Not that over population is really a thing but we have so many children not in a loving adult's care we really need to focus on them.

And adopt older kids too, just because they carry some baggage with them doesn't mean they aren't deserving of a home too. When I was 16, only one family in my entire district took age 14+ kids, otherwise they had to wait in group homes for placement, oftentimes aging out instead.

Too late! We're already there.

The opening of that film is one of the best pieces of satire ever created and I'll die on that hill.

I'M GONNA FUCK ALL Y'ALL

America in a sweaty, horny nutshell

I'd rather have the bad strategy then to put a child into this world that is going downhill fast.

Because the bad strategy means my kid doesn't have to suffer through it, I already consider 90% of my days a suffering and it hasn't gotten better in the past 40 years. No amount of hard work, studying, gaining knowledge, doing the right thing has improved it.

And yet all it took was a few decades of indoctrination and disinvestment in education to get there in real life. Almost like we have more pressing things to worry about than the speed at which this effect - if real - could turn into an actual problem.

"The film demonstrated it to be a very bad strategy."

You're using that movie as support for having kids?

I dunno. The environment sucks and there are loads of kids in foster care. Sometimes personal freedom isn't everything like Americans think. Would we think it's moral for every person to have a car in 1900 if we knew what it would do to the environment in 100 years? Maybe then we would want to invest more in public transportation to avoid climate change. Wouldn't the best thing for everyone be to stop having so many kids and instead support adoption and immigration? Just because Sally really really wants a child with her own DNA does not make her decision moral. Dont demonize me for thinking differently. Lol

That’s not really how morals work though. If you think it’s morally wrong that your friend hits their wife you either say something about it or you don’t actually think that it’s wrong.

wow, are you suggesting that other people being different than you, is a normal and good thing? and you shoud pursue your own life choices, and let them pursue theirs?

bold.

Oh look someone who isn't suffering

Looks like rawdogging is back on the menu!

I do not have this thinly veiled superiority complex. I believe the environment they grow up in shapes a person more than their genes, so adopting would have double the impact as breeding since you not only give one more person a good environment, you also subtract one from a potentially bad environment.

You throw that word "civilized" around like we stupid humans have grace or something. /s

Without people, civilization would simply not exist.

Don't worry, ai bros are working on removing the people requirement.

nobody is 'forcing you' to exist. suicide is always an option.

Things being shitty isnt about the cushioned chairs or AC or Antibiotics that separates us from the metaphorical jealous kings of yore. Its the isolation from power and the denial of a seat at the table. It's the fact that we do have all these comforts and that they're disposable, and we still have people that can't afford these comforts because the capitalists at the top don't want to let any of us anywhere near them. We make enough food globally to feed everyone and we'll just dump perfectly edible food because having too much product on the market will lower prices too much. The kings of yore didnt have the luxury of being so isolated from the rest of their society that they were untouchable, peasant revolts were extremely effective throughout much of human history. If the peasants under a king's watch were starving, well that king typically wasn't long for the world, but we now we get to have news about the ass ugly Abercrombie and Fitch CEO boasting that they burn excess clothes instead of donating it or even just throwing them in the trash because he doesnt want ugly poors painting the brand with their ugly poorness and its met with... nothing... nothing of subatance anyway. Just handwringing articles about how immoral and shallow it is and then articles complaining about how that's just capitalism bay-bee cope harder.

You contradict (or at least leave in a hard place) your first line saying suffering is subjective and then explaining why our current state of affairs means we are better off now. How can we be better off, I assume living happier lives with less suffering, if suffering is subjective?

If it is subjective, then maybe a 19th century woman (without many rights, without technology and in a monotonous life) felt more fulfilled and more joyful and more curious of her own life and less unfortunate than a woman today with all her rights, technology, free time, etc. And apply that to all individuals and you might find that maybe 18th century England was happier than 21st century England. Add religion to the equation, which gave them faith and hope even facing hardships; add the way they didn't know all we do now (like the Epstein Files, the way colonization and imperialism work, etc.); add that they didn't live overstimulated as often (e g., not so many opportunities to get addictions) or isolated (community was stronger then). Then maybe the happier 18th century is real. Then maybe you are right about suffering being subjective. And, if so, "progress" (about this) is a myth and new technology or food or money does not equal happiness.

But if you believe we should be happier and, if studies about this could be done, you believe that we should indeed find that we are happier today because "objective" or measurable benefits and privileges should equal more happiness and less suffering, then suffering is not that subjective, it has an obvious relation to these things you mentioned (long lifespans, shelter, healthcare, luxuries, etc.).

I’m glad you recognize this. I am shocked to find how many people say “I don’t know what I’d do if I never had kids” or something along those lines. It alludes to people having kids as a next step to adulthood or to avoid boredom. Or the ole “who would take care of me when I’m old if I didn’t have kids” - the most selfish one.

We’re not having kids and that is almost always the first thing people say, who will take care of you? What a selfish thing to thrust onto another human.

"My fifteen year old read something online and now he wishes he wasn't born" is far bleaker than that.

Fifteen is a heady time for anyone. You think and do a lot of things that an older, more mature person would avoid.

I might add on top of that, the goal of the modern billionaire class is eugenics. You don't "win" by not having kids. You certainly don't "win" by killing yourself.

That works up until the "just noise" comes to find you. I had to flee my home and move a thousand miles away from where I lived. I also couldn't return to the land I was born in. I became an internally displaced refugee inside the US, in order to flee state persecution. I was born here and have a family history in this country so far back I had an ancestor on the Mayflower. It's all just noise until it comes for you.

The noise just dropped a drone on a building next door in Europe btw, random block of flats evacuated and kn fire, with fatalities. In an European country iT's JuSt NoIsE

It's been 33 degrees with high humidity in England for a week. In May

I should've stayed in the balls

tell me one way that kids are better off now than in my generation (mid 90s)

You could rattle off a bunch of childhood and young adult diseases we've eliminated, for starters. We don't talk about the AIDS epidemic anymore, because it's a treatable condition rather than a death sentence.

Seems like it varies from mammal to mammal. Apparently getting pandas to boink in captivity is very difficult, but then something like rats are gonna keep fucking even after a nuclear apocalypse.

Animals don't have access to birth control

The issue isn't humans failing to fuck. It's that humans who fuck are regularly using contraception

That's before you get into the destigmatization of oral and anal sex.

Animals don't have access to birth control

The issue isn't humans failing to fuck. It's that humans who fuck are regularly using contraception

Hes also growing up in a time where the world gets worse every day with little to no hope for the future.

Just because you were young once doesnt mean you can understand exactly what it is like to grow up today. The world is a different pace today than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago.

If i was 15 today, i would probably say the same thing. No hope to ever own a home. All the jobs / careers to be replaced with AI. Corruption at the highest levels of goverment. The world being destoyed by climate change. Little to no freedom to experiment and make stupid mistakes without them being forever documented on the internet. A dating system where only the top 10% of men get all of the attention.

I thank whatever diety every day i grew in the 90's.

Exactly, and the dude went to twitter posting it like a great revelation of a great mind

I hate the world.

I can assure you that people are capable of not being like their parents, for good or ill.

Same. Depends on your outlook IMHO and your capacity to learn and adapt.

There is no problem that can't be fixed and no problem that won't be fixed without youth on board. I'd have more kids and it would be a blessing if I do one day.

There's a great saying though which I say a lot and applies to having kids. Having kids you will never be ready you just need to do it. After you rip off the bandaid it becomes "in for a penny, in for a pound" which is to say you're fucked anyways might as well go for broke.

My theory on dropping birthrates stems a lot to the fucked up philosophies of Ayn Rand. People are way too full of themselves now and social media is a lot to blame.

Yeah op why did you fuck up the world. It's all your fault!

I ended a 5.5 year relationship because she wanted kids and I didn't, we never got married because of this topic. Little over 3 years later I met my wife, I knew right away she was who I wanted to marry. Only problem was she def wanted kids I have 2 now and love it.

There fixing that by using you as training data

I mean as parents we kinda do when we birth them. It's your personal prerogative if you then want to an hero and dip.

We as parents are failing the youth and I wish more people my age understood this.

I don't think the next generation gets to decide if you are going to be a parent.

Not if you sleep your way up the political chain, a la Leanne Cartman.

This is not even a remotely controversial opinion - people with few real world social interactions, who spend most of their time circlejerking on these forums see the world as a hellscape far far often compared to those who have a social life outside of Lemmy

Can we get some billionaire's jets and yachts added to this chart?

I know which I would rather give up...

That's a really shitty framing job.

Depending on how people choose to live the planet could support less than a billion or over 10 billion people "sustainably."

this is some nazi ass ecofascist eugenics bullshit

By that logic, you'd have to be completely devoid of morals and empathy not to kill yourself tonight. Whatever strain on the planet or human suffering we can prevent by never having children, you could prevent equally by suicide. It's poor logic. You shouldn't kill yourself, and mammals are allowed to give into their impulse to continue their species.

This exactly. Nothing more needs to be said.

Homeschooled against my will; do not recommend. Even the most well meaning parent is not equipped to properly educate a child, and school also teaches critical social and cooperation skills necessary to functioning as an adult in society.

I was lucky/unlucky enough to go to college to make up for some of that but it’s absolutely still a huge disadvantage. And no, bringing kids to a couple clubs a week is not enough to make up for that lack of socializing.

Do not isolate any non-extreme-edge-case-needs kid in pursuit of some ideology if you actually fucking love them!

Hey, your foil hat is on crooked. You should fix that, it makes you look silly. And put down the meth pipe while you're at it.

Stay in school kids. If you don't, you'll sound like this fuckwit.

...you don't harness your DNA. It does it's job regardless.

Most of the human genome is space-filler. They're called noncoding segments.

Buddy........ You should seek some mental health treatment.

Where were you schooled?

I harnessed the dormant 97% of my DNA and it told me to tell you to ask a trusted person for help explaining this to a doctor.

3j8 H Ukn^* 76*&gjj&#jj@!