| |
| ▲ | NoMoreNicksLeft 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | >I hate how we got here, but watching my nephews go through this stuff made me realize you can’t cut the kids off completely. Mine are turning out fine. I don't want them to be like those other children, and I've kept them away from those children. Doesn't seem to have been a problem. >Ideally, you would live in a community where all parents have agreed on the social media limits, This is a matter of who you choose to socialize/fraternize with, not one of geography. But if you opt for public school, then you have no real choice in the matter. | | |
| ▲ | AstralStorm 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Congratulations, you're raising future disgruntled outcast class of people who are not integrated with the society. The next step is some canny asshole will take advantage of these people by selling them on their superiority or offering community, and radicalize them. It's happened many times. | | |
| ▲ | NoMoreNicksLeft 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | >ongratulations, you're raising future disgruntled outcast class of people who are not integrated with the society. This society is dying, nearly dead. Anyone who is integrated with it will die by extension. Only lunatics would want to be integrated with it. This society can't even be bothered to make more humans so that it can continue into the future... it wants to be dead. My children aren't outcast, they have friends. Just not ones that would bully them because they didn't see the latest softcore porn on whatever the most popular social media happens to be today. >The next step is some canny asshole will take advantage of these people by selling them on their superiority or offering community, and radicalize them. Uh huh. What if someone taught them that it was normal to possess firearms, or to be skilled at using them? Those crazy radicals. What if they were taught that the most fulfilling thing they could do in their life is to make a family of their own, and raise their children well? What if their teachers were so radical that they taught arithmetic and trig and calculus instead of helping them decide they were trans? Everyone in this thread knows I'm right, even if they can't afford to agree openly. That's what this thread is... we know the society that our parents and ourselves have created is rotten and pathological, or we wouldn't be talking about how to insulate our children from it. | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Society is really fine! I live among millions of people every day, and people are genuinely kind and nice on average. It's up to you how you want to perceive the world, but I wouldn't want my neighbours to ever think people around them are lunatics and etc. I understand you're coming from a very American-specific point of view, which is very hard for me to comprehend. Growing up, I absolutely never had to worry (and now as well) about any of those topics. Even my nephews in public schools (US) are doing pretty decent maths stuff. I do think some of the things you've mentioned are mostly imaginary problems, but I can be wrong. I'm not special. You're not special either. Nobody's really special. Yet we find ways to sit down, have a drink, go for a drive, or have sex from time to time. That being said, I have quite a few friends who had very restricted childhoods, and would never want my children to feel the same resentment as they do during our hang outs. | | |
| ▲ | NoMoreNicksLeft 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | >Society is really fine! Any healthy, long-term viable society has to prioritize one task above all others... making the replacement people that will be society once the current people die. Your society (if you choose to claim it) doesn't do this. Sub-replacement fertility. It's dying because of this. If you think that's fine, go for it. >I live among millions of people every day Sure. And each generation is about half the size of the previous. It will look fine, even crowded for awhile yet. >I understand you're coming from a very American-specific point of view, This is global. China has sub-replacement fertility. Korea and Japan have sub-replacement fertility. Europe has it, South America has it, India may have finally crept below replacement, but if it hasn't yet it will next year or the year after. This is everywhere. There's not a hidden corner of the world where it's not happening. | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 3 days ago | parent [-] | | You judge people by the amount of kids they have? So like, if a couple has less than 3 kids, they’re awful people and shouldn’t be around? Interesting take, if that’s the only way you look at people, and whether you want to be around them or not. I agree we have fertility problems, but if people don’t have kids, well, that’s so not my business. Every person is different and has their priorities. If a person wants to have 0 or 10 kids, god speed to them. | | |
| ▲ | jacobgkau 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > So like, if a couple has less than 3 kids, they’re awful people and shouldn’t be around? Wow, what a strawman. No, that's not what he said. What I will say, though, is if a "couple" has no kids (and does not plan to), they aren't contributing to continuing society and should not receive tax or other marriage benefits. That's not a punishment, it's treating them the same as everyone else because they have the same burdens as anyone else (and can already take advantage of pooling resources for their earthly pleasure without society bankrolling it). Tax and other financial structure benefits for married couples were meant to encourage and support the raising of families (continuing society), and between several different (and individually well-meaning) social movements, we've lost the plot over the last half-century. Marriage has turned into "best friends with benefits +," which, again, is fine for people to choose if they want to see it that way, but does not deserve any subsidies. | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 3 days ago | parent [-] | | You understand that majority of people still want to get married, and have a kid? And eventually most do. The problem with fertility is, nobody wants to have >=3 kids because of multiple reasons. So, society, by large, is fine, and people are decent even by weird standards that have been mentioned in this thread. Anyways, I have no idea how this conversation eventually became a "everyone should have a ton of kids because otherwise society is doomed!", because my entire point was "by large, people are nice, we should strive to be around them, and learn from each other, instead of trying to actively exclude ourselves because we are better than them". | | |
| ▲ | jacobgkau 3 days ago | parent [-] | | You simply don't understand math if you think that every couple (or even most couples, in practice) having only a single child is sustainable to infinity. You are the only person here who brought up the 3 number; 2 on average is (very obviously) all that's needed to sustain a population, and you chose a higher number (and applied it to the individual instead of as an average) to make the argument look unreasonable. Also, your assertion that "eventually most do" have at least one kid is already close to statistically false in the US, and if current trends continue, will be false very soon (with the story being the same, or much worse, in all other first-world countries). Go check out /r/ChildFree on Reddit if you want to see just one of the many social movements surrounding this. | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You’re correct, it’s not sustainable. But that also means the OP thinks anyone who doesn’t contribute to sustainable model (>=3 children) is an awful person. Well, 2 is not sustainable on average right now, because we’re below replacement level, so we need to get the average up to like 3, then back down to 2.1 if we want somewhat same amount of people like right now. Either way, judging people with their ability, want, or need to have children is kinda stupid. I have dear friends who are single, couples with no kids, couples with multiple kids and etc. Actively saying one choice is bad is the reason why some people might actually not want to be around those people. Let people make their own choices, and what they think is right to them. Again, I’m saying this as a person who is planning to have children. | | |
| ▲ | jacobgkau 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > that also means the OP thinks anyone who doesn’t contribute to sustainable model (>=3 children) is an awful person. The OP did not say that, for one thing. You're the only one who's used the "awful people" phrase (which is what makes that a strawman, as I pointed out several comments ago). OP would prefer to raise his kids to see reproduction as a positive aspect of life, as opposed to the current secular "wellll, you can do whatever you waaaant, but it's a whole lot easier and more fun if you just go ahead and kill your bloodline" that's a logical extension of your pseudo-enlightened "no one choice is better than the others" non-answer (only a logical extension, of course, when ignoring self-preservation and societal preservation as legitimate concerns). I don't know what country you're in, and I don't know if things are actually different there or if you've just convinced yourself that as long as you don't see a problem with your blinders on, there isn't one. But with regards to "let people make their own choices," someone already threw that argument out (in a different context) elsewhere in the thread, and received lots of good answers explaining how we live in a society and you (and your kids) are affected by everyone else's choices, one way or another: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42705948 Although again, OP didn't even say those people shouldn't exist. He said his family's able to get by without them, and correctly identified that they are not reproducing, expressing optimism that future generations won't have to co-exist with their ideals anyway (I can't say that I share that optimism; there are too many do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do folks around, as well as people like you who may facilitate the spread of bad ideas beyond the bloodlines they kill off out of some sense of respect). |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | jacobgkau 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Yet we find ways to sit down, have a drink, go for a drive, or have sex from time to time. US born & raised, here. No we don't. I'm 26, have never had a drink, and have never had sex in this country. (ETA: By societal standards, I'm considered "doing well.") You do not understand the severity of the problem. | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm sorry to hear that. Nobody is really stopping you to have a drink at the bar by yourself though. The above commenters might not like to be associated with those type of "lunatics", but I still think that an average person is good. It is nice to be just around other average people, even if one considers themselves higher than others. | | |
| ▲ | jacobgkau 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Gotcha, so to borrow a page from your blowing other peoples' arguments out of proportion elsewhere in the thread... your solution to society crumbling is to be an alcoholic by going to the bar and drinking alone. You're right, it's "really fine" after all! |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | iforgot22 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | ... because they don't have social media? That's a stretch. |
| |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Mine are turning out fine. I don't want them to be like those other children, and I've kept them away from those children. Doesn't seem to have been a problem. To each their own. I personally grew up with the idea of "try to be around all different types of people as I will encounter people from different walks of life, just don't be an idiot". I think, it made me a better person and I pride myself in my ability of getting along with most people. One day, I would want the same for my kids, and hope at that point we would resolve the social media issues. |
| |
| ▲ | AlexandrB 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > If all of your peers are talking about the stuff they saw on YouTube, but you’re not allowed to, this will naturally make you an outcast in that topic. There were plenty of kids when I was in school who were not allowed to watch TV. Like at all. The real problem is that kids also socialize online now so you can't talk about "that time you hung out at McDonalds" because everyone was sitting at home on their phone instead. | | |
| ▲ | RandallBrown 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > There were plenty of kids when I was in school who were not allowed to watch TV. Like at all. The kids I knew like this were definitely ostracized for that. Hell, even kids that didn't have _cable_ were usually seen as a little weird. | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah, I remember the kids who were not allowed to watch TV, although they missed out on some peer-discussions, at least there were other stuff that everyone was involved in. And the kids that were not allowed to do anything (no internet, no TV, no games, no running outside around), well, I genuinely don't know how, as a kid, I could find anything in common with them. I really hope they're doing well, but I wouldn't want to be them at that time. I agree with your second point, the problem is there is one and only one avenue of doing things, and that's online (for most of the kids at least). |
| |
| ▲ | iforgot22 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The solution is always to get different peers. If you're surrounded by bad influences, fitting in or not fitting in are both bad options. |
|
