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If we all are to die right now in a flaming meteor, then ok. Society doesn't matter that much to you.
If you hope to grow old and die peacefully at the end of a lifespan as long as you can achieve, then you want to have stability as you grow older and weaker. This means able-bodied people younger than you who have been inculcated in a community that values taking care of the weak and elderly. This means having children and educating them.
So that's the selfish case.
The less-selfish case I guess is that human lives are one of the most precious resource in the world, consciousness is rare, sapience more so. A universe without anyone to observe it would be tragic and absurd.
Stable societies produce happier outcomes, better lives for these sapient Earth observers. If you think life sucks, the better thing to do is make it less sucky instead of abandon it, creating more suffering in the interim as society collapses.
My real reason is just that I found someone I loved. And because I loved him, I loved the world. I loved the world that could make such a person, however fucked up his life had been. In my husband I saw that the awfulness of the world cannot mar the beauty of a human soul. And I liked him so much I wanted more of him - more people like him. And he thought I was a good thing, too. He thought it was good I exist and because of that I began to come around on the idea myself. And if it was good that I existed, and it was good that he existed, then it would be great for there to be more people like him and like myself.
And so I embarked on this mission: to make more people who have the best qualities of us both, who are coached on their weak-points by the two people who can empathize the most with them.
Thanks, that's mostly what I wanted to know. Still curious though about tradeoffs and where our personal obligations to sacrifice for the society begin and end.
You're not caught in traffic, you are the traffic. You don't have an obligation to "society" you are society and you have an obligation to yourself.
This seems to suppose that the society in which I find myself -- and perhaps more importantly its leadership -- has incentives which are nearly-aligned with my own, which seems pretty debatable both presently and historically.
You're going to need to be more concrete than that.
Let's say Social Security goes away before you are 65. Or even total anarchy. Are you better off with one or zero kids, or if you have four+. If you have 4+, at least one is likely to still have a fondness for you and might let you stay with them in your twilight years. If you have 0 kids you get to look forward to working until you cannot and rotting in a ditch after.
From where I stand, having kids is more upside than down. Sure I could afford more things without them. But I had the time of my life playing fetch with my 3 year old yesterday. I
I don't know how to explain it to someone who doesn't have kids. I have taught two little humans how to read. And for one of those humans it was a hard slog, I had to keep changing programs every year, trying to make an inch of progress at a time. I researched, I made schedules and lesson plans and sat down every day with a book and my girl and I persisted.
There's the mental cocaine of having your toddler call you "mamma." But there's more than chemicals. There's the concerted effort to help someone every day become a good adult human, and whoever you are it takes all of you. If you're good at research it takes research. If you're good at meal prep it takes meal prep. Whatever your thing is, you pour it on your kid and it's satisfying. It's climbing Everest, it's running a marathon, it's what life is for, the challenge you are supposed to be doing. The school of love you need to be a whole human being.
If the word society is tripping you up, just do it for yourself.
Yeah no, I have a lot of kids and another on the way and no plans to stop for a while yet. I get that part. I'm just hung up on the bit about society, yeah.
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