[_khau]

Come on now.

Don't try to make out like your choice to have a child is because you want to 'spread happiness'.

It's a biological imperative to perpetuate your genetic code and is the single most selfish and egotistical thing you can do with your life.

Don't delude yourself that it is anything different than any other species procreating.

[malvosenior]

Well most of those species don’t have egos so I wouldn’t say it’s egotistical.

Society is entirely composed of people who were given birth to. I don’t see how the very foundation of humanity (and all life on earth) could be viewed as “selfish”. You’re literally sustaining the human race.

[ionised]

> You’re literally sustaining the human race.

While true, that's not the reason people reproduce.

Most people are only truly concerned with their own offspring and their own bloodline.

That everybody in the world is primarily focused on their own legacy but just happens to contribute to the numbers of our species as a whole is an evolutionary mechanic, not a human one.

[malvosenior]

I don't think you can separate what's human and what's evolutionary. All human actions are a by product of evolution. We evolved to want to reproduce (for selfish reasons or not). Regardless, it seems pointless to assign negative moral worth to reproducing since it's an inevitable drive and very likely the only reason we exist at all.

[ionised]

We separate plenty of human concepts from evolution and nature already. Choosing not to do so here seems arbitrary.

And I wasn't so much casting a moral judgement on the selfishness of the act. I was just pointing it out as a selfish act as in, it is done primarily for you and your genes whether you realise or not. You are no different than any other mammal in this regard.

(I'm referring to the collective 'you' here, not you specifically.)

That's just life and evolution. I'm not admonishing anyone for it, but I can't accept the idea that having children is somehow an altruistic act done to spread the concept of happiness when the rest of the natural world and mounds of empirical data on the study of evolution and biology screams otherwise.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

You are a mammal. You will mate and reproduce to ensure the survival of your own genes. Those are your instinctual drives. This also strokes the ego if you're successful. You get to see little versions of the your own genetics populating the world.

Some of us choose not to participate in this willingly, others will delude themselves into thinking they are somehow separate from the rest of nature in terms of their biological drives.

[malvosenior]

But the original post we're replying to said:

> Having children bestows the incomparable gift of life on other people (your children). Bestowing that gift is the part of having children that makes someone happy. It's not a self centered happiness; the day-to-day of raising children is frequently miserable.

They're not saying they're making the world a better place, they're saying that the person they gave birth to would be happy to be alive and that happiness gives joy to the parent (in addition to satisfying base survival needs I suppose).

> Some of us choose not to participate in this willingly, others will delude themselves into thinking they are somehow separate from the rest of nature in terms of their biological drives.

I don't see anyone deluding themselves other than the people who think not having children is a moral position to take. It's a valid personal choice but nothing more.

[ionised]

> would be happy to be alive

That's debatable, honestly. You can't possibly know the child will be happy to be alive or will live a life without suffering, it's a gamble.

Most people alive on Earth today I would wager experience suffering more than they do happiness.

> happiness gives joy to the parent

Not denying that, but you can't deny that that is a selfish thing, wanting to bestow joy to yourself.

Don't wince in disgust at the word 'selfish'. People do selfish things all the time for mere survival. Again, I wouldn't admonish anyone for it.

> I don't see anyone deluding themselves other than the people who think not having children is a moral position to take

I never said anything of the sort.

[toasterlovin]

FWIW, in my opinion, it's pretty gross to make parenting out to be this egotistical, self centered thing. You're shitting on the most consequential experience that most people have in their entire life.

And, aside from that, you're just plain wrong.

[ionised]

> And, aside from that, you're just plain wrong.

Convincing argument.

[toasterlovin]

You really set the tenor of this exchange with all the copious evidence you provided for your argument...

[ionised]

My evidence (as I explained above) is the entire field of evolutionary biology and the fact that we are still mammals with the same instinctual drives behind our reproduction.

What's yours, beyond a sense of disgust at the suggestion that you are still just an animal; and a desire to be seen as a paragon of virtue because you had sex and made little versions of yourself?

[toasterlovin]

Been busy, but my god you're a jackass. If you're going to cite evolutionary biology when examining people's motives, you should at least familiarize yourself with the proximate vs. ultimate cause dichotomy. It explains pretty clearly what you seem to be missing about why people have children.