Hacker News Reader

> "Who will take care of you when you're old?" Well, myself, presumably.

I'm sure nearly every person who ended up needed their kids to take care of them probably felt the same way right up until they needed help.

Regardless, "future help" is definitely a terrible reason to have kids. As you noted, it's a complete change in life, lifestyle, and priorities. One needs to be ready for this (or as ready as one can be, anyway) before taking it on, and be willing to commit 100% to a journey that will be unpredictable and that has no guarantees of success or happiness.

As a parent that was previously in a "no way am I having kids" state, yet wouldn't trade in being a parent for anything else in the world, I have 100% respect for those who do and those who don't want to have kids.

I think the flip side to that feeling is that people are young and healthy, and that when they're no longer self-supporting, they'd rather be gone.

Here I'm overgeneralizing from the N=1 case of myself. But I had always been young-and-healthy, and even at middle-aged-and-healthy, I have a hard time visualizing the impending disabilities.

I've also got the bias of being comfortably middle-class. I will be able to afford the help I need for basic disabilities. It's easy to imagine that by the time I run out of money for that, I'll also have run out of interest in limping (literally) along.

There is a very strong chance that I will have a change of mind once actually faced with them, but it's really hard for me to have an emotional understanding of that now. So I need to point out that there is a very dark aspect hanging over that belief that you will take care of yourself in your age, just to take that out and consider it, even though I can't resolve it.

"I believe bringing children into a world of such uncertainty and possible collapse is not really that appealing either, whether or not that is realistic."

What a curious response. I have been hearing that argument for over 50 years, and, arguably, it has been used across the world since the first world war over 100 years ago, and (especially) since the first atomic bomb was dropped.

And yet it is essentially a feeble and frail argument based upon fear of the unknown.

Interesting to hear a techie say it.

“the unknown” is a future of at least 2+ (conservatively) degrees celsius by the end of the century, and zero indication thus far this is avoidable. Even if it is we are at a point of irreversible catastrophic effects. Nor is there any world wide effort to take actual actions that will prevent such a dire future - To me, this is reasonably certain enough to be an easy argument. I don’t particularly care for the hand wavy arguments around this fact, either. Even if you somehow don’t believe the evidence here, we’re already starting to see the first, second, and tertiary effects of climate change, and the future extrapolated forward will not be a world I would enjoy to live in, nor for one of my theoretical offspring. This is a perfectly rational response.

It is completely avoidable, but you're right, there is no indication that anyone is going to do anything about it. We could start to fix the problem by using stratospheric aerosol injection as a stopgap measure and building thousands of nuclear reactors to pull carbon out of the air. But that's not the solution environmentalists want, which is one of personal sacrifice and moral cleansing, so here we are. My guess is we'll face some climate catastrophe like the fictional heat wave in The Ministry for the Future, and then start actually doing something about it.

The good news is carbon emissions have already decoupled from economic growth, solar and wind are growing exponentially, transportation is being electrified etc. At the same time, technological progress is only accelerating with AI, so our capabilities as a species will be quite amazing in the coming 50-100 years. We can and will fix this.

We're bringing children into a world that's better than ever before in history—that’s simply a fact (by almost all measurable statistics). Yes, there are some challenges, but the panic is likely overblown.

As for why have kids, beyond the fact that our civilization would collapse without them (unless we solve aging), it’s because they are truly wonderful. Parents may complain about the hard parts but rarely mention the great parts, as no one really wants to hear about them. It doesn’t feel natural to tell my childless friends how rewarding it is, especially since it can come across as judgmental.

This has led to a situation where those without children don’t quite believe parents when they say they don’t regret having kids, assuming it must be some kind of coping mechanism. But we, as parents, are the only ones who have experienced both childless lives and lives with children, and we tend to prefer the latter (though, of course, there are exceptions).

Do you ever feel existential dread? Do you ever wonder what life is for, or find it all feels pointless? Do you ever feel simply bored? I felt these things regularly in my twenties. While I wasn’t depressed, I could push through these feelings most of the time, though they worsened as I got older.

Since having kids, I haven’t felt that way once. The benefits of a childfree life, like extensive travel, while great fun in moderation is not something you build your life around. The life I had before feels hollow and shallow. Either way, I'll get to experience this life once more when they move out, and will deal with it then, but then with the fulfillment of knowing you have a family that you raised.

I personally find the idea of having kids to feel some sort of fulfillment or anti depressant to be abhorrent. I feel perfectly satisfied without children, and if I didn’t, would hate to put that on them.

My kids seem to enjoy existing, as do I

What you're saying is, there is no morally defensible reason to have kids, and the human species should just seize to exist for this reason

Lucky you! I hope your kids are also as lucky as they age.

The point seems to be that it’s extremely risky. Your decision to have kids outweighs, in the long run, most any other moral decision you make.

I would say not having kids and then in essence relying on other people's kids for long term care and production of goods and services in retirement is much worse morally. And then there's the whole keeping the species going. If you think humans shouldn't exist then there is no productive discussion I can have with you.

Is there any state the world could be in that letting the species cease to exist would be preferable? At all?

You're basically describing what the article is - before they speak about the time periods, they discuss values. Your values are that you care more about intellectual pursuits and your individualism more than you do family.

> I believe bringing children into a world of such uncertainty and possible collapse is not really that appealing either

Has education made you more anxious than a person of the past? Your family line exists because for millions of years animals and then humans reproduced not knowing if they'd be able to find their next meal for the next week in a field, whilst you're worrying about far off what if's.

Age probably comes into this as well - a 35 year old is in general more risk averse than a 20 year old.

I think that if you're honest with yourself - you just don't want kids, and everything else you've written is an attempt to rationalise that rather than simply standing firm in your choice. There's nothing wrong with that, but it comes across as being a bit holier-than-thou, as if you're asking for people to debate with you, but there is no debate to be had.

> I think that if you're honest with yourself - you just don't want kids, and everything else you've written is an attempt to rationalise that rather than simply standing firm in your choice.

Attempting to rationalize to who? Respectfully, I care very little what you or anyone else feels about my decision whether or not to reproduce. I made this decision 15 years ago. I was adding my perspective to this article's. And:

> There's nothing wrong with that, but it comes across as being a bit holier-than-thou, as if you're asking for people to debate with you, but there is no debate to be had.

Comments like this are almost certainly projection. There is nothing "holier than thou" about my comment that you aren't injecting into it based on your own biases. I'd challenge you personally to consider that your response to my post, perhaps, is a rationalization of your own decision to have kids.

This type of response is an insanely common refrain from people with kids, almost like it's offensive to state your decision not to have them - and is a perfect example of the kind of stigma my post briefly mentions.

I will state definitively that I do not see myself better or worse than people who have kids. Re-reading my post as critically as possible, I don't really see where this could be coming from, either. It's a decision based on my own rationality and evaluation of my values/fears/dreams/etc. Just like presumably, someone with kids may or may not have calculated as well. Both are reasonable.