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Comment by BrandoElFollito | Hacker News Reader

One thing I realize is that of I have known that 20 years ago I would probably not have had children.

I am quite worried about the world we are leaving them and when they are about 80 in 2080 the world is predicted to be hell. I would not be surprised if they decided not to have children themselves.

I read that in France the number of vasectomies among 25-ish is exploding. This may not be a good indication, though, because vasectomy was not popular in France in the first place (and still requires z 4 month cool down time, by law)

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I've never quite understood this worldview, my children are born _because_ the problems at hand are huge. The only chance the next generation has are educated, intelligent, hardworking people with enough grit and resources to take these matters into their own hands and continue executing on one of the most spectacular economical and technological turnarounds of all human history.

That and preparing them for it is exactly what I'm capable of. Kids from religious fundamentalists will come on their own, whether the worlds needs them or not.

I chose to have children despite reflecting long and hard on this question. I hope to raise children who become adults who can endure.

My ~recent ancestors endured hardship that would push me to my limits but it was their daily existence. They fought in the American Revolution, they fired the first shots at the Whiskey Rebellion, they were directly involved in the Civil War, and on it goes, up to my father and his brothers and my brother and myself. I hope that my own children can find resiliency. I'm not sure what the point is otherwise.

I don't think it's feasible to ask that your children find resiliency on their own in isolation. Surviving in that new reality will have to be on some national level at least. It will require resources to offset the harm done by these conditions.

Even American conservatives, for example, appear to acknowledge that climate change is occurring. Their current spin is that no major economic changes are required now (inaction is fine!) because they believe that technology will find a way to address an even warming globe. I think a lot of people choose to believe that to avoid doomerism.

Interesting to read you say that, last time I posted on here that climate change was a major component of my wife and I deciding not to have children, a bunch of people pissed all over that, and I was surprised because It thought it was relatively pragmatic?

I respect your choice. I wish more of the people who feel passionate about saving the earth led by example like this.

Lead by example by having children you mean?

i meant not having children.

Ah ok - I got lost in the indents of the thread while on mobile.

In 2010 I met a guy who told me that for environmental reasons it's not okay to use planes. I knew about environmental issues before, but I'd say that was the point in time when I started to see climate change as a serious issue, and my view of the future became pessimistic because of it. For a few years I was certain I'd never have children. Then I thought life has been hard for most of my ancestors, way harder than it's going to be for my children. Is a hard life still worth living? I now think so, and I have two children. I respect people's choice not to have children (by the way, it's going to make the world easier for my own), but I think for some childfree people, one of the motivations is rooted in the same individualistic values as the values fueling consumerism and the contemporary Western lifestyle. I think they view their life as their own, and not something they share with the past and the future.

I often think that my ancestors all the way back to amoeba were ass kill fighters and heroes. They made it through dinosaurs, tigers, viruses, wars, famines, black plague, again wars and finally the 70's - and here I am.

I would prefer, though, they my children are not forced to go through this. It is to late now, though (sorry boys)

I'm disappointed nobody pointed out the dinosaurs thing.

The problem, as I see it, is if everyone does the same then people really won’t care about the long term survival of the planet or species because they have no skin in the game. May as well rape and pillage the planet because there’s literally no downside for you. You’ll be dead with no children to care about.

But everyone does't do that and it's absolutely silly to suggest they will so your alarmism just that.

Looking at the birth rate, we don't have shortage of children.

I do not understand your point about killing and raping in the context of not having children. You must live in the writing neighborhood of this is the correlation you see attend you.

If only we could know how people without children behave. If only there were some around to see if in fact they just decide to eschew society and become destructive as you predict.

I fail to understand why this would piss off people. Everyone has their opinion and can discuss the pros or cons but making it a heated fight is beyond me. We are not taking about Go vs. Rust! (which is indeed an important topic and all these people who are wrong by being on the Rust side, I just pity them with dedain :) :) <- look, I put two smileys, do not kill me please

Seems you are against the climate if you are with Go. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/sustainability-with-... I kid, I kid :)

This is FAKE NEWS. A lot of people say that AWS is saying this because Go is from Google. It's true, it's true. It's a conspiracy and covefefe

So the solution to climate change is to go extinct before it gets uncomfortable?

One of the causes is to be so many humans, yes. There is probably a middle point between being 20 billion and being extint.

The solution is to open the door to immigrants because those getting vasectomy still want somebody to take care of them when they get old

That's answering a different question. It's about not creating people who will experience terrible suffering

>>I read that in France the number of vasectomies among 25-ish is exploding. This may not be a good indication, though, because vasectomy was not popular in France in the first place (and still requires z 4 month cool down time, by law)

We will see how they'll will feel about it after they'll grow older and they will need help from other people and those people won't exist.

Reasons to have kids

Even if most people refuse to have children, there will be some who do. And the next generation will be entirely those people.

As with every generation! We're all the result of a long chain of people living miserable lives and believing it was still worth it to propagate life.

Imagine humans during previous ice ages, no space heaters and The North Face jackets still having babies. We're so coddled in comparison.

Ice ages are, like the name say, ages. No problem if the Earth heating would take ages. We would have time to evolve 60° body temperature or something...

Also, when too cold, kill a sheep, take it's coat. When too hot, what are we (and our animals, food and pets) going to do? Undress our own skin?

This seem like a hysterical response.

Look at the warming forecasts and how accurate they’ve been (they haven’t).

Then look at the error bars on predicting the impact to weather (they are all over the place).

A reaction like not having kids because the world will end places way to much confidence in predictions that little probability of being correct.

Well, I would like my children to have it as easy as I had, ideally much easier and better. The general predictions and what the world looks like is not particularly cheerful. I think we are the first generation that has it worse, statistically, than out parents.

Everyone is free to have children (sometimes - unfortunately) so it is a personal choice, even if it seems hysterical to some.

Nobody has a crystal ball. Look at any of the predictions made 50 years ago - this isn’t the first time the end of the world has been predicted.

Even some of the more basic predictions about the rise and fall of countries have been comically wrong.

But to feel so confident that you know what the future holds that you make major life choices based on it is rather… odd.

When you look at the predictions from 1900, 1920 and 1960 (the ones I saw), they were unanimously optimistic: no wars, cancer cured, flying cars (or similar stuff at the beginning of the XX century). They indeed failed, but either because they did not predict great things such as the Internet, or because they were overly optimistic.

I agree, when I hear people say they won't have kids [today] because of climate concerns, it reads as fake virtue signaling. Meaning, the desire to have kids was very weak or 0, so coming up with any excuse [climate change] is a self superior moral decision, aka signaling.

When I hear people say that they will have kids [today] because of [reason], it reads as fake virtue signalling. Meaning, the desire to have kids was very strong or 1, so coming up with any excuse [reason] is a self superior moral decision, aka signaling.

I'm pretty sure you can apply this logic to any human decision. Honestly, I've come around to thinking that children are mostly status symbols within some communities (religiosity correlates about as highly as anything), and most reasons are post-hoc rationalizations of that.

That said, I'm pretty scared of climate change, and I'm probably not quite halfway through my lifespan. I can't imaging being a young child and facing down decades of this stuff. No thanks.

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