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Comment by mrphoebs | Hacker News Reader

I'm not dwindling others experiences against the vastness of the universe. I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of the parent comment that somehow elevates the meaningfulness of having kids over building a stone wall. My position is neither is any less or more meaningful beyond individual experience.

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Of the people that lived 100K years ago, we have almost nothing. Possibly some cave paintings, though the vast majority of art from then must be gone. However, every single person alive today is descended from people who lived then. You may or may not find that meaningful, but it would be hard to disagree that having children was the most impactful course of action available to anyone alive then. The same is true for nearly all of human existence.

With the current pace of change, having children may no longer be the obvious winner it has been for all of history, but it might still be...

Fossilised remains in the sediments on earth are all that remain of the species that have come and gone before us. Many species are lost to time, because they weren't fossilised or their effects preserved. And our fossilised remains will be lost to the cosmos as well. You experiencing humanity in the midst of it might make it seem substantial. But we are a genus a mere 2 million years old and a species as young as 200000 years. For comparison, the dinosaurs roamed the earth for 165 million years. All of human history is 200000 years, again seems of consequence to us because we are participants in it but on the grand scale really isn't.

Does that mean we shouldn't just bother, absolutely not, we are given this gift of experiencing life. Something rather than nothingness...etc. But we can do with a little more perspective on how utterly inconsequential we are in the grand scheme of things. Having kids seems consequential in the context of human existence, but when human existence is inconsequential (there is no lasting impact or transmission of information beyond our temporary side-effects on the environment) it puts our existence into perspective.

The vast overwhelming majority of matter in the universe is inert.

The fact that we've hit upon a certain arrangement of matter which yields consciousness and the ability to manipulate the matter around us is something which seems worth preservation.

I contain the information for how to give life to inert matter. I've done it three times now, and I think it's worthwhile.

You thinking it is worthwhile is all that should matter, just as a farmer thinking it's worthwhile to build a wall that lasts. Both instances are us giving meaning to self actualisation of individual drives be it preservation or propagation of genetic information or building something that will outlast you.

Hmm... Since when did we reach this height of "enlightenment" that children (humans) are now being compared to a stonewall in relevance, no matter how sophisticated the wall might be?

Yes, it is more meaningful to have kids than to build a stonewall.

Aren't walls inventions of man, as such, an effect caused by man. How can an effect (invention) of man be equated to the inventor?

Do you compare the effect of human freedom to the effect of unconscious matter in history?

A stone wall has no chance to beat its fate. Humanity, however unlikely that might be, does stand a chance.

We're very far from where we started. We're here because of both people that had kids and because of people that built stone walls. In many cases they were the same people.

Agreed, and no matter if we manage to beat our fate or not, doesn't make this thing called life any less precious.

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