i used to say i wanted 5 kids when i was young… luckily i paused when the time came when that was a real possibility because i felt i was too damn unstable, and as i got older i started feeling like bringing a kid into this world just seems so reckless. i know it isn’t exactly… people have had kids in terrible dark times obviously or we wouldn’t be here today, but i couldn’t in good conscience. now i’m too old for it to be much of a question anymore, but i’m fine with it.
people have had kids in terrible dark times obviously
Not sure that’s an apt comparison… I’m not an anthropologist, but I cant help but think we are facing a much different future than any past generation could have anticipated for their own children. It’s hard for me to support the idea of bringing children into a world barrelling towards wide spread food and water scarcity… A world where we are placating to billionaires who are mentally younger than the kids they are having… A world where we’ve decided that protecting shareholder value is more important than protecting those same children from preventable harm.
Sorry for the the pessimistic attitude, I guess I’m proving what was already said about having no hope for the future.
What I really meant is people will have kids regardless of the situation because for some people it’s not something they think about. Even when the bubonic plague was wiping out everyone people still had children. There’s always going to be some people who either have more optimism or just don’t think about it at all.
i have some sense that with higher child mortality back in the day they wouldn’t have thought about it the same way. there’s an inevitability to sickness when you haven’t invented germ theory of disease, but now we ought to know better and the capitalist covid response was what it was.
On a less dire note, maybe fertility dropping leads to something like a population equilibrium rather than completely overshooting our habitats’ carrying capacity.
there’s twice as many of us as there were 50 years ago, i think we can handle a quarter of a birth per adult for a while without any biological problems.
i see no imperative to have 8 billion rather than 4 billion or any other amount, just don’t do genocide and eugenics etc.
: “The human project ends with me! Nothing personal, but I just looooove money! What’s the point of existence if I’m not around to have sex with my pile of money? We will go extinct, and it’ll be worth it for my money!”
: “Huh, why does no one want to have kids? Sure, I don’t need humans anymore, but why?”
Wow who thought no hope for the future would lead to people not wanting kids.
Although in my case I’ve never wanted kids.
i used to say i wanted 5 kids when i was young… luckily i paused when the time came when that was a real possibility because i felt i was too damn unstable, and as i got older i started feeling like bringing a kid into this world just seems so reckless. i know it isn’t exactly… people have had kids in terrible dark times obviously or we wouldn’t be here today, but i couldn’t in good conscience. now i’m too old for it to be much of a question anymore, but i’m fine with it.
Not sure that’s an apt comparison… I’m not an anthropologist, but I cant help but think we are facing a much different future than any past generation could have anticipated for their own children. It’s hard for me to support the idea of bringing children into a world barrelling towards wide spread food and water scarcity… A world where we are placating to billionaires who are mentally younger than the kids they are having… A world where we’ve decided that protecting shareholder value is more important than protecting those same children from preventable harm.
Sorry for the the pessimistic attitude, I guess I’m proving what was already said about having no hope for the future.
What I really meant is people will have kids regardless of the situation because for some people it’s not something they think about. Even when the bubonic plague was wiping out everyone people still had children. There’s always going to be some people who either have more optimism or just don’t think about it at all.
Fair enough, sorry if that came across strong. I definitely get your point.
Not thinking about it at all makes the most sense to me.
The ignorance to the world around them, or the ignorance to how babies are made. Fuck, or both…
i have some sense that with higher child mortality back in the day they wouldn’t have thought about it the same way. there’s an inevitability to sickness when you haven’t invented germ theory of disease, but now we ought to know better and the capitalist covid response was what it was.
On a less dire note, maybe fertility dropping leads to something like a population equilibrium rather than completely overshooting our habitats’ carrying capacity.
Yeah that’s a valid point. I know people who are having s real tough time conceiving, so I’m sure that plays a part in the declining birth rates too.
To your point, it would be great if that was an inadvertent positive tho…
there’s twice as many of us as there were 50 years ago, i think we can handle a quarter of a birth per adult for a while without any biological problems.
i see no imperative to have 8 billion rather than 4 billion or any other amount, just don’t do genocide and eugenics etc.
Too late. I have invented eugenocide. And it’s inevitable due to a cluster of subreddits I’ve created.
By fertility here I mean how many children people end up having, not their medical status.
But yeah that’s a thing too, especially if people are trying for children later in life.
Even in the dark times of the past there was a hope that the future might not be so bad. People have no hope that the future will be good anymore.
I have one hope for the future
Yeah neither of us ever really wanted any to begin with, but even if we did, how the fuck could we justify bringing someone new into this world?