I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.
“Nothing new under the sun” I suppose!
Since the industrial revolution, fossil fuels were the only affordable energy sources that could meet the demand of industrialized countries. Until 5-10 years ago.
We’re now in a situation where most people can still pretend that climate change isn’t serious, and the fossil fuel lobby is stronger than ever. And yet over 90% of new electricity generation is already renewable, because it has simply become cheaper than coal and gas power in the last years.
As climate impacts worsen, the pressure to decarbonize will only get larger. The lobbies have been fighting tooth and nail against the energy transition for over 40 years, but they are rapidly loosing ground now in most countries.
It’s right to be alarmed about climate change, there will be serious long-term impacts, but it seems irrational to be completely fatalistic. Just comparing the battery prices and solar panel prices and ev market with 10 years ago reveals a truly massive shift. And this is just the beginning of the energy transition.
It’s the main reason I’m not having children. While there are other reasons the main one is a combination of global warming made worse by late stage capitalism and the resulting political instability that comes with that.
While I refuse to make the choice to bring someone new into this world myself I do see it as my duty to help as many of the kids around me who were brought into this world regardless. The world they were bron into is not their fault and I appreciate being able to use my resources to help them and their parents.
Yeah, the world is overrun with dragons right now. It sucks.
But I suppose it’s about one’s perspective as to the point of life: Is the ideal life one of ease and leisure or of purpose?
We can choose to spite the dragons by voluntarily going extinct, or we can pass down the very best of ourselves and be good examples to raise dragon slayers to take up the mantle, whilst learning from our missteps.
I choose a perspective of hope and responsibility to humanity.
Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to overcome a difficult one. –Bruce Lee
There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for. –Samwise Gamgee
I think that, no matter when you were born in history, there were trials and tribulations.
Yes
My children are still very young, but oh are they happy!
They are enjoying their life and no future suffering will ever take that away from them.
I wouldn’t want to deny those awesome humans their right to play as merrily as they do. To create, to enjoy life. They exist right now as well, in 2025 and 2026.
The end of life is always painful. Life is still worth it.
It’s a very personal decision and I’m happy about every child that’s not born. But collectively not having children feels pretty bleak to me. Are we as a species already giving up, rolling on our backs and wait to go extinct? Come on! There is so much beauty and so much to do in this world.
My children are having a great time, they bring joy, purpose and chaos to my life. I love having them around, even though their future scares me. That has always been part of becoming a parent.
I feel like some doomer lemmings need to go outside a little more, instead of telling themselves and their screens how awful everything is. Life was brutal a century ago.
Absolutely I do. And I don’t understand what makes a person think that bringing a new life into this disaster is a good idea.
Well, hopefully you at least feel thankful that so many of your ancestors brought children into a world much more filled with pain and suffering and death than today.
I’m not, lmao. My life sucks. Wtf is with all the breeders here trying to justify their contributions to climate change!? There is immensely more pain and suffering in our immediate future than there was at any point in human history. We are literally looking at the end of humanity here.
Oh, and are you not contributing to climate change? Ok for you tho, just not kids?
Breeders, oy… So wtf you still doing here if so miserable and zero hope?
Lmao, did you really just tell someone to kill themselves because they don’t want to have children?
And you think you respect life. What irony.
I’m here because I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in your head. You’re trying to justify having children when we’re barrelling towards the most dire point of humanity’s history, one that will potentially cause the extinction of our species, while the powers that be are putting their foot on the gas. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Yeah, I’m going to call you a breeder because it appears that your not practicing responsible parenthood, you’re just breeding like an animal.
…unless you were trying to indirectly tell me to kill myself. If so then grow a pair and say it to my face. I’m still here because I know I’ll hurt the people around me if I end my life. That’s it. That’s the only reason why I still live. I’m a trans gal in Texas. I don’t have much to look forward to.
Do the rest of the world a favor and get yourself neutered, breeder.
I’m not trying, nor will I ever try, to justify a goddamned thing to a hateful fuck like you, just pointing out you’re a logically inconsistent hypocrite.
You haven’t done anything of the sort. The only reason why I’m still here is for others. Are you telling me that the only reason why children exist is for the benefit of others? That’s really fucking disturbing.
You’re mad because you know that I’m right. You’re mad because you know that the creation of children cannot be justified in this day and age. You’re mad because somewhere inside your skull, you’ve come to the realization that (if you’ve created children) you’ve brought them into what is very likely a doomed world in which they will eventually experience a hell like nothing any other human had ever experienced.
Good job, you selfish asshole. Your children may one day grow to be miserable and ask you why you had to bring them into the world. Then you will have to face them, look them in the eye, and tell them that it was all about your own happiness, not theirs.
Oh you’re so selfless, living in misery and taking part in ruining the planet on the way to certain doom, all for others! You’re a judgy, hateful asshole, really couldn’t care less what people of your ilk think about me. Have the day you deserve.
I think the next generation is going to start feeling it hard. Current generation will slip by but barely. I’m not pressuring my kids to have their own. Just do you fam.
Life will be harder but your kids might make it better for the others
I mean, I made a conscious decision not to have children, so…
If you were born 20 years earlier you’d get to destroy the planet and die before there was any consequences?
The kids will be fine, they are smarter and more capable than those that came before them, every time. The real problem is people living so long they aren’t making room for the young people. Think turnover at a restaurant, and all the diners finished eating and paid but won’t leave.
I was born in the 90s and I feel sad about being born to this day, can’t imagine the poor kids who are gonna grow up now
I feel like most people today have kids just because they feel that’s what they should be doing or because they just want a kid. I feel having kids is almost, incredibly selfish? If that makes sense.
What an odd take. Reproducing is arguably the #1 motivation, and purpose, of all life on this planet. Biologically anyway. You’re taking issue with a fundamental trait of life that’s baked into our DNA.
May as well deem people selfish for wanting food and shelter too.
Yeah, I don’t get how people can think like this but not want nukes to take out everything. Like you’re living this shit, too, if you are willing to keep living this shit, why do you assume it’s a bad thing for anyone to bring someone else into it? Anti-natalism is pro-extinction from my pov.
Not that I have an issue with people taking themselves out of the gene pool or anything, I just find the position wildly inconsistent with anyone who wants to continue living themselves.
And to be clear, I mean specifically the “if you choose to have a kid, you are bad” position, I can understand “having kids is not for me, I don’t want to do parenting”.
Hey there, I’ll try to clear things up a bit. At this point in time, here’s a list of things going on in the world:
1.) Collapse of world democracies- the US is fascist now with several countries on their way. It’s a reasonable assumption that a child born today will experience less freedom than you ever have.
2.) Collapse of the environment. - The planet is becoming uninhabitable. 60% of insect species are gone. Temperatures are rising. There’s more than a few inferences that can be made from this…
3.) Collapse of the middle class - it kinda ties into #1, and a lot of people have seen this coming for a while too. We’re being split into an ownership class and a working class. If that divide continues growing (like graphs would indicate) we’re heading towards a neo-feudalist state. That’s not a pleasant experience for anyone other than those at the top. I’m not at the top, you probably aren’t either.
4.) Idiocracy Effect - the beginning part of idiocracy, where it’s explained that dumb people are popping out 10 kids while intelligent people are spending years planning their first. If you are one of the smart people, you’d be forcing a new version of yourself to live in a world with exponentially more dumb people than the world you live in today. If you’re one of the dumb people, well….
The last one doesn’t get a #, but I also have questions surrounding consent for existence. I won’t get into that because I don’t have a fully formulated opinion on that specific area yet. I’m still working it out for myself.
Might want to add resource depletion to your list.
Global freshwater demand will exceed supply 40% by 2030, experts warn and 90 per cent of Earth’s topsoil at risk by 2050
Fresh water is already low in many places and with no water or arable land to grow food in, that’s not a future that anyone is surviving.
nope
No. I felt sorry for people born yesterday, but I think today’s kids will be OK.
Not sure about tomorrow, though. :P
