6 ms·

How did we end up at a point where creating life (literally) is a „not good enough reason“?

michaelhoney 3y ago
There are already 8 billion people, we don’t need more. There are plenty of people still who do want children: I’m happy to let them do it
munk-a 3y ago
We've allowed everything in life to be assigned a monetary value and it turns out that kids have a very low RoI
- baq 3y ago
  yeah children used to be the best investment, nowadays in developed countries it seems a lot of young people think the opposite, and they have good reasons to. it's going to be a sad, empty and quiet world in the west a few decades in the future.
- ilkke 3y ago
  Only in the short-term, which is exactly the problem. Squeeze more now and don't worry about the long-term consequences. "Après nous, le déluge"
  - justrealist 3y ago
    Well more concretely, it's that the people paying the cost do not directly reap the benefits of the investment. A child has extremely high long-term ROI for the economy. But (for good reasons) you can't take out a loan in the name of a future child for a larger house now. Someone (aka) the government needs to be future-sighted enough to make the investment. Unfortunately, governments are run by people who will individually not reap political benefit for good outcomes 30+ years in the future.
    - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
      > governments are run by people who will individually not reap political benefit for good outcomes 30+ years in the future. Study proposal: Are there more family-friendly policies in hereditary monarchies (which have longer incentive horizon than democratically elected politicians do)? Are birthrates higher in kingdoms?
    - WanderPanda 3y ago
      I don't agree that an incremental human is a big benefit for The Economy. In a steady state it should be mostly neutral in terms of the per capita GDP (of course there are non-linearities with things like scientific discoveries scaling to all of humanity). Even considering taxes an incremental average human should have no impact on the total welfare of society. In a changing demographic pyramid (inverting) I can agree to your point though because the child will be forced to pay an even higher amount towards the wealth distribution towards the care of (child-less) older people. I think the incentives could be fixed in a simple (not easy) way, by not letting childless people benefit from the safety net spanned by children of other people.
      - justrealist 3y ago
        > I think the incentives could be fixed in a simple (not easy) way, by not letting childless people benefit from the safety net spanned by children of other people. Yeah this is the only serious fix, but once childless people become a large % of the electorate (aka it's a real problem), they can vote against assuming responsibility for the problem they created... and your country is basically in an inescapable doom loop.
        munk-a 3y ago
        That'd be an extremely complicated fix though. Are sterile people automatically excluded from old age benefits? What about someone who suffered from assault and finds reproduction traumatic? What about someone who simply finds reproduction repulsive? What about conscientious objectors who think that over population is a serious issue and refuse on moral grounds? What about people with disorders or genetic aberrations that they don't wish to pass on? What about women with physical defects that make pregnancy extremely dangerous? (some heart conditions for instance) That road is extremely grey and has a lot of really difficult edge cases you'll need to sort out. Also - if we just need a next generation in the workforce immigration is an excellent option for the time being.
- pyuser583 3y ago
  This really defines the problem. (1) we approach child rearing as an economic proposition, and (2) it doesn’t make sense to as an economic proposition. But the more we fight the second proposition, the more we reinforce the first. Trying to make kids less expensive still treats this as a financial calculation. When you ask “why have kids?” there needs to be a real answer, and I don’t think “the economic public good” is going to convince people.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    That's why religions tend to assign child rearing a extentential "Go straight to hell" punishment if you don't do it. It turns out it's a great way to keep your religion around.
    - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
      Although many religions encourage the raising of families more than secular culture does, I have not really seen this "have kids or go to hell" thing you're describing. They don't want you to sleep around, and in some religions they don't want you to use birth control, but there's not a lot actively saying you need to have kids. Sometimes having children is strongly implied for those who follow the path of marriage (and may officially even be the purpose of that), but there are typically also paths where people are expected to remain celibate. Arguably, say in the Catholic church, there is too much emphasis on the latter, what with celibate clergy and everything. In LDS I would say family is more of an ideal. This extends even into the theology. Catholics say "'til death do us part", but LDS say husband and wife go to heaven together and stay married there forever. Hinduism overall seems less obsessed with correct behavior (it has dharma, of course, but no simple hell thing), but it also provides both householder and ascetic paths. I think religions sort of take it for granted that enough people will want to get married, and that if you get married you'll have kids. Instead they're worried about self control. Little did they anticipate that the superego would maintain its iron grip without help, that the rationally-planning ego would have the means and motive to skip kids entirely, and that the id would get so distracted with hatred of other people that it wouldn't even try to bring them together, even in unwise or destructive ways. But that's where we are.
dfxm12 3y ago
It looks like for the issues listed above, corporate capitalism, or more specific in this chase, chaebol capitalism is the main driver.
Fauntleroy 3y ago
Feel free to read through the thread and note the numerous reasons why people do not feel prepared to do this "one weird trick"
m_fayer 3y ago
How did we end up at a point where creating life turns midlife into a grueling thankless slog?
- jimbokun 3y ago
  It doesn't.
  - JoshuaDavid 3y ago
    How did we end up at a point where the popular perception of parenting among the younger generaron is that it's a grueling thankless slog?
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      Birth control making the decision a choice instead of a natural consequence.
locopati 3y ago
maybe when easy to use birth control gave women the power to choose whether they wanted to bear more (or any) children?
throwawaysleep 3y ago
Was it ever considered such a great joy or just another of life's many tasks?
- jimbokun 3y ago
  In old literature, being "barren" was seen as a heart breaking tragedy for women. And countless references to children as a treasure and a blessing.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    This may be a bit of a depressing point but, for a long time in western society, a women's role was accepted to purely be a mother and caregiver. When you say "was seen" I think it's important to clarify that it was seen that way from the point of view of society - society certainly impressed this view on women raised within it but I don't think we can disentangle the taught behaviors from natural behaviors. Some of these beliefs still stretch into the modern day in really toxic ways - my sister-in-law (a tenure track professor) got a lot of flack from tenured professors who had deferred having a family until the window had closed when she had to duck out of a semester for maternity leave.
- seneca 3y ago
  The idea that having children is a joyless burden is very modern, and very specific to certain subcultures. "Great joy" is the default position.
  - stormfather 3y ago
    This is perpetually self correcting. The societies which don't take joy in having children die out and are replaced by those that do. Surely this has been happening for millennia, and the reason that we see most societies as being pro-natal is survivorship bias.
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      Yep. Western secular society is dying and we are just reading the tea leaves as it tries to find out where it went wrong.

There are already 8 billion people, we don’t need more. There are plenty of people still who do want children: I’m happy to let them do it

munk-a 3y ago

We've allowed everything in life to be assigned a monetary value and it turns out that kids have a very low RoI

baq 3y ago
yeah children used to be the best investment, nowadays in developed countries it seems a lot of young people think the opposite, and they have good reasons to. it's going to be a sad, empty and quiet world in the west a few decades in the future.
ilkke 3y ago
Only in the short-term, which is exactly the problem. Squeeze more now and don't worry about the long-term consequences. "Après nous, le déluge"
- justrealist 3y ago
  Well more concretely, it's that the people paying the cost do not directly reap the benefits of the investment. A child has extremely high long-term ROI for the economy. But (for good reasons) you can't take out a loan in the name of a future child for a larger house now. Someone (aka) the government needs to be future-sighted enough to make the investment. Unfortunately, governments are run by people who will individually not reap political benefit for good outcomes 30+ years in the future.
  - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
    > governments are run by people who will individually not reap political benefit for good outcomes 30+ years in the future. Study proposal: Are there more family-friendly policies in hereditary monarchies (which have longer incentive horizon than democratically elected politicians do)? Are birthrates higher in kingdoms?
  - WanderPanda 3y ago
    I don't agree that an incremental human is a big benefit for The Economy. In a steady state it should be mostly neutral in terms of the per capita GDP (of course there are non-linearities with things like scientific discoveries scaling to all of humanity). Even considering taxes an incremental average human should have no impact on the total welfare of society. In a changing demographic pyramid (inverting) I can agree to your point though because the child will be forced to pay an even higher amount towards the wealth distribution towards the care of (child-less) older people. I think the incentives could be fixed in a simple (not easy) way, by not letting childless people benefit from the safety net spanned by children of other people.
    - justrealist 3y ago
      > I think the incentives could be fixed in a simple (not easy) way, by not letting childless people benefit from the safety net spanned by children of other people. Yeah this is the only serious fix, but once childless people become a large % of the electorate (aka it's a real problem), they can vote against assuming responsibility for the problem they created... and your country is basically in an inescapable doom loop.
      - munk-a 3y ago
        That'd be an extremely complicated fix though. Are sterile people automatically excluded from old age benefits? What about someone who suffered from assault and finds reproduction traumatic? What about someone who simply finds reproduction repulsive? What about conscientious objectors who think that over population is a serious issue and refuse on moral grounds? What about people with disorders or genetic aberrations that they don't wish to pass on? What about women with physical defects that make pregnancy extremely dangerous? (some heart conditions for instance) That road is extremely grey and has a lot of really difficult edge cases you'll need to sort out. Also - if we just need a next generation in the workforce immigration is an excellent option for the time being.
pyuser583 3y ago
This really defines the problem. (1) we approach child rearing as an economic proposition, and (2) it doesn’t make sense to as an economic proposition. But the more we fight the second proposition, the more we reinforce the first. Trying to make kids less expensive still treats this as a financial calculation. When you ask “why have kids?” there needs to be a real answer, and I don’t think “the economic public good” is going to convince people.
- pixl97 3y ago
  That's why religions tend to assign child rearing a extentential "Go straight to hell" punishment if you don't do it. It turns out it's a great way to keep your religion around.
  - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
    Although many religions encourage the raising of families more than secular culture does, I have not really seen this "have kids or go to hell" thing you're describing. They don't want you to sleep around, and in some religions they don't want you to use birth control, but there's not a lot actively saying you need to have kids. Sometimes having children is strongly implied for those who follow the path of marriage (and may officially even be the purpose of that), but there are typically also paths where people are expected to remain celibate. Arguably, say in the Catholic church, there is too much emphasis on the latter, what with celibate clergy and everything. In LDS I would say family is more of an ideal. This extends even into the theology. Catholics say "'til death do us part", but LDS say husband and wife go to heaven together and stay married there forever. Hinduism overall seems less obsessed with correct behavior (it has dharma, of course, but no simple hell thing), but it also provides both householder and ascetic paths. I think religions sort of take it for granted that enough people will want to get married, and that if you get married you'll have kids. Instead they're worried about self control. Little did they anticipate that the superego would maintain its iron grip without help, that the rationally-planning ego would have the means and motive to skip kids entirely, and that the id would get so distracted with hatred of other people that it wouldn't even try to bring them together, even in unwise or destructive ways. But that's where we are.

dfxm12 3y ago

It looks like for the issues listed above, corporate capitalism, or more specific in this chase, chaebol capitalism is the main driver.

Fauntleroy 3y ago

Feel free to read through the thread and note the numerous reasons why people do not feel prepared to do this "one weird trick"

m_fayer 3y ago

How did we end up at a point where creating life turns midlife into a grueling thankless slog?

jimbokun 3y ago
It doesn't.
- JoshuaDavid 3y ago
  How did we end up at a point where the popular perception of parenting among the younger generaron is that it's a grueling thankless slog?
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    Birth control making the decision a choice instead of a natural consequence.

locopati 3y ago

maybe when easy to use birth control gave women the power to choose whether they wanted to bear more (or any) children?

throwawaysleep 3y ago

Was it ever considered such a great joy or just another of life's many tasks?

jimbokun 3y ago
In old literature, being "barren" was seen as a heart breaking tragedy for women. And countless references to children as a treasure and a blessing.
- munk-a 3y ago
  This may be a bit of a depressing point but, for a long time in western society, a women's role was accepted to purely be a mother and caregiver. When you say "was seen" I think it's important to clarify that it was seen that way from the point of view of society - society certainly impressed this view on women raised within it but I don't think we can disentangle the taught behaviors from natural behaviors. Some of these beliefs still stretch into the modern day in really toxic ways - my sister-in-law (a tenure track professor) got a lot of flack from tenured professors who had deferred having a family until the window had closed when she had to duck out of a semester for maternity leave.
seneca 3y ago
The idea that having children is a joyless burden is very modern, and very specific to certain subcultures. "Great joy" is the default position.
- stormfather 3y ago
  This is perpetually self correcting. The societies which don't take joy in having children die out and are replaced by those that do. Surely this has been happening for millennia, and the reason that we see most societies as being pro-natal is survivorship bias.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    Yep. Western secular society is dying and we are just reading the tea leaves as it tries to find out where it went wrong.