You either don't have kids or you're a psychopath. I'm leaning toward the former. Don't presume in your arrogance that you know quite a bit about something you have zero experience with.
All your accomplishments are pointless without your child next to you.
> Yes you'll see it learn, smile, grow up
It? Nice.
> But you will not be able to play your games, go to your parties - read book or contemplate on life, or code without expecting interruptions.
Sophistry. You don't even understand why you do all of those things. You simply enjoy them and that's an end in itself.
No, you're not some amazing savant that has popped up out of the mass of mediocrity that is humanity.
You enjoy all of those things to gain the capacity to enrich the life of your child. No child? All the stuff you enjoy loses its meaning.
It is not necessary or helpful to be uncivil about this.
altrego99 is expressing a considered personal view with which you disagree, not insulting you or the mass of humanity. You are entitled to your personal view as well. But you could recognize consideration of the issue as a good thing and the disagreement as normal and healthy. Instead, you are calling people terrible names and picking on grammar, without provocation. Please don't continue in that vein.
I think for most people, you are right that having a kid is a fulfilling thing. I am personally glad that someone is having kids (particularly if they are doing a good and thoughtful job of caring for them). But the implication that no one with kids could ever disagree with you is not correct - though it is unlikely that they will bother to do so in public. I have talked to several people who do regret having kids (particularly in a certain time or situation) but they are not so likely to say it - both because of the kind of aggressive reply you have given but maybe also because they are likely to be wrongly taken as saying that they do not love their children, or that they wish the child did not exist. A person can believe that having kids is not necessarily altruistic, or that there is no moral or practical imperative to have kids, without being an awful arrogant psychopath.
Before you have a child, there is no child to wish the nonexistence of. And since it is an irreversible long-term decision, you should definitely think about the pros and cons in a rational way. Many people do come to parenthood by a reasonable, conscious choice and that is a blessing. Other people decide not to. If that is in their best interests then good for them. Perhaps there will be a future time where it does make sense to have kids. Leave them be. It's a personal decision, not a moral necessity.
Not everyone has to get married, either; not getting married doesn't make you a psychopath or a pathetic unfulfilled person, even if it's a nice thing and a great life work for many people.
I really hate that argument, because if you're here to have an actual conversation then the whole "you'll never understand until you x" statement is just you shutting the conversation down.
How about this: living without children at this time in your life where you currently have children is awesome and amazing, and you'll never understand how great it is because you have children. Yes you lived without children before but you were younger then, it's totally different now.
It's impossible for you to disagree with me, because you have no experience in this situation. It's just how reality works. Something something sensibilities.
So you can't have experience of having kids unless you have kids. This is almost along the lines of saying you don't know that getting hit by a car is bad, until you have been. I have plenty of experience with kids, my brothers and sisters have plenty. Not as much experience as a parent, clearly, but enough to know what I want.
Agreed. Saying children are not worth it is an extreme position, but saying that life is pointless without children is perhaps even more extreme. It's like saying life is pointless without a wife, or without God.
The point of all life is to reproduce. It's one of the qualifications to be considered alive. So yeah, without children, life literally loses its meaning =)
1. The definition of life is fuzzy at best. Most of these definitions operate on populations, not individuals.
2. Population fitness can be optimized by many activities: food gathering, art, research, supporting peers, etc.
3. Meaning is a mental construct. Arguing over the absolute "point" of life is pointless, because the epiphenomena of "value" is a chemical cascade in our brains and can be coupled to almost anything. At best we deal in probabilistic generalizations, like "most people find having children rewarding". It's equally valid for someone to find deeply rewarding value in rebuilding engines, and many do.
More directly: I'm gay. I can't reproduce naturally. If you think that makes me less human, let alone less alive, kindly go fuck yourself.
The point of life is not to reproduce. Life simply is, it has no point. What exactly constitutes life is a vague human concept to begin with. You can choose to make your point in life to reproduce, but that does not make other choices of point in life any less valid or real.
BTW, that's a quite smug attitude, no doubt shared by many people, but I personally do not consider reproduction a worthy goal in life or indeed an accomplishment at all. Raising a child well, yes. Getting your sperm in an egg or getting sperm in your eggs, no. To further elevate the life goal of reproduction to the only worthy life goal for humankind to the point of considering people who do not reproduce to be lifeless borders on the ridiculous (not to mention disrespectful to people who can't have children, or for whom its hard (gay people, for example), or people who simply choose not to have children).
Many people are sterile and cannot have kids. They are still alive by any definition. Many people decide not to have kids but are good Aunts or Uncles or adopted parents. Many decide not to have kids but take care of them, teach them, mentor them. There are even, god help us, productive people who don't have anything specific to do with children. That doesn't mean their existence is meaningless.
On the other hand, a man who spreads his genes by rape may be having lots of kids, but he is not doing a good thing, and is probably not leading a deeply fulfilling life.
The case of adoption and the case of rape say pretty clearly to me that love is more morally fundamental than differential fecundity.
The moral purpose of your life is not given by population genetics in any case. It is an error to conflate purpose in the adaptationist sense with purpose in the sense of your life's fulfillment or your moral values.
Different people are suited to different ways of living, and find different forms of fulfillment; it is part of what makes life varied and interesting.
I personally have never leaned towards having children, I have friends and family with young children and I see the benefit and joy they get, but for me its never been a personal goal or desire. Maybe one day it will be and my viewpoint will change.
I consider the fact that I travel the world and experience amazing things, have tried a startup and am socially active most evenings a pretty good testament to having 'lived' as you would call it.
Some selective parenting may not be a bad idea. Unfortunately, there exists people who contribute to the growing population by reproducing in order to either leave a mark on the world or because it is believed that the purpose of life is to reproduce.
That's the prime example of the naturalist fallacy. The way something is implies nothing about the way things ought to be. That we are around because our ancestors reproduced does not mean we must also reproduce. What naturally happens is not necessarily morally acceptable. Otherwise it would also be morally acceptable for me to kill your children and impregnate your wife, as happens with so many animal species.
I recall explaining this to you before. I will value your comments much lower in the future, since I will always have to watch for you being equally irrational about other subjects.
I have kids. Shall we skip the lame ad hominem circumstantial now and move straight on to the no-true-scotsman?
The comment you're responding to raises perfectly valid points. Sorry, but in my experience having children does not change your life into a love-fest revolving around them. You miss out on a lot of perfectly fulfilling hobbies and a lot of time. There are upsides, but it may or may not be worth it to you. I think deciding against it may be a better and happier option for many people. You can't just count on the experience of those such as you who are apparently so happy to be a parent that it makes you angry at those who suggest it might be otherwise.
"No, you're not some amazing savant that has popped up out of the mass of mediocrity that is humanity."
Every person that has ever entered into the "mass of mediocrity that is humanity" was born at some point and, as the mass of mediocrity is by definition what most people will end up being (by your own words) a part of then why add to it when one does not desire to do so?
All your accomplishments are pointless without your child next to you.
> Yes you'll see it learn, smile, grow up
It? Nice.
> But you will not be able to play your games, go to your parties - read book or contemplate on life, or code without expecting interruptions.
Sophistry. You don't even understand why you do all of those things. You simply enjoy them and that's an end in itself.
No, you're not some amazing savant that has popped up out of the mass of mediocrity that is humanity.
You enjoy all of those things to gain the capacity to enrich the life of your child. No child? All the stuff you enjoy loses its meaning.