Not Op but there’s a inch of people asking why, and I have a similar feeling to op so here’s my post hoc justification for a weakly held and poorly supported prejudice:
It’s really because statistically, in my experience people without kids are more selfish than those without. This is more in description than judgement, but it’s true in my experience. We can speculate as to reasons, but looking after kids does train a certain kind of selflessness. Agreed we might be doing it for ultimately selfish reasons (self presentational or for care in old age or whatever). But for a good chunk of the time, caring for kids seems to require the fairly consistent subjugation of personal preferences, and a degeee of perspective taking, that I just think people without kids don’t have. And that often shows in their interactions at work and in daily life. Obviously there are myriad exceptions. But it’s true enough in my experience.
The wanting to live forever part also seems weird to me, and correlated with a certain sort of self regarding perspective. It seems obvious to me that I (or my generations) need to die for my children and grandchildren to have a good life. To try and subvert that also seems selfish or self important somehow.
I’m not really arguing this is a correct or good or just position. It might be terrible! But it did resonate..
> It’s really because statistically, in my experience people without kids are more selfish than those without.
I've witnessed the opposite: Having kids made people much more selfish. Resources were plenty before they had kids, so they would spend a lot (time and money) on others - be it friends or the general public.
When kids come along, two things happen:
1. Resources are limited, so a lot less goes outside the family.
2. At least one parent will put the foot down when being generous to people outside the family - even if the wealth/income supports being able to do so. Tribalism sets in.
Selfishness is commonly understood as putting one's own interest above everyone else's to an excessive degree, not the interest of their family. If you redefine it to include family interests then I think everyone would agree that having a family makes people more selfish, often dramatically so.
I think this "redefinition" is apt in the context of the conversation. It's about people mistrusting those without kids because they are viewed as selfish, and I'm pointing out that they're often the least selfish, and more likely to "help the world" in situations where they do not benefit.
I can see your point, although in my experience it hasn’t actually worked that way. But even then, normalised for the amount of free time they have i think it’s unlikely to hold .
Take a specific scenario: imagine a difficult outdoors adventure maybe cycling or walking, when the weather is bad and something has gone wrong (and any kids have been left at home). All else equal would you rather be stuck with a parent or a non parent?!
Paying full taxes to support a society where people with kids pay less taxes and receive more benefits from the State is certainly not selfish. That's the case in my country, at least.
Money is not the only way one can contribute to one's society. Doubling the amount of productive people to society is also a big contribution.
Even from a purely financial perspective you need to count all of the future taxes that will be collected from the family lineage instead of just from the one person who ended his lineage.
> It’s really because statistically, in my experience people without kids are more selfish than those without.
That would certainly be your opinion. I think the ultimate selflessness in a world being more and more damaged by humans would to elect not to perpetuate the species, and help try to leave the world a better place for those who do choose to have kids.
The flaw in that ideology is that everyone relies on the next generation for care in their old age. Taking advantage of the future generation without contributing to raising it isn't selfless in the slightest.
If you live in a developed country you probably already have a demographic crisis. Not having kids is hurting the next generation, not helping.
How is it a flawed ideology? There are a whole lot of places around the world who have people that want to help, allow them to help and pay them appropriately and at the same time make it easier for folks to live longer and more productive lives without the dedicated assistances of others. It's almost like 'community' means not just for the young.
That's an absurdly selfish position. You're taking a stance that not existing is superior to living in the future, all the while living in the world yourself. Might as well advocate for nuclear genocide.
Boomer health and life expectancy is one of the issues western countries are struggling with now. Having GenZ pay for extended expensive retirements whilst simultaneously gouging them for artificially scare accommodation is the result. Now imagine everyone lives in perfect health forever. The incumbency effect for wealth and power is going to be overwhelming without pretty fundamental political and social change.
Perhaps you think that is possible? I hope so, but the evidence from octogenarian US politics isn’t hopeful.
Boomer health and life expectancy is one of the issues western countries are struggling with now
Yes, because old people need expensive health care and are much less productive. Those are two of the major reasons to solve aging. (The third and most important being quality of life).
Now imagine everyone lives in perfect health forever.
That would be great. Medical costs would fall drastically, and the worker-to-dependent ratio goes way up.
I've long been thinking about making a browser addon to block HN users. You've inspired me to get this done tonight, thank you for the push, your comment is unhinged and I'd rather not ever have to read what you say about anything else.
GDPR isn’t theatre in many organisations. Yes large tech firms (mostly US) probably ignore or circumvent. But most businesses I’ve worked for have taken concrete steps to reduce the data they hold and consider how it’s being used asa direct consequence of gdpr.
Read only or not, relying on Chinese or Russian gps data for increased accuracy even in civilian increases dependency no?
That seems like a bad idea to me. I’ve thought for about 20 years that increasing our dependence on anti democratic regimes was a risk, no matter what the benefits for global development etc. It’s not isolationist to want to only rely on your friends and not enemies.
(Which is why Europe needs to disentangle itself from the US as fast as possible).
It decreases dependency on GPS and thus it decreases risk because if there's an attack on a GPS system by an adversary, it's likely that they will not be attacking their own system at the same time. I'd rather have my enemy's open source, perfectly functional clock in my back pocket than be without the time. Enjoying that the competing clock has a sub second display is optional.
If you are relying on it without a graceful fall back then it would be a problem. If you take it as a boost on top of existing capabilities then it is a pure win. In practice it can be hard to parse the two scenarios. People get used to thinking that something is available and it turns out that it was always leverage against them.
It’s really because statistically, in my experience people without kids are more selfish than those without. This is more in description than judgement, but it’s true in my experience. We can speculate as to reasons, but looking after kids does train a certain kind of selflessness. Agreed we might be doing it for ultimately selfish reasons (self presentational or for care in old age or whatever). But for a good chunk of the time, caring for kids seems to require the fairly consistent subjugation of personal preferences, and a degeee of perspective taking, that I just think people without kids don’t have. And that often shows in their interactions at work and in daily life. Obviously there are myriad exceptions. But it’s true enough in my experience.
The wanting to live forever part also seems weird to me, and correlated with a certain sort of self regarding perspective. It seems obvious to me that I (or my generations) need to die for my children and grandchildren to have a good life. To try and subvert that also seems selfish or self important somehow.
I’m not really arguing this is a correct or good or just position. It might be terrible! But it did resonate..