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Comment by BitwiseFool | Hacker News Reader

This hits really close to home. Everyone in my close friend group (5-8 people) and their spouses are all childless, for various different reasons. I've never been good at romance or relationships, so I feel the clock ticking as well.

I really don't know how much of this can be attributed to modernity or personality. A man not having children is apparently the norm throughout human history.

I do find it fascinating, though, that if I do not have children, I will be the end of a direct line that stretches back four billion years to the dawn of life itself. And, I will be the first in this direct line of descent NOT to have a son. It's simple, but amazing, to realize that I am the son of a father, his father, his father, ... etc all the way back to when sexual reproduction began.

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Picture a tree. At every instant, every branch tip in the tree makes a decision: keep growing linearly, spawn a new branch, or stop growing altogether. How the tip makes the decision is unknown, but in the end the tree is perfectly balanced. Had excessively many tips decided to branch (“all my ancestor tips branched, if I don’t then all their work was for nothing”), the tree would be far too tangled and nutrients would be wasted developing far too many branches which all must compete against each other to secure more nutrients. On the contrary, if too many tips decide not to develop (“this dismal nitch is is devoid of all nourishment, progressing further would be a waste of resources, I should just end it now”), the tree has no chance of persisting through a thick undercoat to reach the riches above.

Point is, every individual entity “goes with their gut” and the final product is beauty. Too many try to meta-analyze it, maximize their own gains, etc, and the final product cripples.

Idk, maybe I’m just stoned at the nail salon. :)

> the final product is beauty

IMO statements like these are meaningless platitudes. To you it may be beauty, to me it's arbitrary generations of reproduction. It's not good or bad, it just is. Some people go with their gut and rob or kill people, some people go with their gut and run charities. Is that beautiful? I don't think so, it's just reality.

Modernity, although it would have also shaped your personality.

Nevertheless, in the time and place I live, I doubt that my male ancestors would have done any better in my place. Narcissism and self-centeredness are so normalized that the kind of man I am doesn't really belong. I think there are many men and women like I am who simply aren't attracted to the opposite sex in the form that they tend to take in modern civilization. I was just recently talking to a female relative of mine who has a similar perspective.

People are also less visually attractive in general. I've been at the beach a few times recently, crowded ones, and I noticed that there were virtually no attractive, beautiful, or sexy people like I remember. My standards are not extraordinarily high, btw. Over half of people were overweight or obese and the minority that were even close to being in shape weren't wearing anything particularly flattering. By the way, this is in California, not the middle of nowhere. I've met foreigners who believe that Los Angeles is full of hot people, and that was somewhat true at one point. Now, I'm not so sure.

Believe me, I appreciate body diversity, but everyone being fat and slovenly (i.e. unhealthy) isn't diversity or a positive thing.

Anyway, I think that people are just less attracted to each other in general. They've either abused their bodies to the point where they look a decade or more older than they should or they just dress like slobs. Or they dress in ways that signal that they aren't interested in any sort of serious relationship.

There's also just the general perception of globalized craziness. On top of not being appealed by emotionally immature partners (with no useful skills), why would I want to bring a child into a world where their way of life is going to radically shift several times in their lifetime? Why would I want anyone to live under technological tyranny? Or the consequences of humans abusing the environment?

People point to the "mouse utopia" experiment, but I don't think it's that. Technological inertia is what is bringing us to this point. Besides a little bit of HN and the occasional episode of 80's TV, I've pretty much disconnected from it all, and more people I know are disengaging. It's both a good sign and a bad one. If people are disengaging, that doesn't really mean that society itself is correcting itself. We're wincing at the wall we are about to crash through.

I live in LA and, in my opinion, there are plenty of attractive people around. The other reply didn’t say it well, but they might have been onto something when they suggested you might be (understandably) depressed. I have dealt with depression and some of the ideas in your comment remind me of certain bleak perspectives I have had at various moments. I also remember having plenty of clever intellectual rationalizations for these feelings.

It’s pretty crazy when your mood shifts and you are looking at the exact same situation and no longer feel the negative assessment of it. I’ve had lots of ups and downs as I learned to deal with difficult emotions and pain that apparently were hidden within me.

Edit: Of course, it is just an idea. I don’t know you or your situation. You might not be depressed at all :) It’s objectively true that there are more obese people nowadays, however I don’t think it is helpful to focus on that fact.

I appreciate your empathy, and will think about what you have said. I'd rather not comment extensively on it since thoughts that may stem from a depressed mind are more easily dismissed than those from an overly happy and optimistic one. As much as I do appreciate yours and others' thoughts on my mental state, I'm not sure I should entertain it or even justify myself for that reason.

> I live in LA and, in my opinion, there are plenty of attractive people around.

It depends quite a bit on the neighborhood. You'll see more people on the Westside who are magazine material than say the Van Nuys. I still stand by my subjective experience that there has been an overall reduction in general attractiveness, but I'm totally open to counter-evidence. (yes, I mean men and women, and in ways that were at least once somewhat agreed upon)

> It’s objectively true that there are more obese people, however I don’t think it is helpful to focus on that fact.

Why? To discount that variable doesn't make sense to me. I used to be in the obese category and I've known other people who are or were. The way the public treats the obese and the skinny is like night and day. If the obesity rate continues to climb, that sure seems like something that would help the population. Beyond attractiveness, the obese are more at risk for having trouble conceiving.

> > It’s objectively true that there are more obese people, however I don’t think it is helpful to focus on that fact.

> Why? To discount that variable doesn't make sense to me.

You remind me of myself. Your observations remind me of what my natural observations tend to be. I’m originally from LA and think I’d agree with what you’ve written above.

With that said, here’s a defense of the GP willfully ignoring data in this case (and possibly in general).

It’s attractive to be positive. Not just to romantic partners, but to friends, coworkers, managers, reportees, strangers, etc. I think it’s fine to have standards for physical attractiveness, but they should be in line with what you can achieve. Similarly, I think positivity is attractive and negativity not so much, though I naturally think critically. Over time I’ve learned that others perceive me as a negative person. So erring on the side of positive might mean ignoring data. It might mean being blind to trends, but if it also means being happier, it’s how I would prefer to live.

I don't really think your experience applies to most people. I don't know if it's your situation but perhaps you could consider reducing your pornography intake.

That's valid, although I don't believe I claimed that it applies to most people. Something can be relatively common and have a significant effect without meaning that a majority would be subject to it.

I don't appreciate your suggestion, though. Even though you i-don't-know-if-but it, what you say suggests that my viewpoint comes from a dark place of loneliness and pornography intake, which I don't think is fair unless you substantiate that somehow.

Oh, I didn't mean it that way at all, and I'm sorry I made you feel attacked --- what I mean is that I feel that pornography consumption in excess (or even in general, sometimes) can sometimes warp our sense of what is attractive or not.

No worries. Yes, it totally can twist what attractiveness means to someone.

With regards to modernity, I think specifically we are in a time where it is both much easier to not have a child, while also much more difficult to raise a child because of relative economic and social pressures of this period. My peer group mostly mirrors yours in that all but one are childless, with most not looking to have children at all.

There are many birth control options and views on abortion have changed significantly as well as education which has improved, which means much fewer people keep unplanned pregnancies. Simultaneously, working and middle classes in western developed nations have continuously been squeezed within our the lifetimes of people who should be settling down, 2 severe economic contractions combined with the pandemic on top of preexisting job, wage and other social insecurities makes the financial and social burden of having a child much more difficult to bear.

If you feel like this now, I suggest having a kid before it’s “too late,” otherwise you may have regret later. Am noting that for a male, too late is a very flexible thing.

Yep, and the downside of having a kid is very low. Basically, if one decide to go with public education system, the expense is low. And one has the choice to divorce or engage less with the child if he does not want to be with them. Although morally that's quite bad behavior.

And when they grow into high school, they'll actively drive the parents out of their social circles.

Finally in college, you are free...

I think if you are planning to neglect your child, you should think again about your choice of having children.

No matter what anyone plans, having children is enough of a reset.

> Although morally that's quite bad behavior.

Clearly HN commentators seldom read...

Do you have a child? You sound bitter. Want to talk about it?

I am about as bitter as a successful startup founder looking his company grows bigger...

Only non parent can ask questions like this...

Edit: Kids are those things that you wholeheartedly want them never happen, but also wholeheartedly believe being the best possible in your life, often at different moments and switching so suddenly that one often questions their own sanity...

Am I bitter, sure, sometimes, I hate my kids like the the farmer hating the snake, who was bitten by the snake he just rescued.

But that is just a tiny part of the parenting life.

Not sure if this is comforting or mind-blowing (or both), but if you expand it out, every man who has children but no son is the last in a line of thousands of men with sons, and every woman who has kids but no daughters is the last in a line of thousands of women with daughters.

Though if you take say the man, if he has a brother who has a son, then you can't say the line of the mans father has ended. I think over all it looks a bit more like pruning a bush, if you back track there is a continuing line somewhere.

I also find fascinating that as our lineage: parents, grand parents etc, expands in powers of two as we go back, the historical pool of humanity grows ever smaller so that the likelihood of shared ancestry with any other person grows to near certainty.

> Though if you take say the man, if he has a brother who has a son

Very true. It only applies to brotherless men and sisterless women.

> the historical pool of humanity grows ever smaller so that the likelihood of shared ancestry with any other person grows to near certainty.

Isn't there something like only 20 matrilineal lines in the world or something?

> Everyone in my close friend group (5-8 people) and their spouses are all childless, for various different reasons. I've never been good at romance or relationships, so I feel the clock ticking as well.

What is the age range here?

The youngest is 29 and the oldest is 38. But most of us, including myself, are early 30's.

I was childless until the age of 38. I'll be 40 when my third is born. My wife is 37. We didn't decide to have children when I was 37, we'd been together for a decade at that point. Still a lot of time for some perspective change in your group.

Having a biological child is one way to influence future life. What are some others that might feel like time well spent?

I was ambivalent about being a parent. I have one child and the experience has changed me more than I anticipated; shedding indulgent hobbies, valuing sleep more, going without more luxuries, being willing to just observe my surroundings, practicing perspective-taking (I readily do this with other animals, harder with people), singing more, feeling like I have a sense of purpose. I used to teach math and science to groups of students, and now with the one student who is also family I don’t know what the relative positive influence of on life on earth will be my actions. I suspect greater, given the changes that might have taken much longer to materialize, if at all.

I’d guess that adoption and fostering, relationships that increase one’s responsibility for others, would have had similar effects on my life.

There are no children in my immediate family, it will stop with my generation. In my extended family of 8 first cousins none of the 4 males have children.

My social circle has quite a few children. One couple had children then met several other couples through childbirth classes and added them to the group.

> if I do not have children, I will be the end of a direct line that stretches back four billion years

You could do this kind of analysis for any mammal (and most animals) to be honest. Yet we still wage war, eat meat and destroy ecosystems.

Do you live in the Bay Area?

I do not, but I do live in a major metropolitan area and I work in tech. I think it would be fair to draw some parallels.

> And, I will be the first in this direct line of descent NOT to have a son.

Why focus on just the male side?

Because he is talking about the male lineage.

Reiterating without adding detail

He's talking about tracing your male lineage. So if you just follow the male side of your family tree -- your father, his father, his father, his father, etc. Everyone one of these men by definition had a son.

Sure, and every parent had a child. Just weird to gender it.

It isn't weird to gender it, I think you still don't understand what they are saying.

I gendered it because I am male. If I were female I would write how I would be the first in a direct line not to have a daughter.

Who mentioned gender? He's talking, very literally, about sex.

Because he himself is male, and got the Y chromosome that makes him biologically male through the biological male line.

His X chromosome from the mother could have come from either her maternal or paternal lineage, so it seems less "direct".

Edit: I presume a biological focus given the other comment on how by not having children, he becomes a dead end of 4 billion years of reproduction.

Sure, but why not Mitochondrial DNA? It just struck me as weird to gender it.

I will hold my tongue on the romance point.

Well, it’s not weird, it’s predictable and an inherent outcome of many current societies overwriting the female lineage with their male mate’s. I do agree with the point you’re trying to make, but, it’s just a patrilineal mindset. Not weird, but problematic all the same. I find it’s best to be plain and direct about these things so that everyone else is on the same page about your beliefs, as otherwise we all end up in arguing about rhetoric instead of reevaluating unconsidered beliefs.

Gender has nothing to do with it.

He has no chance of passing on his mitochondrial DNA, whether or not he has children. On the other hand, should he choose not to have children, he will represent a change of behavior that has lasted as long as the Y chromosome has- he is the end of the line.

The same would be true if by chance he only passed on his X chromosome, but at least then the attempt was made, and he could keep trying as long as he had willing partner(s).

If OP is a man and has no sisters, then he can't say "first in this direct line of descent NOT to have a daughter" because his parents had no daughters either.

Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. We're trying to avoid those.

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