site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27983 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm going to take a general sentiment in a previous thread somewhat further.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that having kids is the biggest and most successful disinformation campaign society has pulled on itself in all of history. Having kids is one of the worst things you can do to your short term happiness, up there with getting addicted to heroin or getting in a motorcycle accident. Whatever things you might have enjoyed in life before them is completely gone, for the rest of your life. Every waking moment of your life outside of work will be completely occupied by taking care of monstrous creatures that make every single bodily function besides breathing as difficult as humanly possible. Eating, sleeping, farting, shitting, drinking, etc. will each be a torturous ordeal that you will have to deal with multiple times per day. It's backbreaking, thankless, and absolutely positively unfulfilling. After having kids you will finally understand the men who work 18 hour days every day despite having kids. They're actually doing it because of the kids. Because work obligations are the only excuse they can give themselves to let them spend less time dealing with kids and instead doing something relaxing like writing TPS reports or updating excel spreadsheets. Getting into the office and getting a stack of work from your boss is sweet relief compared to the torture of taking care of the kids.

I'm pretty sure the lie around it has persisted for so long because of the corresponding hard social stigma against saying you absolutely fucking hate taking care of the kids. Anyone who even hints at that idea is going to get completely crucified in the comments section. It's like the Havel's greengrocer, where if he doesn't put up the sign with the approved message, he's going to get hauled off to the gulag. Except for parents the punishment will be worse.

Anyways I find it likely that the cratering of birthrates across the entire world is a mass viral sensation where the lie is breaking down. Likely fuelled by social media as well as other factors, people are finally realizing en masse (though not openly admitting it yet) that it seriously just sucks. Even the welfare queens and third world brown hordes realize that this is true for them too. And they're understandably picking the hedonism option.

And no I don't hate or dislike kids. Kids are great, as long as they're someone else's, and their parents are around to jump in and take care of it as soon as something goes wrong.

And yet, evolution.

You have only one purpose here on this earth, and it isn't to avoid diapers. It isn't vidya games. It isn't your job. It isn't your hobbies or your religion or your political ideology. It isn't any fake achievements you might get while here. You have only one purpose. You will only ever make two choices that will matter beyond your lifetime, but luckily, you seem to be making the right one. Stay at it, no matter what those pro-natalists say.

The other choice, I assume, is "kill someone or otherwise convince them to not have children"? Affects the gene pool just as well, in the opposite direction.

You're free to take this approach, as long as you understand that this is quite literally dysgenic, and those who think like you will not propagate.

Which, you know, fine and all, but, you know it's a literal dead end. Right?

as long as you understand that this is quite literally dysgenic

Eh. I sort of feel like anyone who doesn't want kids (for reasons unrelated to taking catholic holy orders or living a sanctified single life) is probably genetically and/or morally unfit to have them in the first place, so they're pretty much strictly benefiting society by not propagating their deleterious genetic/cultural adaptations. I know my feelings on the subject are morally wrong because I obediently submit to the catholic church's doctrine re: universal redemption the beauty of children, and evil of eugenics... but knowing intellectually how I should feel isn't the same as actually feeling that way.

I meant this more as a commentary on society in general, rather than as something about me myself. I could choose to have tons of kids for reasons inscrutable to others and not applicable to society at large. Maybe I'm going to have the tons of kids because I believe the muffin man said so and that his orders are absolute.

this is quite literally dysgenic, and those who think like you will not propagate.

It's interesting because memes spread differently than genes. And I have no interest in propagating the ideas noted in OP. In fact I quite enjoy having society exist, so I really hope that the winds will change and more and more people will be duped into having kids, especially those of my race.

More people knowing the truth can be harmful to some people, and duping people can be highly beneficial as well. That's kind of the whole reason why disinformation exists in the first place.

Every waking moment of your life outside of work will be completely occupied by taking care of monstrous creatures that make every single bodily function besides breathing as difficult as humanly possible.

Source for inflammatory claim

PersonTime spent on leisure and sports (hours per non-holiday weekday)
All persons age 15 and over4.56
Parents with no own-household children under age 185.10
Parents with own-household child under age 182.88
Parents with own-household child under age 132.70
Parents with own-household child under age 62.44

Data for employed parents (as opposed to all parents), and for parents with infant children, are not available.

Also the "leisure" time likely counts a significant amount of time spent with the kids, such as walking the kids, which is not explicitly a childcare activity. These dual use activities probably count as leisure but aren't the first choice of activity that the parents would like to engage in. Not 100% sure of the methodology though so maybe I'm wrong.

Whatever things you might have enjoyed in life before them is completely gone, for the rest of your life. Every waking moment of your life outside of work will be completely occupied by taking care of monstrous creatures that make every single bodily function besides breathing as difficult as humanly possible.

? Parents go to parties, they have hobbies, they have lives.

Parents go to parties held by other parents, where hopefully they can shove all the kids into a room and the kids don't cause too much trouble.

Parents have hobbies like: taking the kids fishing, taking the kids hiking, taking the kids for a bike ride, taking the kids to see the game etc.

I think you are maybe trying to say this is a bad thing which makes no sense, yes, actually getting to participate in my hobbies with my kids is tremendously fun.

Spicy AF take, and one that I fully agree with! A lot of parents will say that kids are worth it overall in some metaphysical sense, even while they complain constantly about all the object-level problems kids cause. I've heard a lot of parents claim that you only like kids after they've been born, that your body flips a switch or something and forces you to be happy about them. Maybe this is true for some people, but it kind of sounds like a combination of cope + reciting the only socially acceptable line. What, are people going to say "no, I wish I didn't have kids"? I've pressed a few parents in private and it has sort of seemed like they angle that way, although they'll never explicitly say anything like it since that makes it sounds like they don't love their kids.

Anyways I find it likely that the cratering of birthrates across the entire world is a mass viral sensation where the lie is breaking down.

It's almost certain that the increasing quality of childless life in terms of entertainment is a big contributor. I don't think a lot of people remember how boring everything was even just 20-30 years ago, but now we have an endless stream of high-quality entertainment constantly at our fingertips. With that competition, kids frequently get bumped off the to-do list. A lot of people would like to have them as a "feather in the cap" sort of achievement, but they require an absurd amount of commitment relative to literally anything else that the opportunity costs are just too great.

I've dealt with mild depression for most of my teen and adult life.

Not suicidal. I just have vivid memories of sitting in my highschool parking lot and wondering why the fuck I was here. Contemplating filling up a tank of gas leaving town and driving as far as the car would take me. The only thing that stopped me was the thought of "what the hell would I do when I got far away?" Same old bullshit of course.

Same thing when I started working a job. Just wanting to stay at a bar and pound beers because wtf was the point of anything, and being drunk was slightly fun.

Social situations all felt stupid and fake. Working out to stay in shape seemed like a waste of time, as long as I didn't get too fat my life would be easy enough.

Life with kids just feels different. I've never contemplated leaving. A few days not around the kids and I miss them. Jobs to support them feel easier to go to. Staying in shape so I can live longer and have energy to be around them seems like a no brainer. Social situations that would have been painful without them have a lubricant of talking about the kids, and I find myself happy to build social connections that can help them.

It's not as dramatic as "kids saved my life". But it is as dramatic as "kids gave my life a purpose".

It's not a disinformation campaign. It is literal Darwinism. Societies and cultures that don't promote having kids cease to exist.

I tend to think the whole "drop in birth rate" thing is overblown. It will correct itself in a generation or two, after people who lose the drive to reproduce in modern, information rich environments are removed from the gene pool. This is the strongest selective pressure our species has come under in quite a while. And if all that comes out on the other side is a bunch of Mormons, Muslims, and Haredi Jews, so be it. Natural selection has spoken.

Societies and cultures that don't promote having kids cease to exist.

Not if they are very good at getting other people's kids to join.

Autonomously reproducing cultures susceptible to recruitment will either die out, killing parasitic cultures off with them, or select for adaptations that reduce that susceptibility. The modern information environment has massively increased the virality of low-reproduction high-recruitment subcultures, but they're just intrinsically doomed to either die out or change into something unrecognizable.

Now, I don't particularly fear he mormons, muslims, and haredi jews will take over the world like @wingdingspringking mentioned, but that's because minority groups are adapted to being minority groups, and as they become a larger share of their host societies their adaptations will become less suited for their environment. For example, we're seeing more and more discussion about conscripting ultra-orthodox jews in israel as they become a larger share of the population, and the likely outcomes are that they're either going to start getting conscripted (which will reduce their TFRs) or the israeli army will weaken to the point where israel gets destroyed and their death rates cancel out their birth rates.

Even that still depends on what those other people's kids to do the host society once they're incorporated. Replacing your population with foreign cultures doesn't necessarily mean the same society and culture make it through the other end.

It will correct itself in a generation or two

I highly doubt this will happen automatically, as birthrates were a nonissue basically everywhere 100 years ago, but now they're affecting basically every society. The Amish + Orthodox Jews seem exempt for now, but they're very strange societies that both see a decent chunk of people leaving the farm every generation, and which aren't sustainable plans for entire societies -- a lot of the Orthodox Jewish birthrate is propped up by insane welfare leeching, for instance.

IIRC American Orthodox Jews have some awareness that their gravy train isn't unlimited and are (slowly)adapting to needing to compete in a modern society.

There may be civilizational difficulties down the line as generations of elderly Redditors and the like all turn into childless skeletons forgotten in dusty apartments, but human beings aren't going to go extinct because the members of the last genetically viable colony all look at one another and say "meh not in this housing market." Sooner or later this situation will indeed correct itself.

My greatest regret is not having more kids before finding out that we couldn't.

Pregnancy is a horrible experience, after three pregnancies I still think we basically lie to women about how bad it is.

My SIL just gave birth. For the last two months of the pregnancy she said she never wanted to have another kid after this one. I asked her how she was feeling about that post the kid and she said that basically as soon as the baby was out she was no longer as opposed.

That wasn't my experience with the kid who gave me PPD, there's a reason it took years to have the next one, when a kid literally drains away your ability to feel happiness that doesn't make you want another one. Although the PPD was also a pregnancy thing, because pregnancy is a garbage shit experience. It's possible if we had incubators I wouldn't have even had the hormonal imbalance that turned off my ability to feel happiness.

That said, overall I think you're wildly exaggerating how bad the actual kids are once you've finally expelled them from being literally parasites in your body. The first four months are basically the hardest it gets because they're not really cute yet and (if you're unlucky) they scream all the time and do nothing else worthwhile. But at least you can put them down occasionally instead of having them permanently pressing against your internal organs, which in the first few months is still enough of a relief to keep you going.

After four months they're usually cuter, they can do things like "move in a direction" or "smile", and things improve pretty rapidly from there.

Toddlers are annoying again mostly because you have to potty train them. I think some people also mind the tantrums. I found tantrums, like dirty diapers, to be significantly less annoying on my own kids than on other people's kids and in general this appears to be a common experience, so you can't assume you will find your own kids tantrums as obnoxious as other kids tantrums. Otoh, unlike new babies, toddlers are actually genuinely cute to help you not feel tempted to kill them. They love you very much and find ways to show it like sharing their treats with you. Being loved feels nice.

By the time kids are five years old basically all the things online parents complain about are over. Like your entire litany of complaints about them making life impossible sounds bizarre in the context of a five year old, I can eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, read a book, etc, all completely fine around a five year old. And as they get older they improve further. My nine year old is already a net benefit to the household. She helps with her siblings, we pay her to do small sewing repairs, she offers to make supper for fun, she's an actual entire human being. Yeah we still have conflicts over things and yeah she can still get moody, have tantrums, etc, but basically she's just a nice person to have around.

So yeah the pregnancy is truly awful, way beyond what it's sold as, and the early years are approximately exactly as hard as they're sold as, but it's around 2 years of peak difficulty once you survive the ten months of pregnancy.

I've been able to have an enjoyable career, maintain a workout schedule, have creative hobbies, and go travel to new countries, with three kids. And all this without much in the way of grandparents around, and without having ever found a reliable babysitter, so if you have those it's even easier.

(Yes obviously some of this is because I have a great husband but you too can acquire a good spouse and having kids is a lot nicer when you feel positively about increasing the copies of that person's genes anyway)

Now, to address some of the hyperbole

Whatever things you might have enjoyed in life before them is completely gone, for the rest of your life.

Not only is it not completely gone, to the extent that your amount of time free to do whatever you want is reduced it's certainly not for the rest of your life. Kids eventually leave home.

Every waking moment of your life outside of work will be completely occupied by taking care of monstrous creatures that make every single bodily function besides breathing as difficult as humanly possible. Eating, sleeping, farting, shitting, drinking, etc. will each be a torturous ordeal that you will have to deal with multiple times per day.

No? None of these things are as difficult as humanly possible with kids.

It's backbreaking, thankless, and absolutely positively unfulfilling.

Backbreaking — no, they start out very light and you get stronger as you lift them

Thankless — no. From a very young age kids try to reciprocate, my baby would try to feed me back at six months or so. By the time they're writing they'll start making cards to you that they love you. I am not a person super comfortable with receiving thanks so I appreciate them less than others might I guess but my kids give me cards covered in hearts telling me thank you multiple times a year. And that's formalized thanks, they'll also just randomly hug me and say thanks pretty frequently.

Unfulfilling - listen, I personally am very low on the bell curve of how fulfilling I find kids, a combination of being naturally quite selfish and a little bit emotionally stunted. But I wouldn't call them unfulfilling either. I consider something to be unfulfilling if it feels totally pointless. Keeping another human being alive and happy isn't really able to be unfulfilling.

After having kids you will finally understand the men who work 18 hour days every day despite having kids. They're actually doing it because of the kids. Because work obligations are the only excuse they can give themselves to let them spend less time dealing with kids and instead doing something relaxing like writing TPS reports or updating excel spreadsheets. Getting into the office and getting a stack of work from your boss is sweet relief compared to the torture of taking care of the kids.

There's a grain of truth here. I would hate to be a SAHM. I really don't enjoy childcare in more than small doses. So going into work is a nice change of pace. But I wouldn't describe taking care of kids as torture, it's just something I don't like too high a dose of.

I'm pretty sure the lie around it has persisted for so long because of the corresponding hard social stigma against saying you absolutely fucking hate taking care of the kids. Anyone who even hints at that idea is going to get completely crucified in the comments section. It's like the Havel's greengrocer, where if he doesn't put up the sign with the approved message, he's going to get hauled off to the gulag. Except for parents the punishment will be worse.

The internet is anonymous. There's subreddits for parents who regret having kids. I've read them, and I don't get at all the sense it's nearly as widespread as you're trying to suggest.

I do think wanting a break can be very common though. It's definitely a common complaint that parents don't get sick days. Doesn't matter how crappy you're feeling, you still gotta do the basic parenting tasks. So yeah that aspect sucks. But from there to "every moment of the rest of your life is torture" is a huge leap.

Pregnancy and early baby time is also really high-variance. My wife didn't mind the first one that much, until at around month 7 she suddenly couldn't lie down anymore without a massive heartburn. It got a bit better once she found an elevated positioning that was just the right mix of less heartburn while still being somewhat comfortable. The last three months were still kind of awful, and the birth was the crowning achievement, 24 hours of pain and screaming without any sleep, and at the end she was so tired that the nurses almost started a cesarian. Then the first few days the nurses tortured us by waking us up every 2 hours sharp (independent of the babies actual sleeping pattern, of course) to make absolutely sure the baby drinks enough, despite even the doctor visiting us saying that it's fine if the baby drinks irregularly early on, as long as they start drinking more, get enough overall and she looked healthy anyway. Chadette nurses don't give a fuck about virgin doctor advice, though, and carried on. After the third day we were let go, and finally got some okayish sleep for the first time.

Some others friends even apparently mostly enjoy pregnancy, while others were suffering from day one, with pain and throwing up. Birth is universally awful, though. But after the first it's at least usually relatively quickly over.

Sleep is also really variable; Our first was mostly sleeping through the night except for a single milk (which we didn't mind at all) from around 1 until 3, and then completely slept through. Among other friends, we know babies that sleep through the night with like 4 months (really jealous), and toddlers that still wake up every two hours with 3. Our second also certainly sleeps worse than the first. The pregnancy and even the birth were much better, though.

Then there are kids like me. Early birth, low weight. Barely drank anything. According to my parents, I loudly screamed through large parts of the night, and regularly during the day, up until one. My parents don't say it, but I suspect that might be one reason I'm an only child. And we still don't know why, I have no lasting condition and there was no family history. Just random.

Of course, this makes it no less scary for first time parents; You really don't know which way the dice will roll.

the birth was the crowning achievement

I see what you did there

On hospitals not letting exhausted new mothers sleep when baby is sleeping: I set myself up at the door to the room and refused entry for anything not critical, and it turned out there was nothing critical. Doctors making rounds, nurses taking vitals, all that can be deferred.

Then the first few days the nurses tortured us by waking us up every 2 hours sharp (independent of the babies actual sleeping pattern, of course) to make absolutely sure the baby drinks enough

I had something quite similar. I got about 5 hours of sleep over the course of 96 hours in the hospital because the hospital had precisely zero respect for any need on my part to sleep. So yes I definitely skipped over the -1 to +3 days of the baby's life but they are a peak of badness relative to the entire rest of the experience. Not really the baby's fault though that's definitely an "adults caused this suffering needlessly" situation.

(This was the first birth. Subsequent births were at other hospitals and I got more sleep)

Anyways I find it likely that the cratering of birthrates across the entire world is a mass viral sensation where the lie is breaking down.

Obvious next step is mass suicide, we'll see if we get there. Why live at all?

Isn't vidya, fast food, and pr0n good enough reason for anyone to keep living?

Fully agreed. If I was an animal in the wild then it very well may be true that life would be consistently painful enough that suicide was the better choice in the long term. Maybe this could even be extended to medieval peasants and early factory workers. But today? Modern life has so many conveniences and entertainment options that we're all functionally living in a cornucopia. I do 5-10 hours of real work per week to maintain a solidly middle class lifestyle, then spend the remainder of my time doing whatever I want.

Additional factors, speaking personally:

  • All the pronatal propaganda is making it clear that being a father is extra hard if you're not in your early twenties, so I'm already at only the second best age to become one;

  • Even the top countries are getting doompilly about AI-related lack of opportunity and meaning in society in a decade or two, and my country is likely to be behind on AI and so get the worst of both worlds, just like it's the worst of both worlds between liberalism and tradness at the moment.

  • As others mentioned, unless you already live in a world where you get a mandatory wife at 18, you can't have children unless you have a female partner amicable to it. At the moment, I don't have one at all, and dating in modernity as someone who doesn't already have big in-person social circles has already been discussed to death.

  • My job would allow plenty of time for children, but not if I want to support my wife and get an apartment that will fit us. And it appears to be an absolutely miserable time to switch jobs right now, since, again, total industry upheaval. I'm only comfortable right now because we have legacy code and non-yuppie upper management.

All the pronatal propaganda is making it clear that being a father is extra hard if you're not in your early twenties, so I'm already at only the second best age to become one

Na, especially as the dad, you just shouldn't be very old, i.e. in retirement when they are in high school. Especially since, despite all the talk, many women really want to be the primary carers for the kids anyway. For that reason and simply due to fertility issues the situation for women is different, but even for them plenty of pronatalists actually consider late twenties the best time.

I think the social expectations surrounding childrearing has more to do with it than the breakdown of any longstanding disinformation campaign. Until basically now, families had 4+ kids, and the oldest would start taking care of the younger ones from age 6 or so (this was my grandmother's responsibility and lived experience, as my great grandmother died in childbirth of the youngest sibling). If you lived on a farm, you'd be pitching in with chores from the time you could walk, and you were much-needed labor. Get out of line? Get the belt. And so on. This was a hard living, but it built children into little adults rather than the coddled tyrants that you describe.

Fast forward to today, and it's no wonder than parenthood is so all-encompassingly exhausting. The "gentle parenting" trend has made children the rulers of the domain and the adults their indentured servants. And parents do it to each other, constantly trying to one-up their peers with lavish birthday parties, 5-figure caches of toys in dedicated playrooms, chauffeur services to endless activities, and general capitulation to absolutely anything Little Johnny and Janie could ever demand. Get out of line? Uhh, "don't do that, I guess?".

The pendulum will swing back, because as a parent currently trying to wage this war, I can confidently say that it is not a sustainable state of affairs.

5-figure caches of toys in dedicated playrooms,

I don't think toys are usually a matter of interparent competition. It's more because toys are an easy way to spend money to pacify the kids. It's going to the store and buying a few minutes of peace, one toy at a time, and without the guilt of handing the kid a phone with tiktok on it.

My wife and I have been wanting to do a toy culling for months and just have never found the time.

At least in our social circle I think the high status flex would be an uncluttered playroom with low tech toys.

I just want to add that the situation many newly married couples find themselves in nowadays, namely that they have nobody else in the practical sense assisting them with childcare, that this is a task the two of them need to manage on their own, day after day, is historically abnormal and definitely not sustainable as a social norm. It has not been the usual case in any society or any age in the past.

I've had these points on my mind for a while now, but I guess now is a good time to write about it.

Imo there are two broad issues in modern culture closely related to this. Actually more, but these two are quite fundamental and thus especially hard to fix.

First the issue of what happiness even is. Modern culture is very fuzzy on it, and as such, has a tendency to default to the easiest-to-achieve, lowest common denominator: Fun and the avoidance of pain. Fun is being on a roller coaster. Fun is sitting on the couch watching Netflix. Fun is anything that doesn't challenge and doesn't create anything but keeps your mind occupied, even excited. I don't think I need to explain what the avoidance of pain is; But intrinsically it's a negative, and you can't built up a functioning society from a negative. Neither of these are wrong per se, they're just not sufficient for "the good life", they feel empty on their own. There are probably even more that I'm not aware of, but two major kinds of happiness are imo necessary to really feel good about yourself: Flow and Satisfaction.

Flow is about being challenged, and rising to the challenge. It's the state of mind when you have sufficiently trained something, say, Tennis, and play against a roughly equally skilled opponent. You may eventually lose, or you may win, the game itself might be mostly pointless (or might not), but the important part is this fundamental knowledge: You really feel deep in your bones you are good at this. The thing itself absolutely needs to a have some appropriate level of difficulty, or else you can't feel the flow.

Satisfaction is when you (either alone or in a group; sometimes even not you yourself but someone very closely related to you) have created something lasting, look back on it and, to quote a well known book: And He saw that it was good. It's having build a house, or planted a tree.

Sexuality gives a nice example of all three: Masturbation is fun; Seduction and sex is flow; Being in a relationship and having kids is satisfaction.

The good life, in my opinion, consists of waking up and immediately being satisfied about everything you see around; Then you do your job and naturally, automatically feel the flow, until you're finished and feel satisfaction again about a job well done. Tired, you indulge yourself with a little bit of fun in the afternoon and do some chores, and then fall asleep, satisfied about a good day and, again, everything you see around you. You can see what the relative priorities in my view are based on how much time is spent on each.

It's easy to see how hunter-gatherer societies effortlessly do this without even being aware: You wake up in a hut/tent which you necessarily must have crafted yourself or someone close to you, and the same goes for literally every piece of furniture and equipment present in it. You go hunting and feel the flow. Ideally, you successfully bring back game satisfied, cook it, enjoy it, and finally fall asleep. Very simplified, I know, but you get the gist. I'm also not claiming that life was necessarily great back then, since fear, despair and death were constant companions. But these positives were downright unavoidable if you did survive.

In modern life, we have successfully conquered those negatives. But on the positive side, everything tends to be the wrong way around: Nothing I have around me I have built myself; It's all just bought. Some work at least involves flow, but since flow requires difficulty it also implies things can go wrong with some regularity. More efficient is when nothing can really go wrong. Having successfully optimized everything, a lot of modern work is largely flow-less, rubber-stamping documents, endless meetings with decisions by committee, or supervising a machine that makes every product exactly the same in a way no human ever could.

But fun, oh fun! Fun is overflowing. Many people who nominally work full-time actually mostly indulge their fun for most of it. Plenty of people just flat-out do not work and you can guess what they do for most of the day. You absolutely can go through an entire modern life without ever really creating anything at all nor being meaningfully challenged.

The second is on the nature of close, especially romantic, relationships. The primary modern narrative is one of matching: You find people who share your views, preferences and inclinations, so any time spent together is automatically fun. People who don't match with you should be avoided. Reddit liberalism is the purest form; Any conflict results in a recommendation of "just break up and find a better match". Worst, in a certain sense, are not only the endless options, but the appeal to identify with those options. You don't enjoy gaming among other things, you're a gamer. You don't just like meat-less cuisine, you're a vegan. Remember the toaster-fucker problem.

The reality, in my view, certainly includes matching, but also involves skill and work, and most of all, adaption and the change of self, letting go of yourself. A lot, in fact. Again, harkening back to hunter-gatherers makes this painfully obvious: The choices in your tribe, maybe also a few other friendly tribes around you, are very limited. Childhood friendships will likely last for life, and should be invested in and adapted to appropriately. You may actually get the girl that suits you the most, but there will still be some points of conflict. Fortunately, options for views and preferences are rather limited to begin with as well, reducing some tensions. But you will have to change the person you are for her, and she for you. And when it comes to kids, you probably already get forced to look after those of other people anyway (and yes, also do the bad parts), so having your own adds not too much extra work.

As an only-child, I've grown up with literally nobody helping me how to manage a close relationship, let alone get a girl in the first place. Or at least putting me in my place, telling me to get better and put in the work. I've spent a large part of my teenage years resenting the fact that I'm supposed to be the active suitor, as opposed to be pursued. Aren't we in a feminist society? If a girl wants me, she can hit on me the same way I can hit on her! Certainly, at least, she should put in the same amount of work during dating! And anyway, no girls have the same interests as me, so why should I even attempt dating them? A few same-age boys and girls correctly told me I'm stupid, but the culture overall indulged me instead. Mostly through indifference, but I even got some approving nods from some older woman who said my attitude was mature and society will move that way eventually, you just have to find the perfect person for yourself!

And for friendships and relationships it even kind of works for enough people. We do meet so many people that it's true we can get much better matches than in the past. And already as kids we regularly get told friendships don't matter, we can always find new ones. So a lot of the social skills for close relationships (which are different from the social skills for early/superficial friendships - I was always good at those!) either never get developed, or atrophy. Few feel the need to ever put in work, and rather just get a whole new friend instead. If you train a skill, it's the one to cycle through people and find good matches.

Kids now are the perfect storm of everything that you did learn being useless, needing all the skills that you didn't learn and were told are useless, being challenged and requiring work in a way you probably never have been before, and the only reward is something that you might not even be aware you want or like. You don't get to choose your kids, you roll the dice with your partner and that's that (though at least they have some predisposition towards being similar to you; adoption is accordingly actually worse in that sense). All the skills you developed to find new friends and explore how well you match are pointless. Instead you have to do a lot of stuff you would never like and you don't even get paid for it. Months of sleep deprivation, changing diapers and reading toddler books.

I'm also increasingly convinced - courtesy of my wife hammering it all the time - that one of the most important parts of parenthood is teaching your children relationship management techniques from a young age on so that as older siblings they naturally have a good relationship in the first place and effortlessly keep it that way. Stuff like, when one gets a cookie, you always break up some part and give it to the other. Or you just sit there when they fight over a toy, and force them to repeatedly give it to the other back and forth until they have internalised that you don't need to fear that the other will keep it for themselves, so you can give away a toy freely, you'll get it again. And, the only part modern life somewhat teaches you, identifying when the other really needs some space and giving it, and to just play on your own without needing constant feedback. Maybe I'm naive and probably we will run into problems again as they get older, but generally they just do this stuff automatically now, simply get along for the most part and when not they also can just play by themselves for an hour or more, despite still being quite small.

And it's obvious to me that plenty of parents lack a certain introspection that allows them to see how deficient their skills in this respect are, and just try to press their square peg modern adult life intuitions into the round hole of relationship management for kids. They may do some things admirably competently, getting their kids into bed at seven sharp, managing screen time perfectly, juggling a million play-dates, working full-time and regularly getting date-nights with the wife through a babysitter. But it's obvious that they mostly resent the intrusion into the individuality they are used to, they don't really teach their kids (if they even have more than one) how to manage the sibling relationship or any other close one, they maximize their childless time on every occasion and worst of all, the kids feel that and correctly identify it as rejection. At the other end parents go crazy indulging every whim because, again, they have never learned how to manage a close relationship in a reasonable way and are so deathly afraid that their kid might not end up liking them that they rather give up absolutely everything. Sometimes parents manage to combine those two, somehow.

So, what is one to do? The first, and most important is the constant satisfaction you can feel every time you have your kids around you. Especially if you're not used to that you may need to concentrate a bit on it. But it's always present, indescribable, and at least for me far beyond what I feel for anything I have ever created otherwise. The next, often near-unimaginable part is that you can actually enjoy things you don't through empathy. I certainly don't enjoy reading toddler books on my own. But I do enjoy watching my toddler, feeling what he feels, (trying to) think what he thinks, and through that even toddler books become great. For this, you need to let go of your individuality a bit however, which not everyone is willing to do. From there, advanced techniques are possible: Changing diapers can be enjoyable, by concentrating on how the baby feels better afterwards, and on the fact that it is a necessary for your children. Even the sleep can be, as you cuddle with your child and concentrate on how happy it is to be with you, on how happy you are that it exists, and waking up a few times in the night is a small price to pay for that. But again, if you do that you are literally re-modelling your entire mental structure and let go of the person you used to be to the degree that "dead" becomes an apt description for that person. As you see, even happiness itself can be a skill issue.

On the other side, the same way you need to teach your kids how to get and give space from and to each other, you need to set boundaries to not go crazy and lose your individuality entirely. Changing diapers is necessary; Making the third dinner because they suddenly say they don't want the first two dinner options you made is not. If they're hungry, they'll eat. You probably screwed up earlier by letting them snack too much and indulging them too often before, otherwise they wouldn't even get the idea that making a third dinner is a possibility. That behaviour is not even good for them, let alone for you.

Again, since you haven't been taught how to properly give up a part of your individuality in the first place, that means you also haven't been taught how stop at some point. I'd echo some other posters here that now with kids, I look back on my pre-parenthood self with cringe; I only really have become an adult after becoming a parent.

Also, not to mention, kids are also lots of fun as well. They just do so much random shit you don't expect, you can't help but feel good. But the fun really isn't the reason why you should have them.

This got quite long, and probably a bit meandering. The TL;DR is, I guess: Children are everything modern life isn't, and hence, it anti-prepares you for it. This is what I mean with "it's cultural"; Even if we gave everyone huge stacks of money for having kids, I'm unsure how much it will change for the better. Ultimately, those that really want them will get them anyway, and for those that don't, I'm not sure it's an improvement if they do. And in our world, the future belongs to those who show up, so evolution will sort it out longterm anyway. We'll just have to muddle through, and maybe try to teach our kids those skills so that they have an easier time.

Nothing I have around me I have built myself; It's all just bought.

Satisfaction is when you (either alone or in a group; sometimes even not you yourself but someone very closely related to you) have created something lasting, look back on it and, to quote a well known book: And He saw that it was good. It's having build a house, or planted a tree.

Disagree here on 2 points.

First, a lot of people (myself as an example) really DGAF that they buy most of the things they own. I might get a sense of accomplishment from building something, but it's more from the skill expression of having done it (and the convenience it will bring me, but that's a different discussion) than the fact that "I" made "the thing".

Second, you're overestimating how much our ancestors made themselves. Barter amongst the tribe was a constant occurrence, and there was even a decent amount of trade between tribes although that was less important on a day-to-day basis. "As long as there have been humans, there has been trade" is as close to a universal as you can get. It would be weird for a species that got a lot of satisfaction from making things themselves to have a big emphasis on specialization even in the archeological record.

Our views might not be in as much tension as you think.

First, satisfaction is a positive feeling in my framework, so having many things you didn't build doesn't feel bad. I also don't suffer due buying almost everything per se. What matters is that you have enough things to feel satisfied about, ideally regularly in your direct environment. And also, there are many ways how you can feel satisfaction. For me, it's definitely my kids. And it's also my wife, or more specifically, the relationship with her; We've had our up and downs (still do) and it was hard work to keep it together at times. But we've adapted to each other so much that the entire idea of ever breaking up seems utterly silly, and we've found a way of being that makes us both happy. I also have academic degrees, especially my doctoral thesis, but honestly it all didn't quite turn out the way I wanted, and I'm not sure how satisfied I am with it. Some of the papers I was involved in or even main author are nice, though, and I certainly feel satisfaction when reading them again - but I have to make a conscious decision to do it, it's not automatically present daily the way my kids are.

On the second, I explicitly mentioned that satisfaction can even be felt for people close to you, not just only yourself (which is part of the reason why I call it satisfaction as opposed to pride). I used to be the kind of disagreeable materialist atheist who made fun of the idea of feeling pride for the accomplishments of one's ancestor or vice-versa one's kids. After having children myself however I get it at least partially: Not quite pride, but I do feel a deep satisfaction every time my kids accomplish something. And I can then at least imagine how someone in the past might feel the same about his, say, close-knit warband. It's not implausible to me that with all the hard challenges one might have gone through with them, such feelings might include a large part of the fellow tribesmen, maybe even the tribe as a whole. Of course, even if you're very self-focused and the, say, bow-maker of your tribe, you can still feel a lot of satisfaction every time you see someone else with your own handiwork, which you do constantly, every day.

Great response, captures the feeling I had but didn't want to write.

I pretty much agree, but that’s why every culture needs a level of default pronatal propaganda. You need even more pronatal propaganda today than in the 19th century, which already had a ton, because of screens and extracurriculars, as parents have more opportunity for entertainment and kids require more time doing extra-curriculars. Propaganda just means selectively drawing your attention to the pleasant aspects of some activity versus another. To joyfully endure dealing with the bad aspects of having kids, you need to be reminded of the good aspects all the time. Moments of innocent joy when they do something new, witnessing human nature, being able to give your kid talents and skills like he’s a brand new account on an RPG, feeling proud that you’ve completed your duty, believing you are making the world a better place. Intrinsic joys + socially-mediated joys. Now it’s more pleasant in total, so you will do it.

Another thing is that parents need to know how punishment works. As long as the behavior is followed immediately by something unpleasant, you never need to yell or get stressed or anything, but the punishment needs to be more unpleasant than the misdeed is pleasant, which parents get wrong. If he throws something at his brother, that’s really fun, so he will keep doing that even after you yell and give a 10min time out, because if’s worth it. And instead of saying “because you have to” or “because I told you so”, you need to invent frightening stories about monsters and curses and other bad consequences, as every culture in history did. This is essential so that your kid doesn’t see you as a tyrant, instead he sees you as a guide and rescuer in a life filled with monsters.

Having kids is one of the worst things you can do to your short term happiness, up there with getting addicted to heroin or getting in a motorcycle accident.

I believe that for a many values of "short" in "short term happiness", heroin would help.

I invert your argument: my contention is that children are the opposite of heroin, you're trading short term comfort for long-term satisfaction.

Your analysis fails because it assumes that the purpose of a human life is to remain in a state of homeostatic bliss until you flatline. It assumes that "happiness" is defined solely by the absence of friction. If the goal of life were simply to minimize suffering and maximize relaxation we should all just hook ourselves up to morphine drips and gently pass away in a warm bath.

This is the philosophy of the last man. It is the worldview of a creature that has mistaken the safety of the zoo for the purpose of existence.

I have many reasons for wanting children. But the one that's the most stark, and relatively recent, is watching the elderly die.

It's rarely fun, dying. Especially of old age and the baggage train it brings with it. But the ones who die least painfully are those with children and grandchildren to mourn them, and remember them long after they're gone. I've seen many people die bitter and unloved, looked after by attendants paid minimum wage and providing minimal care. It's not like having children guarantees comfort in your last days, god knows that quite a few people have few qualms about sending granny to rot in a care home, and many more do have qualms but are forced by circumstance.

Still, I know which option I'd prefer. I have the fortune to not be a hypocrite: my grandfather isn't quite on his death bed, but in his late 90s, the difference is marginal. It's probably the bed he's going to die on, assuming we don't need to change the wheels after our dog gnawed on it. He's not going for a jog or getting the mattress changed. But he's at home, surrounded by family, and loved. All endings are sad endings, but I expect his will be less sad than most. Good luck getting any of that without a family in the first place.

The childless elderly don't just face worse deaths. They face worse lives in the decades leading up to death. Your 70s and 80s, if you're lucky enough to be healthy, are not years of adventure and self-actualization. They are years of watching your friends die, your body deteriorate, and your cultural relevance evaporate. The things that gave your life meaning when you were 30 or 40 or even 60 have largely evaporated. Your career is over. Your relationship with your spouse, if you still have one, has likely settled into comfortable routine or quiet resentment. Your hobbies persist but with diminished intensity.

What doesn't evaporate is family. Your children are still there. Your grandchildren are growing up. You have people who need you, not in the desperate dependency of infancy, but in the gentler ways that adult children need their parents. Advice, support, connection to the past, a sense of continuity. You have a reason to get up in the morning that isn't just "I haven't died yet."

You seem to think that the choice is between a life of relaxation and fulfillment versus a life of drudgery and misery. But this badly misunderstands the actual choice on offer. The choice is between a life arc that resembles an inverted parabola versus one that resembles a cliff.

With children: your 20s and 30s are hard. You're building a career, raising kids, sleeping four hours a night, and wondering if you'll ever feel like a human being again. Your 40s get easier as the kids become more independent. Your 50s and 60s are potentially quite good. You have grandchildren but without the grinding responsibility of primary care. You have adult children who are friends and companions. You have purpose and connection. Your 70s and 80s, while inevitably diminished by age, are softened by family.

Without children: your 20s and 30s are great. You have freedom, money, time. You can travel, pursue hobbies, sleep in on weekends. Your 40s and 50s continue this trend, perhaps with even more money and stability. And then somewhere in your 60s or 70s, you drive off a cliff. Everyone you know starts dying or moving away or becoming too old to do things with. You have no natural support system. You have no one whose life you're intrinsically woven into. You have resources but nothing to use them for. You have time but no one to spend it with.

Yes, parents complain about parenting. They make jokes about needing wine. They talk about how hard it is. But they also, when you actually ask them, report that their children are the most important and meaningful parts of their lives. They have more children. They encourage their own children to have children. They don't act like people who made a terrible mistake and are trying to trap others into the same fate.

The simpler explanation is that parenting is both genuinely hard and genuinely meaningful. That it involves real sacrifices and real rewards. That the rewards are not the same kind as a good night's sleep or an uninterrupted brunch, but they're rewards nonetheless.

I am curious how you evaluate these life trajectories from the perspective of AI timelines.

I know you're pretty bullish on AI; even if you don't subscribe to short 5-10 year timelines, it would seem to me that if you believe in transformational AI, there would be a very high probability you would see some sort of strong AI by the time you are 60 or 70.

It would seem to me, then, that the optimal strategy is to front-load your life trajectory by not having children early. If AI goes poorly, then at least you managed to enjoy your 20s and perhaps your 30s without having to deal with the suffering of your children, while if it goes well it's unlikely that your age would be a barrier to having children, and indeed it would be much easier to raise children in such a world.

I believe that the average life (including mine) is good, and that it is better to live a short life rather than not be born at all. If my life had been much the same, except I was killed at the age of 5 by a coconut falling on my head, I'd still have been grateful to have been born. I extent the same to my kids.

AGI never happens? Kids will probably be fine.

AGI creates a post-scarcity utopia? They're definitely fine.

AGI kill us all? It'll probably be quick. And if that doesn't seem to be the case (the biosphere slowly dying without an active effort to kill humans), then at least my medical background means I can make it quick. No need to suffocate, or starve or...

Besides. I want kids, and I'd rather not wait till 60 in a delayed AGI scenario. They're kinda nice, and would satisfy me even if I could get away with having them later.

I agree, this is largely my thinking. Death by AGI is likely to be quick, whether it’s by killbots or disease. The really bad stuff (like some kind of bioengineered torture plague terrorism or evil AI) are very bad but I’m not sure they’re worse or more likely that the worst ‘present day’ ways to die.

An interesting argument. I wonder if I've been overly influenced by propaganda about the resentment millennials feel towards their boomer parents. Of course I know it's likely not true in the general case but there's definitely a narrative of millennials feeling like they're the victims.

But also, I don't think having children as an investment in a future support structure during is truly a compelling argument. Firstly, most of human society throughout history has existed where the truly elderly would not survive. Of course average lifespans tell a misleading story due to infant mortality, but if someone was truly bedridden they would not survive long. Modern society finds people in their 60s fit to continue working, and it's likely that the ancients felt the same, until the elderly rapidly dropped dead.

But the other wrinkle is of course that rationally, sinking so much into a dubious investment that will only pay off in 50+ years in the best case, where the state of the world after that time could be completely different, does not make much sense.

They don't act like people who made a terrible mistake and are trying to trap others into the same fate.

The simpler explanation is that parenting is both genuinely hard and genuinely meaningful. That it involves real sacrifices and real rewards. That the rewards are not the same kind as a good night's sleep or an uninterrupted brunch, but they're rewards nonetheless.

Of course this is the real reason. But the question is whether or not it's truly true, versus a deception.

But the other wrinkle is of course that rationally, sinking so much into a dubious investment that will only pay off in 50+ years in the best case, where the state of the world after that time could be completely different, does not make much sense.

Speaking only for myself, I am very concerned that the social safety nets we have for the elderly now (which I do not view as an adequate replacement for friends and family, in terms of happiness, but are decent enough at prolonging life) will be in much worse shape in 40 years. From my perspective, having kids is the most sure way to ensure some decent and adequate standard of care in my twilight years.

From my perspective, having kids is the most sure way to ensure some decent and adequate standard of care in my twilight years.

Might want to ask King Lear about that one.

I did say that this was just one of many arguments for pro-natalism, but others have done a good job of advocating for them, and I won't rehash them.

I do not mean to claim that children are necessarily the most sound financial instrument you can invest in to ensure a comfortable retirement. That's probably not true today, at least, you'd probably get a higher yield from investing in the stock market instead of child care and education for your kids.

For what that's worth, that was unlikely to have been the case in the past. Passive investing with returns good enough to retire on, at low risk is a phenomenon that is maybe a few hundred years old, and only decades in certain parts of the world. For the average peasant (and most of your ancestors, and mine, were average peasants), children represented the most secure investment they could make. Both in the distant future, and in the medium term, your field could always use another farmhand. It's no accident that widespread automation of physical labor coincided with a drastic decline in fecundity.

Of course average lifespans tell a misleading story due to infant mortality, but if someone was truly bedridden they would not survive long. Modern society finds people in their 60s fit to continue working, and it's likely that the ancients felt the same, until the elderly rapidly dropped dead.

That's going too far in the other direction. Family is immensely useful to have around when you're sick in many cases. A bad flu, or a broken leg, for common examples. Children are family you make, and if you're looking after ailing parents or siblings, well, they're children someone else related to you made.

Even today, even if you're wealthy while you're old and infirm, there are few people you can trust more than your own children. I've seen bad actors and elder abuse, but they're clearly in the minority. Most kids genuinely hold affection for their parents and act as good guardians when the familial contract flips around.

Of course this is the real reason. But the question is whether or not it's truly true, versus a deception.

It's true for the majority of people, the majority of the time. Parents sacrifice a lot for their children, even in circumstances where they could get away with doing less without catastrophic social consequences. If that isn't revealed preference (for those inclined to parenthood), I don't know what possibly counts. And even a lot of people more lukewarm on the idea report "a switch being flipped", where suddenly they become far more driven and determined to protect their kids from harm and ensure their well-being.

Bravo sir, bravo. Couldn't have written it better myself.

I'd also like to add that in addition to all this, children seem to change who you are as a person. Many folks I've talked to more on the spiritual side, so to speak, all report that children open you up to a newfound level of love and compassion, a depth of feeling almost impossible to reach without them.

I've noticed this depth of love in myself when spending time around children for long periods of time.

To me, that's one of the most attractive pieces. It can be extremely difficult, especially to folks who deal with depression and anxiety, to get access to these blissful moments of love and joy. Having kids seems to make them far more available, and in a healthy way to boot. Not, as you say, just like shooting up heroin.

Either way, I strongly reject the philosophy of the last men as well.

Having kids is one of the worst things you can do to your short term happiness, up there with getting addicted to heroin or getting in a motorcycle accident. Whatever things you might have enjoyed in life before them is completely gone, for the rest of your life. Every waking moment of your life outside of work will be completely occupied by taking care of monstrous creatures that make every single bodily function besides breathing as difficult as humanly possible. Eating, sleeping, farting, shitting, drinking, etc. will each be a torturous ordeal that you will have to deal with multiple times per day.

You forgot to mention that you do all of that while being subjected to months of sleep torture that would make a CIA contractor call up The Hague. Calling that a "hedonistic cost" is like referring to the Troubles in Ireland as a "disagreement".

It's backbreaking,

Yes.

thankless,

True.

and absolutely positively unfulfilling.

Here's where you could not be more wrong. It is the most fulfilling thing you will have ever done with your life. Are you familiar with Nietzsche's question of whether you could approve of your life if it were eternally reoccuring? All baby-related suffering automatically gets a big fat stamp of approval. Not sure that's true for anything else.

Eudaimonia does not equate to feeling good.

I find discussing this sentiment to be like the discourse around death, except much less compelling. Death is that thing that only those who have experienced it can describe, and those who haven't can only guess at. The catch is that once you've experienced it, you can't explain it to anyone else.

Kids are funny because, in contrast to death, every single person on this earth who has had them can tell you how they have affected their lives, and yet there's a subset of the population (apparently, you included) that will say that it's a lie. Literally all the parents I know, even those with difficult kids, find it much more meaningful and full of joy than they would have suspected. I say joy meaningfully, too. That word gets thrown around but the absolutely out-of-the-blue fun, happiness, and pride I feel when my kid picks up or says something new or outrageous is something that outweighs everything else in my life. These are things that people will regularly say, I'm far from the first, so I have no doubt it will do little to convince you; but I still find it funny.

There are bad parents, there are bad kids, and there are people who are a bad fit for parents happiness-wise, but the idea that a lie that has existed longer than written word has only just broken down as many other changes to our environment influence our behavior in curious and unnatural ways is laughable on its face.

I have a somewhat more involved theory (rather than a totally-unique-to-the-lie-filled-online-world awakening to the objective truth of things on social media) here.

yet there's a subset of the population (apparently, you included) that will say that it's a lie.

How can we know whether it's a lie or the truth when saying it is impossible? People who aren't overjoyed by their kids are considered the worst of the worst, up there with pedofiles and rappists.

Two points:

1 - Even if the true joy of parenting is ineffable (unfortunately the case) you can get an approximation by experiencing them in some way. Maybe it's "Kid's say the darndest things", hanging out with neices/nephews, or just being attentive at a playground while you eat a picnic lunch. This is hard, but I've already had 4 things happen today (despite having a job and typing out this reply) that I would classify as super cool and worth it.

2 - Think about how many people have to lie consistently over thousands of years for your thesis to be true. In the entirety of human history... wait, no, in the entire history of this planet for every form of life, Parenting has been worth it. And yet, only with the advent of social media and the mass delusional influence of women it enables in just the past 15 years... now we've finally woken up to the fact that procreating actually sucks? Just use your common sense here. How likely is that?

Every group that figured out the lie ended up extinct

Presumably this is also what happened to every group that decided that "being alive is neat" was a monstrous lie also ended up, only slightly more quickly.

Or perhaps beliefs that lead directly to "going extinct" aren't just bad but also incorrect.

Beliefs that lead to extinction cannot be widely accepted in a society for more than a short period of time, for obvious reasons.

That doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong.

Additionally beliefs that enhance survival are not necessarily correct or true.

beliefs that enhance survival are not necessarily correct or true.

Generally speaking, beliefs that are incorrect do not enhance survival and, if sufficiently delusional, detract from it. (A very trivial observation, but if it were otherwise we should have no particular confidence in our ability to arrive at the truth at all.)

Similarly, it would be unsurprising if the human mind and body was not at least somewhat well-adapted to its natural habitat (which, for most of human history, was surrounded by family). And there are of course reasons (from social science research) to think that having children does not necessarily decrease happiness and may even increase their happiness and their lifespan.

This is the worst kind of hyperbole. No, someone saying they're not that into their kids isn't subject to the same degree of social ostracism as actual rapists or pedophiles. C'mon dude.

A rappist? Ah, is this the explanation for the Bad Bunny hate?

Kids are funny because, in contrast to death, every single person on this earth who has had them can tell you how they have affected their lives, and yet there's a subset of the population (apparently, you included) that will say that it's a lie.

I don't think it's a lie (so I guess I'm not really the sort of person you mean), but I do have a similar-ish reaction. When parents say they experience great joy from their children, I believe them. I just don't believe it'll be the same for me. I realize many people will say they felt the same way, but it was different for their own kids. I believe that too! But there's no guarantee that it would happen, and it's one hell of a risk to take with your life. If you turn out to be a person who is not wired to enjoy children, you're in for 18 long years.

It's a moot point in my case since my wife isn't able to have children any more, but this is definitely something that gave me pause when having children was still in the realm of possibility for us.

Children do not stay children forever, and 18 years is a legal fiction. Kids grow up, and develop, fast. The baby stage is going to be over soon(toddlers and infants are very different). And little kids are different from toddlers- and in turn, older kids are different from little kids.

I’m of the opinion that people who don’t want kids probably shouldn’t have them. My main problems are with those who insist it they are bad; and the overall societal landscape that has led a lot of people to never even seriously consider it.

Conversely, I do consider it the civic duty of anyone who is of means and of sound mind to have kids at or above replacement rate. It increases the amount of kids with a) a support system (good for the kids), and b) the genetic and environmental background to be more likely to succeed (good for society). This is possibly the one place I put my money where my mouth is regarding societal issues.

Not that you’re in the position to act on it anymore, but for anyone of decent means I would say in general the highs are very high and the potential lows are not as low as you’d think. The one exception is being unlucky enough to have an honest to God psychopath kid or something, but you’re in “multiple lightning strikes” territory there.

The lie isn't breaking down. A new lie is growing up, which is that the purpose of life is constant amusement. If human life has a purpose in any grand sense, that purpose must have applied to humans in all periods of history, and constant amusement at scale only became possible 40 or 50 years ago, and only for a narrow segment of the Earth's population. So people should really reconsider whether they are intended or evolved or whatever for nothing but tourism and concerts. So "it's not fun" is a pretty weak argument for tossing out the biggest of Chesterton's fences. I agree, though, that that's what people are doing.

But love is not "fun" either. I mean romantic love- the fretting and ups and downs and fights and giving control of your happiness to another person. But it's still worthwhile, and possibly more worthwhile than most amusements. In that sense, having kids is kinda like romantic love- worthwhile in a bigger way than fun.

I had a marriage proposal rejected once, and though we don't talk anymore, I'm pretty sure the main reason was my stated goal of never having children. Later I married someone else, and we fought for years about having kids, because I was adamant that having children was contrary to the will of God (the goal of life is either to serve God or be happy, the vast majority of people do neither, therefore you are probably condemning your kids to earthly unhappiness or eternal damnation. Probably both). I still don't have a convincing reply to this dilemma, but I also note that my chief goal in life at that time was clearing all the vaults in Fallout 3, so my true motives may not have been entirely theological, but the point is that my "I don't want kids" cred is legit.

I eventually caved because my wife was so annoying about it, and we had a kid.

I hated my own kid so much that I spent a while desperately trying to unearth evidence of infidelity on my wife's part so that I could abandon my wife and kid with a clear conscience (remember, my cred is legit). I might have changed 2 diapers (ever- my cred is legit), so I don't even have that to complain about, but my kid screamed all the time, and my wife basically opted out of marriage for like a year and half because she was a mother now. Being home with my kid and de facto ex wife made me bitterly regret every choice that had led me to that path. My kid also hated me. It was breast-fed for years, so I could not provide anything it wanted. It would only sleep with my wife. I just went around raging all the time. All in all, it was absolutely the worst years of my life. And worst of all, there was no evidence of infidelity.

Then it turned two. It could eat crackers, which I could provide. It could go on little walks to look for ladybugs. You could do the Louis CK thing at the grocery store (not that thing) and say "Look! A watermelon!" and know you had just expanded the kid's mind. You could push it down the slide and be a big hero. Even weirder was the first time the kid knew something I didn't, which was only "where the hammer is," but was a qualitative shift in the relation. It was becoming a full human. It could read. It could be taught math. It made jokes. Just to be present while this kid did anything at all was a gift from God or the universe or luck or whatever. I built my life around reading stories to it every night.

Moreover, I was also becoming a full human. A life spent playing Fallout and eating pizza is, if not a waste, merely the life of an animal. Cattle look for food and scratch itches and avoid pain, which is all I had been doing up to that point. I justified my life by telling myself I was working out and learning music and studying philosophy, and I really was doing all those things a little, but mainly I was playing Fallout. Or KOTOR. Or Arkham Asylum. All the other perfunctory efforts were somewhere on the line between cope and delusion. With the kid I had to reduce that and think about someone else basically all the time, but also admit that I had basically been thinking only about myself all the time. Just as it's hard to explain the value of education to an uneducated person without sounding like a smug tool, it's hard to explain the value of abandoning selfishness to someone who hasn't had it forced upon them. But I would say that I wasn't really an adult until 4 or 5 years into parenthood. (That may be normal, but it's abnormal for that to come at 35 instead of 23)

It wasn't an instant switch being flipped- it was gradual, but love for this kid grew to the point that I only agreed to have a second kid because I knew it would occupy all my wife's time and I would be able to spend even more time with my first kid. Not a great reason, but better than what had convinced me the first time. With the second kid, I knew what to expect and my wife had also grown a lot, and so it was much better, and rather than split the family into factions like I had hoped, everyone drew together, because the first kid also got to watch this baby develop into a full human and the new baby became part of all of our development.

Nowadays, if my kids died in an accident or something, it's a coin toss on whether I'd literally kill myself, because it's not at all clear what the point of living would be without them. I guess I could start over. But once you have kids that you like (not love- everyone "loves" their kids), nothing else is comparable. There is no Fallout or restaurant or vacation that could ever do anything other than remind you that this would be better if your kids were here. So in this sense, saying "kids are gross" is like saying "girls are gross" -only someone who has never experienced a good one would say that. The difference is that "girls are gross" expires on a timer (age), but "kids are gross" only expires on a trigger (getting to know your kids). Pull the trigger.

Finally, my kids are statistical outliers. They are intelligent, but also agreeable and social. Through my extreme weirdness, they have been educated and disciplined far above the standards of the age. I'm not a huge Jordan Peterson fan, but his advice to not allow your kids to do things that make you dislike them seems to have really paid off for my family. This skews my perception of the entire issue. Maybe your kids will be terrors. Certainly, most kids I meet are disliked by their parents and other adults, but in most cases it's the parents' fault for letting the kid get like that- with enough attention and self-discipline (of your self), you can usually discipline your kids into people that you, and everyone else, want to be around.

So you're right but everyone else, but wrong about yourself. Have some kids.

Absolutely love this comment. Agreed on almost all counts, though I agreed to subsequent kids because I liked their predecessors so much (whie dreading the lack of bandwidth for each one it would entail).

Have things improved with your wife post-kid-2?

Things have improved.

Wow beautiful story, you don't hear this type of thing often. Thanks for sharing. Gives me more confidence about the whole babies thing ahaha.

Good on you and your wife for sticking it out.

The beginning of your story absolutely horrifies me. I've always thought that "I dont want kids" is a pretty good reason for not having kids. And a difference in preferences for kids is a valid breakup reason at any time in a romantic relationship.

I have three kids myself. I think I've wanted kids for about as long as I've been sexually aware. Before that I just wanted to find out I'd had a secret twin all along that my parents hadn't told me about. I married someone that always wanted kids.

I'm glad you came around, for your sake and your kid's sake. The advice is great, I just can't imagine going into this without wanting it in the first place.

Certainly, most kids I meet are disliked by their parents and other adults, but in most cases it's the parents' fault for letting the kid get like that

This is an interesting perspective, but if we take this at a population level, it does indicate that on the average case, though maybe not your own, that kids will be a disaster to the parents. Maybe your tricks as well as other effective parenting techniques need to be disseminated more, but that's not happening right now.

Not to blow up your replies here, but gog has it right. Millenial parents are really fucking up a lot, IME.

Kids are given tablets and television, so many toys that they fill entire rooms, wall-to-wall activities that require dozens of hours of investment per week, pharmaceutical drugs, spots in the marital bed at 3,4,5,6,7 years old because they just can't say no....

Any fool can make their job insanely difficult, given a weak enough backbone and poor decision-making abilities. If you figure out how to get good advice and think long-term about your children you're going to have a far better time.

(Also note - once your children become a whole person [pre-teen age] your amount of control will diminish. I won't rate myself as a parent until they are in their early 20s, but I can tell you that as of this moment I can judge parental skill for kids under 10)

There's no trick. You just punish your child when he does things you don't want him to do. My buddy has a terror of a kid, and they struggled for years until they finally got an ADHD diagnosis and put him on brain-zapping drugs. Right before they put him on the pills, I said "Have you tried swatting him?" and my buddy reacted with utter horror- that would be abuse! Better to pharmaceutically alter his mind, probably for the rest of his life, than to cuff him a couple of times. This attitude is extremely widespread- "I tried to take away the iPad, but he got mad," etc. This parenting hack is available to everyone except those who will cross into actual beatings, and even they can get the wife to do it.

As someone who had ADHD (obvious even as a kid, the diagnosis was delayed by willful ignorance on my parent's part, though I've forgiven them now) and was subject to corporal punishment for doing ADHD things, I assure you that the drugs are more effective, and better in the longterm.

(I also happen to think that mild corporal punishment is fine, and that society overreacted when it came to bands. It was just more socially acceptable to the point of being unremarkable when I was growing up)

In a different era I might agree with you, but I’m a teacher and have never seen an unsuccessful bid to get an ADHD diagnosis, which suggests to me that doctors now consider “child is difficult” to be sufficient evidence of ADHD. We tell gymbros to stay away from roids until their training, sleep, and diet are dialed-in. We should tell parents the same thing.

It can be simultaneously true that ADHD is overdiagnosed (in the US) and that it is a "real" condition. My point is that corporal punishment is still the inferior option, though I recognize it as a valid option.

The symptoms of ADHD have enormous overlap with being a "difficult child". What else better sums up absent-mindedness, hyperactivity etc? Stimulants aren't a class of drug that only helps people with ADHD, not like antipsychotics being of minimal benefit to the average person (it can make the insane sane, but it can't make the sane supersane).

In general, they can be quite effective for anyone. They're popular as study-aids for a reason, there are few people who don't benefit from increased attention and focus, even if their baseline is adequate. They are also quite safe, especially when used as prescribed. A world where the tradeoff is children who don't quite meet the ideal cutoff for ADHD (a highly clinical and discretionary diagnosis already) end up on meds while those who also "actually" need them also do is fine. It's not going to burn out their brain or give them cancer fifty years down the line. They probably end up getting better grades.

In other words, drift and expansion of ADHD diagnosis and treatment is about as benign as it gets. It's nowhere near as bad as a hypothetical world where every sad kid gets a diagnosis of depression and receives SSRIs, or is diagnosed with schizophrenia after mentioning an imaginary friend. The reader may substitute their own feels on gender dysphoria and affirmative care.

My understanding is that taking ADHD meds can complicate your career in the United States if you're interested in going into the military, so there's some considerations there that can come as an unpleasant surprise to people who see the meds as pure upside. Obviously that's not necessarily a consideration for everyone.

I have four kids. I like hanging out with and taking care of my kids. It gets more fun after they turn 1, then even more after they turn 7, then still more after 10.

It's really not that bad. It's hard, but so is training for a marathon, learning violin, studying Chinese, learning to sail, reading literary fiction, really anything worthwhile in life. I personally do not think a life of video games, Netflix, international vacations to the rest of the now-Disnified tourist-friendly world, concerts, craft beer bar visits, escape rooms, or whatever single millennials my age are doing these days would be very fulfilling for me personally. I actually WFH expressly because I want to help my wife (a SAHM) cook, clean, and take care of the kids. We also do part time homeschooling and plan to switch to full homeschooling soon. Neither of us had to do any of this, we both have careers and made enough money to pay for daycare and still have disposable income. We chose to. I promise you we are not doing it under duress.

Also, there isn't really a stigma against saying you don't want to have kids anymore. Everyone in my entire company AFAIK has 0-2 kids. Probably 70% of coworkers over 30 are childless. Not having kids is the normal default now. Having kids at all is slightly unusual. Having enough kids that you must orient your life around raising them instead of throwing them into daycare is on par with being a Scientologist or something. People clearly think I'm a little insane. But I've also been surprised at the small minority who express admiration and jealousy. Not everyone thinks the way you do.

How do you do part time homeschooling? Can you explain how that works? I thought it was an either or kind of thing?

It's very common for older kids. Either homeschool for most things with some classes(either online, or community college, or...) taken on the side, or a dedicated hybrid program(readily available but often requires a religious test).

I didn't phrase it well. It's really just supplemental education at home, no exams or registration with the government. Just extra reading and study in addition to what theyre doing at school. Currently just religion, English, and history.

It might be worth looking for exams your kids can sit, if they're learning more regardless, to get some recognition for it. My son studied a bunch of math on his own during Covid, but then was bored silly when all his school would offer him was at his grade level. Fortunately the local University has a Credit-By-Exam process for high school subjects, and a decent Algebra I score was enough to get him jumped to Geometry the next year.

Ahh I see, gotcha. Good stuff. We want to homeschool ourselves so we’ll see how it goes. Good luck going full time into it.

Thanks. I will try to report back after a year. Maybe do a small write-up in the Small Questions thread.

I have 4 as well and people think I’m crazy

It's really not that bad. It's hard, but so is training for a marathon, learning violin, studying Chinese, learning to sail, reading literary fiction, really anything worthwhile in life.

Playing an instrument, playing a sport, learning an instrument, or learning a language is what a ton of people do just for fun, in addition to vidya and netflix sessions. Honestly none of these things are really hard if you're operating on a hobbyist level. These are all things where you can goof off while doing it and get gradually better. In a sense it's the same as vidya - after sinking 300 hours into the game, you'll be a lot better, though there's still going to be a massive chasm between you and people who practice seriously to play competitive (being sweaty and tryhard is of course different from practicing seriously to get good).

there isn't really a stigma against saying you don't want to have kids anymore. Everyone in my entire company AFAIK has 0-2 kids.

This is true, but there is still a stigma around saying that kids suck or that you hate taking care of them. Everyone will put up the sign saying that their little bundles of terror are perfect and they love taking care of them.

I've got 2 under 2 at the moment. I did the first year or so of the first kid's life in stately 'Developed World Nuclear Family' style and then relocated to somewhere with a sprawling multi-generational family structure.

The difference in quality of life between the former and the latter is insane, in terms of how much time you get back, but I think you're vastly overstating exactly how punitive childrearing is at the early stages and how engaging a lot of the creature comforts you were otherwise packing your time with actually were. I feel I'd experienced a sufficiently wide slice of 'the good life' before having kids, between going to 50-odd countries, having a solid dating history, playing sport at a high level and being a reasonably high earner to be able to say most of that is fine but ultimately when/if you experience having kids there's an inherent flip of perspective and drivers.

IMO the main fall-off now is that the rise of birth control & abortion means that increasingly people are having to 'opt in' to having children instead of it just being a constantly present baserate risk of conceiving and then rolling with it.

I've got 2 under 2 at the moment. I did the first year or so of the first kid's life in stately 'Developed World Nuclear Family' style and then relocated to somewhere with a sprawling multi-generational family structure.

God do I wish I had this. My side of the family is fully devoted to the "we're empty nesting, figure it out" mindset, and my wife's side has some cultural issues with raising kids (that have given her lasting lifelong issues) that I'd rather not pass along. What's funny to me is that my regret is not in my own dip in quality of life - it's in the kid's. Every time I realize I haven't taken mine out for a proper outing, or have stuck them in front of the TV (to my credit, in front of properly vetted age appropriate material for a limited time) I have a huge pang of guilt for not having a proper and engaging village for them to experience. It used to be that having that was the norm. Even as the nuclear family developed, the baby boom was in full swing, and full neighborhoods of children would be able to play and parents could easily organize (or fall into) play dates to lighten the load and develop their children's social minds. Each generation has been a poor recursion of this structure, but without the baby boom, fewer people having kids in more spread out places means the full neighborhoods of kids just don't exist on any sort of scale anymore.

If anything, I would say this is the biggest practical limit to having kids today, though I think some other factors are at play when it comes to the actual decision-making (shameless plug).

Yeah I was raised in the developed West and was barely exposed to aunts/uncles/cousins due to a combination of my parents moving away and fighting some crab bucket tendencies in the wider family. My kids can now go downstairs and run into a ridiculous amount of cousins and neighbors inside the same gated community, which I hope can serve to ameliorate spectrum behaviors and tendencies on the part of my genetic material.

Back when I was in Australia for the first year or so, a combination of being the only person in my early-thirties yuppie friend group to reproduce and my own parents bailing to be closer to the ocean meant that there wasn't really a social layer. The government parenting group programs were well-meaning, but even then tended to have weird hodge podge cultural mixes of like... 18 year old headscarf-wearing recent immigrants and mid-late thirties upper middle class neurotics in my area. With nothing in between. Plus even if my friend group was particularly fecund the geographic reality of home-ownership in the city I lived in essentially forced people to buy an hour and a half away from the CBD in farflung locales so unless you happened to land on the same compass-point as your social group you were fucked.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats