Hacker News Reader

Comment by silverquiet | Hacker News Reader

You can avoid getting your kids out of that situation by not having any; it seems like an increasingly popular option. DINK or SINK makes it much easier to stay out of poverty.

View on HN

For most people throughout history, having family has been the most significant and meaningful thing. DINK/SINK sound "easier" but hardly "more fulfilling" that a life of family and the steady of stream of "oh shit, I waited to have kids and now it's too late and I am depressed" suggests that it's not the ticket to a good life that it might appear at the onset.

What steady stream?

Historically speaking you are probably correct, but we live in the present. I've been thinking about this a bit since I recently caught up with a childhood friend. He's a laborer who trims trees for a living and mentioned that he'd been with his girlfriend for a decade and they had never had an accident. Interesting turn of phrase, isn't that? Accident? Yet you know exactly what he means.

The research on this suggests that you've got it the other way around actually on who ends up with lower levels of emotional well being.

> The recent proliferation of studies examining cross-national variation in the association between parenthood and happiness reveal accumulating evidence of lower levels of happiness among parents than nonparents in most advanced industrialized societies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5222535/

If they don't want to have kids and are happy, good for them. If they are unhappy later, I am sorry. Perhaps volunteer to work with youth or adopt.

But please don't get an animal, treat it like it is a kid and not properly train it.

>the steady of stream of "oh shit, I waited to have kids and now it's too late and I am depressed"

Evidence, please?

Have any anthropologists studied the Darwinian logic of choosing marginal comfort increases over reproducing?

I've read your comment a few times now and I chuckle at it every time. Succinct, true, funny. Just wanted to say thanks!

Evolution doesn't rationalize optimal choice. Humans can design their own environments which is fairly dangerous because humans have the choice to gamify, but life isn't a competition.

Choosing both, either, or neither of the two options are all valid. And I think that's nice.

Memetics are also a consideration.

Sexual selection and reproduction has always been a competition, both in nature and in humans. Choosing not to play is an option, but your genes won't continue

That would imply winners and losers, but nobody wins or loses either way. Reality goes on regardless of who or what reproduces.

Even if one's genetics aren't passed on, their memetics do which nullifies the proposition of competition to begin with. You play, you don't play, you win!

> their memetics do

shitposting on reddit is not a net contribution to society.

most people work bullshit jobs where the ownership class skims value off the top.

tell me, what memes did a peasant in 600AD Hispania, or 1100 Samerkand, leave for us?

The Spanish language for one.

Value propositions on memetics is a different discussion anyways so I don't understand how it fits here.

I suspect that individuals in either group will be dead in around a century. Might as well enjoy the time you've got, whatever that means to you.

Does your culture not talk about your ancestors choices and successes, and extrapolate that your current choices affect your great-great-[etc]-grandchildren?

My ancestors are forgotten to time, as I suspect are most peoples'. How many do you think can name all eight (theoretically) of their great-great grandfathers? I certainly cannot. And that is not exactly ancient history.

As far as extrapolating my current choices effect on my descendants, nothing could be simpler; I have none and so there will be no effect on them. This is something that brings me much peace. I do wish that people with or without children would take better care of this planet, since I find the continued degradation of it to be the most depressing aspect of modern life, but I would think that parents in particular would be more future oriented.

Sure, but don't tell me we are wealthier then a generation ago if basic things like kids and homeownership are now lofty luxury goals all of the sudden. A single income used to be able to afford it, now two cannot, we are much poorer no matter how you hedonicly adjust CPI.

Yes, I got the classical econ education in college and bought into it for some time, but increasingly it just doesn't seem to jive with reality. I'm even really starting to disbelieve that productivity has actually increased that much in the last few decades.

prepared to be downvoted since i have nothing substantive to offer this discussion, but i've now seen it twice in these comments: the word is 'jibe.' apologies in advance for failing to control myself.

OMG thank you. I always pictured two ideas "jiving" (doing that dance!) together for the like 3 decades I've been speaking English. Thanks for the upgrade.

I don't accept your premise. People who want kids have kids. This is obvious as I am pretty sure poorer people have more kids than wealthier people.

I have never heard anyone say "I really want kids but I can't afford them" - I hear people say generically "oh kids are expensive" but I've never heard of anyone use that for their own decision.

60% of women aged 35 or younger have kids. That doesn't sound like a "luxury". And I doubt that these are the strictly richest 60% of women...

I would rather be destitute with my kid than live like a king without her.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com