Comment by tokioyoyo
2 months ago
A bit off-topic, but it’s interesting how this became the de-facto answer to any question related to “meaning of life” in the last 2-3 years in HN/tech circles. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it’s a bit weird. Like I’m sure everyone knows that? If a person isn’t having a child in their 30s, they either can’t because of multitude of different reasons, or they decided they don’t want to.
Disclaimer: I’m as pro-kid as you can get, just haven’t met a partner who would be on the same page as me yet.
When I was talking about it with my friends, our guess is, people with kids are getting worried. If others aren’t having kids, then their kids might suffer big time in a long run, thus the renewed pressure to keep suggesting the idea to others. Obviously this doesn’t relate to you, just weird how it started in the last few years.
I'd have to guess the demographics of HN lean rather Millennial, and I don't have to guess that they lean heavily male. I think it's probably just a collective biological clock thing; it's something I've started to feel myself. Intellectually, I want kids less than ever (so it's for the best I never had any), but emotionally, I do sort of understand the urge.
Could be! I share the same emotional feeling as well, but the ones telling others to have kids, already have them. They keep going above and beyond trying to portray the idea of “everything is amazing when you have a kid!”, when it’s objectively not true. It’s just a bit off-putting when you have all the information readily available and try to push an ideology to a circle that’s commonly known as skeptics. Anyone who has close girl friends in their late 20s/30s have heard the issues they’re facing and why they’re not having kids either. But then, bunch of seemingly smart people, just keep yelling “just have children!!!” looks a bit dumb. And from the guy’s side we have different sets of problems.
A bit personal, but throughout my life, I’ve met more dead-beat fathers than caring ones. So, I’m incredibly jaded when it comes to giving advice. Statistically, I wouldn’t try to change one’s mind to have a child, because I’d feel bad for the kid if things go south.
Once again, I’m still pro-having kids, but I don’t get why it became such a major discourse compared to 2010s.
Perhaps it is becoming more clear that the current reproduction rates are unsustainable if they persist.
Anyway, I have a bunch of kids, and I think from a motivational perspective, yes, kids give you meaning for some years.
But they can also help you with something else due to the necessary self-sacrifices, which is getting a out of egocentric thoughts, such as what you're going to do with your life. Read a book on biology. You are a bunch of cells put in the world to cooperate to feed and reproduce before they self-terminate to leave space for the offspring. That's it. Stop fretting. :)
(Helping society and thereby the offspring of other bunches of cells is pretty noble too, by the way.)
I think it's a pushback against the emphasis on individualism in our culture, which many find does not lead to real fulfillment. When you start a family, you're giving up your own glory, but in doing so you become deeply integrated into something greater than yourself, which makes you greater by extension.
And I say this as someone who doesn't have kids either, and as someone who used to not be so excited by the prospect, but I've witnessed how it's transformed my friends and family members.
But why now, and not like 5 years ago? That’s the weirdness I don’t understand. Is it just very loud people had a bunch of kids and trying to push the same on others? Trying to change the culture from the start? “Meaning of life” is like the oldest question that has ever existed. Both people with and without children have pondered about it for eternity. It just looks funny when you see a sudden shift in the discourse.
I think there's two shifts that play a major role in explaining the timing that you're referencing:
- The 2010s represented a progressivist left-ward shift in America and the excesses of that movement are provoking a reactionary conservative shift in the populace in the 2020s: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/seven-reasons-america-is-heade.... This is cyclical is the same thing happened from 1960s to 1970s.
- The concept of population collapse entered mainstream discourse in the early 2020s and is now being accepted as the major concern for humanity moving forward, a 180-degree turn from the previous concern of overpopulation. This is something unprecedented in human history as no human has ever existed in an economy or society where the population was decreasing so all the "rules" we know about life are suddenly subject to change unless birth patterns change significantly.
> But why now, and not like 5 years ago?
It’s a product of the rise in white nationalist/supremacist movements and white replacement theory. Pro-natalism with the explicitly racial content omitted (though even their often tied to overt appeals to eugenics and/or framing it as intra-societal/cultural competition, which is itself only a shade different from racial/ethnic competition, but for some reason doesn’t produce nearly as strong a negative reaction) is a face that can be shown to audiences that aren’t ready for the full-strength message.
I’m not saying every vocal pro-natalist is a white supremacist (most of the high profile ones are, though), but that the rise in white supremacy and the prominence of white replacement theory within the rising white supremacy is a big part of the explanation of why pro-natalism is a lot more prominent right now than in the recent past.
Maybe the demographics of HN are such that a bunch of people just had kids.
I've seen the sentiment building over the last several years. Though I think part of why it's such a prevalent sentiment now as opposed to a few years ago, is very obvious signs of cultural breakdown started to show strongly in maybe 2017 or so, and people started questioning the prominent messages in our culture and seeking answers, and for many, finding those answers takes time.
There are probably other related factors too, like increased awareness of population decline, but I think both reasons are intertwined.
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By far most likely is that the loudest cohort of HN users (or people in your social circle) has aged to the point where they want families. Younger people are on other social networks.
I find this interesting as one of the individualist characteristics of our society is 'my children > everyone else'. I don't see the emphasis on having children as anti-individualist at all.
Many parents are completely unwilling to hold their children to account/tell them no/let them fail/etc. The experience of the people around their children means nothing to them. Teaching their children to be a part of society does not matter: All that matters is their children get what they want because their children are extensions of themselves.
Like many online sentiments I think it's reactionary, specifically to the stereotype of the liberal atheist DINK milliennial couple.
In my case this is probably partly true, but more because I think many people are actively deluding themselves and trying to reject their own mortality with fantasies of digitally transferring ones conscience, bio/medical immortality a la Kurzweil, singularity stuff, and so on endlessly.
But if people look at these things objectively, there is essentially 0% chance of any of this happening, let alone in our lifetimes or anytime remotely near it.
And when you look at the people spreading/making such predictions the timelines always coincidentally come just before their expected end of life.
When you accept the fact that you, and near to every other person alive today, will be dead in 80 years (and mostly far sooner) it rather significantly changes your perspective on life. Want to transfer your consciousness? Not gonna happen, but having a few children is at least a reasonable second.
I don’t think people who don’t have kids are thinking about sci-fi stuff. Other than my dad, I genuinely have never met a person who ever thinks about it, and well, he had me and my siblings.
Some people just believe in (and sometimes achieve!) fulfilment through other means. Problem is, that is objectively bad for economical and cultural growth of the humanity. No single country has been able to resolve that problem without religious beliefs or kinda forcing women to have children (by either taking all their opportunities away or them not having any by default).
Yes, I've noticed it too. The most blaring example was DHH going on a "Just have some kids you'll be happier than you've ever been!" rant in some zoom talk ostensibly about coding that he gave in the past year. it's gross and condescending and not someone speaking as a public figure should be advocating for. IMO, We need better parents, not necessarily more parents, and if you're having kids because you're sad with life then IMO you should reconsider the ramifications of having a kid and then fucking up the parenting process. It's incredibly selfish
Because it's not only extremely fulfilling (well beyond what one might expect) on a personal level but also required on a social level for a culture to persist.
And this is in the context of ever more people complaining of loneliness, lack of fulfillment/meaning, and more. These issues are almost certainly causally related.
Help yourself, help society, and even have a voice (of sorts) in the future of humanity.
There are literal hundreds (thousands?) of philosophical schools for “meaning of life”. It’s really not a new question, and there won’t be a right answer, ever. Trying to convince someone that it is the only route to find a meaning just sounds a bit funny for anyone who watches it from the sidelines.
My question, once again, is why tech circles started focusing on this and pushing it as ideology just recently? Wasn’t a thing in 2010s, people more or less respected personal choices as long as it doesn’t harm others directly.
Interesting point in the timing. In general I think it's probably just growing awareness of the issue, also combined with a growing number of people in tech starting families (often quite late) and being like 'zomg why didn't I do this earlier.' Many people in tech are also fascinated with countries like Japan which are acting like a living warning to the rest of the world about fertility.
In general though I think cultural shifts often lack any clear reason. People like Musk or Gates chiming in on the issue are almost certainly effects rather than causes.
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>My question, once again, is why tech circles started focusing (emphasis mine)
One answer nobody else is willing to broach is that Elon Musk and friends are hyper-breeder crazies who think the white race will die out if white men don't all pump out as many babies with as many women as possible, and they literally own multiple tech and social media companies to push such a narrative.
HN is more influenced by chud ideology than it should be.
I agree it’s becoming a common sentiment among the online pseudo-intelligentsia, but it’s still rare on a population level, so I will keep spreading the sentiment. I think it’s important, mainly on an economic level (I believe economic growth is impossible without population growth), but I speculate the decline of family-having is at the root of some of our other social-psychological malaises: loneliness, substance abuse, mental illness, increasing interest in extreme politics. Tech people should be most interested in family as an answer to social woes because currently people are blaming either social media and tech for social dysfunction,or the collapse in family-having, or both. If family is the answer then lots of tech will be exonerated.
Frankly, I don’t buy the malaises argument. It obviously has some effect, but even the countries that are known for not being lonely has dropping fertility rates. And there’s almost no good argument for having more than 2 kids, which is basically a requirement for increasing population.
People just have more stuff to do, and convincing a woman they should sacrifice at the bare minimum 6 years to give birth to 3 kids is just… yeah, good luck. The only argument is “do it for the greater good!”, and as a society, we have shown that most people don’t care about the greater good the second times become a bit hard.
Some tech circles have been entertaining the whole “trad life” idea, but it’s pretty laughable the second you start talking to real people. Not all women want to be depended on others if they have a choice.
Every single woman needs to, on average, have a bit more than 2 children to have a stable population. Fewer than that and your population (once it shares the same fertility rate across generations) will begin changing at a scalar of fertility_rate/2 each ~20 years. So a fertility rate of 1 = 50% decline every 20 years. And it's exponential - that decline never stops or slows until you go extinct or start having children again.
But in this case one frustrating thing is people don't know what they don't know. My wife was quite lukewarm on having children but shortly after our first she wanted at least two more. They really change you in ways that are impossible to describe without cliche, and I think this is, by nature, even more true for the mother.
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