to refer to it this way. I suspect it's a modern movement to discredit having children as a valuable, worthy life goal and make it sound more like it's a dirty animalistic behavior that we're too smart for. "As far as I am aware, the US does not have that problem" Not true, we don't have a replacement population. This means all of your welfare programs and retirement programs will not have enough people in the younger generation to pay into them and support them. "I hate the pretense that baby making for normies is anything other than creating workers for the ruler class." Where did you pick this view up? Yes people have to work to survive. What do you think society would look like if you just did away with all the modern conveniences and the "ruling class". Do you just assume you'd be able to sit around doing nothing or pursue your "creative goals"??? No, you'd be gathering firewood and hunting all day, hoping you don't die of starvation or freeze to death. This is such a silly naive stance. I hear it all the time and it sounds so childish. I assume it's some Marxist trope young people pick up from college sociology class and think they sound smart. What you want is a class of plebs doing the manual labor for you so you don't have to do be a "worker". Someone has to do the shit work, just not an elitist like you right? My suggestion to you is to find an actual purpose and stop stewing in your hateful anti-humanist outlook. Having kids can be that purpose, but you could actually just go out and do something to be helpful to other humans too.

csdvrx 3y ago
> This means all of your welfare programs and retirement programs will not have enough people in the younger generation to pay into them and support them. So step 1 for sustainability: remove said programs, as the alternative is either A) acknowledging they are just a pyramidal scheme or B) removing individual freedoms and forcing people to have children they don't want to have, just to support the programs you want to have.
- DrThunder 3y ago
  Step 3, don't enforce your borders or immigration laws and bring in a "replacement" population. You're right, they are pyramid schemes. Which is why I think it's dangerous to put important programs like this in the government's hands and make your population reliant on them.

rcme 3y ago

To me, there is more to having children than breeding. Having children is something that, generally, ages well. You see your children grow, become adults, start their careers, start their own families, etc. You find new satisfaction and joy as your children age and progress in life. Compare this to a child-free lifestyle. I know many child-free people. Fundamentally, their lives at 50 are not so different than their lives at 30. The main differences are they have more money, but they’re also fatter, uglier, have less energy, and are more jaded. The law of marginal utility dictates that, while they are still happy, they enjoy their life less over time. My decision to have children was less about breeding and more about not living an ever-shittier version of my late 20s life.

hdhdhsjsbdh 3y ago
I can’t help but feel that your reductive description of child-free people says more about how you see your own choices than it does about theirs. Surely a sufficiently-motivated child-free person can use their advantages wrt time and money to not be fat, ugly, and jaded. More time for exercise, more money for travel, etc. And there are plenty of people with kids who are fat, ugly, low-energy, and jaded – I’d argue that number taken proportionally is probably even higher than it is for people who chose not to have kids, provided they made that choice consciously and they take initiative in life to make meaning out of it.
- rcme 3y ago
  Whether or not someone can use their time to not be fat, not be ugly, etc. is irrelevant. The could have done those same things in their early 20s and been less fat and less ugly. My point is that as you age, without kids, most peoples’ options for spending time is the same subset of things they could do in their late twenties and early thirties, except they will do those things worse as they age. Is travel at 50 really fundamentally different than travel at 30? Other than having a bit more money, my opinion is not really. In many ways, travel at 30 is better, even with less money.
  - jolmg 3y ago

golemiprague 3y ago

[dead]

throwaway202351 3y ago

You may be interested in reading about the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. [1]. [1] https://www.vhemt.org/ https://www.vhemt.org/ but also, yes, I totally agree with you that some of this "oh you're a late bloomer, you'll want to do it when your older" stuff comes off as condescending if you actually just don't want to own a house with 2.5 kids.