209 replies to this topic

[ben951]

Here we are in a forum where we think life is precious to a point where we want to extend our as long as possible.
Seems weird to me that we value extending our life but not at all creating a new one.
Having a child is not only sacrifice, it can also bring a lot.
Don't you think you could have a great relationship with your children ?
(by the way i don't have any child but i think about it)

[Mind]

Most probably not.

I feel I have enough purpose in life that I do not need to fill an empty hole by having a child, like many of my acquaintances do.

[TheFountain]

In my opinion too many people have children for all the wrong reasons (to compensate for their own misgivings about life). Thus Until I am 1000% certain that I am internally balanced and mine and my girlfriends (someday wife) mutual goals are at least 90% accomplished, then and only then will the consideration come up. Even if that's when I am like 40, 50, 60, 70, whatever. If not then so be it. My life is not hinged on the prospect of having children as I find children age people faster.

Edited by TheFountain, 18 October 2009 - 02:05 PM.

[kismet]

Here we are in a forum where we think life is precious to a point where we want to extend our as long as possible.
Seems weird to me that we value extending our life but not at all creating a new one.

Not at all. This should be expected because sexual reproduction is the poor (wo)man's immortalty and it is very, very problematic in a world where people do not die (sooner or later overpopulation will be an issue if we can't get rid of that tradition). It's great that people plan to set a good example.

Edited by kismet, 18 October 2009 - 02:10 PM.

[Shannon Vyff]

Wow, I did not have children to fill any hole in my life--when I set out to have my first I was 21 (way full of myself ) and very much wanted to experiment to see how smart I could make them, and to have fun. I was married, I had a house, I was in college studying the education of gifted and talented-and I guess I also fell for how they are cute. There are arguments showing that having kids makes you smarter, your brain grows when they are babies at least so you can keep them alive (constant threats, from .9 to 2.5 years or so, are the most dangerous times in modern kids' lives). Since having kids I've learned they challenge you throughout life, humble you and broaden your understanding and empathy of others. On aging, there are no studies showing they age you--you have sadness and frustration yes, but the proud, joyful moments far outweigh them .

[Luna]

Last year or two I started to want to have a child one day more almost no matter what..
The more I am with Mirza, the more I sometimes think about it and want it... I wonder why, I used to dislike the idea of having kids, I still do in a way actually! but the desire seems stronger.

My mom's boyfriend has a daughter, she has 2 little daughters and they are so cute!!! and every time they come here I play with them and it puts "want" in the favor ^^

Edited by Luna, 18 October 2009 - 02:20 PM.

[VictorBjoerk]

most probably not. There are so many other things to do in life and most people already have kids. It takes a lot of time to learn them everything from scratch. Also there is an overpopulation problem which grows exponentially. If we manage to cure aging people need to have fewer/zero kids. (at least until we find other habitable planets outside the solar systems, realistically that will be LOOOOONG after aging has been cured)

The idea of "old" people dieing to make room for "new" people is not a humane civilized system to continue with. I don't want to die to make room for a "new" person whose only merits is having been born on a later date.

Edited by VictorBjoerk, 18 October 2009 - 03:15 PM.

[erzebet]

Here we are in a forum where we think life is precious to a point where we want to extend our as long as possible.
Seems weird to me that we value extending our life but not at all creating a new one.
Having a child is not only sacrifice, it can also bring a lot.
Don't you think you could have a great relationship with your children ?
(by the way i don't have any child but i think about it)

i consider that taking care of the life that already exists is far more important than creating new organisms.
just because you are related genetically with your future kids it doesn't mean you could get along. i do not get along with my relatives at all. they laugh at me cause i'm different. i laugh at them cause they're all the same so....

[Cyberbrain]

I'm 20 so at this age I definitely don't want children. And I have no interest in having any children in the next 50 years. And by then reproduction will have been rendered obsolete anyway. And within 100 years the relationship amongst children and parents will be radically different if they still exist.

[niner]

The idea of "old" people dieing to make room for "new" people is not a humane civilized system to continue with. I don't want to die to make room for a "new" person whose only merits is having been born on a later date.

But that won't be his or her only merit. They will be smarter than you, better looking than you, stronger than you, more resistant to disease and aging than you, and will not be programmed with any antiquated and defective memes. You may not want to die so that a new, superior person can exist, but the AGI may insist on it. You will, however, live on in your ImmInst postings. As will we all. (Until such time as they are wiped due to containing a high proportion of defective memes.)

[Blue]

1. Children will not make you more happy or they will actually decrease your happiness:
http://www.thepsycho...;ArticleID=1493

2. In a not so distant future, assuming no singularity, I suspect that obligatory genetic engineering will eliminate lots of harmful/less good genes so the children will not have that much resemblance to their parents anymore, all being supersmart, superhealty etc. (Yes, lot of resistance to this idea, but nations like China will likely do it and then everyone else must or become a nation of comparatively sickly idiots.) So any notion that you will achieve immortality or perceived success through spreading your genes is also an illusion.

[katzenjammer]

The idea of "old" people dieing to make room for "new" people is not a humane civilized system to continue with. I don't want to die to make room for a "new" person whose only merits is having been born on a later date.

But that won't be his or her only merit. They will be smarter than you, better looking than you, stronger than you, more resistant to disease and aging than you, and will not be programmed with any antiquated and defective memes. You may not want to die so that a new, superior person can exist, but the AGI may insist on it. You will, however, live on in your ImmInst postings. As will we all. (Until such time as they are wiped due to containing a high proportion of defective memes.)

I'm not sure whether you are joking - if not, of course you realize that your argument implies that such a process (the replacement of the more by the less imperfect) will never cease.

Edited by katzenjammer, 22 October 2009 - 11:12 PM.

[cyborgdreamer]

The idea of "old" people dieing to make room for "new" people is not a humane civilized system to continue with. I don't want to die to make room for a "new" person whose only merits is having been born on a later date.

But that won't be his or her only merit. They will be smarter than you, better looking than you, stronger than you, more resistant to disease and aging than you, and will not be programmed with any antiquated and defective memes. You may not want to die so that a new, superior person can exist, but the AGI may insist on it. You will, however, live on in your ImmInst postings. As will we all. (Until such time as they are wiped due to containing a high proportion of defective memes.)

Are you joking? Because I would not consider that a friendly AI by a long shot. You can't just murder people because they're weak, unattractive, or less intelligent. That's just as immoral as murdering people who have existed for too long.

[niner]

The idea of "old" people dieing to make room for "new" people is not a humane civilized system to continue with. I don't want to die to make room for a "new" person whose only merits is having been born on a later date.

But that won't be his or her only merit. They will be smarter than you, better looking than you, stronger than you, more resistant to disease and aging than you, and will not be programmed with any antiquated and defective memes. You may not want to die so that a new, superior person can exist, but the AGI may insist on it. You will, however, live on in your ImmInst postings. As will we all. (Until such time as they are wiped due to containing a high proportion of defective memes.)

Are you joking? Because I would not consider that a friendly AI by a long shot. You can't just murder people because they're weak, unattractive, or less intelligent. That's just as immoral as murdering people who have existed for too long.

I'm not passing any judgment on the morality of such a decision, I'm just saying that the AGI that runs the world might decide this is the best thing to do. If the AGI decides it, it almost surely *is* the best thing to do, almost by definition. It might be the case that the AGI was mistaken, but that would be difficult to prove with our primitive animal-brains. If we add the constraint of "the Earth is full", morality might take some odd turns. I'm not saying that I want to live in such a world; I'm just pointing out that the future might hold some significant weirdness. I am not predicting that this scenario will come to pass.

[Kutta]

You may not want to die so that a new, superior person can exist, but the AGI may insist on it.

I'm highly sceptical that a real FAI may systematically insist on killing people off. There is little chance that our Coherent Extrapolated Volition would converge to moral philosophy that is almost trivially barbaric and unintuitive to us.

At the same time it's almost sure that future moral standards can be outright shocking to us, but they will be not shocking the simple way killing is shocking. They'll have great complexity that results from a huge amount of coherent moral reasoning being applied to the moral standards of the present.

[niner]

You may not want to die so that a new, superior person can exist, but the AGI may insist on it.

I'm highly sceptical that a real FAI may systematically insist on killing people off. There is little chance that our Coherent Extrapolated Volition would converge to moral philosophy that is almost trivially barbaric and unintuitive to us.

At the same time it's almost sure that future moral standards can be outright shocking to us, but they will be not shocking the simple way killing is shocking. They'll have great complexity that results from a huge amount of coherent moral reasoning being applied to the moral standards of the present.

The way that I would see something like this coming about would be if we decided that maximization of total happiness was the organizing principle under which we wished to live, and new versions of humans were able to experience substantially more happiness than the old models. Another possibility might involve our society continuing on its trend toward bifurcation into the wealthy and the poor, accompanied by the further evolution of Social Darwinist ideas that imply that a persons intrinsic worth is tied to their wealth. We might live in a "reproduce all you can afford" world where excess poor people are culled to make room. Perhaps poor people would be bribed to submit to euthanasia, thus lifting their loved ones out of poverty in the ultimate Free Market. Considering how we treat the poor today, this sort of future outcome doesn't seem all that unreasonable. Nevertheless, these dystopic meanderings are not predictions.

[SloMoSandy]

I'm sure that there won't be any global treatments, it's an utopy. Poor will remain poor, as it is now, and these who can't afford plastic surgery now, likely won't be able to afford "mollecular surgery" in the future.. Let's be honest - we live in an unperfect world and it's a loooong way to go to at least some kind of balance in it. We talk about a relatively expensive procedures for these who will be able to buy them (far from everybody can afford the expensive, but effective cancer treatments. So they die, when some could live..). Most of us are lucky to live in parts of the world which can provide various opportunities to succeed in the way we want, but a lot of people are starving at the moment, that's how it is.

Edited by VidX, 24 October 2009 - 12:58 PM.

[Kutta]

@Niner

The way that I would see something like this coming about would be if we decided that maximization of total happiness was the organizing principle under which we wished to live, and new versions of humans were able to experience substantially more happiness than the old models.

And then all humanity shortly collapse into orgasmium, computational matter consisting only a pleasure center that is as overdriven as possible? Peculiarly there are a lot of people who wouldn't ever want such state, on reflection. Setting aside technical difficulties, how can we even "decide" that happiness should be the organizing principle when obviously we care about a lot more things other than it? Usually we even care about things other than our own mental states, be it the state of the environment, external world in general or other people. We wouldn't make the choice of taking a pill that makes us believe that we saved several people instead of actually saving those people (presuming that saving those lives cost us trivial efforts and risk).

Another possibility might involve our society continuing on its trend toward bifurcation into the wealthy and the poor, accompanied by the further evolution of Social Darwinist ideas that imply that a persons intrinsic worth is tied to their wealth. We might live in a "reproduce all you can afford" world where excess poor people are culled to make room. Perhaps poor people would be bribed to submit to euthanasia, thus lifting their loved ones out of poverty in the ultimate Free Market. Considering how we treat the poor today, this sort of future outcome doesn't seem all that unreasonable. Nevertheless, these dystopic meanderings are not predictions.

Well, you how do you personally treat poor people? How would you treat poor people if you were given plenty of resources? Do you have any reason to think that most people believe that treating poor people miserably is a moral good, and would do so even if given a significant actual potency to directly improve their lives? The fact that some people are poor people is not easily distinguishable from how they are currently treated, and it's completely unnecessary to assume that either of them has a strong connection to moral reality. Are rich people treated better and often positively discriminated because most people believe it's a moral good to do so?

What I'm saying that bribing poor people to submit to euthanasia and valuing solely the wealth of people are such things that would be flat-out rejected by the 99 percent of current humanity, thus I can't see any practicality in trying to extrapolate from these things as assumptions (and sole assumptions!).

"Reproduction is all you can afford" however is real risk in the future. Robin Hanson thinks that in the future we our our descendants will inevitably fall back to subsistence level because of the ultimate scarcity in the Universe. That would be the triumph of social and reproductive Darwinism, but to me and to others it implies that these Malthusian, reproduction-obsessed creatures of the future will have absolutely nothing that could be valued by a present human.

Similarly, Nick Bostrom argues that runaway evolutions that may take place in the future - mostly among uploaded entities - will result with great certainty in these entities gradually sliding out of the region of human values, simply because what is "good and/or fun" for a human is not an optimal way of production or reproduction. Bostrom says that such unfortunate annihilation of value could be prevented by a singleton organization of some sort.

In general, I'm highly sceptical that any human community can "decide" that some factor of morality and utility should be central while neglecting other factors. If you take one facet of morality, but not all, and try to extrapolate from that, dystopia appears almost instantly. This could be behind the fact that fictional utopias are usually worlds in which no sane person would actually want to live. But our inability to envision good futures is not because good futures are somehow improbable but because our minds have miserably limited abilities of prediction in general.

But or course, dystopias are perfectly possible too. I'm saying that a dystopian future that results from purely human activity and human moral change has an extremely low chance of ending up in a particular mutilated state like "The Uber Free Market" or The Brave New World or 1984 or anything that fiction writers may conceive. The "normal" way of human originated dystopia is self destruction, nuclear, bio-, or nano. The interesting kinds of apocalypse and dystopia are brought upon us by AIs and uploads.

[Shannon Vyff]

Having more that three children at least for men, extends life-in the following study the authors cite the same reason that other studies use-that it may be the support of older children that helps the parent live longer in old age, I personally think there could be other factors involved such as the older person feeling and being needed:

http://www.dentalpla...ive-to-100.html


Having children can make a couple happier (there have been many studies on both sides of this issue, here is a recent one):

http://www.telegraph...ts-happier.html

Having children causes extended life in general for men, and up to a point in women (its worse after 14, go figure ) within the Amish, but the study was small...:

http://biomed.geront...t/full/61/2/190

Grandparenting seems to be beneficial to lifespan, probably that need to be needed again convienently written into our genes (although not enough to make us one of the immortal species on Earth ) :

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC1950316/

But really-we can go around all day on both sides--and in the end having children is bad for humanity, or is it not having children is bad?

http://greeninc.blog...-carbon-impact/


Personally I think we need more responsible parents, and those that will raise their children with awareness of science, other cultures, the wisdom of the world's religions and the possibilities of future technology, if we all keep working to bring them into existence.

[rabagley]

I originally voted in this poll before having kids, now I've got one 14 month old daughter and another on the way. I admit that a part of it is ego, wanting to make the world a bit smarter by propagating the genes of two smart people.

To those who say "I've got too much to do!", there is something important to realize about yourself hidden in that statement. Being fully responsible for someone else's needs (shelter, food, water, dressing, teaching, disciplining, etc.) requires a degree of maturity I didn't know was available to me. At some point (mostly after she was born), I stopped being a mostly-self-absorbed adolescent and had to grow up. Some people who have children fail to make this transition, to the enormous loss of their children.

My old life is pretty much gone, and my new life with children is here. I really like my new life, but it's pretty radically different from how things used to be. Based on what I now know, this is not a step to take lightly. On the other hand, there is no good time to have children, so if it's a goal for some point in your life, now is as good a time as any, and waiting until you're older creates it's own risks, so don't put it off too long.

As for whether my children will be stewards or destroyers of the world, I'm doing my best to make them stewards. It is already clear that my daughter has inherited her father's penchant for curiosity into how things work. She wants to take everything apart, and loves it when I show her how to get something apart. Luckily for the future, she also tries to put them back together, but doesn't quite have the manual dexterity at this point. I have bookshelves of science experiments and project ideas in chemistry, biology, astronomy, rocketry, robot building, medicine, etc. I have also built a chemistry kit that any high school laboratory would be proud of (completely illegal in Texas). Some of the supplies would spoil and have been left for later, but most of the salts and raw chemicals needed to do any of the Gilbert experiments (and a few more besides) are safely ensconced on teflon trays in glass bottles in a vented cabinet in storage. I've also put aside the materials required to make a telescope, a fractionating still, an aluminum/bronze forge, and two steam engines (small and large). If any of them are interested in learning by doing, I can help with that. If not, daddy will have some fun with those projects anyway.

Edited by rabagley, 02 November 2009 - 04:44 PM.

[SloMoSandy]

It's a personal preference. I can imagine myself having kids and raising them consciously, though I don't really want to spend any time doing that. Dog and cat would be a much better option for me. And there's nothing "hidden" in myself, it's just a critical thinking about an urge hard wired into our genome. Though with women..that's a tricky situation. Idk how will I be able to explain that I don't want child, don't dream about that and it just hasn't been on my top 20 priority list ever.. Probably I'd search for a compromise, like - we have a child, but the most of the "duties" will be on your shoulders and I'll make sure everything else is allright, but still... it's a difficult situation. Especially as I have friends, who are 40+, never had a child and does not worry about that at all, so that means it's possible to avoid an inner conflict at a later age if you are one of these persons who can do without offsprings..

Edited by VidX, 02 November 2009 - 10:17 PM.

[Brain_Ischemia]

LOL, an almost even distribution..... Looks like the community is fairly split on this.


I voted "Inclined to say yes"...

Ideally, in a perfect world, I would live with a perfect woman and raise 1 or 2 perfect children...but the world isn't perfect, and people (including children) are hard to get along with. I'm not inclined to enter a completely committed and monogamous relationship for the rest of my life in the first place, let alone jointly raise children with someone... But I can't say "definitely not", so there.

[Gedusa]

Most probably not.
To be honest I really can't invest the time, effort and money that it would take to bring up a child. The money that I spend could be used on things that are far better for society and me than bringing yet another child into the world. I also read a study a while ago, forget where, which claimed a lower quality of life for parents which was sustained until the child left home; not surprising given the baby and teenage years. Plus I'm not really a very nurturing type of person, making giving me a child irresponsible.
However, all these reasons really pale into insignificance next to the fact that I simply don't like children.

[erzebet]

I originally voted in this poll before having kids, now I've got one 14 month old daughter and another on the way. I admit that a part of it is ego, wanting to make the world a bit smarter by propagating the genes of two smart people.

To those who say "I've got too much to do!", there is something important to realize about yourself hidden in that statement. Being fully responsible for someone else's needs (shelter, food, water, dressing, teaching, disciplining, etc.) requires a degree of maturity I didn't know was available to me. At some point (mostly after she was born), I stopped being a mostly-self-absorbed adolescent and had to grow up. Some people who have children fail to make this transition, to the enormous loss of their children.

My old life is pretty much gone, and my new life with children is here. I really like my new life, but it's pretty radically different from how things used to be. Based on what I now know, this is not a step to take lightly. On the other hand, there is no good time to have children, so if it's a goal for some point in your life, now is as good a time as any, and waiting until you're older creates it's own risks, so don't put it off too long.

As for whether my children will be stewards or destroyers of the world, I'm doing my best to make them stewards. It is already clear that my daughter has inherited her father's penchant for curiosity into how things work. She wants to take everything apart, and loves it when I show her how to get something apart. Luckily for the future, she also tries to put them back together, but doesn't quite have the manual dexterity at this point. I have bookshelves of science experiments and project ideas in chemistry, biology, astronomy, rocketry, robot building, medicine, etc. I have also built a chemistry kit that any high school laboratory would be proud of (completely illegal in Texas). Some of the supplies would spoil and have been left for later, but most of the salts and raw chemicals needed to do any of the Gilbert experiments (and a few more besides) are safely ensconced on teflon trays in glass bottles in a vented cabinet in storage. I've also put aside the materials required to make a telescope, a fractionating still, an aluminum/bronze forge, and two steam engines (small and large). If any of them are interested in learning by doing, I can help with that. If not, daddy will have some fun with those projects anyway.

that is so cool of you! i wish i had such great parents!

[Luna]

Uff my answer changes all the time.

Sometimes I feel not really, not at all, then suddenly I might completely want one.. then back to the other options.
Right now I feel like no, for many reasons, one of them is that I don't feel like it and doubt I am responsible enough and I am afraid for their own best.

Edited by Luna, 22 December 2009 - 03:01 PM.

[Shannon Vyff]

My 8 year old is reading "21st Century Kids" (http://www.amazon.co...f/dp/1886057001) right now and it is so much fun. She says, "That's cool!" every page and we talk about so many issues-it makes the reading slower but I can see the light bulbs in her head going off ;-) I'm loving it and our hour reading time at night before she goes to sleep is the highlight of my day! (we talk robotics, nano-technology, ending aging, neural enhancements, space travel & more)

[numbered]

i would rather adopt than have biological offspring.nevertheless i would like to be able to live long enough to see the choice of having kids or not lose any contemporary meaning we people attach to it.

[N.T.M.]

Absolutely not!!! EVER. They're expensive, irritating, etc.

[The Immortalist]

Yes I would love to have children. I'm 16 and if I had enough resourses to support having a child I would have children.

[russianBEAR]

Well first of all I don't know why you wouldn't since it's pretty much the only purpose of living anyways, to keep up that vicious cycle of life/death.

With that said, I don't want to have kids in this environment. I don't want them to live in Moscow and be subjected to propaganda, crooks, polluted air, and all that other crap.

If I'm ever financially able to live out in the country and eat natural produce/water/breathe fresh air and there's enough of all that to go around, I'd be trying to get as many kids as I can with the most gorgeous women, who don't drink, smoke, etc.

So that's still a distant dream...I'd probably do it anyways if I just had a lot more cash though because that gives you flexibility on a lot of levels.