Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Don't be a fool. You would let your children go hungry and live a worse life (directly because of your actions) out of principle? It's not simple. Having a family can be a beautiful thing. Not having one and spilling the beans on something morally reprehensible can be too.



>Don't be a fool.

Classy.

>You would let your children go hungry and live a worse life

No. Read what I wrote. The words are right there.

If the choice is "have children and commit evil to feed them" and "don't have children and don't commit evil", I choose the former. As should, I think, any right-thinking person.

The question is probabilistic. What are the chances that the former happens? What are the chances that the latter happens?

Choose accordingly.

The question is also systemic. There exists the possibility that forces larger than the individual have decided to normalize the nuclear family (and also romanticize the vision of having said family) in order to serve evil ends. What is the probability that that is the case? As time goes on, it looks far more probable than we once thought. People like you think families are in themselves beautiful. Any means justify the ends of preserving them. Seems like an excellent tool for keeping a population right where you want them.

Look up the history of the nuclear family. Notice it didn't exist pre-industrialization. Why's that?

You're taking humans -> have children for granted. I'm arguing against that dogma. Because as paradoxical as it may sound, it is trite dogma at this point in wealthy societies. We don't need these additional people, we don't need this extravagant life. It's not a matter of survival anymore. So what is it all accomplishing? What's the end?

>Having a family can be a beautiful thing.

For my morality, concerns of beauty don't trump concerns of humanity. If my having children perpetuates a cycle of exploitation, murder, pain, suffering, etc. etc. etc, then I don't have children. Regardless of how "beautiful" my experience of those children may be. It really is that simple.

And if a (wo)man tells me "I just did it to feed my kids" after committing some reprehensible act, I sympathize, because (s)he made a terrible decision in having children to start with. But I still condemn him/her.


That's a good point actually. Maybe we need more ethical loners without emotional attachments in a positions of power.


Like a celibate priesthood?


I here note that one can be sexually active without reproducing. No children doesn't imply celibacy.


Certainly the case. Historically, less the case but still the case...




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: