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Location: "Silicon Valley" (part of San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA)
4,375 posts, read 4,070,027 times
Reputation: 2158
Quote:
Originally Posted by AtkinsonDan
Most psychologists would probably consider it a good thing that human beings operate with intentions well above and beyond instinct.
In many cases, yes, it is good to operate above and beyond instinct. But again, there reasons for overriding instinct.
For example, I may choose to override my instinct to eliminate waste from my body because the urge comes in a situation in which it would be inappropriate to do so. In such a case, I didn't "just not want to do it", but rather there was a reason why I chose not to do it.
But here's the rub. We keep hearing sensational reports that the birth-rate is crashing, that women are foreswearing motherhood as being something antiquated and enslaving, that modern sophisticates are more interested in starting businesses or changing the world, than in becoming parents. But is this really true? I think instead the frustration is when child-free people realize how unusual they (we) are. The vast, vast majority of able-bodied adults wants to have children - eventually. Maybe first they want to advance their careers. Maybe they're waiting for the "right" partner. But so very very few people regard reproduction as foolish or reprehensible. And it's this feeling of being in such as miniscule minority that's so frustrating. Then, one finally meets another child-free person... only to find that he/she is boring, hideous, obnoxious or otherwise unsuitable. And the frustration mounts!
But that's the plight of EVERYONE whose personal choices put them in a niche subpopulation. Everybody makes their choices and deals with the tradeoffs inherent.
neutrino78x is a perfect example of the attitude that folks like myself have to contend with. I don't want children, but I don't dislike them nor do I tell others not to have children. And yet, here he is claiming that anyone who says they're childfree by choice hates kids and preaches to others not to have kids. What do you call a person who generalizes about an entire group of people? Tell me, do you make similar generalizations about Jews or blacks too?
As for all the things you got wrong, I've lost count, probably because I was too busy laughing at some of them. It's hard to take seriously someone who quotes Superman: The Movie to support his argument. He says that people have kids in order to contribute to the world. No, actually people have kids because they get horny, have sex, and babies show up 9 months later. I doubt you'll find a couple anywhere in the world that decides to have a child in order to make the world a better place. Having children is a fundamentally selfish act. No one thinks in terms of what that extra child does to the world. They think in terms of their own happiness, how having a child will make them happy, how it'll make their parents happy to have a grandchild, etc. neutrino78x also says that living things have an instinct to reproduce. No, they have an instinct to survive. I can abstain from sex, but I can't abstain from eating or breathing since my body will eventually force me to seek out food and air. Evolution favored humans who enjoyed sex since that would make them more likely to keep doing it and, therefore, lead to more humans. But that's NOT the same as saying we have an instinct to produce children. Instinct means you don't think about it and you have no control over it. But obviously, people can control whether they have sex. Sure, life would suck if you're celibate. But if sex were simply about perpetuating the species, then you'd think evolution would turn off sex drives once people were past childbearing age. Why do seniors still have sex? Why do sterile people have sex? Why do gay people have sex? Don't tell me that's part of the instinct to reproduce.
neutrino78x talks about how the childfree folks should help those who have kids. He says that we "could help couples who do have children in that they can be a good influence on the kids, help teach them, help think of things for the parents to do with their kids or places to take them, or watch them when the parents have to be away". Really? So my not wanting kids means I'm a bad influence? Why should I be the one to teach them anything? Isn't that their parents' job? Why should I watch those kids when the parents are away? I'm not their babysitter. neutrino78x wonders whether folks like me are going through phases. Congratulations for displaying the very arrogance we despise in people like you. Did it ever occur to you that we're not going through a phase, that we're 100% sure of our decisions? No, because you like so many other people out there arrogantly think you know what's going on in our heads. The part that made me laugh the most, though, was when he said he "would help out people who do have kids, if they needed and wanted that." Let's see if you'll help out when those kids need help paying for college.
neutrino78x is a perfect example of the attitude that folks like myself have to contend with.
I don't believe that you run into neutrino78xs constantly in life, anymore than I believe that most childfree people are madly frothing antinatalists who scream in everyone's faces that, yes, they despise kids, yes, they despise people who have kids, no, they don't have kids, and nobody else should, either. I don't think neutrino is a "perfect example" of anything other than how to highjack a thread and get away with it.
Most people aren't extremists. We're looking at the tails of the distribution, here.
I don't believe that you run into neutrino78xs constantly in life, anymore than I believe that most childfree people are madly frothing antinatalists who scream in everyone's faces that, yes, they despise kids, yes, they despise people who have kids, no, they don't have kids, and nobody else should, either. I don't think neutrino is a "perfect example" of anything other than how to highjack a thread and get away with it.
Most people aren't extremists. We're looking at the tails of the distribution, here.
Maybe not constantly, but I have had to contend with attitudes like his anytime I disclose that I don't want children. A lot of times, they don't even give me the chance to explain why. They just assume things.
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