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Comment by gnulinux | Hacker News Reader

Anecdote, but for some people, the question is the opposite, why are people having children? I understand that humans have biological desire to reproduce or some people may have a sense of community that may create the desire to generate nest generations. But for people who don't feel these feelings, making babies sound like extraordinary amount of work for questionable gains. I personally can't ever see myself having children.

Just my personal thoughts, this comment is not meant to include any judgement opinion.

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It's an interesting idea. Some personalities will only have children if they're forced by circumstances. This was the norm back when contraceptives didn't exist, and cultures (probably out of necessity), structured themselves to compel people to have children.

Another interesting idea, is that over the long-term, cultures that allow their members the freedom not to have children, may be overrun peacefully or forcefully by those that don't, or that at least, provide larger incentives to have children. Moreover, again over a long enough time horizon, people's who naturally don't have the inclination to have children, will disappear from the gene pool, making having children (all other things equals) the most common and culturally sensible option.

It's a 18 year long personal project where you get to build/train your own embodied AI, and then let it loose to wreak havoc on the world.

Yes, I understand that can be one reason. I guess I'm curious if it's the reason. There can be negative economic incentives, cultural norms, lack of infrastructure to support larger child populations, etc.

I also know there's a tendency in more developed (or at least wealthier) countries that as they become more prosperous their populations have fewer children. I'm sure there's multiple reasons, but in the US it can be difficult to have children and support them in a single income. Yet at early ages daycare alone can eat into a significant part of someone's takehome salary. That economic equation puts some downward pressure on the # of kids.

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