It's incredibly frustrating to be attacked for not wanting to have children and continually have to hear negative put downs by people that do.

While I don't see myself in Stallman's personal position, I see the logical big picture and agree.

It starts with explaining why it wasn't good for him and continues on to urge others to not have children, with the reasoning that not everyone will read this essay. It's not a complete thought. It's like saying that you've seen bad software projects, and the time for those people would have been better spent somewhere else, so everyone reading this comment shouldn't do software, because there are more than enough software engineers. There's a better version of this essay within itself.

Adoption enables people to become parents without increasing population. Why didn't rms address this obvious objection? I think it simply didn't occur to him.

Now consider that in the context of his line: "Having no dependents, I could dedicate myself to what seemed right rather than to whatever someone with money told me to do."

Adoptive or foster parents aren't doing what seems right to them! Why are they wasting their time providing parental love to children in need, when they could be writing emacs patches?

As a child of both foster and adoptive parents, I say: What a jerk!

I read many responses mentioning you should have kids to 'pass on your genes' so potentially your offspring can be a 'better you' and improve the world.

I would argue that adoption could be a good alternative. When adopting, you are potentially doing all this without actually contributing to the world population increase.

Also, I think RMS made a respectable choice, and probably indeed contributed more to society than if he would have had kids. Not having kids is IMHO probably a harder decision than actually having kids.

No. I have spent three years living apart from my family on military deployments. I know what it means to make this ethical argument and live by it in a self-sacrificing way. Many people cannot make this work, which isn't the same as forcing a divisive choice upon those of us who can.

How an expression of sympathy is also a personal attack, I do not know.

Whether you intend it or not, it's an expression of condescension. It states that you are in a position where you can look down at (feel bad for) a lesser (poor Stallman).

You may not mean it that way, but it's exactly the same sort of phrase as "Bless your little heart".

If you "feel bad for poor him", you are referring to him in a way that implies his position is lesser.

"Poor $noun" is nearly always derogatory towards $noun. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a neutral or positive use for "poor $noun".

Verbal communication is imprecise enough that people will overlook "poor $noun". In text, you have the opportunity to proofread and revise your statements, so "poor $noun" drastically changes the meaning of the phrase.

Perhaps the condescension in my writing (of which there was none) was not so much in the signal as it was in the receiver? Your reply is absolutely dripping with it, window-dressing a cry of "is not / is so" with: "however", "furthermore", "therefore", and "by definition."

The only thing that would have made it worse would be putting it into pseudocode!

"Implications to humanity?" There's no humanity if people don't reproduce. It's that simple

Stallman even addresses your objection in his post:

> I don't wish that nobody had any children; I don't want humanity to disappear.

Stallman is making the argument that it's acceptable to not have kids for very good reasons, and that many people might be better off not having kids. He is definitely not saaying everyone should stop having kids.

I think all too often people who will turn out to be horrible parents are pressured into having kids. Not everyone should have kids.

http://vhemt.org/