The catch-22 is that if the people with environmental values don't have kids, those values aren't passed on to the next generation (unless they become teachers or media personalities).
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Any society that doesn't impart those values across the board to its citizens will devolve into shit regardless.
It's basically just math.
People with zero values are going to fuck like rabbits and people with values aren't.
If trash family has 5 kids they can't take care of and a dad that leaves, that's at least 4 really mad poor kids that are going to blame a lot on somesuch minority for their problems in 18 years.
For all those values, even in yourself. There’s no better motivator to make an effort for the future, than having a kid you want the best for. If you don’t have a kid, you’re not passing your environmental values, or you educational values, or all the other values you may have for what makes a better society. Nor do you have any reason to hold to them yourself.
I don’t mean to try to push anyone toward having kids, but if you do want to have kids but give up thinking the world is getting worse, that decision is part of the world getting worse. If you do want kids, there’s all sorts of opportunity to make this a better world for both yourself and them, and longer, and plenty of opportunity to make an actual difference
Just passing along the value of the bidet may be worth it, according to the comic
By that rote though everyone that has had children in the past has cared for their future and the future of the social and actual environment they will inherit. We wouldn’t be having this discussion if any semblance of that was true.
There are plenty of reasons to think this true, and plenty of reasons the world is getting better over time. Maybe not the next four years, and maybe not for everyone, but there are so many stays at global and national levels that have trended up for decades and continue to do so.
And before someone single-minded chimes in about Gaza. War and atrocity has always been an ugly part of our history and also has trended downward over the last several decades. Just the fact that we can get so worked up about ending atrocities somewhere else in the world that doesn’t affect us, is a great sign for the future
If you don’t have a kid, you’re not passing your environmental values, or you educational values, or all the other values you may have for what makes a better society. Nor do you have any reason to hold to them yourself.
...
Why does it have to be my kid for me to care?
Like actually. Are you seriously saying being a parent somehow intrinsically makes someone a better, more caring, and impactful, person? Or that parenthood is the only way to achieve true conviction? That's literally not how any of this works.
Not bringing children into the world in no way prevents you from caring about making the world a better place, and acting to make it so. And doing the things that make the world better doesn't functionally require having a kid. All it takes is some basic fucking decency.
Which is something people already have, but get taken away by the grind of survival or material success. That is maybe why you have this fucked up idea that people get it by having a kid, but in reality that's just a huge life event that wakes some people up enough to take a look around and start caring again.
And passing good things on doesn't require having descendants. If you've ever changed someones mind on something for the better, you've successfully passed on "values you may have for what makes a better society". The person whose mind you changed doesn't even need to be younger than you, thought doesn't procreate through fucking genetics.
Plenty of parents are made no more profound than they were before by the act of procreating, and will conently continue to do nothing to improve the world. There are parents who will protect their own to the detriment of everyone else.
Kids though, if raised by caring parents, care from the start, but then have that heart crushed by society until they too have a kid of their own.
But in there is way for everyone to care, all the time.
The whole idea that it's ok not to care about and deal with bad stuff unless you personally are somehow impacted is the whole reason we're in this mess, and it's perpetuated by people being forced to live in a constant scramble of stress and consumerism.
Not by people not having children.
I would add that the sentiment is also wrong in the other direction. I’ve personally encountered multiple parents and grandparents who hit me with the “well it won’t affect me, I’ll be long gone” reasoning regarding climate change.
So yeah. What a stupid and offensively self centered thing to say. If you personally didn’t give a shit about other people before, that’s actually a character flaw, not a rite of passage you complete by roping children into this mess
I don't need to have a child to care about passing down a habitable planet to the next generation.
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No, noone is under any obligation to do so.
Remember what they say on airplanes. Secure your own mask before helping others.
This entire thread sums up the utter misery of Lemmy.
Exactly. I love it. These people are basically self pruning their evolutionary branches all by themselves!
There should be a Darwin awards category for this
So...have kids in a dying world so you have mating success? That's an asinine reason to procreate.
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Give me a break. How about the people having kids in:
- -900,000: Whatever happened to kill off almost all humans
- -1177: Bronze Age collapse
- 535: Volcanic winter of 536
- 1347-1351: Black Death
- 1914-1918: WWI and Spanish Flu
- 1929-1939: Great Depression and Dust Bowl
- 1962: Great Leap Forward
- 1943-1945: Worst killings and bombings of WWII
- 2020: For our lifetimes. COVID and 100 other disasters. So bad most have forgotten it started with Australia burning to the ground, 1 billion animals killed.
As to racism, we watched Mississippi Burning last night. My wife isn't from America and was horrified. "Honey, that was happening when our parents were kids."
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Im amazed at how much X has had kids. Seems nuts. Then I realize I might have done it if I had went 4 years to college and started working right after and if within a few years made a family raising type of wage. That double major and one year in a PhD may have saved me.
I’m not.
Well you can have them, then just say "screw them" cause you got your own problems to deal with as western society would prefer you act.
Their only purpose is to support you when you get old anyways. Everyone knows that.
Honestly if I have a kid it would only to raise them to be a post apocalyptic war lord and hopefully give them a tragic enough backstory to survive the wasteland on.
hopefully give them a tragic enough backstory
What the fuck? Like abuse the shit out of them to toughen them up?
I know you're not being serious but damn what do you mean by this?
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I look forward to the end of the world.
The afterlife, it will be glorious and reward us with all we were denied.
Edit: Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Do you not look forward to the new lives we'll have in the world to come?
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These keywords are not prevalent in my country (not the us) but this or a couple of nukes doesn't really make much difference
It doesn't matter where you live. Even if you're in the perfect geography and latitude to make climate change no big deal locally; the mass migration, wars, and production disruption will certainly affect you and especially your children.
I love the part were they kind of observe it in a detached, third person point of view, as if it didn't affect them at all, and taking care of the issue in any way was beyond even their wildest dreams, just because they consider themselves above the issue.
Oh, but by all means, keep self pruning your evolutionary tree branch.
But do try to use those extra resources to last a bit. You don't want to miss the global chaos the lack of social security is gonna create in about 20 to 30 years, it's gonna be sick
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Our parents and grandparents had kids - depending on your age - when there was a world war and tens of thousands of people were dying daily in their country, or in the 50 years where the world was always on the brink of getting destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse if one of the two world powers made the wrong move. Were they dumb?
Not to downplay on the current emergencies which are existential and terrifying, especially seeing how little as a species we are doing to address them - but they are a bit of a silly reason not to have kids.
If you don’t want kids don’t have them, you do you :) far too many people have children out of peer or societal pressure or just carelessness, and we could really use much fewer of those, considering the societal damage of absent or careless parenting. But just be honest with yourself, no need to blame viruses and “no toilet paper”.
Were they dumb?
Yes.
Woah handle all that edge with care!
I hate that it's apparently the edgelord opinion to think bringing a child into a world where they will suffer is a bad thing. Anyone having a child is either a victim, an idiot, or a sociopath.
It might've been more clear if you just said "I don't think they were dumb. Therefore..."
How many of those kids were intentional though? Birth control and abortion were restricted or just not available. I'm sure most of the people who had kids in the past did not regret it but I'm not going to pretend they meant to get pregnant.
And the toilet paper thing is obviously a joke. A bit of levity in the horror.
Sure, those were separate arguments. The intentionality part was about contemporary, potential parents.