22 Comments

The more optimistic corollary of this is that in a world where every child - no matter their parents - is guaranteed health, safety, opportunity to develop their abilities and the rest… then choosing to become a parent remains a sacrifice of flexibility/convenient, but no longer is a sacrifice of your independence vis-a-vis other adults and their institutions.

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They will only be "guaranteed" these goodies if they comply with every diktat of the state.

Entitlements ensure conservatism.

That's exactly what the author is saying. It's not "optimistic." It's fatalistic.

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You don't have to have kids if you don't want to, and you can justify that choice to yourself as you see fit. But the assertion that people with kids can't be radical is unfounded. Most labor militants and many if not most guerrillas have had kids, for instance.

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…if fucked up world is your reason not to have children, i have a question: AT WHICH POINT IN ALL EXISTENCE IT WASN’T ?! …and if you don’t have children that means you willingly decline a chance to bring up to this world someone who can make a positive impact and change it a little by little along with others, yes it is a dilemma, but only desire for better world can be viable reason to have them, it’s not easy and if you’re looking for easy life - don’t, but do not blame a “broken world” for your decision

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For as often as this article is shared in Reddit, I expected more comments here.

You show very clear insight cutting through the collective natalist pipedream.

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There’s this endless demand for a victim narrative around the fact of voluntary self-genocide.

Like whatever man. Hope others aren’t like you so someone is around to enjoy life long term

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Very insightfull. Children have been born to provide us with workers and armies and to take care of us when we are old, not for their own sake. Our lives are our own, and what we make of them with the limited power we have. A live and let live philosophy serves well but one sticking point is that we didn't choose to live. That decision was made for us. The live and let live philosophy should take into account sustainability and planning for the future of us and our children when some of us do choose to have them. We should not have children for our own selfish needs but simply for giving the gift of life to an as of yet unknown being, who will make the best of the life they find themselves with. If we value having lived, then life is a gift and it should only be given for the sake of the one who will live that life, not you, me or anyone else.

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My reason for not having children. My older brother, like me, had ASD. He was not capable of keeping a relationship, but really good at producing children. When his first wife had his first child, he left her for the girl 2 doors down the hall. She was alone with a new baby and needed help. I had just turned 17 and moved in with her. I cared for my niece while she worked. The experience changed me. I saw her struggle. I struggled to care for that tiny human. I came out of that knowing I was no capable of hearing children. I made the right choice. I struggled with undiagnosed ASD and alcoholism for many years. I am sober almost 28 years now. I know would have ruined lives if I made another choice.

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This is shit.

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You were one of my favorite writers and then you kind of vanished. First question, are you alright? Second question, are you going to start writing again? Your voice was a valuable addition to the dialog and I think we need you now.

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For the kids... works both ways.

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There are problems with this essay-- as much as I agree the sentiment is generally true, or at least might be on paper.

The ruling class-- whether capitalist or communist-- wants to control how many children you have. That's all. Nothing more to see. It really is two sides of the same coin that is population control.

Your post falls into the trap of the natalist vs/ antinatalist binary. Leave this conversation with the assholes that started it and those who continue to mold global policy.

Whether or not people have kids should be the question of the person having them, within community of people who support them. Anything else is misogyny.

Human Breeding is a biological imperative that can be ignored because we're the apes that ask questions.

Discussing human breeding in terms of moral imperatives-- the natalism vs/ antinatalism binary-- is a legacy of authoritarianism. In all its decadence, it amounts to a Marx vs. Malthus vs. Organized Religion circle jerk.

Some, though not all, of the most radical women have had kids. It's just a statistic that most who can birth children will in their lifetime. To suggest that those who are on the front lines of any radical movement are the childfree is lofty, if at all ideal.

The other problem is that of all the childfree people I know-- few of them are radical or ungovernable and several of them will likely end up having children, despite their childfree proclamations. To be fair, I can say this of the parents in my life too. I also give possible exception to those childfree who live with the necessity to be outspoken and radical in their existence because they're Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ+ and/or other people of color/otherwise strategically undervalued. Their being radical effects others only so much in that them existing does, which is to say "somewhat".

They are as consumed in their lives as the parents are, except potentially without the obligatory survival sense that comes with parenting (for better or worse). Again with exceptions, they are professionals in bullshit jobs-- protected and driven by commerce, academia, and bureaucracy.

Ungovernable? Not really.

In an invasion, would any of them be making molotovs beside parents and their kiddos? Would they be throwing stones? Would they be fleeing? I hope whatever they're doing, it isn't freezing and fawning. As you note, many families already do. As the childfree are a growing population, let's hope they don't.

Everyone is governable when a knife is at their throat. Unless they have skill, community, luck and the fortune of timing.

The more arguments are made about whether people should or shouldn't do whatever they can do with their bodies and their lives, the more schizmogenesis. The less fostering community in any effective way. The more governable we will all be and the more things are going to stay the same.

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Hence the distress of the CP of China at its declining birth rates. There is, after all, an overwhelming surplus of available housing.

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Inequality grows as consumption wanes due to markets maturing for labor and inputs. Capitalism eats itself starting with its home market first. As capitalism forms a parasitic symbiotic relationship with the state, wages are suppressed. This lowers the cost of inputs but it also lowers consumption. Capitalism must expand to new markets for new consumers and even lower cost of labor. This takes many decades but at some point, capitalism begins to run out of new markets for labor and consumption.

The most mature markets at this point have the greatest income inequality. Wages have been suppressed for many years and the gap between wages and the cost of living has grown so large, that it begins to destroy all consumption because most things have priced themselves out of the market for consumers. Consumer debt expands greatly, in the USA consumer debt is predicted to be 180% of the consumer economy in 15 years. The hat trick in the USA is that private corps have worked to make this cost avoidance a public sector, not a private sector problem through govt transfers (welfare).

Consumers cannot have children in this socioeconomic environment for a plethora of reasons that have arisen out of extreme inequality.

Because the USA is the largest consumer market in the world when consumption falters this has a direct relationship to the largest producers of consumer goods such as China. Banking issues in the USA create debt service and payment system shocks that ripple across the globe creating the same in other markets. The instability of the dollar begins to erode it's hold on various markets as the exchange medium.

Falling birth rates, collapsing real estate markets, falling consumption, spikes in excess production capacity, the shrinking of asset classes that are immune to inflation and increasing debt service, all begin to work together to make the global markets unstable.

The wage stagnation that firms have enjoyed for decades has created an explosion of growth in banking and finance. This excess is the value add that labor provides in turning raw materials into goods which a portion ideally is transferred back to labor. This has not happened and since economic power IS political power, states are the proxy of private interests to the detriment of public interests. All of this has created a power shift away from labor or the bottom of 80% of the economy.

The only thing that will reverse this is labor must begin to drain the excess capital that the largest firms have been able to corner which will impede their ability to corrupt government and take away some of their economic power which will strengthen the economic power and thus political power of the working class. It all boils down to wages and equality. People resist this notion because it seems to simplistic against the back drop of the deafening noise of strife that mass media blasts in the eyes and ears 24x7.

It is utterly ridiculous and somewhat astounding that the quality, cost and availability healthcare, education, childcare, lifestyle, quality of life, cultural norms, crime and punishment, immigration, trade, consumption, debt, wealth and more all go back to the illness of inequality.

People underestimate the havoc caused by the concentration of around 80% of the worlds wealth in less than 1% of the worlds population. It is invisible, it is not broadcast on the news, it is the natural order of things. It is in the water so to speak.

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There's a lot to unpack here. I think it deserves a thread (or more) of its own, so I've opened https://the-oracle-of-technocrat.ghost.io/a-disourse-on-economic-inequalities/

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I guess the same can be said of buying property and having a mortgage. Owning a property gives people a stake in society and the inclination to build community around that investment.

It’s certainly true that I’d be a lot freer if I’d not had children but I’d also be significantly poorer from a richness of life point of view. I can see your argument that I’m more inclined to care for a world that has my genes living on in to the future.

It’s certainly possible that the ruling classes are encouraging children. It was certainly the case hundreds of years ago as these people would be labour and soldiers most often. A young population is very much a healthy one that is more able to defend itself.

But the natural urge to reproduce must still be a bigger driving force. After all this what’s got us through millions of years of evolution?

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Y'know, most people just want a home they can call their own, and don't care all that much about "investing in a property" or any of the other things. That whole mentality has ruined housing for the everyone else.

It's high time that we recognised housing as a human right and not an investment.

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Housing commons, bring it. Hell, baby commons, if the parents can’t deal any longer.

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No.

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No on the housing? Or the babies? Both?

Why not free those up from the state?

It's like @Martin Prior mentioned: we don't really need cannon fodder for war between governments.

Or for people to invest in property, as @Miraan pointed out.

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The last thing societies need is unwanted babies dumped on the “commons”.

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