Do you feel sad for people born today?
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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!
Thirty-ish years ago, my grandfather said he felt sorry for me because of the state of the world.
Human nature is to say things are going to shit, everything is terrible, and things were better in some non-existent past.
Yeah, things suck now. But they also sucked thirty years ago and 100 years ago. The difference is that we know the outcome to (some) of the problems people faced then. And (generally) the worst case scenario didn't happen.
Yeah, we need to fight the rich on climate change. But we will. And we'll mitigate the problems we can. And we'll tell our grandkids that we don't envy their future.
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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!
As a parent in the US, yes. The future looks very dim among climate change, water overuse, corruption of civic institutions by the capital class, etc.
Even people born 20 years ago have it rough - they’re just now graduating college into a crummy job market and massively inflated housing market, with MAGA policies and AI destroying the economy for both blue and white collar folks as quickly as possible.
It seems cruel to create new life in this environment. Are you going to tell the kids that it’s their job to fix the world that the previous generations abused and degraded for short term gains, because it’s somehow our duty as sane humans to produce more sane humans to continue the fight? Many people today already live a worsening paycheck to paycheck existence, with too little free time to focus on systemic change. How will adding to that help?
Nearly every generation has felt pessimism at one time or another that the world is the worst it’s ever been. But it sure seems different this time.
The folk heroes of tomorrow will be people like Greta Thunberg and Mario’s brother, and that’s not a great existence to root for.
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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!
wrote last edited by [email protected]No. Only joy for the new parents and child. (Though I do put in work to shore up their finances, try to get them my next bonus.)
Several reasons: being a kid today is better than being a kid 20-50 years ago. Toys are cooler, parenting competence and training has broadly improved, minecraft exists, and there is some really good childrens TV.
Health risks are largely down, especially compared to 35 years ago. (Anecdotally about 10% of families around my cohort lost kids. Far fewer in the younger cohorts.)
While economic mobility is down, more people means a stronger voting block. Boomers run the world because their protests changed policy. I see indications that kids are a more competent politic than earlier generations (eg, climate and LGBTQ rights), we just need them to matter sooner.
For what it's worth, the economy is not just bad, it's breaking. If workers remain this exploited, there will soon be nobody to sell to. We are seeing large (usually stupid) interventions to try and address it, I put nontrivial odds on something sane eventually being tried.
War deaths are low and really don't seem likely to increase dramatically (see here).
Edit: I forgot to add LGBTQ rights/acceptance! While there are definitely still places that are not safe, many of them were not safe before (and that was just the status quo), I believe the risks have decreased and will continue to do so, while the medical access has improved (and that hopefully will continue, though I'm personally expecting that to get worse before it gets better. I think kids today probably get good care in 10 years, some kids 6-12 are in for a bad time.)
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Thirty-ish years ago, my grandfather said he felt sorry for me because of the state of the world.
Human nature is to say things are going to shit, everything is terrible, and things were better in some non-existent past.
Yeah, things suck now. But they also sucked thirty years ago and 100 years ago. The difference is that we know the outcome to (some) of the problems people faced then. And (generally) the worst case scenario didn't happen.
Yeah, we need to fight the rich on climate change. But we will. And we'll mitigate the problems we can. And we'll tell our grandkids that we don't envy their future.
30 years ago, if your microwave went out, half the time it might have just been the fuse, which you could buy a pack of really cheap at the local Radio Shack.
Today, what the fuck is a fuse? They want you to chuck that old microwave and buy a new one that connects to the internet...
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Born 1949 would be awesome. After world war, then Woodstock, cheap housing, fucked up the world with their plastics, dead before its getting hot. These mfs had the best timespan ever.
Asbestos and lead paint everywhere, yummers
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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!
People be fucking.
There were kids conceived and born during the Holocaust.
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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!
Yup. Between climate collapse, wealth shift to the ultra wealthy, and the global surge in popularity of right wing extremist authoritarianism, I don't see things improving any time soon.
Things are rapidly degrading, and intentionally dropping a child into the dumpster fire we're turning our planet into is an act of cruelty and selfishness that few others measure up to.
Having a vasectomy was probably the best decision I've made - not for my sake, but the kid's and any even less fortunate grandkids and so on.
My own parents have finally fucked off a bit about when their grandchildren are coming, and lecturing me on how I'm cheating myself out of life's greatest joy or some shit... I think current events have finally become so glaringly bad that even they can't ignore it, but reminding them constantly about how unfair that would be for the kid was so fucking tiring.
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Maybe when it comes to social issues but when I read OP’s post I think of climate change and how it seems to be worsening at an increasing pace.
That and personal privacy and freedom from despotic and fascist government
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That’s our fight—not our unborn childrens’.
Having a child for any purpose other than the flourishing and well-being of that child has always struck me as a deeply flawed decision. If your child doesn’t want to fight for a world they never knew, all you’ve birthed is misery.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Mate, we have to create the environment to flourish. I never said it was fair. I never said it was right. But look at the world around you. Someone has to pick up the banner, and we won't be here forever. You still have to kindle hope.
Also, some people fuck and kids get made, and thats just life.
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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!
Everyone here knows the solution; Eat the rich.
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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!
Climate change is the only true existential reason to feel that way.
Everything else is just over focusing on a short term dip. On average things are getting better over the long term. The British Empire collapsed, and so will the American one, and the world will keep on turning and progressing.
Hell kids born these days may have legitimate cures for most forms of cancer by the time they're old. We won't.
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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!
"I miss the good ol' days" is basically how a certain country's fascist got elected. There's nothing to miss about the past, what's to miss? Casual "gay humor" (homophobia), racial stereotyping, misogyny and toxic masculinity, ableism, refusal to ackowlege other's mental health stuggles, or conversely, locking people up for neurodivergence, the fact that "lobotomy" is a legal thing to do, fuck that world.
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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!
Having a child in 2025 is just plain selfish.
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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!
I think every time period has its up sides and down sides. I fear that human civilization will soon end thanks to climate change but I don't think it's an inevitability, a part of me still has hope things will get better. You just can't know for sure what things will be like for the next generation
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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!
wrote last edited by [email protected]All ye who enter abandon all hope
Seriously, you people are a bunch of cake eaters. "The future is scary and things are getting worse." It's always been scary, you've just been privileged enough for it not to be.
All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it.
Bro, people have it bad NOW. Life is and has always been suffering and struggle. Get out of your online bubble and go see some shit. Anyone here who says their life outlook looks bleak would have said the exact same shit 30 years ago or even 100 years ago.
Life is suffering no matter when.
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Having a child in 2025 is just plain selfish.
Username checks out.
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Very. I already dont see a bright future. People born today dont know anything but a broken world. Me being born 2003 atleast saw a slight bit of it
I'm sorry, but you are wildly naive. You've seen 22 years of this planet. You have no idea how good you and your potential offspring actually have it.
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I can't wrap my head around this. I'm choosing not to have kids because I can't imagine explaining to them some day why I chose to bring them into the world.
Not every child is planned
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Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier
You personally, maybe. But a lot of other people no. I'm thinking about disease we found and will find cures for, acceptation of differences (gender, neurodiversity etc...), advancement in prosthetic technologies and all the other things.
As history advances some people will be better of, some less and the tides always turn.
How does OP know he'd be better off? He could have died of AIDS in 1995. That shit happened all the time.
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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!
I definitely would not want a child now. I believe the uncertainty of the speed of climate change and the global suffering that comes with it all would be a terrible burden for everyone.
