Taking sides: Children vs. (non-human) animals

so proud when they throw their first battery at a player

"I think the best reason is meeting someone you love and thinking why the hell not? Just throwing that one out there."

I didn't even think why the hell not. I had kids with the only person on earth I would have wanted to have kids with. I didn't even think about trying to have kids or not trying to have kids. there was no hesitation or thought involved. and there is pretty much ALWAYS hesitation as far as my weird brain goes. i recommend finding this kind of person if you are gonna have kids. because there are all kinds of wrong reasons to have kids.

You know, kids can be frustrating, challenging, maddening, certainly exhausting, but there is nothing, and I mean nothing, like watching one of your favorite films, or a classic film, with them for the first time. In recent weeks we've seen "The Third Man," "King Kong," "Lawrence of Arabia" (well, most of it), "Shadow of a Doubt," "Close Encounters," "North By Northwest" ... Literally the best it gets.

Nah I'm pretty sure the best it gets is the lime popsicle I'm having right now

Among the possible challenges and rewards that life may present you with, I find the challenges and rewards of caring for a new human and raising that person up to be decent, sensible, creative, kindly beings calls forth most of my best abilities. One also gets a very direct outlet for one's capacity to love, and love is surpassingly good, whenever and however it is called forth.

But if you hate kids, none of the above really applies.

I think we need some more thoughtful rumination on how rewarding the incredible responsibility of raising kids can be. Is anybody on ILX up to the task?

I'm not sure if Thomas Edison ever had kids. But I hear he did other stuff and made some money and it all came out OK for him. He even got to meet celebrities and shit.

Turns out Edison had a few offspring after all. Who knew?

xpost all of us get to shit

But only the lucky ones get to meet celebrities and shit.

ppl who make a point of defining themselves as "childfree" and go around contemptuously referring to ppl with kids as "breeders" are about as creepy and unpleasant as any other subset of ppl you'll find on the internet

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, March 18, 2017 12:12 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nowhere near as creepy as the "ready access to sex" post a couple above yours

Yes, that was post was, er, well I sort of wish I hadn't read it.

Dating sucks, so I decided to become a dad

The 'ready access to sex' post is so wrong on so many levels that it becomes almost amusing.

Our main motivation, frankly (initially), was that we didn't want to turn around in 30 years and regret having NOT had kids. After we'd decided on that Em definitely got quite driven about it though, and has described it as a biological desire switching on.

children are a great way to secure an orgasm-facilitator for an extended period

"ready access to sex" doesn't really correlate well w/ marriage and kids let's be real

"I got married and had kids for the sex" probably the most o_O take I've seen in a minute

I was kind of disappointed that no one was going "wait, what" at that post when it happened

"I got married and had kids for the sex" probably the most o_O take I've seen in a minute

Sex with the wife that is. I hope.

I never wait what a post until i see the djp position tbh you need to accept yr position as a major influencer

like this post from The Cut, in a world with no birth control!

http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/03/when-is-a-penis-too-good-to-break-up-with.html

For emoji, try eggplant, peace-sign fingers, bomb.

prob goes in the contro op thread but

people really shld be able to pass an intelligence exam and meet certain requirements to qualify to be a parent

hmm yes what could possibly go wrong with that policy, I can't even imagine

would you like a list of geniuses whose parents were illiterate/poor/horrible

Some of the worst parents in the world are the 'intelligent' ones.

intelligence not measuring doing quadratic equations genius

as if that's the only type of intelligence

Eh

Kind of agree with the lefty outlook here, but would add coda

- tbh its not like less kids is a bad thing, regardless of opportunity cost in random geniuses
- properly applied death penalty takes care of the offspring as and when they have it coming, removing need to regulate parental input on a predictive basis

we can build a time machine and if your neglected children turn out to be the wrong kind of neglected children then we go back and zap you
rich parents exempt

also to be fair we will do the same for non-human animals

it's not a matter of producing geniuses

it's a matter of ensuring a child has parents who can teach her/him moral and ethical responsibilities

the poorest in society shouldn't be forced to abort, but they should be highly encouraged to do so, yet they are the ones who produce more offsprings than the rich

to be clear, i was referring to interpersonal, intrapersonal, and emotional intelligence

if you asked me if i prefer (subject) genius/artist or a well grounded, normal, determined, productive person, i would choose the latter

the poorest in society shouldn't be forced to abort, but they should be highly encouraged to do so, yet they are the ones who produce more offsprings than the rich

I would much rather see more kids from the Section 8 families in my neighborhood than the Trumps and Hiltons of the world. Maybe it's just me.

you think trump would pass a morality/ethics test

Given "I think poor people should be encouraged to abort their children," I don't think YOU would pass a morality/ethics test.

99.999999% of people are neither the next Hitler nor the next Einstein. Leave people the fuck alone.

also i'm fully aware that what i'm referring to is a highly fantastical world and completely unachievable so we put other filters in society

pretty sure pro-eugenics opinions belong on the yr unpopular nazi opinions thread

eugenics was gene selection

F♯A♯(∞) ingeniously drawing attention to the similarities between parenting and social engineering, well played

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/spongebob/images/6/6d/Geneshalit.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160517150316

"the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics."

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Gene_Simmons_2012.jpg/220px-Gene_Simmons_2012.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTczMDk2Nzg0Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjA5Njg3Mw@@._V1_UX214_CR0,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

select one

How much should you be pulling down annually to avoid being encouraged to abort your unborn paupers?

that is the achilles' heal ogmor

there would be too many people that would want to misuse the data to do away with the people they dislike because we live in a very connected world

only one selleck coefficient reads off the charts

"the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics."

― Mordy, Monday, March 20, 2017 9:22 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

intelligence is not heritable pal

oustic pointed that out a while ago

I choose

http://staticdistance.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/genevincent.jpg