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

If that's how it ends up working out that's awesome but that's also a hell of a lot of pressure to put on a kid especially when you're citing that as one of the reasons you had them.

^^ otm x 1000

Also:

little kids are annoying often but bigger rule way more than you sad lot

― droit au butt (Euler), Tuesday, October 9, 2018 6:38 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The bigger kids of today are tomorrow's sad lot. Probably even sadder than us iirc.

no I was talking about all of you in particular vs the actual bigger kids I know

I mean I have to spend time with adults because of work but what a bunch of navel-gazing bores in general whereas kids just want to play

our kid is a constant joy and source of much terror, who needs a book of ghost stories to read at night when you know you're going to have a shadowy figure standing silently by your bed at 5 AM every morning?

it's still a mixed bag for me dealing with other people's children, because some of them are pretty obnoxious and one of them gives me some bad vibes, some real "we need to talk about Kevin" willies. But so many of them are funny and sharp and good people. Being around those kids makes me optimistic, it cheers me up.

sometimes i'll read my Facebook feed and think, jeez i really have to keep my kid off social media. not for bullying reasons but it's often just so wearying and cynical and disingenuous.

no I was talking about all of you in particular vs the actual bigger kids I know

― droit au butt (Euler), Tuesday, October 9, 2018 7:42 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The actual bigger kids you know will still be sadder than us lot. After all we dealt them a planet, a life, even worse than we got.

So basically since you’re all powerless to make the world anything more than a shithole, you have no faith in anyone else that resembles you being able to do any better. Reasonable assumption.

Also not having kids is easy as shit & saves you a ton of money, that’s another good reason & probably the best one. I’d prefer people stick to that rather than attempts to be high-falutin’ about it.

sometimes i'll read my Facebook feed and think, jeez i really have to keep my kid off social media. not for bullying reasons but it's often just so wearying and cynical and disingenuous.

disappointing revive tbh -- there's just no substitute for lex's absurd solipsism

is the suggestion that you are going to save the world, or your kids are, tb?

nb i think the world is grand, apart from apocalyptists. every generation seems to think it has to save the world, seems v unlikely that theyre all correct.

my actual reason is yr second paragraph

Also not having kids is easy as shit

Rong

So basically since you’re all powerless to make the world anything more than a shithole, you have no faith in anyone else that resembles you being able to do any better. Reasonable assumption.

Uhm... yes!

disappointing revive tbh -- there's just no substitute for lex's absurd solipsism

― mookieproof, Tuesday, October 9, 2018 11:03 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was going to lay in to my heavily abstract anti-natalism based on the argument that it's a harm to come into existence but I lost heart. I want to reiterate that I think kids are good.

our kid is a constant joy and source of much terror, who needs a book of ghost stories to read at night when you know you're going to have a shadowy figure standing silently by your bed at 5 AM every morning?

lol yes

tbf I have distinct memories of doing exactly that to my dad, so circle of life etc.

Is "I want to pass on my genes/want to pass on something" still a thing for people to have kids? Or has that argument died along with the aristocracies and their (inbred) families? Do men (men bcz women wouldn't be this dumb) "value" passing on their genes still?

My aim is to leave as little trace of myself as possible. Posting on ilx not helping tbh.

Thread's drowning in edginess. Didn't realise it was I Love Nihilism all along.

well "passing on your genes" is pretty neat, my boy is almost 4 and I can see he's got a face like mine and a number of my personality traits. you connect with them in a way you couldn't with any other human being. so that's cool.

That is cool! Was genuinely curious, nihilistic or not.

Seeing parts of myself in my kid is a source of mild delight tempered by mild oh noes

Actual full-fledged delight is when the confluence of mom & dad genes manifests itself in completely unexpected ways

I think having kids because you think that they'll take care of you is one of the most selfish reasons. Don't put that on your kid.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Tuesday, October 9, 2018 10:29 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

god yeah i'm gonna be in no position whatsoever to take care of my parents when the time comes

Is "I want to pass on my genes/want to pass on something" still a thing for people to have kids? Or has that argument died along with the aristocracies and their (inbred) families? Do men (men bcz women wouldn't be this dumb) "value" passing on their genes still?

this isn't conscious for me at all but i assume this is animating all childbearing decisions since it's an imperative that all living things have

my kids can be extremely challenging but by some goddamn miracle they stay in their beds when we put them to sleep and remain there until we go get them in the morning when they awake

But this is my question: do all living things really have that imperative? I don't think they do (anymore). I don't. I'm the first to admit I'm not by any means a yardstick in this, but the erasure of the imperative to have kids is something I see around me and my generation and friends quite a lot. I do not think it is a given or imperative any more. xp

assume this is animating all childbearing decisions since it's an imperative that all living things have

It is always good to remind ourselves that our conscious brain has only limited and marginal control over the rest of our brain and body. There's always more going on outside of conscious control than within it.

We evolve tho, whether our "conscious brain" knows or recognizes this or not.

I can count on one hand the number of women I know that are past childbearing age that don't regret not having children. those hormones are *intense*

and last time I checked the human population was still expanding/reproducing

oof

women are hormonal right enough

that is a hard one to parse tbh

men have evolved to the point where we mostly want to make children in order to pass on our musical tastes

then i doubly urge ilxors to refrain

tombot otm. For some couples it is extremely easy to not have children and also save money. Absolutely no regrets. Having a period already feels like being hungover, having the flu and eating way too much pasta all at once. Pregnancy is way too much stress on the body.

My mom also worries about me not having kids and dying alone. I just start on my "we all die alone" monologue.

I don't disagree with your last post Mordy but I think the idea of imperative is nebulous and I'm not sure of its explanatory power. We might well be products of desires we're not conscious of but without some maths I dunno. Not that I'm disagreeing, I just think selfish gene theory needs fleshing out.

my dad asked me just once about it i pointed out my civil service pension for future requirements and his own performance as a historical argument against

selfish gene theory has an addendum noting that individual reproductive drive/output drops depending on species/pack environment stressors iirc so yknow maybe that

I've felt for a long while that pure evolutionary theories tend to ignore the spanners that culture throws I their works.

there's an interesting bit in triste tropiques about how one of the tribes levi-strauss pals about with dislike having children, are openly negative about pregnancy and childbearing, and use abortifacients. the obvious idea is that in their parlous situation they don't need more mouths to feed, but none of the other tribes he encounters, in similar circumstances, are similar in that respect. culture is a weird thing

also you can have sex now without having kids idk if they have this where ye are but its a big deal where im from

all you bloody lot who don't want kids still bloody moan on and on on here. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW FREE YOU ARE, YOU SWEET FOOLS

(obviously lots of delightful exceptions)

which is to say, I have kids, I love them, I don't particularly love anyone else's kids, but man it is hard in these early years. I fully recognise I've got some sort of Stockholm Syndrome where my experience of what 'a nice time' is has been drastically downgraded

fucking without kids has often been a big problem for most catholic priests.

which is to say that "kids", like "people", is pretty weak as an abstract concept

Lol xp

It's frankly astounding how resolute I, my siblings, and numerous cousins on my mom's side (only one of whom has yet to make it to/past his thirties) are in making sure the family line dies with the lot of us.

Lunch, uh, finds a way