[Auracle]

You can absolutely try and make things better, but most people have very little perspective. Countless times I’ve seen people say things about how they’d never bring a child into the world because of how bad things are now. They mean global warming, Donald Trump, or whatever happens to be in the current news cycle.

We’re living in the very best time to be human so far. It wasn’t long ago that the world was living under the constant threat of global nuclear annihilation, before that two world wars, before that constant illness, famines, and other wars, etc. Long before that, just struggling to get enough food and shelter to survive.

The same goes for current working conditions/life. Some things are worse than 20 years ago but some are better.

[seibelj]

My favorite part about people who use that as justification for not having kids is that they will not have kids. Let them exit the gene pool and the rational people can continue to have children.

[imtringued]

You got that backwards. Not having kids requires a lot of rational thinking. Having kids merely requires drunk sex without anyone being aware of the consequences.

[paulryanrogers]

It's entirely rational to think twice about the circumstances before having kids, or more kids.

For one thing, micro-plastics weren't in the brains and bloodstream of past populations. That said, doubtful anyone hesitant to have kids is under the delusion everything was always better in the past. I certainly wasn't when the time came to make those decisions.

[seibelj]

It means “I would prefer the human race dies off rather than reproduce”. Sure, you can make decisions for your own health and personal reasons. But if you truly decide not to have children because of “global warming” as if the planet gives a fuck (it’s only an issue for humans - the planet will live on for billions of years) then you are saying humans as a species are a cancer that must die off. And I find that totally absurd and illogical.

[paulryanrogers]

> It means “I would prefer the human race dies off rather than reproduce”.

Who is saying this?!

Regardless, there are 8 billion humans from a population pool that may have at times dropped to as few as a few hundred. So risk of human extinction is far less than the (very real) risk of making lives of future generations much shittier.

[seibelj]

That is the whole point of this thread - people who choose not to reproduce because of global warming, Trump, or [insert some society problem] is saying “I’d rather humanity die off than try and let future generations solve the problems I see”. It’s ludicrous.