What Was Your Motivation to Have Children?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Isn't depression just the other side of the same coin, with happiness being it's necessary opposite?

We all naturally reach for happiness; For life affirmation.

Yet depression and death seem to be always at the heels of every one of us. No one is insulated.


Your description of yourself is cool - an artistic, loving, independent introvert type person.

I relate to you.

Generally life grounds-up & spits-out the likes of us.

We are lucky/cursed to be living in America at this time.



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[Arising_uk]

Yeah 'so what'? Who cares if you don't exist and have no knowledge of anything? Why waste your time being depressed?

Exactly! If you're going to be depressed then by all means be depressed about your life but not about abstracts like 'the human race'.

[Arising_uk]

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Isn't depression just the other side of the same coin, with happiness being it's necessary opposite?

Not necessary, this is the American myth, one could just be content or unconcerned,etc.

We all naturally reach for happiness; For life affirmation.

More American dream myth.

Yet depression and death seem to be always at the heels of every one of us. No one is insulated.

Well, death appears to be an inevitable but depression not so.

Generally life grounds-up & spits-out the likes of us.

We are lucky/cursed to be living in America at this time. .

Lucky in your case as you appear to have been able to retire and live a life of sloth whilst still relatively young. There's that to be said for not having kids.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Emptiness. Emptiness bordering on depression.


I'm not sure it's sloth. Besides, there's a lot of external circumstances that are impacting my life now. Influences beyond my control.



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[Arising_uk]

. Emptiness. Emptiness bordering on depression.

I'm not sure it's sloth. Besides, there's a lot of external circumstances that are impacting my life now. Influences beyond my control. .

Try any or all of these:
Seek professional help.
Read the British Empiricists and Continental Rationalists.
Study Logic.
Revisit your 'Philosophy', examine the axioms that lead to your contradictions and amend them until you have a coherent system of thought.
Get a job, any job as you don't need the money.
Stop using your feelings to think.
Turn your computer off for a month or so.

[Dalek Prime]

I had kids cause my biological clock was tick Tick TICKING! That and society made me feel like it was going to be fun...all the adorable baby outfits, the sweet love and kisses, seeing the result of what you would produce...what would they look like...who would they be... It's a very exciting time.

But then, when they are grown, you realize that you will be responsible for them til the day you die no matter what. Because you love them more than yourself. I wish someone would have told me that if they go down, I go down...that my happiness is dependent on theirs. That is the only thing I can say I hate about loving this much. It's a nightmare for someone who is an independent introvert type person. Sometimes I just want to be left alone...damn me for being so loving!

Too bad you couldn't love other children just as much. Many orphaned children could have used that love to grow on, but you just had to have your own for your genetic pride. Very selective love...

[Dalek Prime]

... You didn't do it for the child either. ...

Where did I say I did? But by-and-large I think existing probably better than not.

Why is existing better than not? According to Benatarian asymmetry, it's not. Non-existence comes out ahead.

It is a selfish action of the parents' desires and beliefs. ...

What's selfish about it?

Again, you did it for you and your wife ie. yourselves. That by definition is selfish ie. not altruistic. You dodging this conclusion doesnt make it less true.

There is not one ethical, rational, selfless reason to bring a child into the world, that purely benefits the child. ...

Apart from being alive as opposed to never existing that is.

Again, Benatarian asymmetry shows non-existence to be slightly better than not. A nothing doesn't miss existence, because there is nothing to miss anything, including pleasure. Therefore there is no loss at not existing. Nothing does not float around, hoping to come into existence, such as this:

https://i1.wp.com/i789.photobucket.com/ ... efetus.jpg (Image too large for posting. )

In your case, it benefited your wife, thus benefiting you (happy wife, happy you)....

Actually I think about it slightly differently, no-children, very unhappy childless women, unhappy me. But since what you say is what I said I take your point and find very little wrong with my position.

Yes, you did it for yourselves, which is what you force me to keep saying by dodging it. You did it to make yourselves happy, which is by definition a selfish, not a selfless act. Now stop it and stop wasting my time.

The child, not existing, would have been just fine in non-existence.

No it wouldn't as there would have been no child being fine in non-existence.

Exactly! Nothing wouldn't miss existing. Thus, the nothing would have been fine, left to be nothing. Quit using the non-identity problem, where none exists on my behalf, but does exist on yours.

I'm not berating you for your choice. But let's stop kidding ourselves about the selflessness of procreation. It's always about a child's utility, whether for the happiness of the parents, or the future of society when it grows up.

Who said it was a selfless act? Personally I think it a natural one and one that is pretty much the raison d'être of life, that it removed an unsuspected existential nag was a surprise to me but most welcome.

You have a very low standard for meaning in your life, if it's just to reproduce inanely and mechanistically, like billions of others, over and over again, until it all comes to an end. I wish you all the best on your dubiously meaningful journey. Either way, please read up at least on Benatar's book, before you come rushing back with tiresome, ill-thought arguments on this subject. He answers them all. I will not.... I've posted some good reading on the subject in books. There's no excuse for arguing something you know nothing about.

[Dalek Prime]

The problem is, natalism is the accepted standard and norm. People without children put much more thought into their decision not to have children, than most do into having children. Not only that, those who select sterilization are forced by the medical community to give sufficient rationale for not wanting children, otherwise, the doctor won't do the procedure. By contrast, a potential parent is never asked to give rationale to anyone for their decision to procreate, even for assisted reproduction, though the stakes are much higher (responsibility of parenting), and the doctor can't refuse them without reason.

How stupidly backwards is that?

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Excellent point.


I often wonder if sterilization with incentive would be a win/win.




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[Dalek Prime]

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Excellent point.


I often wonder if sterilization with incentive would be a win/win.




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I'm ethically against coercion, and incentives are a positive form of coercion. It ends up being a eugenics program, then; the poor being more prone to incentives by their poverty, than the better off, who are also more likely to be running the program. And, what if the poor do not accept the incentives? Do the better off then use greater coercion ie. forced sterilization, to achieve their aims? It's happened before.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Yeah. I know. It's a slippery-slope system that definitely would be abused and used as one more tool to suppress types of opposition.


But boy...in my country, America, the increasingly impoverished are the ones that are having an increasingly large reproduction cycle.


Children having babies. Unable to offer care or future opportunities...It's pretty fucked-up.

Sad really. The government ends up supporting more & more people - which in-turn entices more & more individuals to jump on the train.


Which, in-turn causes more & more productive citizens being the ones, paying more and shouldering the burden of increased governmental support.



...oh, by the way, did I mention that this is happening to a country that is $18,000,000,000,000.00 in debt and doesn't produce ANYTHING anymore.




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[Arising_uk]

Why is existing better than not? According to Benatarian asymmetry, it's not. Non-existence comes out ahead.

I think you can only have an absence of pain or pleasure if you exist and can only know either if you know their opposites.

Again, you did it for you and your wife ie. yourselves. That by definition is selfish ie. not altruistic. You dodging this conclusion doesnt make it less true.

I think altruism an over-rated virtue, one which generally covers a selfish motive and is preached, in the main, by the non-altruistic. Since I think self-interest, in the main, the best way to behave and in this instance since I had to give-up many pleasures and assume fairly irksome responsibilities I find myself not that selfish, in fact even altruistic.

Again, Benatarian asymmetry shows non-existence to be slightly better than not. A nothing doesn't miss existence, because there is nothing to miss anything, including pleasure. Therefore there is no loss at not existing. Nothing does not float around, hoping to come into existence, such as this:

And yet this asymmetry implicitly assumes that there is a value or cost that can be associated with non-existence?

Yes, you did it for yourselves, which is what you force me to keep saying by dodging it. You did it to make yourselves happy, which is by definition a selfish, not a selfless act. Now stop it and stop wasting my time.

Sure, I did it to make my partner happy which makes my life happier, why she did it is her own issue. I think it a fairly selfless act as I could have been just as happy without them but I take your point but from my perspective 'selflessness' always has a self-interest at heart. I'm also confused as to why you think being happy is selfish?

Exactly! Nothing wouldn't miss existing. Thus, the nothing would have been fine, left to be nothing. Quit using the non-identity problem, where none exists on my behalf, but does exist on yours.

And yet there you are talking about this 'nothing' being fine and being left to be nothing? From my perspective there is nothing and one can only be fine if one exists.

You have a very low standard for meaning in your life, if it's just to reproduce inanely and mechanistically, like billions of others, over and over again, until it all comes to an end. I wish you all the best on your dubiously meaningful journey. Either way, please read up at least on Benatar's book, before you come rushing back with tiresome, ill-thought arguments on this subject. He answers them all. I will not.... I've posted some good reading on the subject in books. There's no excuse for arguing something you know nothing about.

Get off your high-horse as it'll be my kids wiping your incontinent arse and paying for your health-care, pensions, etc. If you follow his book to it's logical conclusion you should just top yourself now and embrace non-existence.

[Dalek Prime]

Way to follow instructions, Arising. Now, if you want me to top myself, please first lead by example.

PS. Suicide is not the logical conclusion of his book or antinatalism. And you'd know this if you shut your hole and read the darn thing, like the intelligent individual you claim to be.

PPS. And who made it possible for me to utilize your kids for things they will hate, like wiping my butt in my dottage? Oh, that's right. You and your wife. They have you to thank for their thankless existence.

[Arising_uk]

Way to follow instructions, Arising. Now, if you want me to top myself, please first lead by example.

Why? I think non-existence is just that so I prefer to stay with existence despite its travails or at least until they bother me enough.

PS. Suicide is not the logical conclusion of his book or antinatalism. And you'd know this if you shut your hole and read the darn thing, like the intelligent individual you claim to be.

Where did I claim that? What is the logical conclusion of his book then, if it's not to stop breeding and cause the human race to go extinct?

[Dalek Prime]

Way to follow instructions, Arising. Now, if you want me to top myself, please first lead by example.

Why? I think non-existence is just that so I prefer to stay with existence despite its travails or at least until they bother me enough.

PS. Suicide is not the logical conclusion of his book or antinatalism. And you'd know this if you shut your hole and read the darn thing, like the intelligent individual you claim to be.

Where did I claim that? What is the logical conclusion of his book then, if it's not to stop breeding and cause the human race to go extinct?

Not breeding does not equate to individual suicide. And of course a living being will want to stay in existence. We all fear death. Suicide forces one to overcome immense programming to survive.

Now, you asked what the logical conclusion of his book is. It is to consider the ethical implications of procreating. Having said that, I won't try to replace Cliffs Notes, or your own reading pleasure.