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Notes -
Let’s assume you’re a car mechanic. You love your job, even though it is dirty, hot and physically straining. You go through a bookshop, and stumble over one book in particular: “Why being a car mechanic is great”. It explains the importance of the job for society, it talks about the perks, and so on. You look up the guy who wrote it and yep, he runs a car shop. You buy the book and recommend it to many of your friends, maybe even some teens who might consider the path.
Fast forward, the writer is on some talkshow. Somebody asks him how he handles all the grease. He reacts, uh no, of course he doesn’t get greasy, that’s his staff. He just really likes talking with customers. Maybe he does one car once in a while, if the work isn’t too hard and the car is really nice.
I can’t help but think this after reading Scott’s latest book review of “Selfish reasons to have more kids”. No, we don’t have nannies and housekeepers. In fact, almost nobody we know has them. Some have a cleaning lady coming … once per week, for an hour or so. Tbh, this significantly lowered my opinion of both Scott and Caplan. If you want a vision of a more fertile, sustainable future for the general population, it should not involve having your own personal staff. Two hours is nothing.
And I find this especially frustrating since I think it’s really not necessary; Yes having small kids is really exhausting - after putting the kids to bed around 8-9, my personal routine is to clean the house for two hours until 10-11 every day, and then directly go to bed with maybe an audiobook on (but often I’m too tired for even that, and enjoy falling to sleep directly) - but it’s doable, and the older the kids are, the less work they are, at least in terms of man-hours. The worst is usually over after around 3 yo. And the time before that in the afternoon can be a lot of fun.
At least for me, one of the biggest draws of kids is that it’s, to use poetic terms, “a glimpse of the infinite” that is available for everyone. Everyone wants to leave something behind, political activism is sold on making a change, careers are sold on becoming a (girl-)boss managing others. Yet, the perceptive (or, less charitably, those capable of basic arithmetic) will notice that only a tiny sliver of the population can ever cause the kind of innovation that really changes culture, or who can come into positions of substantial power over others.
Kids, however, everyone can have them. And they really are their own little person (especially my stubborn little bastards). And they will have kids as well, who will also carry forward some part of yourself. I’m not just talking genetics here, though that is a large part, the same will go for how you raise them. Unless you leave that to the nannies, I guess, but that’s your own fault.
I wouldn’t have written this since it’s mostly venting tbh, but I’ve seen some here mentioning wanting to discuss it, so I thought may as well start. What do you think?
Thanks for linking the article, it was largely a good review of a book I'd otherwise not have read anyways.
While Scott is a bit out of touch here, I can't say it really affects my opinion of him all that much. While most folks don't have nannies, many definitely do, and I think you'll find that most people with nannies are upper quartile income but not necessarily swimming in money. I'm close with someone who nannied all through her master's program, and so far as I've heard, nannying mostly selects for dual income families that value their free time more than savings and early retirement (same folks also seem to go on multiple vacations a year, sometimes with kids, sometimes without).
As far as commonality, it seems to be about 1 in 8 households with under 3's in California: https://cscce.berkeley.edu/publications/report/parent-preferences-in-family-friend-neighbor-and-nanny-care/
I'd imagine the rates are lower elsewhere in the US.
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Just a heads up, there's a new thread. You should post over there ;D
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If you're asking about the legacy of having children, then it seems like
is hopelessly diluted somewhere after your grandchildren. How many people today remember seeing their great-grandfather, or at least hearing anecdotes and stories about him from their parents and grandparents that stuck? As for genetics, even if we assume that each person's genetic code is one of a kind and unique, that's only half of what makes you unique in your son, 1/4th in your grandson, 1/8th in your great-grandson and so on, on average. As it stands, the parts of the genome that make your great-grandson like you are entirely indistinguishable from the same parts that millions others have.
Compare that with numerous small things that someone with an audience of 10 to 100 said or made at some point of your life that you still remember. Those are people who had more impact on your life than your genetic progenitor.
If objective, lasting legacy is the goal, I find having children to be one of the least efficient ways to do it, for a commoner. As for biological drives, those are equally satisfied whether you hire a nanny or not.
Having 4 people with 1/4 of your genome is objectively better than just being one person because of the risk dilution (Nevermind that I don't plan to have so few grandkids).
On the second, my experience has been the opposite. A few big actors - often rather general memes than really the particular mouthpieces making the actual statements - are imo the winners on the cultural influence market. By far one of the worst places to invest in unless you're extremely confident.
That's assuming I consider my genome myself in terms of risks. If you could fill a sector of the universe with indestructible inscriptions of your full genome, memories, personality etc., would you consider your life immortalized enough to keel over and die immediately after? I would not.
And sure, the top 100 recommended channels on youtube or tiktok dominate most of memespace of most people, but not all of it.
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Same as you: https://www.themotte.org/post/1913/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/327871?context=8#context
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