[maria_weber23]

Wow, the author must be a bit depressed or something. I don't even know where to start.

> If I’m going to cease to exist, it doesn’t matter what would be in a world without me.

Oh yeah, egoism at its best lol. If I die, why shouldn't everyone else?

> children make a human a slave of circumstances for at least 15 years. For what? For nothing, just because.

Okay... He is also realizing that children are not his "helper bots". I am assuming he is a he, because a women would never say these things... I don't know in what world you live in to think of children this way. Have you ever played with a child or seen it grow up? This is atrocious. Seriously man, get help or something, this almost borders on psychopath level of apathy.

> (Children, again) It’s like a new branch in a version control system, if you know what I mean.

Okay I am out. You really should get help. Definitely.

> So no, children are not our immortality. They are the best way to kill time (and eventually yourself).

Yep... Totally get it. Obviously children are not our immortality. Are they the best way to kill time? I mean if you are a robot, that's probably true.

> We’ve already superseded the evolution, so we don’t actually need it any more.

We are far away from that. Right now our gene pool is actively deteriorating because we managed to eliminate natural selection. And yet, we still can't live forever and we can't fix the common cold. Good luck to our species.

> The nature isn’t our friend. It’s our enemy.

Okay :D. Just dig yourself a concrete hole and live in there from bottles of Soylent and see what happens. There are tons of studies who show you how important a connection to nature is for the human body and mind, but well...

> The meaning of life is to keep on living.

Yeah, that's maybe the only thing I can agree with in this "text" or whatever it is. But it definitely doesn't follow from the brainfarts that came before.

I am now actually pitying the coworkers of this person and actually anybody he interacts with, if any.

Look, there is only one thing that differentiates humans from robots. It is that humans are nothing like you want to make them in your article. If humans were like you, I would wish this race would get replaced by actual robots asap, because at least then, there is an excuse for behaving the way you do.

[ben_w]

Broadly agree except

> Right now our gene pool is actively deteriorating because we managed to eliminate natural selection

Is it? I’ve not heard any serious claim of deterioration before.

[Retric]

> because we managed to eliminate natural selection.

Evolution is alive and well. Drunk driving for example kills young people. Disease similarly kills plenty of people to kick evolution into action. Suicide is tragic enough people don’t think of it as evolutionary pressure, but dead is dead.

Etc. Etc. It’s not as obvious as dealing with actual lions, but the developed world is well below the replacement rate. That’s some serious evolutionary pressure.

[pixl97]

The largest group of drunk driving deaths is 25-35 so already I'm not sure how much of an affect that is.

[Retric]

First what matters is the sum of all deaths by a specific age not deaths at a specific age.

Anyway, the average age of fathers in the US is 31. Men over the age of 40 make up 9% of all fathers. So, dying at 30 or even 40 is directly meaningful from an evolutionary standpoint. Further, losing parents is a significant issue.

[airocker]

Haha, same thought. I agree with the evolution bit though. But if all humans decide to not have children, machines are not smart enough to keep evolving themselves yet or in the near future.

[amarant]

There was an ai at Google that designed ai for specific purposes better than the human engineers. Doesn't seem that far off to me!

https://futurism.com/google-artificial-intelligence-built-ai

[KronisLV]

> Oh yeah, egoism at its best lol. If I die, why shouldn't everyone else?

Why not consider it from an alternative, less demonizing perspective? The author might simply be pointing out the fact that no matter how nice the things that you'd leave behind you would be, you won't be around to experience them. Therefore, it would be in your interest to actually... you know, not die.

> Okay I am out. You really should get help. Definitely.

Perhaps the author doesn't convey his thoughts in the most reasonable manner, but having children is indeed a huge responsibility and one that will take both energy from the parents as well as a lot of resources over many years. Noone should be having children just because they feel like it, especially NOT just because they'd like to leave a legacy of some sort. As the author points out, those children will grow up to be their own people and you'll need to support them to the best of your abilities, regardless of how different their views and values could be from yours.

> Right now our gene pool is actively deteriorating because we managed to eliminate natural selection.

I'm not sure whether natural selection really has been made less significant, however this appears to be at least partially supported by the information that i could find: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr051.pdf

Based on the graphs in page 7, it appears that approx 85% of women reproduce and 76% of men do (at least up to 40 years of age), though there is more detail in the following pages. Would anyone care to comment with other sources that either support or disprove the claim that natural selection isn't a (big) factor nowadays? What about the deterioration of the gene pool?

> Okay :D. Just dig yourself a concrete hole and live in there from bottles of Soylent and see what happens. There are tons of studies who show you how important a connection to nature is for the human body and mind, but well...

I don't believe that the author expressed that this is the optimal way to go about things. Other people who also advocate for longetivity also seem to actually suggest that people should lead more active and healthy lifestyles, have better diets with elements of intermittent fasting/caloric restriction and so on. Even if we as a species cannot have immortality now, it is definitely worth to pursue enjoying our later years and remaining functional for longer, is it not? In that regard, nature is indeed our enemy if we don't look at what can affect us negatively (be it alcohol, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, bad diets, lack of sleep, or anything else)

> But it definitely doesn't follow from the brainfarts that came before.

It seemed to follow the previous statements pretty well - it is pretty important (at least from our subjective point of view) to remain alive and little if anything else can substitute that.

Lastly, i'd like to quote the Hacker News Guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Let's remain civil here!

[grishka]

> The author might simply be pointing out the fact that no matter how nice the things that you'd leave behind you would be, you won't be around to experience them. Therefore, it would be in your interest to actually... you know, not die.

And that is exactly what I meant.