[pixl97]

>which is the central thesis here

No, not exactly. We're dealing with a historical confluence of long term changes in humanity. Before 1900 or so and some people had a lot of kids survive and others had a lot of kids die. The population rate increased very slowly, and not from a lack of trying. Then around the time I stated people figured out germs were real, chlorine in water was good, and washing ones hands was a swell idea. The population exploded.

Then you couple this with the technological revolution and the necessity of training huge amounts of the population for specialists jobs if they want to make a living and suddenly a boat load of kids doesn't make any sense at all. And it's getting to the point of the squeeze that having any kids doesn't make a lot of sense for a lot of people.

[inigyou]

There is no meaning of life if you don't have kids. Childless people realize this when they're around 50 and it's too late to have kids.

[amanaplanacanal]

As has been pointed out by philosophers for a long time, there is no inherent meaning, beside what you yourself create. For some people, children. For others, art of some sort, or building a business that creates value. For some, pure hedonism, or building relationships and helping the people around them.

I'm way older than 50, and don't miss having kids at all.

[bethekidyouwant]

80% of women still have kids. They just only have one kid now.

[antonyt]

My impression is that voluntarily child-free people have a very low regret rate, but there are dozens of conflicting studies on this. Interested if you have anything concrete to link to.

[pixl97]

>There is no meaning of life

Don't half ass it, brace the full absurdity of the universe.

The only purpose why we are here is to take entropy from an ordered state to one of maximum disorder.