I don’t consider myself an explicit rationalist, but the desire to have children stems from the desire to have someone to take care of me when I am older.
Do you see your own conception and further life as a cause for “huge heap of disutility” that can’t be surpassed by the good stuff?
I’ve always been curious to see the response of someone with this view to the question:
What if you knew, as much as any things about the events of the world are known, that there will be circumstances in X years that make it impossible for any child you conceive to possibly take care of you when you are older?
In such a hypothetical, is the executive drive to have children still present, still being enforced by the programming of Azathoth, merely disconnected from the original trigger that made you specifically have this drive? Or does the desire go away? Or something else, maybe something I haven’t thought of (I hope it is!)?
Am I going to have a chance to actually interact with them, see them grow, etc?
I mean, assuming hypothetical case where as soon as a child is born, nefarious agents of Population Police snatch him never to be seen or heard from again, then I don’t really see the point of having children.
If on the other hand, I have a chance to actually act as a parent to him, then I guess it is worth it, after all, even if the child disappears as soon as it reaches adulthood and joins Secret Society of Ineffective Altruism never to be heard from again. I get no benefit of care, but I am happy that I introduced new human into the world (uh… I mean, I actually helped to do so, as it is a two-person exercise so to speak). It is not ideal case but I am still consider the effort well spent.
In ideal world, I still have a relation with my child, even as he/her reaches adulthood so that I can feel safer knowing that there is someone who (hopefully) considers all the generosity I have granted to him and holds me dear.
P.S. Why programing of Azathoth? In my mind it makes it sound as if desire to have children was something intristically bad.
Thanks for the response! This puts several misunderstandings I had to rest.
P.S. Why programing of Azathoth? In my mind it makes it sound as if desire to have children was something intristically bad.
Programming of Azathoth because Azathoth doesn’t give a shit about what you wish your own values were. Therefore what you want has no impact whatsoever on what your body and brain are programmed to do, such as make some humans want to have children even when every single aspect of it is negative (e.g. painful sex, painful pregnancy, painful birthing, hell to raise children, hellish economic conditions, absolutely horrible life for the child, etc. etc. such as we’ve seen some examples of in slave populations historically)
I suspect our world views might differ for a bit, as I don’t wish that my values where any different than they are. Why should I?
If Azathoth decided to instill the value that having children is somehow desirable deep into my mind, than I am very happy that as a first world parent I have all the resources I need to turn it into a pleasant endeavor with a very high expected value (happy new human who hopefully likes me and hopefully shares my values, but I don’t have much confidence in a second bet).
Not to me obviously. Not necessarily to my parents either, but I think they might have been quite lucky in addition to being good parents.
Doesn’t money take care of you when old too? As a side note, if I were old, dying and in a poor enough condition that I couldn’t look after myself, I’d rather sign off than make other people take care of me because I can’t imagine that being an enjoyable experience.
Still, if it is possible to have a happy children (and I assume happy humans are good stuff), where does the heap of dis-utility come into play?
EDIT: It is hard to form a meaningful relationship with money, and I would reckon that teaching it to uphold values similar to yours isn’t an easy task either. As for taking care I don’t mean palliative care as much as simply the relationship you have with your child.
You can have relationships with other people, and I think it’s easier to influence what they’re like.
I’ll list some forms of disutility later, but I think for now it’s better not to bias the answers to the original question further. I removed the “heap of disutility” part, it was unnecessarily exaggerated anyway.
I don’t consider myself an explicit rationalist, but the desire to have children stems from the desire to have someone to take care of me when I am older.
Do you see your own conception and further life as a cause for “huge heap of disutility” that can’t be surpassed by the good stuff?
I’ve always been curious to see the response of someone with this view to the question:
What if you knew, as much as any things about the events of the world are known, that there will be circumstances in X years that make it impossible for any child you conceive to possibly take care of you when you are older?
In such a hypothetical, is the executive drive to have children still present, still being enforced by the programming of Azathoth, merely disconnected from the original trigger that made you specifically have this drive? Or does the desire go away? Or something else, maybe something I haven’t thought of (I hope it is!)?
Am I going to have a chance to actually interact with them, see them grow, etc?
I mean, assuming hypothetical case where as soon as a child is born, nefarious agents of Population Police snatch him never to be seen or heard from again, then I don’t really see the point of having children.
If on the other hand, I have a chance to actually act as a parent to him, then I guess it is worth it, after all, even if the child disappears as soon as it reaches adulthood and joins Secret Society of Ineffective Altruism never to be heard from again. I get no benefit of care, but I am happy that I introduced new human into the world (uh… I mean, I actually helped to do so, as it is a two-person exercise so to speak). It is not ideal case but I am still consider the effort well spent.
In ideal world, I still have a relation with my child, even as he/her reaches adulthood so that I can feel safer knowing that there is someone who (hopefully) considers all the generosity I have granted to him and holds me dear.
P.S. Why programing of Azathoth? In my mind it makes it sound as if desire to have children was something intristically bad.
Thanks for the response! This puts several misunderstandings I had to rest.
Programming of Azathoth because Azathoth doesn’t give a shit about what you wish your own values were. Therefore what you want has no impact whatsoever on what your body and brain are programmed to do, such as make some humans want to have children even when every single aspect of it is negative (e.g. painful sex, painful pregnancy, painful birthing, hell to raise children, hellish economic conditions, absolutely horrible life for the child, etc. etc. such as we’ve seen some examples of in slave populations historically)
I suspect our world views might differ for a bit, as I don’t wish that my values where any different than they are. Why should I?
If Azathoth decided to instill the value that having children is somehow desirable deep into my mind, than I am very happy that as a first world parent I have all the resources I need to turn it into a pleasant endeavor with a very high expected value (happy new human who hopefully likes me and hopefully shares my values, but I don’t have much confidence in a second bet).
Not to me obviously. Not necessarily to my parents either, but I think they might have been quite lucky in addition to being good parents.
Doesn’t money take care of you when old too? As a side note, if I were old, dying and in a poor enough condition that I couldn’t look after myself, I’d rather sign off than make other people take care of me because I can’t imagine that being an enjoyable experience.
Still, if it is possible to have a happy children (and I assume happy humans are good stuff), where does the heap of dis-utility come into play?
EDIT: It is hard to form a meaningful relationship with money, and I would reckon that teaching it to uphold values similar to yours isn’t an easy task either. As for taking care I don’t mean palliative care as much as simply the relationship you have with your child.
You can have relationships with other people, and I think it’s easier to influence what they’re like.
I’ll list some forms of disutility later, but I think for now it’s better not to bias the answers to the original question further. I removed the “heap of disutility” part, it was unnecessarily exaggerated anyway.
You can have a relationship with your friends, but don’t expect them to take care of you when you’re old.