3 ms·

It is important that people in general become parents in some number so that the human race can continue to exist, yes. No one is denying that. Not everyone ne

It is important that people in general become parents in some number so that the human race can continue to exist, yes. No one is denying that. Not everyone needs to be a parent. We're not in a situation where humanity is in danger of extinction because of a reduction in childbirth. There are more pressing existential threats related to having more people than there are pressing existential threats related to having fewer, even if you don't believe in climate change, etc. We have wars over land and resources today, including powers with the ability to end modern human civilization in a nuclear holocaust. None of which is to say people should stop having children if they want to, but the idea that the greatest contribution people can make to the world is having kids is absurd. You're being reductive in relegating it to making a phone app to sell pet food, so I'll do the same in the other direction - If an individual were to find a cheap and easily producible cure-all for cancer but remain childless, have they contributed less to humanity than an individual that does raise 2.1 children?

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
> Not everyone needs to be a parent. While true in the strict sense, this is false in a more general sense. Yes, everyone does need to become a parent. You're not the 1-in-100 exception that gets to duck this responsibility, and you're definitely not all that exception, people reading the comment. The more of you who skip out on this, the greater the burden on those that don't. When you don't have you're 2.1 children, someone else has to have those children on top of the 2.1 they need for themselves. > We're not in a situation where humanity is in danger of extinction because We are actually in danger of extinction, the math is simple, and only a bizarre form of willful blindness prevents you from seeing it. You can check anywhere you like, find some source that you trust. It will tell you that we have sub-replacement fertility. In the United States, in North America, in the western hemisphere. In east Asia. The latest numbers are highly suggestive that India just recently (within the last 3 years or so) has sunk below the replacement level. There are few countries not suffering this trend, there are none untouched by it. It generally takes about 20 minutes to walk through all the various fallacies, at the end of which the denier then says "but when things shrink down a little fertility can go back up, and things will be fine!" Except fertility doesn't go back up. No little girl who grows up in a world where all her role models have few or no children will wake up one morning and say to herself "I want 2.1 children when I'm a grownup!" but that's what would have to happen for all little girls. Just for the population to stabilize. If only some of them say that, then we're still on the road to extinction, because the average has to be 2.1. The same ideas that caused people to remain childless will still be floating around. There will still be people telling those little girls... > Not everyone needs to be a parent. One of them might even be you, depending on how long you live. > If an individual were to find a cheap and easily producible cure-all for cancer but Saving the lives of geriatric people, who will die someday anyway, having made no more children than before they got cancer? Willfully blind.
- cthalupa 2y ago
  This seems to all be presupposed on the idea that the population growing is a positive thing is a universally accepted truth. I don't think that is a de facto true statement. I wrote a lot arguing this point, got towards the end of your comment, and realized that most of it is nothing that will change your mind, so instead I'll focus on why I deleted it all: > Saving the lives of geriatric people, who will die someday anyway, having made no more children than before they got cancer? Willfully blind. I originally wrote about how cancer impacts more than just geriatric people, and how even from your perspective, around 1800 children die from cancer every year - people who will, in theory, even at sub-replacement levels, produce more kids than an individual making their 2.1 children. But I realized that this one line shows that we fundamentally have different viewpoints about the purpose of life. If life isn't good, what is the point of having kids? Back when I still wanted children, I had decided not to have them because of concerns about climate change. I believe that it is at the very least human-accelerated, and most likely primarily caused by us as well, but even if not, we have clear trends and data showing that there is a very real risk that huge portions of humanity will have their lives significantly disrupted by it in my lifetime, much less that of my children. I don't want to force someone to have to live through that. But if the prevailing opinion of people in the world was "Let's not cure cancer because it's just saving geriatric people who won't have more kids anyway," then that's not a world that doesn't match my value system and not one I want to subject my children to living in. I think the existence of humanity is an amoral thing - there's not fundamentally any specific reason we need to exist beyond us wanting to, and if as a collective whole we decide that existence has not been a thing wonderful enough to bring new people into it and we no longer desire to exist, then, well, that's fine. If we want humanity to continue, let's make the world a place where people want to bring children into it, and incentivize them doing so.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    to me the main point of the parent comment was not that population growth is good, but that the current trend points to a sharp population decline coming in a century or two, and once we have a sharp decline it will be very hard to stop that decline and get to zero growth at replacement rate which is really what the goal in the end must be. If we want humanity to continue, let's make the world a place where people want to bring children into it, and incentivize them doing so. i agree, but at this point we are really very far away from that.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

> Not everyone needs to be a parent. While true in the strict sense, this is false in a more general sense. Yes, everyone does need to become a parent. You're not the 1-in-100 exception that gets to duck this responsibility, and you're definitely not all that exception, people reading the comment. The more of you who skip out on this, the greater the burden on those that don't. When you don't have you're 2.1 children, someone else has to have those children on top of the 2.1 they need for themselves. > We're not in a situation where humanity is in danger of extinction because We are actually in danger of extinction, the math is simple, and only a bizarre form of willful blindness prevents you from seeing it. You can check anywhere you like, find some source that you trust. It will tell you that we have sub-replacement fertility. In the United States, in North America, in the western hemisphere. In east Asia. The latest numbers are highly suggestive that India just recently (within the last 3 years or so) has sunk below the replacement level. There are few countries not suffering this trend, there are none untouched by it. It generally takes about 20 minutes to walk through all the various fallacies, at the end of which the denier then says "but when things shrink down a little fertility can go back up, and things will be fine!" Except fertility doesn't go back up. No little girl who grows up in a world where all her role models have few or no children will wake up one morning and say to herself "I want 2.1 children when I'm a grownup!" but that's what would have to happen for all little girls. Just for the population to stabilize. If only some of them say that, then we're still on the road to extinction, because the average has to be 2.1. The same ideas that caused people to remain childless will still be floating around. There will still be people telling those little girls... > Not everyone needs to be a parent. One of them might even be you, depending on how long you live. > If an individual were to find a cheap and easily producible cure-all for cancer but Saving the lives of geriatric people, who will die someday anyway, having made no more children than before they got cancer? Willfully blind.

cthalupa 2y ago
This seems to all be presupposed on the idea that the population growing is a positive thing is a universally accepted truth. I don't think that is a de facto true statement. I wrote a lot arguing this point, got towards the end of your comment, and realized that most of it is nothing that will change your mind, so instead I'll focus on why I deleted it all: > Saving the lives of geriatric people, who will die someday anyway, having made no more children than before they got cancer? Willfully blind. I originally wrote about how cancer impacts more than just geriatric people, and how even from your perspective, around 1800 children die from cancer every year - people who will, in theory, even at sub-replacement levels, produce more kids than an individual making their 2.1 children. But I realized that this one line shows that we fundamentally have different viewpoints about the purpose of life. If life isn't good, what is the point of having kids? Back when I still wanted children, I had decided not to have them because of concerns about climate change. I believe that it is at the very least human-accelerated, and most likely primarily caused by us as well, but even if not, we have clear trends and data showing that there is a very real risk that huge portions of humanity will have their lives significantly disrupted by it in my lifetime, much less that of my children. I don't want to force someone to have to live through that. But if the prevailing opinion of people in the world was "Let's not cure cancer because it's just saving geriatric people who won't have more kids anyway," then that's not a world that doesn't match my value system and not one I want to subject my children to living in. I think the existence of humanity is an amoral thing - there's not fundamentally any specific reason we need to exist beyond us wanting to, and if as a collective whole we decide that existence has not been a thing wonderful enough to bring new people into it and we no longer desire to exist, then, well, that's fine. If we want humanity to continue, let's make the world a place where people want to bring children into it, and incentivize them doing so.
- em-bee 2y ago
  to me the main point of the parent comment was not that population growth is good, but that the current trend points to a sharp population decline coming in a century or two, and once we have a sharp decline it will be very hard to stop that decline and get to zero growth at replacement rate which is really what the goal in the end must be. If we want humanity to continue, let's make the world a place where people want to bring children into it, and incentivize them doing so. i agree, but at this point we are really very far away from that.