[soverance]

> For a majority of people, their greatest and most satisfying achievement will be their children.

This sentiment is grossly nauseating, to me. Having children is not an achievement. It may be satisfying and fulfilling, but it is in no way an "achievement".

If your greatest contribution to the world is birthing a child, you have failed as a person.

[natalyarostova]

Raising a productive, kind, and compassionate human being is very hard, and very much an achievement. You reduce it uncharitably by claiming it's simply 'birthing.'

[freeflight]

> You reduce it uncharitably by claiming it's simply 'birthing.'

Isn't that exactly what it has become? Right now we are struggling with a massive environmental catastrophe, which is largely caused by overconsumption.

One of the best ways to fight that is to simply have fewer consumers [0], yet somehow that's something barely anybody even dares to talk about because we can't take from people the "freedom" to keep birthing more off-spring for no other reason than self-gratification.

It's not like we are a species on the brink of extinction like we direly need those additional bodies. Right now it looks like we are having way too many bodies to actually keep busy with meaningful work, a problem that will only become that much worse as automation makes even more manual jobs redundant.

In that context, I consider this urge to have biological off-spring the epitome of egoism. There's plenty of orphans out there who would be glad to be living in a family that cares. Why not give them a chance instead of adding yet another body to the problem because it has some minor DNA similarities?

Yes, adopting in most countries is a difficult process, I know that, I still think it's the much more responsible choice than insisting on biological offspring.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...

[nsporillo]

It might be controversial to mention, but isn't there an underlying feeling of "us versus them"?

Consider the movie Idiocracy, where the high-IQ couple decided to put off children until they were unable to conceive - contrasted with a trashy man who had dozens of children with many different women.

Do you want the world you live in 20 years from now to be one with people like you or unlike you? Regardless it reduces to people being selfish, but I dont think it's inherently wrong to want to raise children into upstanding citizens.

[antepodius]

What are you talking about? Birthrates in developed countries are below replacement rates. If anything, in developed countries, more people should be having more kids.

If you want to decrease the number of consumers, here's what you do: Go to every developing country in the world and speed up its movement aping the western development arc so that it gets more money, suburbia, feminism, etc. Until everyone's miserable, alone, and nobody's having kids, like in Europe, Korea, or Japan.

[Dunedan]

> What are you talking about? Birthrates in developed countries are below replacement rates. If anything, in developed countries, more people should be having more kids.

I believe that you have to look at that from a global perspective as the climate change also doesn't stop at borders and globally birth rates are still way too high. The proper solution would be to stop trying to keep "foreigners" out of the rich, western countries, so that people from countries with high population growth can migrate to countries with shrinking population. That'd be a win-win situation for everybody.

[natalyarostova]

>I consider this urge to have biological off-spring the epitome of egoism

Lol, I mean, yeah. It is. It's a biological imperative to recreate yourself.

[BowBun]

I just feel like I have to come to this poor comment's defense. Yes raising children is hard, but we've been doing it successfully for all of humanity. Our entire evolution has geared us towards having and raising children.

To another responder's comment: "To many, their children are their greatest achievements". True, but a majority of people will not achieve anything great. A kid is like a participation trophy for life.

There's a line between totally dismissing the difficulty of raising children and the holier-than-thou attitude many parents have with regards to their parenting abilities. I do not envy people who have nothing to say about their own passions except their children.

[erikpukinskis]

> A kid is like a participation trophy for life.

I think you’re the one in this thread with the holier-than-thou rhetoric. You and the other commenter are the ones trying to minimize the work of childcare. Don’t make like it’s the other way around.

[lm28469]

> if your greatest achievement is continuing the specie and leaving a legacy you have failed.

Ah ok.

99.9999% of people's life achievement die with them the second they pass away.

If you don't make it to Bach's level of achievement you'll be forgotten instantly. Enjoy simple things, life is beautiful without setting bs goals, play music, draw, dance, do some woodwork, who cares you'll most likely suck at it compared to the masters, just enjoy the process

[vageli]

> If you don't make it to Bach's level of achievement you'll be forgotten instantly. Enjoy simple things, life is beautiful without setting bs goals, play music, draw, dance, do some woodwork, who cares you'll most likely suck at it compared to the masters, just enjoy the process

My experience has been the complete opposite. There are teachers whose memory I still cherish to this day because of their tender yet firm touch in guiding my growth. That's just one example. People scarred by their parents play out their issues on other people, multiple people are affected in that case. There are many other examples of actions whose repercussions are felt long after the actor's death.

[cataphract]

Does it even matter that one gets remembered by a few more centuries (if mankind's lucky) before we destroy ourselves (or ultimately by the Sun boiling the planet) rather than after one's grandchildren or so die?

[antepodius]

Depends what the possible futures you're envisioning are. If some crazy hive-mind/brain-upload/matrioshka brain/turn the universe into computronium future happens, what you do now could influence part of the course of that.

I don't get the 'either we destroy ourselves, or the sun explodes'. If we don't destroy ourselves now, there's no way humans just stick around in the solar system till the sun explodes- at one point, some civilisation will invent brain uploading or general AI or something, and then they'll go and eat the Galaxy. It's either that or total extinction. I can't envision a very likely future where humans survive for Billions of years as-is.

[cataphract]

Either way, the universe will undergo heat death. So on very long timescales nothing will be left. Also, we don't have "billions" of years on the planet, more like 1 billion tops. Life on Earth is on its final stretch.

[falcor84]

Yes, as much as anything matters. Quoting the titular Angel: "if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do".

We ourselves create meaning in our lives, and our doing so is subject to memetics, like most everything else. I would argue that the desire to do acts that affect others and be remembered through them is a pretty clear leader in this memetic race.

[dragonwriter]

> This sentiment is grossly nauseating, to me. Having children is not an achievement.

The GP didn't say “having children”, so even to the extent one agrees with this claim it's a non-sequitur.

> If your greatest contribution to the world is birthing a child, you have failed as a person.

Perhaps. Certainly, if that's your greatest contribution to your child, you've done very little as a parent. But when people say that someone's greatest achievement is their children, they probably don't mean giving just giving birth to (or fathering) them.

[roansh]

Though it may not be an "achievement" (something above average), I would not go as far as to say "you have failed as a person".

Here is another perspective: Having children and providing for them is actually a huge contribution to the society. At the end of the day, we want to keep our knowledge (understanding of the universe, etc) afloat. And the only way to do that is by having children and educating them about it.

[ALittleLight]

Having children is immensely satisfying and fulfilling. It's challenging, time consuming, expensive, and productive. All the accomplishments of humanity stem from having children.

The vast, vast, majority of humanity will never accomplish anything that will rival raising children well. The remainder are those who invent, discover, build, and market those things that let us live and have children better.

[brokenmachine]

>All the accomplishments of humanity stem from having children.

And all the failures.

There's already too many people on this planet for it to be sustainable.

[falcor84]

As one who grew up reading sci-fi such as Asimov's, I would strongly hope that we go ahead and colonise the universe soon. There's a lot more space out there. And perhaps eventually we could live in a simulation a-la Greg Egan.

[mcny]

I absolutely agree that not everyone needs to have children. I'd go as far as to say most people don't need to have children. However, how do we go about changing this?

We demand constant growth in the economy which won't play well with a rapidly shrinking population.

That being said, I'd love to promote the idea that your children are not just your responsibility but mine as well. It is such a primitive tribal idea that I find it strange people are offended by it because it is "socialist".

Personally, I am OK with waves of forced mass sterilization but I understand, because human nature, it will be just as poorly implemented as any war draft so I can't promote this idea.

[brokenmachine]

>We demand constant growth in the economy which won't play well with a rapidly shrinking population.

That ridiculous and frankly insane expectation of constant growth is the reason we're in this mess in the first place.

Also, a "rapidly shrinking population" has never happened so who knows what the effects might be.

>Personally, I am OK with waves of forced mass sterilization but I understand, because human nature, it will be just as poorly implemented as any war draft so I can't promote this idea.

I wasn't suggesting either genocide or mass sterilization, but lets not go too far the other way and pat ourselves on the back too hard for simply making more people, and making vapid statements like, "All the accomplishments of humanity stem from having children".

Those billions of accomplishments are rapidly destroying the only planet we have, so clearly on average every extra person is a net negative.

I haven't had children myself so the effects of all those accomplishments won't be my offspring's problem when I'm dead.

[brokenmachine]

Replying to myself because I found this interesting, so someone else might as well:

>We demand constant growth in the economy which won't play well with a rapidly shrinking population.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/world-population-ch...

Especially interesting/scary is the "World population since 10,000 BCE" chart.

I don't think a rapidly shrinking population is the problem that we are likely to experience.

[antepodius]

Look at Japanese, Korean, and European birthrates. Look at the birthrates as a function of how 'developed' a country is. The trend is clear- as countries develop, they die. They stop having kids. Even the US, I'm pretty sure, is below replacement rate- without immigration, their population would be going down. If you want to stop population growth and kill off the human race, do whatever it is Japan, Europe, Korea did to themselves and people will stop having kids.

[markkanof]

You might not consider giving birth to a child an achievement (not sure I even agree with you there), but for many people the work they put into raising their children and the ultimate impact that those children have on the world can far exceed the impact of any software project.

[avgDev]

However, if that child cures cancer because you provided them with opportunities and assisted them in a way that allowed them to flourish, you have done a tremendous job. I do agree that giving birth being an achievement for people seems sad. It is almost like wining in a medal in a middle school where everyone gets a medal and being proud of it for the rest of your existence.

[Retra]

And what if they cure cancer and you haven't actually given them opportunities or assistance? Or what if they don't cure cancer? Did you not raise them sufficiently well?

[drinfinity]

Try it. You will fail.

It is way harder (to do it right) than anything you can imagine.

[castlecrasher2]

Raising children is the quintessential grinding stone in life. You're right, there's nothing quite like it, and each child is a near-constant reminder that you need to be flexible in order to teach and to learn.

[JetezLeLogin]

LOL. I would still call it an achievement, just because of the huge amount of work it takes, in multiple domains be they personal, interpersonal, professional and so on. And for some people, parenthood is the thing that spurs them on to achieve in various ways. But I know what you're getting at - it's not a particularly unique achievement, not especially helpful to the planet (understatement), and so on.

[sergiotapia]

Your statement is grossly nauseating to me. Your children are absolutely an achievement a testament to what kind of person you are.

[gdubs]

Well, someday when people get old they’ll appreciate having young people to take care of them. Young people who’s value generation pays for their healthcare in retirement. We won’t solve every problem — of our own creation or otherwise — in one generation. Raising thoughtful, compassionate children takes hard work. A lot of people focus on the negatives of children — more population, crying on flights. They don’t consider that those kids will literally be in the pilots seat in 20 years.