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I'll second @Primaprimaprima. It seems to me that although having kids is very rewarding, it also sucks in so many ways that I am not at all surprised that people in the developed world who both do not have an urgent and clear need to have kids as a form of social security and who are not strongly under the influence of pro-natal tradition tend to not have many kids. Why would they?
"Because people have always done it!"
So what?
"For society's sake!"
That's pretty abstract and I have more immediate things on my mind.
"To continue your genes!"
I like the sex part of continuing my genes, but when I imagine the raising a kid part of continuing my genes so far at least it hasn't seemed worth it to me.
I think that some people spend too much time wondering why people are not having more kids when they really should be grateful and maybe even a bit surprised that people are having kids at all. I think that one will not understand this issue properly if one takes people having kids as some kind of natural baseline, "the way that things were and should be", and then gets surprised that it is not happening as much any more in the developed world.
What if there is no innate universal human desire to have kids? What if it just seemed like there was because for most of human history humanity has been under the influence of ineffective contraception practices, pro-natal economic pressure, and pro-natal social customs?
This is asinine and ass-backwards. Nobody should be surprised that people are having kids. They've been doing it for millenium, and will continue to do so for millenium. Every species on God's green earth has been reproducing to the best of their ability for as long as they can. This is not surprising, so don't make it some noble instead instead of the barest minimum standard just because you don't want to meet the standard.
What if the moon were made of cheese? What if I were god-emperor of all mankind? Why should I think zebras, and not horses, when you say there are hoofbeats in the distance?
Is this an argument? You seem to be just stating that you're correct without providing any justification, and then mocking @Goodguy for his opinion.
What could be a stronger argument than an unbroken trend for thousands of years?
Surely if having children was just a passing fad, we'd not exist.
It's a very inefficient and ethically dubious way to make new people.
Beings that start without well formed motives and worldviews is an ethics of consent issue, and the consequences of that issue has been every "think of the children" argument against personal freedom ever.
Still, people evolved to have kids. They want to. So assuming we don't outlaw it for reasons like those- I wouldn't be too surprised to see bio-conservative reproduction methods numbering in billions of births per year 1000 years from now...
But it's still inefficient. Nine months and a child that starts as a complete dependent? That you have to watch grow through all the pain and suffering of being a new mind? I would expect other methods like forking and spawning new teenage AI minds to be thousands of times more common at least. This is 1000 years we're talking about. We could easily have 10 more AI booms in that time even if this one fizzles.
Reality is not under any obligation to make sense. The obligation is upon us to make sense of reality.
I didn't even understand what you meant by this until I started seeing the responses because it didn't even seem like a response to my post...
And now I see why.
You see my brain's response to what you have just said is...
"That's enough culture war for this month. Time to go read all the ML papers my gay lovers have recommended to me so we can continue building our children together."
It seems clear to me now that we are living in entirely different realities.
This explains why you would say something like -
When from where I'm standing it is you who has clearly failed to make sense of reality.
Do we really? Is the speed of light in a vacuum different where you are from?
You're free to find biological reproduction "inefficient and ethically dubious" just as I am free to believe that the world would be a better place if you had been aborted or run down your mother's leg in the seconds after your father came. The thing is I don't because I am not like you. I actually take the old cliche about each person born being a small miracle or crowning unlikelihood, dead seriously. Who do you think you are to judge?
My reality has different priors due to different experiences. As a result our predictions diverge.
When I live in the moment, each of my moments fill with qualia that differ from each of yours, and when I live in the future, the future I am simulating differs from yours.
The textures and forms that constitute the sacred miracles are all rewritten between our minds.
We live in the same universe, but we are embedded in different 'everything smaller', from culture to neuro-chemistry.
Who am I to Judge? What an odd question. I am myself. I am an agentic sophont. Who the hell do you think I would have to be to Judge?
I aim to love, to understand, to discern, and to make my judgement for how to build a better world. Like every agent does.
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