Comment by kerkeslager | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kerkeslager | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Of course people can choose not having spouse or kids. What do you mean there is zero alternative?

You're doing that thing where you claim there's freedom of choice because you're ignoring the punishment inflicted on one choice.

The choice not to commit to a long-term relationship has had severe financial implications for centuries, especially if you are female. Until the invention of effective birth control, the choice to not have children meant giving up much of heterosexual sex.

While there are still problems, the ability to have healthy heterosexual sexual relationships without children is largely solved by modern birth control. But I would argue that the choice to not marry is still financially punished pretty severely, though perhaps not as much as in centuries past.

> There are people born rich enough to not have to work, but do they live a happy life by not working all the way?

You're asking this as if it's a rhetorical question, but it's not.

Being a rock climber, I've met plenty of Trustafarians who haven't done a lick of work in their lives, and are quite happy being skiing, surfing, or rock climbing bums.

The flipside, is when I've met people who tried not working and said they didn't like it, that has always been coupled with a profound lack of imagination or self-awareness. I distinctly remember a post on HN where someone took a week off and just played World of Warcraft for the entire week, and when he found this unfulfilling he concluded that not working wasn't for him. It should be no surprise that a lifestyle with no physical activity or direct human interaction is dissatisfying--this isn't proof that work is a necessary part of human happiness, it's just proof that giving up work without replacing it with something better doesn't succeed.

The whole point is that even with material support, people still need to live with spouse and kids, and having a regular work (not necessarily work for someone else), to have a happy life.

Yes, modern technology and economy makes it easier for you to live alone but it does not change the basic human needs. Eventually you will need a spouse (same or opposite sex), not just for the money, not for the sex, but for the intimacy. And you will want to have kids when you get older. And as other comments pointed out, you want to live with people who really cares about you and you care about them, i.e. your family.

There is nothing magic about this. Just some people realize this earlier than others.

> The whole point is that even with material support, people still need to live with spouse and kids, and having a regular work (not necessarily work for someone else), to have a happy life.

I understood that was your point. The problem is that your point simply isn't true, and you've provided absolutely no evidence of your belief beyond your patronizing "some people realize this earlier than others".

I do think that intimacy is a necessary part of happiness for most people, but there are many ways to find intimacy besides a spouse. As for kids: people who don't ever want kids and end up happy are common enough that I'd consider it common knowledge. There are all sorts of families out there, and many of them don't involve marriages or children.

Lot of Buddhist monks would disagree with you pretty strongly. I think you are projecting your own needs/wants/desires and I get that, it's hard to get "out of your own head"... so to speak.

How is common needs of human being my own needs? How is Buddhist monks a good argument here? Whenever someone makes a general statement in psychology, it never excludes exceptions.

> the choice to not have children meant giving up much of heterosexual sex.

A bit personal maybe, but my wife has never been on birth control, we don't use protection, and have never had an "oops" baby. We had kids when we wanted kids, and haven't had kids when we didn't want kids.

It's really just... not that hard...

That's great for you, but as a societal discussion, that's about as useful as a story of how someone prayed and their mom's cancer went away.

You're taking a risk, in the context of a committed relationship where you've already had kids (so the stakes are lower than for a lot of people). So far that risk has worked out for you. That doesn't mean that is the right risk for everyone. It also doesn't mean that what you're doing is reliable for everyone. And it certainly doesn't mean that you're somehow more intelligent or competent than the people for whom similar methods of family planning have failed.

> it certainly doesn't mean that you're somehow more intelligent or competent than the people for whom similar methods of family planning have failed.

I personally think it is a sign of modern hubris to assume that effective family planning didn't exist prior to 1960s and the advent of birth control.

All forms of family planning can fail. I don't think that's contentious.

Personally, the bigger issue I see among my peers is inability to conceive at all. They squandered their fertile years and are now going to enormous expense to start a family.

> I personally think it is a sign of modern hubris to assume that effective family planning didn't exist prior to 1960s and the advent of birth control.

Effective toward what end?

Having kids when and only when you want them? Sure. "Only have sex when you want a kid" has always been an option.

Having kids when and only when you want them, and fulfilling your biological urges? Not so much.

I'm glad for you that your family planning worked for you and fulfilled your needs, but if you're going to extrapolate your experience to literally all humans throughout history, you aren't really in a position to be talking about other people's hubris.

> Having kids when and only when you want them? Sure. "Only have sex when you want a kid" has always been an option.

> Having kids when and only when you want them, and fulfilling your biological urges? Not so much.

Unsure if you're being obstinate or ignorant, but we've been married a decade and I assure you we have had sex several orders of magnitude more than the three times we conceived.

Baby = Egg + sperm. Keep those two apart and no baby. Not exactly rocket science.

Of course, I assumed that you had sex many times more than you conceived. Keep in mind, I wasn't the other person who commented.

If pulling out, having sex while not ovulating, or whatever you did, is satisfying for you, great! I applaud your satisfaction.

However, as I said not everyone is satisfied by that kind of sex. To say that the limitations imposed by a lack of birth control don't exist, or aren't important, fails to capture the depth, breadth, and variety of human sexuality.

Perhaps in the future you could avoid leading with things such as:

> that's about as useful as a story of how someone prayed and their mom's cancer went away.

All I did was comment and say, "Hey, we did this and it worked for us" and you replied with the equivalent of "Go fuck yourself, I don't want to hear it"

Of course modern birth control opens many doors, I don't think that was ever in question. It's a highly personal choice and I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

Anyway, cheers. Hope you're having a good day.

> All I did was comment and say, "Hey, we did this and it worked for us" and you replied with the equivalent of "Go fuck yourself, I don't want to hear it"

No, that's absolutely not all you did. You said:

> A bit personal maybe, but my wife has never been on birth control, we don't use protection, and have never had an "oops" baby. We had kids when we wanted kids, and haven't had kids when we didn't want kids.

> It's really just... not that hard...

Do you see the part where you went from "Hey, we did this and it worked for us" to "Therefore everyone else for whom this doesn't work is stupid/incompetent?"

And then you doubled down by accusing everyone who doesn't think what you do of ignorance and hubris:

> I personally think it is a sign of modern hubris to assume that effective family planning didn't exist prior to 1960s and the advent of birth control.

So if you'd like to admit you crossed the line and adjust what you said to, "Hey, we did this and it worked for us", great, that's a much more reasonable thing to say than what you actually said. But everyone reading this exchange can see that's not what you actually originally said.

And I was entirely justified in comparing what you actually said to faith healing, because at a societal level teaching people non-contraceptive means of birth control has historically been about as useful as faith healing.

I'm emphasizing at a societal level because you left that out when you quoted me. Please at the very least when you quote me, quote full sentences: you're only quoting me out of context to try to twist what I said.

You don't get to rewrite history so you can play the victim here.

You've got some sort of vendetta going on here, so I'm sorry for whatever burr you have in your britches.

When someone says "you are misinterpreting what I said" perhaps you should consider that you are misinterpreting what they said.

You said:

> It's really just... not that hard...

..and:

> I personally think it is a sign of modern hubris to assume that effective family planning didn't exist prior to 1960s and the advent of birth control.

If I am misinterpreting what you said, the problem is your communication skills, not my interpretation.

When someone says, "You're wrong", perhaps you should consider that you were wrong.

If you don't want to admit that what you said was wrong like an adult, fine. But if you're going to continue to try to paint me as if I'm bullying you, you can't be surprised if I step in to defend myself.

In your other comment, you wrote in a kinda magic-wishful-thinking way "you can only get pregnant if you really want kids". That is a contradiction to baby = egg + sperm.

If a woman has sex without some kind of fertility awareness, she gets pregnant. If she knows when she ovulates and avoids sex during that time and 5 days prior, she might not get pregnant.

Thing is: female libido is highest when the fertility in a cycle is the highest. So biologically speaking, women have to actively fight their hormones if they want to avoid pregnancy.

> In your other comment, you wrote in a kinda magic-wishful-thinking way "you can only get pregnant if you really want kids".

I really think you are all just intentionally misunderstanding me.

I am not saying "You can only get pregnant if you want to get pregnant"

I am saying "A couple in a committed relationship can fairly easily and reliably avoid having kids without the use of contraceptives if they don't want them."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com