to form babby, or not to form babby

they're not just for christmas, is the vibe i'm getting

I mean yes obviously suicide will solve all my problems but I still as a person have to be capable of it, my parents couldn't even raise me well enough to be prepared to kill myself

not enough positive representations of young people killing themselves that focus on how they don't have any problems anymore

well this took a turn!

That's a parenting fail xxp

lol it's all beyond your ken. it's all beyond anyone's ken. or budget, or whatever it is. very few of the metrics seem to apply.

True enough, but we'd rather stick to the more recognizable end of the great unknown (for now).

aimless, the original wager may very well obviate this pessimistic version (or so we could call it—actually it just occurred to me independently, but pascal's wager seems like a useful comparison) of it! i don't know. as i recall, there are some issues with the premises about the infinitude of the expected 'payoff'. but in the case of my argument, i think it is more plausible that one's child's life could turn out badly 'enough' in a relatively fault-free way to make that prospect carry some force in one's considerations (if you're familiar with the probabilistic framing of pascal's wager: 'enough' to make the expected values of the different cases come out as required).

in any case, that's why i allowed that perhaps a sincere faith of some suitably existential/cosmic kind would provide a person with good grounds for believing that taking the risk on another's behalf would be acceptable. it does seem to me, though, like even a 'believer' has the same kinds of problems with respect to imparting the 'remedy' to their child that anyone does (which no doubt partly explains the dogmatism of traditional upbringings)—they're the one who has to live it, not you, which includes 'live with a sincere faith in life', basically.

Bits of this thread make me feel like I'm reading a post-analytic take on Cioran's The Trouble with Being Born.

A friend brought his kids to a party at our place the other night, and they're at that perfect age where they're like cool little adults who haven't quite become annoying teenagers yet.

At point, they were bored of the adults so they seriously just sat on the couch and read the New Yorker.

It's possible they are also just extremely, exceptionally chill & well-adjusted kids.

I'd be ok having those kids for a few years (without having put in the work that got them to that place obviously).

like for crying out loud gary I try to give people the benefit of the doubt but the idea of having kids because it's cool for you is fucking awful to me

as i recall, there are some issues with the premises about the infinitude of the expected 'payoff'

having just refreshed my memory about Pascal's wager this is also the big issue I instantly zeroed in on. the wager is based on a faulty premise. One can envision extending the logic of this wager into increasingly ludicrous scenarios, since even the most specious and ridiculous claim about "the afterlife" or "infinity" etc would apparently require similarly serious consideration.

anyway babbys, I like mine.

why would you say that? they're not there to make you happy!

selfxp

not really surprising that a thread consumed with antinatalism would ultimately become about suicide

I hope all your children disappoint and then reject you ffs

Next up: the death penalty.

because it's cool for you is fucking awful to me

turnabout is fair play lol

lol Mordy

all of these experiments in living and meaning at the cost of other humans that you created just on a fucking whim, my god

like "lol we can prevent ever conceiving a child using science but instead let's just have one how much depression could it possibly have?"

animals, all of you

literally true

Tbf animals don't just engender other animals on a whim.

in response to the original q, I didn't make babbies because I have never been particularly interested in being a parent. Particular because I am female, I have been told "just wait, you'll change your mind," by people who presumably know better than I do? On the other hand, I have never been told "just wait, you'll change your mind" with respect to say becoming a plumber or a nun. Why is that.

Anyway, a side effect of having not having babbies is that I get to feel less bad about my carbon footprint (I like to travel to places! In airplanes! But hey I did not create another carbon-beltching human!) and about my generational privilege/affluence. I am passing neither of those on to a future generation. Whatever of my privilege and wealth I don't leverage for myself will go to the support the greater good and not some more mini-mes.

all of these experiments in living and meaning at the cost of other humans that you created just on a fucking whim, my god

because you're embroiling nonconsenting humans in them

i think ppl who decide not to have children should be happy with the decision they made and not feel judged by anyone (tho might be inevitable if you have parents who yearn for more genetic offspring - but maybe they should've have more kids so they could afford one or two not to reproduce). i think the childless who are all "i cannot even understand why humans like every other living species desire to reproduce" are v silly.

I've never denied being silly Mordy, I'll even cop to being cussed to the point of delirium

I don't create anything in case it makes anyone feel worse than if I hadn't

the parents itt may recoil at the implications of the argument on their own retroactive self-assessments, or lol at the natalolism and despair of the childless who just don't ~get it~, but i think it would be more apt to use it to focus their forward-looking responsibilities. as silby says, one's child could go through the worst suffering, not 'worst' in some objective sense but worst in the existential sense, of not being able to extricate themselves from it but in not being able to avail themselves of any assistance anyone else could provide to do so. that's a heavy responsibility to consider! too many people seem to take it on lightly and then later in life engage in all kinds of bargaining and illicit transference of burdens and indifference and emotional distancing from people for whom they are in some inescapable way responsible—generally by trying to re-construe the matter as one of the child now being the one responsible, of the parent having done their part. parents might not like (or even accept as true) being told that they can never be done with their responsibility for the child, which they continue to share in as long as the child shall live, but perhaps being able to acknowledge it would encourage more compassion toward the worst sufferings not just of one's own children but of any others.

fucking asinine xp

glad you consider your children equivalent to macaroni collage of boats

Yeah I should add that I do feel a little bad for my parents, but not bad enough to have kids just so that they can join in the grandparent chats with their friends.

Also I'm the last descendant on one side of my family. It's kind of sad from one angle (they didn't escape the Holocaust just for me to not bother having kids, etc), but there's a lot of mental illness on that side, so it's probably for the best. And my mother's four other siblings didn't have kids, so they really should have maximized their chances a little more if they wanted that line to continue.

(just continuing to ignore the existential philosophy discussion)

because you're embroiling nonconsenting humans in them

parents might not like (or even accept as true) being told that they can never be done with their responsibility for the child, which they continue to share in as long as the child shall live, but perhaps being able to acknowledge it would encourage more compassion toward the worst sufferings not just of one's own children but of any others.

ime parents feel concern for + some responsibility for their children's well being throughout their entire lives. you are extrapolating lessons for psychopaths.

life: just a bit of fun, let's be cool

how could consent precede existence, the whole premise is ridiculous

xps

Existence precedes essence.

if everyone was assigned a child to raise, I would support that platform.

ideally conceived by randomly combining donor sperm and eggs and gestated by well-compensated workers

huge vat of cum all mixed together

I'm losing my marbles, basically GD go fuck yourself

sounds very pneumatic

everybody has to report to the cum vat once a year

and cum in it

lol xp

maybe you should log off, dear

eat shit

kinda worried about you silby

or start the rewrite of your script. xpost