alt Hacker NewsThere’s an entire generation of mostly childless adults who are shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others’ happiness. I have friends like this, their only purpose in life is to have no responsibilities, FIRE, and never give to anyone but themselves. Seems like a terribly depressing way to live but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.
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People who want to be childless usually champion the importance of building strong community through friends and neighbors, just because they don’t want kids doesn’t mean they don’t want to contribute to others’ happiness lol. People wanting FIRE is a lot more to do with the current economy and wealth of useless or harmful jobs than kids
Yeah, and I do get it to some extent. Everything about having a child seems burdensome and hard. Turns out it's doesn't feel anything like that and I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing. I wouldn't swap with another person on this planet.
No one chooses to be born. Once they are, they may find that procreation is impossible for them or just not something they'll do well or even want. None of these is necessarily depressing.
We have no shortage of humans, so there's no need to try to shame the childless. Nor those who focus on themselves.
I want to do that some of the time, not all the time, that's the difference.
The problem though is that relationships with others are risky. When I look at my social circle about half of my friends express some kind of regret related to their marriages. Call me an entitled prick, but I honestly believe that 90% of people are liquid crap. I realized that in order to have a good social life I need to filter very hard who I hang out with. Even if I could reproduce by budding, this is not an environment I want my kids to grow up in. "Dad, why did you make me into a world full of normies?"
Childlessness seems to be an increasingly compassionate choice. Degrowth by force.
what does “FIRE” mean in this context? I can’t figure it out
It's always funny how many people think that the only font of altruism is taking care of children who have your DNA, like that's some kind of selfless act. It is, in fact, the ultimate vanity of which humans are capable. Raising little variations of yourself might make you feel good, but if you think it's a unique path to a fulfilling life I suggest you are the one in the little bubble.
> but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.
It's common in some tech and upper middle class bubbles, but outside of some startups and a few VHCOL cities most of the 40+ people in tech I encounter have families.
I think the mindset is most popular in internet bubbles like Reddit. Reddit went mainstream a decade ago and many people in their 30s and 40s grew up reading a lot of Reddit. Reddit cleaned up their popular subreddits list years ago, but for a while subreddits like r/childfree were constantly in everyone's default feeds. Redditors would talk about people who had kids as "breeders" as a derogatory term and treat them like they'd made terrible decisions with their lives.
I didn't realize how much this carried over into the real world until my friends and I started having kids. I knew a few people who treated our decisions like we were making terrible mistakes and throwing our lives away. I still encounter people from younger generations who are confused when I say that I like spending time with my kids. They can't imagine how that would be enjoyable in any way. When you grow up with your chosen social media telling you that the smart people are maximizing their bank accounts, minimizing their responsibilities, and doing as little as possible to get there, they can't fathom how someone could be happy with kids.