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Comment by clavalle | Hacker News Reader

My uncle did that. Spent his life on eliminating malaria. Good work. Now he's dead and there are no kids in his line that might carry his intellectual legacy or create their own.

Human life is short term. Good genes and culture are long term. If everyone capable burned through their 50 or so years attempting to create a better world in such a hurry there'd be few with the capacity to perpetuate that vision or create their own.

It is not an either/or proposition. It is worth in in the long term to find balance, not for yourself, but for the future of humanity.

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I'm sorry that your uncle passed away. I wish I could thank him while he was alive for the work he did.

You have an interesting point about passing on legacy, but then again there are so many people born every day, that there will be more than enough people to perpetuate the vision if they can learn about it. Having a child furthers memory only temporary. I myself don't know much about my grand-grandparents and have no clue about who their parents were. I doubt many people do. In the end, we all get forgotten, but our work may improve the lives of next generations.

> It is not an either/or proposition. It is worth in in the long term to find balance, not for yourself, but for the future of humanity.

I strongly agree, and that's how I try to look at it. I don't want to burn out, but I personally don't consider starting a family to be an important goal for me. I respect that it is for many others, and I believe they should be supported. Some people sacrifice themselves for others to have better lives. Some people are the others. And many are in the middle. I don't think any of them are making a bad choice.

You might not remember your great-grandparents but your DNA does. Your family culture does. Much of what makes you, you is built from their legacy. If you are out there learning and applying skills that are making the world better, you can bet that a significant measure of that disposition comes from decisions made by them 100 years ago.

And a hundred years from now our decisions will influence the make up of people trying to advance humanity (or not) in their time as well.

We are lucky as humans that we have effective ways to pass on information to each other and to the future generations and to have plenty of people for that information to find purchase. But I think it is a deep mistake to discount the ancient (and more reliable IMHO) vectors of genetics and family tradition.

I respect people's very personal choices but if I could wave a wand and change one pervasive thing about our world it would be to have people take a much longer view and incorporate that in their decision making. Much longer than the span of their own lives. That shift would lead to very different choices than are made on average today.

> You might not remember your great-grandparents but your DNA does. Your family culture does. Much of what makes you, you is built from their legacy.

This sounds like a person arguing on behalf a cast system. Without the right family culture and DNA you can't possible be successful/worthwhile, lets just put those people in a cast to save time, easy labeling for all! Maybe if you breed with a better cast and become part of their family your future would be brighter, so we will arrange a marriage to make this so. This isn't some far off idea - this is the norm in some places, and it is disgusting.

Do you support eugenics? Do you think less of intelligent people who choose to adopt rather than breed? Do you think overpopulation is a non-issue? Do you believe cast systems are useful?

Human knowledge and functional advancement is vastly more important than genetics or children. Jonas Salk had three children, but anyone who claimed "his children are his greatest accomplishment" would be laughed at. His impact on mankind was direct. Direct impact is always better, because no matter how many generations your DNA is passed on, it is all meaningless until they at some point take action and do something. Mindless breeding is something rabbits can do.

There is this desperately sad tendency to want to "pass the buck" to children... sure, MY life was a huge waste, but maybe my children will be something special, maybe it was all worth it because of them.... or my grandchildren. People who do something in the here and now are to be admired because they are a rarity.

None of the things you are talking about were suggested or even mentioned by the parent comment. No one said anything about cast systems or eugenics. You are beating up a straw man.

It's pretty well supported that intelligence is heritable and greatly determined by genetics. But so are a huge number of other traits, like executive functioning and attention span, which also correlate with success.

And we don't need to be constrained by genetics either, even if a trait is environmental, parents still have a huge amount of influence over it. From education to work ethic, your upbringing has a huge amount of influence over you, and it's something you basically pass down to your children just like genetics.

>Jonas Salk had three children, but anyone who claimed "his children are his greatest accomplishment" would be laughed at.

This is a counterexample to the claims you are defending, that you can't be successful/change the world, and have a family.

Regardless, that's great if you are Jonas Salk. Sacrifice your personal life to save the world. It's certainly a noble thing to attempt.

But most likely you aren't Jonas Salk. The average person is not going to impact the world anywhere near the level of Jonas Salk, no matter what career they are in or how hard they try. Even Salk, if he hadn't been at the right place at the right time, working on the right problem, would not have been remembered today.

So yes it's not surprising that his children aren't known for anything. Even if they had been exact clones of him, they were born at the wrong time to cure polio. But if they are like him, they have the same probability of doing great things as he did when he started. So if your goal is to maximize the probability of doing great things, having children isn't a horrible option.

I've argued for none of the nasty things you think.

I am not arguing for a caste system or eugenics. I believe in meritocracy. I believe, though, that people are shaped by their genes to some extent. It is not the whole of the person but there is an effect. Why does this matter? Well, over time I think family functioning evolves to maximize member success based on predispositions. What does that mean? Well, I think of my brother in laws family. They are a quiet reserved people who are very religious. My brother in law is not religious but he fills that deep psychological need in other ways. They know how to deal with each other and give each other advice and guidance that works for them. My family, on the other hand, is loud and gregarious and we need to be busy all of the time. We have our own mechanisms for support and success that work very well for us. They are not very mutually compatible. If we swapped children there would be considerable friction and they would not be as successful as they would be in their native habitat. Is some of this behavior learned? Of course. Is some of it genetic? Definitely. Is either family 'better' or 'superior'? No. Just different. As things stand now our respective families build on our strengths. This type of diversity is important for our species.

I certainly applaud people who choose to adopt as I think this is a great way to pass on 'family intelligence'.

I think overpopulation is a solvable problem and not nearly the size of issue it is made out to be. I certainly don't want people with a demonstrated successful approach to life to eschew bringing their brand of life into the world and nurturing it. People as a whole are not going to stop breeding and the only way to solve the problems that overpopulation brings along with our other problems are capable human minds.

The caste system is overly rigid to be useful. It is disgusting, I agree, because it wastes human potential. But that doesn't mean that what a person learns from their family and heritage is not important, just not all important. There is a big distinction there.

And I do thing that knowledge and technology are important. But not all important. Again, there is a big distinction.

And I never said children are everyone's 'greatest accomplishment'. That's silly. I am saying that focusing on the now and chasing ephemeral success and ignoring what will last beyond one's own short life might be a short term winner but a long term loser. Jonas Salk's children might not cure any global diseases but what about their children? What about their children's children? What about 500 years from now? Can you say that some predisposition that is passed on from Salk's genes or familial values will not influence his progeny to make the world an even better place? Direct impact is deeply important but it can't exist without existence. Where do you think the Jonas Salks of this world come from?

You seem to think that having children keeps people from making an impact. It absolutely does not. It is a false dichotomy. That is what I am trying to get across. It is like working 18 hours a day to get something done -- in the short term you might accomplish your goal, but how many times is getting something done in a month that you could've done in three really going to make a huge difference when considering the long term price you pay? Do you know what is even more rare than doers? People who do for the long term because that means thinking about the long term. All too rare. And the lack of that perspective means that people who do think for the long term are discounted. Having kids? Oh jeez, now that person is useless. Its a poisonous idea that affects far more than the person spending their life like it was a stolen credit card.

Some people sacrifice themselves for a probability that many people will have better lives.

Some people sacrifice themselves for a probability that specific people around them will have better lives.

It's disingenuous to say that only those who work for some greater good are making sacrifices.

Which sacrifice is more "noble"? Unless you know the parameters (magnitude of sacrifice, probabilities of change, incremental impact from your involvement, number of people affected, degree to which lives are bettered), you have no way to evaluate this.

(Not that there's anything wrong with making personal value judgments in the matter; they just don't make particularly good arguments.)

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