Watching her friends and my friends' wives go through it, we've been scared off.
Add to that, the usual HN phenomenon that we're observing how the world and our countries (USA & Korea) seem be going down the toilet, and that makes us feel hesitant to bring a new human being into the world, especially when there are kids already here that could use a loving family.
The world has always been going down the toilet. The only difference now is that we have higher visibility of and lower tolerance for the bullshit. You shouldn’t be so pessimistic.
The other difference now is that we're pretty close to wiping out crucial ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest and show no signs of taking climate change as seriously as we should.
I was downvoted in my other comment, so I think I should explain what I meant.
My point was that there is no “we” when we speak of humanity as a broad aggregate this way. There are specific constituencies—for instance, Bolsenaro and his supporters in Brazil—who are blocking the policies that most of us want to implement to stop climate change. It’s not “we” who are the problem, it’s “them”.
If you blame humanity in the aggregate you misdirect your energies and misidentify the solution.
The thing to do is to apply the appropriate political levers to weaken and oppose the constituencies who prioritize status-quo fossil-fuel energy policies over civilizational stability and the well-being of life on Earth. Blaming all of humanity is the equivalent of giving up and doing nothing, and makes the problem worse.
But still, the word has really been going down the toilet for humans for a long time, famines, wars, plagues, pandemics. It's all been going down the shit shoot for a long time. But then you see a nice sunset, eat a decent meal and feel lucky. If my children get to experience some of those simple pleasures, maybe it's mission accomplished ?
Great comment. Your absolutely right. I'm often personally far too pessimistic about the future (climate change, nuclear annihilation, etc). There is no real benefit to such pessimism.
I agree with you in many ways, but I think humanity has never had this level of capability to destroy the earth. We'll either be unable to breathe freely or lose most of civilization in a nuclear war by the end of the century.
Not to detract, but "one kid" would only make the problem worse because a woman needs to give birth to at least two children in order for population counts at large to maintain parity.
That is, one kid per woman halves the population. If the axiom is at least maintaining, ideally growing the population, every woman needs to give birth to at least two and ideally three or more kids.
Of course, this isn't to say I'm telling other people what to do regarding offspring, because I hate that kind of intrusive attitude. I've already decided I'm having no kids, because fuck the human world; and anyone who comes bitching at me about it one way or another can take a hike and pound sand. So I'm not going to be hypocritical and turn around and tell other people what to do in the bedroom.
But if the purpose for all the noise behind childbearing is to take population count trends out of the negatives, advising "one kid" not only doesn't help solve the problem but actively makes it worse.
Within the wider context of population decline due to low birth rates, both are bad because both lead to population decline anyway. 2 kids is a hard minimum for maintaining population count, 3 or more kids for increasing population.
As for what decafninja (or any individual for that matter) decides upon in the bedroom, that's for him to decide and his business alone. I'm not going to comment because it's none of my business.
Yeah, this is not to be underestimated in the context of Korea and Korean culture.
Thankfully, in our case, our parents don't care, and neither do we.
I'm also an only child, as is my wife, so this means both our branches of our families' genetic bloodlines are effectively ending (albeit the onus for this is on the male side). But again - we don't care.
Counterpoint: our species has very little genetic diversity, we’re all pretty closely related. The odds that there’s there’s something unique or special about any one person’s lineage is pretty low.
It depends on the difference, because genetic differences aren't always beneficial. The Hapsburg Dynasty's Charles II famously had an inherited birth defect due to the heavy inbreeding[1] among the ruling class, for example. It was of no value to anyone.
The true reason for valuing lineages is more about social rank/class protectionism.
The value of that intermarriage was ability to maintain an empire of significant power and influence, as well balance relationships with nearby royals, who were all cousins.
"no value" here is probably in tens, maybe hundreds of trillions of dollars in the present time PPP basis.
I heard the most bizarre & unexpected opinion first-hand from an obgyn. Prior to this I was firmly in the nurture camp of nature/nurture, but this obgyn's opinion on adoptions shocked me out of my complacency.
I am hoping Sapolsky's latest book may shed some light on the subject without the Wade/Murray "bell curve" implications.
Curious as to what you mean. I think you're implying that the personality makeup of the adopted child that comes from his/her biological parents is not to be underestimated? Is that really a questionable or controversial topic though?
The thought has occurred to me. I would describe both my wife and I as being stable mannered and not prone to rash decisions. Odds are a biological child of ours might resemble that personality.
I also acknowledge a child we adopt may have had biological parents with very different personalities than us, and therefore the child may be very different from us in personality.
At the same time, I don't believe that just because the child's biological parents might have been wild and crazy, the child is doomed to the same fate even with our care.
> At the same time, I don't believe that just because the child's biological parents might have been wild and crazy, the child is doomed to the same fate even with our care
Tell me you haven't read many behavioral genetics papers without telling me you haven't read many behavioral genetics papers :).
adoptee turned to hard drugs (opiods) in his teens. the opinion was: what do you expect, the father was an addict too. at the time I was shocked as I was so firmly in the nurture camp.
Addiction, and specifically OUD is complicated, but there is real evidence that genetics plays a sizeable role in the physiological dependence side of it.
However the main risk factor for trying and then abusing opioids, for example, is trauma, typically but not only in childhood. Basically, it’s both nature and nurture, as most things are. Where the percentages lie for both, I don’t think we know yet.
I can only speak from personal experience but that is what happened to my family. My brother is a sociopath who caused our family a lifetime of difficulty. The biological mother was drug addict and abusive before adoption and he became an addict. My sister also adopted from different family was less of a problem but also had some issues. My dad was very kind and not abusive and spent way too much trying to help. Who knows maybe it was environment and early abuse or something but nature stacked the deck I think in my family. The other issue with adoption is limited access to family medical history.
I don’t really understand your argument. Wearing dresses isn’t heritable, we know that because most women’s grandmothers wore dresses and most women wear jeans or casual wear.
Heritability isn’t proof that a trait is genetic, but it’s strong evidence once you start addressing confounding factors. As I recall, the IQ heritability research was done with twin studies.
This is like shocking to me we’re even debating this. I would have assumed it’s conventional wisdom.
Add to that, the usual HN phenomenon that we're observing how the world and our countries (USA & Korea) seem be going down the toilet, and that makes us feel hesitant to bring a new human being into the world, especially when there are kids already here that could use a loving family.