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Comment by vecplane | Hacker News Reader

Wait, why is the advice to 'do something invasive, risky, and unnatural' when the actual advice should be 'have children when you're younger, not older.'

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You shouldn't refrigerate your food. It's risky and unnatural. For the first 300,000 years of human history, people got along fine without refrigeration - why don't you just hunt and gather like you were intended to?

IVF, egg and embryo freezing, and related technologies are modern miracles that allow people to live better lives by increasing their fertility options.

That's an obvious false equivalence. While technically 'unnatural' refrigeration is not 'invasive and risky.'

The vast majority of pre-modern humans were likely starving or malnourished, and those problems are mostly solved in the modern era, thanks in part to refrigeration.

We don't really have good solutions for women trying to have children into their 40s, though I fully support the advancement of fertility technologies! But still the *best* advice is to have children when you're younger.

> The vast majority of pre-modern humans were likely starving or malnourished, and those problems are mostly solved in the modern era, thanks in part to refrigeration.

What makes you think that? I find it more likely that early hominids fared about as well as contemporary chimpanzees. Some starving, some being malnourished, but definitely not a vast majority.

If you look at the average height differences from pre-modern humans to today, I think it's fair to say that the majority of them were malnourished.

EDIT: And when I say 'pre-modern' humans I mean 'pre-modern era' as in before the industrial revolution and refrigeration, not before genetically/physiologically modern humans. It sounds like you understand me as saying ~200k years ago, rather than the ~200 years ago I intended.

"Got along fine" with half of the life expectancy, or less.

Refrigeration works. Food lasts longer when refrigerated because cold temperatures slow down the growth of bacteria and other organisms. In order for metabolism to occur, enzymes are necessary. Enzymes have an optimal operating temperature. It is a biochemical fact that the reaction rate of those enzymes will be slowed down by a refrigerator, slowing down the metabolism of organisms and the spoiling of food.

IVF is not a miracle. It's a last resort that doesn't even guarantee results. With IVF women have a chance to have children. The probability of success is always inferior compared to healthy women choosing to have children early. By choosing this route, these women face a significant risk of failure with serious consequences.

A lot of couples want to have children but do not succeed. IVF can help these people overcome real fertility issues. It was never meant to be used as an insurance policy by people with no medical impediment to reproduction.

Because your actual advice also implicitly includes a 'just give up on having a career' part.

no it doesn't.

Look up 'motherhood penalty'. The wage gap between mothers and non-mothers is massive.

Being paid less because you took time off does not mean "no career". I know all about the gap because my wife lives it.

So? Does that make it bad advice?

I personally agree with your sentiment but the two provided advice examples are not comparable, it's not just about giving a birth but also raising your kids which can give your career a good break. Incidentally this perspective also reveals our sad state of priorities.

Because that would violate the “I want to have my cake and eat it too” mantra. “I want to make massive life altering choices and suffer no 2nd order effects.” “I want to handicap others to compensate for my decisions”

It’s selfish, unfair, and morally wrong. When did the smart way of doing things in alignment with nature, become old, antiquated, and dumb?

I find the ignorant snobbishness of our modern world to be insane.

Because society actively punishes people who do so. If having a child in your twenties is career suicide, it's only natural that people who aren't willing to give up their career prospects to have a child (would you?) will try to postpone it.

No, I would not. Another few hours in the office isn’t worth endangering a child. That’s selfish and stupid.

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