DPUGT2

And why does society have to exist? Society and humanity have no inherent value.

If this is your opinion, then it is only reasonable for those of us who do find value in society and humanity to ignore your opinions on how those things should work. Your statement is, in essence, a resignation from those groups.

avoiding things that have caused me suffering

I spend about 10 hours a week at the gym pursuing activities that (best that I can tell what you mean by "suffering") cause me suffering. I am better for it.

When we make a moral choice, we have to think of the future consequences of that choice.

Yes. And since the consequences of having children is good, at least net good, there's not much of a choice to make.

At most, I simply have to avoid the sorts of abuse that would cause them to turn out like yourself and believe absurdities such as "human extinction is a goal one should pursue".

How can you make such a blanket statement when you don’t know any of us personally?

Because these sorts of genetic issues are exceedingly rare, and the people who have them and know they have them would have a very different attitude which you do not present.

Moreso, I've spoken to such people as yourself in person before, and the "conditions" they specify would be jokeworthy except that they're typically friends or at least acquaintances I wouldn't want to be blunt with. "My grandparents have diabetes!" and such. WTF.

I live in an absurd world populated by absurd people hellbent on making certain it won't be populated at all anymore.

Suffering should be eradicated at all costs

What is suffering? I've lumped that word in with all the other religious claptrap like "soul" and "afterlife" and whatnot.

Are you talking about pain (the sensation)? It doesn't seem that you mean that, but if you did it would be absurd. "Pain should be eradicated" makes no sense. It can't even be said that pain should be avoided, since discomfort is often associated with worthwhile, and ultimately pleasant, activities.

Define suffering so we can be on the same page.

Humanity doesn’t have an inherent right to exist,

True, as far as it goes. But it's like "turnips have no inherent right to exist". Pretty meaningless, and in the context where people actually want to exist (and for others to exist), somewhat misleading.

I see your beliefs now.

Please, read my palm. Tell everyone what my beliefs are.

You’re making a strawman out of me in this argument.

We're on a public forum. Though my comment may be the literal reply to yours, it isn't necessarily true that I am speaking to you and only you. I'm speaking to others in response to what you've said.

I apologize if this makes it seem I'm hostile to you.

But I'll drop another rule on you and see what you make of this. Adoptions are about the children who need someone to care for them, and not for the people adopting who want to gratify their need for a human pet. If you're doing it for yourself, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Therefor, the only people who should adopt are those who do not want to, but out of a sense of duty.

And if people accepted that rule, then we'd have no discussion at all about adoption in this thread. Because adoption can no longer be a substitute for having one's own children.

There are no moral sources. Those who would adopt morally would be compelled to adopt children from their own family first... who better to not let an orphan forget their parents than someone who also loved and knew those parents?

And if there were no family, then friends of those parents for the same reason.

And if no friends, then that community... except today, there aren't really any communities left. Just people who live near each other as accidents of geography.

And if none in the community, then at least someone from that culture. So that the child might grow up knowing his or her own language and songs and whatnot. But western culture isn't a culture so much as the absence of one, a void, and so it can't imagine that anything like that's important.

But none of these rules allow hipsters who live in California but are too eco-conscious of their carbon footprint to want to "bring another child into this world" but want to raise a child to do so. So these rules are bad. And that's why adopting African children is good and moral. Because they want to, they have the money to do it, and that warlord uses a cutout so that the adoption has the appearance of being above-board.

It's a cult that hates you so much that it implores you to go out and make half-clones of yourself.

I’m not aware of any connection between VHEMT and flat earth theory

They both started out as jokes. But the latecomers to the joke took them seriously... somehow.

society can adapt around them in any way it sees fit

It can't adapt to this. Society ceases to exist if there are no people, so saying "it can adapt to no one performing the process by which people create their replacements in the world" is dumb.

Fertility is weird in that young children grow up in the same society that is doing these things... they internalize what they see around them as "normal". So if you teach children that having one or zero children is normal, they'll grow up to want the same. They can always go lower than 1, but never higher. This means fertility trends in one direction only, it never goes up.

And once it drops below replacement levels, it won't ever go back up to them (let alone above) ever again.

Your society is dying. It doesn't realize it yet, and by the time it does nothing will be possible to do about it.

Who can make that judgement, you?

Yes. I do not claim to be the only one capable of making that judgement. Though it seems those like me are rare.

Judgement is nothing more than the measurement of a thing or an event. We are not talking about a legal process... I sentence no one, I convict no one, I condemn no one.

But I've measured, and accurately.

Trauma seems like a damn good argument for not having kids.

It may seem that way, but it isn't. At most, it's an argument to delay having them.

If you wanted or needed to do something in your life, and you were in a car wreck and broke both your legs... would you think it sane for someone to say "now you should never do that thing again, you've experienced trauma!" ?

Why is it any more sane if the injury is psychological? You take the time you need to recover, you work hard to get back to where you should be, and you do that thing. And you do it whether it's having children or climbing some mountain or whatever. And you'd even agree with me if we hadn't prefaced the achievement as "having children", but some other trivial thing.

to subject another human being, who had no say in being born

This is a nonsense statement. Until the person exists, by definition they can have no say in anything because they do not exist. Therefor it is not necessary, and even irrational, to speak or think about whether someone has a say in "being born".

You're morally permitted to subject a non-existent non-person to "being born". Unless you've invented some sort of time travel, nothing else makes any sense.

especially when some of that suffering may be caused by genetics, which will be passed down to said human being

This is the first intelligent thing you've said. Those who have incurable genetic diseases that cause true misery are rational to not reproduce.

None of the people in this thread, and few of those (1 in 10,000 or even fewer) who are childfree are childless because of that reason. You don't have the Tay Sachs gene, and your receding hairline's not comparable.

i.e. saying "people who don’t want kids are mentally ill" and then wondering why people would consider that to be an insulting statement.

It's like saying "people who want to force themselves to vomit after every meal are mentally ill" and then wondering why the bulimics consider that to be insulting?

They're bulimic. It's a mental illness. They probably do find it insulting, at least when they can work up the nerve to do it... it wasn't always that way. But wasn't it Oprah who had a bunch of the crackpots on her show where they were starting to claim eating disorders were a lifestyle choice?

Same thing here. If you get enough mentally ill people together in one place, they can convince themselves that their perceived numbers alone make them not mentally ill.

I can't tell if you're playing devil's advocate or one of the mentally ill, and I don't care nearly enough to read your comment carefully to try to figure it out.

I did not know human trafficking is wholesome.

It can be. You just have to label it correctly. Call it "international adoption" and the money "adoption fees", and it's all good.

God, I remember reading that dumb thing nearly 30 years ago. Back when no one who read it could fail to understand that it was satire.

When did satire die? When did people start taking flat earth theory as more than a SNLesque comedy skit?

but I feel like I’m tempted to compulsively have one.

You're unusually perceptive. No joking.

I always wonder at the people who say they want none, then get drunk and fuck without contraceptives. They're unaware of their compulsions.

Two's a good number. Not sure I'd say it out loud, it's like daring fate to give you triplets.