Agreed. Raising vegan/vegetarian children and trying to steer them toward effective-altruistic careers around environmental benefit probably has positive expected outcomes for the environmental and political future.
What you write makes sense but I don't feel right about having children. The world sucks and it will suck much more in the coming decades. I have no desire to put my progeny through that mess.
Re:Insect collapse
by ForHackernews on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @12:53PM
(#18913203)
This only makes sense if you assume "caring about the environment" is highly heritable and that individuals "caring about the environment" in the abstract somehow translates into large-scale public policy that's better for the environment (I would suggest available evidence shows that it does not).
Re:Insect collapse
by toasterlovin on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @01:28PM
(#18913536)
As I pointed out, children get their nature and their nurture from their parents. And I don't know how you can reconcile the success of the environmental movement in the developed world in the past 5 decades with your position that somehow people caring about the environment doesn't have any real world effects.
Re:Insect collapse
by ForHackernews on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @02:34PM
(#18914151)
CO2 emissions are not just rising but rising faster. We haven't even gotten the second derivative pointed in the necessary direction.
Re:Insect collapse
by toasterlovin on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @04:41PM
(#18915676)
But you and your significant other are not the only players in the game. There are other people who will have children, regardless of what you do. So your choice is between a future that contains your children, who share your disposition and are indoctrinated by you into a specific worldview, or a world that does not contain them.
How does your side win if it promotes a strategy of not even showing up to the game?
Re:Insect collapse
by ForHackernews on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @05:22PM
(#18916116)
My "side" "wins" in that my [non-existent] children and grandchildren will not suffer and starve on a famine-stricken planet burning itself to death.
Re:Insect collapse
by toasterlovin on Tuesday January 15, 2019 @10:37PM
(#18918050)
I don’t get your position. You’re evidently not concerned with the greater good, only with what your own descendants will experience. But then you’re completely willing to ensure that you will leave no descendants.
Re:Insect collapse
by ForHackernews on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @04:07AM
(#18919305)
I think you're poorly informed, or perhaps in denial about how far down the road we already are: [0] [1] [2]
It's essentially too late for your or my hypothetical descendants to have any effect on "the greater good". The IPCC says either we cut _worldwide_ CO2 emissions by 50% in the next 11 years, or it's game over for +1.5C scenarios: all coral reefs die, along with most of the fish, crop yields down 40% in some places, mass migration and resource wars are likely.
So basically I think it's too late for any "greater good" to come from my having kids, and I believe it's immoral to bring a life into a doomed world just to suffer.
[0] - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/rcp-85-t...
[1] - https://hbr.org/2018/12/the-story-of-sustainability-in-2018-...
Re:Insect collapse
by toasterlovin on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @09:56AM
(#18921308)
I get the risks. I’m just not a quitter. Somebody has to show up and try and I’m willing to nominate my descendants for that. And I’m pretty sure they’ll be okay with my choice. Many people throughout history have been born into some pretty fucked up situations (slavery, etc.) and decided that life was worth living.
My blog post: http://www.richardjones.org/kids-are-good-for-the-environmen...