Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by wormpilled 125 days ago
I am simply providing a cold, social darwinist answer to the query. It doesn't bring me pleasure to say it, but I view it as the truth. Life is struggle. Nothing you do will be perfect. None of us were grown in a vat and we are here right now because of that struggle. Finding comfort in an animal that gives you unconditional love is a coping mechanism.
2 comments
toomuchtodo 124 days ago
Kids are the same coping mechanism. After a generation or two, you’ll long be forgotten. Don’t believe me? Tell me something that matters about your great grandparents.

Avoid unnecessary or unwanted struggle, leave those who choose it to it, it is theirs to own and bear.

link
TrnsltLife 123 days ago
My grandparents had my parents. My parents had me. I had my children. Hopefully they will have theirs.

Even if we can't remember, we know they were there. They succeeded in carrying on the species. We can wonder about them and what their lives were like.

"Lo, now, do I see my fathers and my fathers' fathers back to the beginning!"

"I go now to join my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall no longer feel ashamed."

link
toomuchtodo 123 days ago
If you’re happy to pay ~$380k per kid (not including daycare and college) over their 0-18 journey (£250k-£300k in the UK) and whatever it costs to help them survive in adulthood for the experience, help yourself. That’s certainly a choice. The future will not be as welcoming and prosperous as the past.
link
fabifabulous 123 days ago
Only childless people will bring forward such a calculation of costs. And this shows that it‘s a great thing they remain childless.
link
cursuve 125 days ago
This is so logically full of holes I don't even know where to start...

Having children is hard. Life is hard. Avoiding having children is shirking your duty to have a hard life. Dogs shouldn't make you happy because that is coping with life's hardships. Having children, which is hard, is the path one should take to wantonly endure hardship. If you choose not to, you are pathetic...

What if I didn't have a dog or cat, and still chose not to have children? Still pathetic? What if I had children, and hated every minute of it, but fulfilled my duty to endure the hardship... AND still had a dog I love? What if I really really enjoy lemonade - should I avoid that because it brings me joy, but life is inherently supposed to be hard, therefore I am coping and pathetic?

This is such a mind-boggling judgmental stance on what life is and should be and what others should do with their agency over their own lives.

As I said to the wantonly miserable OP who started this bizarre comment thread - godspeed to you! I'd wish you a nice life, but I don't want to go against your philosophy that one should invite hardship into one's life, so... Have a miserable life?

link
wormpilled 125 days ago
>on what life is

Life is procreation, to which you are encouraging failure in it's goal. I don't care what you do, I'm just sharing hard to swallow pills.

link
archagon 125 days ago
The things we say, do, and create have far more of a chance of affecting future generations than our progeny.
link