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Comment by akudha | Hacker News Reader

I find it very hard to share the article's optimism. I don't have kids, but I have a nephew and a niece. I see the difficulty of raising children in a world of super shitty social media, climate change, easy access to drugs/guns and on and on. I also feel bad for the kids - when I was a kid, my parents let me play outside, bike a few miles to my friends' place etc. Today's kids are just prisoners in their own homes, because "safety".

All of this not even taking into account the cost of raising kids. If families with both parents making 6 figures a year have this much stress and difficulty, how about those who are making minimum wage or slightly higher than minimum wage?

Instead of simply asking young people to have kids, how about improving conditions in society so young people will voluntarily have kids? How about having sane immigration policies (and not being racist and xenophobic) so countries like Japan can at least slow down population decline?

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Globally in the world people are now better off than they ever were in human history. Telling example is extreme poverty rate that declined several times since 1990 [1]

Raising kids is tough, but not raising them because conditions are somehow worse?

Child mortality reduced 3 fold worldwide since 1990 [2] in absolute numbers, even though population continued to grow.

Kids should be personal decision, not climatechangey ones.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mdg1a-poverty

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-deaths-igme-data?ta...

Choosing not to have children because of your assumptions about climate change is personal.

Just putting things in context here, it is quite common to consider that we are worse off now than 20 years ago (Internet was better then, etc). But that's not the case.

Who is the “we” in your statement? I can certainly envision some people who think they are worse off actually are worse off. It is a very popular sentiment amongst a large portion of the population comparing their parents lives to theirs.

we are human beings on average in the world.

surely some people are worse off than in 1990, but the number of people worse-off is significantlly reducing.

If one had a choice to be born on planet earth now or 1990, much better bet is now.

FWIW, I think it's also a mindset choice. Some of my coworkers over the years have been very consistent at believing that the world is on the brink of The End Times ... at all times. They're conditioned to it. What about living here during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Who would think to have children when nuclear devastation is imminent? (Which comes to mind because I saw a pamphlet on Reddit yesterday for a DIY nuclear bomb shelter from the '50s. Imagine that... thinking it's soooo likely that you'll die in a nuclear war that you're digging holes in your back yard...)

Compared to "social media, climate change, and access to drugs" omg... if you had a choice between active, prolonged fear of nuclear annihilation being likely and ... "mean people on social media", which'd you choose, really?

Anyway. When you find the right person, well, "Life, ah, finds a way." ;-)

> Nuclear bomb shelters were an irrational response to unjustified fears stoked by the media.

We need to have a talk about COVID-19…

How is the response to covid irrational? 4.5 million people have already died from it.

This conversation must happen daily on this site. Re-reading the same arguments from opposing viewpoints is really getting old. Did you want a genuine response to your question was was it inflammatory?

I don't see this conversation daily on HN. And as someone who has lost people to this disease I can't let go of any instance of this.

60 million people die of some cause every year. What is your threshold for global despotism to be an acceptable response?

4.5 million after taking all precautions and overloading medical systems of countries. Think how large that number would have been if we had gone our lives normally. Would have made the 1918 pandemic look like a picnic.

I often have a pessimistic outlook of the future myself and I'm trying to change that.

>Some of my coworkers over the years have been very consistent at believing that the world is on the brink of The End Times ... at all times.

I've had similar thoughts too. They began in my teens. It's been decades now and it's exhausting.

>What about living here during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

I recently watched Ken Burns "The Dust Bowl" documentary[1]. If one thinks living now is bad, imagine living during that period and in that place (watch it to better understand)! Seeing pictures of the dust storms coming reminds me the The Nothing from "The Neverending Story" [2]. The Nothing rolls along annihilating everything it covers. It's terrifying to think about.

Here's an interesting excerpt from the movie: https://poorvillains.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/the-nothing-an...

[1] https://kenburns.com/films/dust-bowl/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NeverEnding_Story_(film)

I agree Gmork is definitely not the major villain of The Neverending Story. He's "servant of the power behind the nothing", but The Nothing isn't a weapon, it's more like the realization of a metaphor inside Fantasia. There are people in our world, who (for example) push for engagement at all costs, and don't care about what the results are—and that poisoning of peoples' hearts is what in Fantasia becomes the nothing. The dialog between Atreyu and Gmork is longer in the the book, and one thing it mentions that I don't believe the movie does, is that when the creatures of Fantasia fall into the nothing, in the real world they become lies.

> 'When your turn comes to jump into the Nothing, you too will be a nameless servant of power, with no will of your own. Who knows what use they will make of you? Maybe you'll persuade people to buy things they don't need, or hate things they know nothing about, or hold beliefs that make them easy to handle, or doubt the truths that might save them.

It's really an excellent passage.

Anyway: the movie covers only about the first third of the book, and the book is quite wonderful, and I highly recommend it. I love the movie, too—I'm glad we have both.

Every generation went through some kinds of struggles which they had to fight through. Our generation's is this one and it is not an excuse to not push through it, despite the incredible costs of having children. We could've had a war, we have high costs instead.

>Every generation went through some kinds of struggles which they had to fight through.

You're completely right, and I believe people should choose to spare their would-be-children those struggles by not having them. I see it as compassion, not giving up.

> I see it as compassion, not giving up.

None the less, it is giving up by definition. If everyone thought like you, the world would end.

No, it wouldn't. At best, it would lead to a slight population decline, which in many ways is a positive.

Plus, 99.9999999% of other species on this planet would cheer.

How would it only be a slight population decline if everyone stopped having children?

Well, you got me there, congrats. Yes, if literally 100% of people stopped having children, we die out.

I'm confused why you lumped in that last line about improving immigration policies being relevant here. The mass importing of cheap foreign labour is a major factor in why wages have stagnated as well simply due to more competition for jobs.

Kids are prisoners in their homes because other adults think it’s safe, too. When my children are out, they’re more likely to get hassled by an older adult and CPS called than they are to be assaulted. We try not to let that deter us but I’ve noticed inadvertent compromise over the years.

I honestly don’t mind if my children grow up with less, though. My generation of late X/early Y are dissatisfied because we expected to live like our parents our whole lives. I don’t think the expectation will be there for my children, which should free them up to try more interesting things without as much fear and mental effort.

There’s also the chance that they’ll not live through a period of decline like we’re expecting.

Kids today are more resilient than before.

We have to try to remember how much more we understood things than the past and how much more kids will understand the future than us.

Kids or no kids we can do a lot for the children of the world, although it becomes a lot easier to prioritize this once you have a kid.

If good people stop having kids it’s kind of scary.

the previous generation was always scared for the next generation; I think that's just a way of life

Which past generation had an easier time? Baby boomers, maybe? But they still lived under the threat of nuclear war.

I’ll take bad social media over nuclear war, plague, or famine any day.

Because you are taking that "lazy" expression literally.

The problem of appropriate mental development, formerly tackled through education, which in many territories largely failed, must be re-assessed, and progresses must be made with urgency. It is extremely important. The quality of your life depends on it - your engineers and butchers, traffic wardens and drivers, are also a social product, they fulfil their potential or get deficient out of their environment, and you want them in the "assets" column and not in the "liabilities" column.

Or are you here for the "hacking"?

I cannot make any sense of your comment. Did you mean to reply to someone else?

You would take bad social media over death and destruction. "Bad social media" is a lazy expression for "widespread, overwhelming, faulty mental development". It easily affects the professionals which serve you. Their fault is death and destruction (your doctor, your engineer, their manager etc).

Lighter remark: you want quality around you. «Or are you [at Hacker's News] for the "hacking"?»

Regarding your note about a generation which seemed to have had a better time, but spent under the threat of sudden annihilation: yes, absolutely - the former post was not a comment to that.

I don’t think Facebook having bad algorithms is comparable to bridges collapsing or the plague.

I have never been at FB, but I think the bestiality which became apparent there where people were left free to unleash it is the same bestiality behind collapsing bridges (you know that it happens, right?) and it is worse than the plague (almost literally, but surely, after the past couple of years).

When you read «super shitty social media», maybe the poster could have found a better expression, but it is a distraction to find there an issue with "improvable" algorithms, when the issue may be more with the participants. There is inadequacy.

That inadequacy becomes very clear when the renovator damages your house, the mechanic your car, the medic your health.

What countries have racist and xenophobic immigration policies? I think it’s a good idea to improve immigration policy.

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