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Comment by FiniteField | Hacker News Reader

To add onto this comment, saying "having children is the worst thing for the climate" is a totally defeatist attitude towards the issue. What people are saying is "human life is incompatible with the Earth so we should stop perpetuating it". We might as well count our living selves alongside hypothetical future children and all kill ourselves now if that's the case. Of course, the people espousing this message are pretty much exclusively talking to western/European people, who are in almost all cases already giving birth at far below-replacement levels.

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none of these arguments are useful if they are all phrased in terms of two absolutes. we could clearly chart a middle course between breeding as much as possible and lying down and dying.

ignoring our apparent inability to do anything at all about anything of course

> none of these arguments are useful if they are all phrased in terms of two absolutes. we could clearly chart a middle course between breeding as much as possible and lying down and dying.

That's also primarily an American issue. They tend to view everything through the lens of 2 political camps and "whose side are you on?".

That kind of view is completely antithetical to actually solving problems.

I always wonder if it's related somehow to the deep imprint that organized professional team sports, especially football, seems to have on the US psyche.

Yeah, hockey is popular here in Canada, but it's not nearly on the same level as the NFL in the US. And "college sports" etc. is not even a thing. I feel like the American mindset is ever more leaning towards framing everything in a "my team vs your team" dynamic.

And makes any discussion absolutely obnoxious with the usual "if you don't agree you must be on the other side and be the enemy"

> saying "having children is the worst thing for the climate" is a totally defeatist attitude towards the issue

But, spreadsheet at hand, it is.

It's always the parents that get offended by this. We are not judging anyone's lifestyle. Relax.

If we're attributing the carbon emissions of children to their parents, then we can pass the buck all the way back up to a handful of apes that decided to descend from the trees.

Right. But to many "saving the future" is to have good future for their children.

Saying that basically sounds like saying "don't have children peasants, so our the world is better for our overlord's children"

It really isn't though. Spreadsheet at hand, having American children is.

It's always the Americans that get offended by this. Relax. It just happens to be your fault.

Not American, sorry.

No worries. You're probably only 40% responsible baby.

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