I cant remember being asked to be born

[Aspergers_Aspie]

I can't, so people with major problems or problems that add to each other over time, I think I can understand their negative feelings

 

[Pats]

No one asked to be born, that's true. And the majority who die have not asked to die either. Lots of things we don't choose, just up to us what to do with it.

 

[Jeremiah]

Nobody can. And anyone who says they can is lying.

 

[Kalinychta]

Agreed. Having a child is one of the absolute most selfish acts a person can perform. Deciding to create a human being who has no way to consent to or refuse your choice...I mean, you’d think people would take that more seriously. But as far as I’ve noticed, they don’t. At all.

No one asked to be born, that's true. And the majority who die have not asked to die either. Lots of things we don't choose, just up to us what to do with it.

Choosing to create a human being is a (usually) willful act by two people, whereas death is simply a biological inevitability. So, the comparison is a bit off. The world is grotesquely overpopulated and because of this, it is said that the wars of the future will be over food and water, not oil.

So, in the “what we do with it” time we have, people should consider fitting in a little bit of time to reflect on the ethics of procreation.

 

[oregano]

I know my own parents just wanted a cute little baby, period. My mom said that when she was a little girl she wanted a real live baby to feed and cuddle. What about when the baby gets older? "Whatever happens, happens, that's up to Jesus." So her cute baby comes out, and he's really sick, and it's one thing after another. He eats up so much of mom's time that dad gets jealous and starts seeing his kid in Oedipal terms as a romantic rival instead of a son. So his childhood is abuse from dad and mom trying to prove to dad that she still loves dad. He grows up and fails at life and winds up living in the backyard of his parents' dream "retirement home". So that's me, all because my mom wanted to cuddle a real baby who would coo and giggle back at her.

Anybody nowadays who makes a kid is crazy, since the world is both extremely overpopulated and running low on resources needed to feed that population.

About a month ago I read a New York Times story about teenage climate activists, and they talked about how their entire lives they have been haunted by the impending malthusian crackup of civilization and of the ecosystem that supports life on earth. Life just keeps getting worse and worse and they feel powerless to do anything except protest since they are so young and still dependent on their parents. A girl got accepted to film school and was wondering if she should bother since she didn't know if anybody would care about watching movies in 20 years instead of doing stuff like foraging for canned tuna.

I know that a lot of teens are just completely nihilistic, they don't see the point in school and just get passed from grade to grade and then shoved out with a diploma they can't read. I know somebody whose daughter was so nihilistic and rebellious that for her 18th birthday they gave her a suitcase and some money and then dropped her off at the Greyhound bus station downtown and told her to buy a one way ticket to anywhere she wanted and then drove away. The girl is very smart, smart enough to know that she has no future. Her parents finally gave up and abandoned her as soon as they could. They said that a lot of her schoolmates are the same way, the world is ending so why care.

 

[Thinx]

Its interesting and sad that some would choose nihilism rather than use their time to make a difference in whatever ways they can. Each to their own, but I guess we do have to put in effort to get anything back. Sitting about waiting for the world to end seems rather a dull way of using the time.

 

[Au Naturel]

Life goes on. The need to make babies is deep within us. Birth control is an extremely recent invention and has no effect on biological imperatives. Almost every woman and most men experience a desire to have children, obviously some more so than others. As it turns out the more affluent one is, the more likely one is to limit reproduction.

If you get right down to it, every heritable behavior any human or other animal can have is in some form selfish. (Richard Dawkins - Selfish Gene)

The world is not going to "end." Things may get rough. Then there's a new normal. That's how the world works. Punctuated equilibrium. Long periods of very slow change with intermittent catastrophes where the actual evolution occurs.

Not one person or other creature that has ever lived "asked to be born." It is such a universally true statement it is meaningless.

 

[Wolfsage]

Basically it's like saying I have no reason to exist. I've seen and learned enough in my life to never believe that.

 

[Pats]

I have 4 kids and every one of them are happy to be alive in in existence. Now they have kids who are happy. It's selfish to have kids for the wrong reason and it's selfish to think no one should have kids. My childhood was rough but I grew up and whatever life I had after childhood I made for myself. I did better with my kids and they do even better with their kids. And I believe everyone has a purpose. Don't try to make me feel guilty for having kids. Everyone stops having kids the world will end the next generation. God is purpose and He knows each person before their ever born, so this gives reason.

 

[Fino]

It's the ego that has a problem with this, the idea of complete autonomy, where we demand that every preference of ours be satisfied. It's misplaced indignation.

 

[Kalinychta]

Its interesting and sad that some would choose nihilism rather than use their time to make a difference in whatever ways they can. Each to their own, but I guess we do have to put in effort to get anything back. Sitting about waiting for the world to end seems rather a dull way of using the time.

Well, 99.99% of people in the world don’t use their lives to make a difference. They spend it in a cubicle, more or less, increasing the profits of the billionaires who rule the world, and their off-time is spent eating, watching TV, defecating, and posting selfies on Facebook.

 

[Thinx]

Well, 99.99% of people in the world don’t use their lives to make a difference. They spend it in a cubicle, more or less, increasing the profits of the billionaires who rule the world, and their off-time is spent eating, watching TV, defecating, and posting selfies on Facebook.

I take it from the fact that you include very nearly the whole world population in your idea of what people do, that your point isn't based on any data. Perhaps this kind of dismissive exaggeration just insulates the comparatively rich and chronically dissatisfied and justifies indolence.

 

[SusanLR]

There are probably a lot of kids and adults that are glad they were born, but, there are a lot that aren't.
I always said if I had had the choice, I wouldn't have been.
There is nothing I've found in this temporal existence worth dying for.
Had I never been born, I never would have known the good or the bad of life so it wouldn't
have mattered. Oblivion is no awareness of self or what happens in life.

There is a built in need to procreate. We were formed that way and it's hard to over ride for most.
The need for sex makes sure it is perpetuated.
Some have evolved enough that those needs do not fire up in life.
That's what I call evolving. Phasing out the animal instincts.
Personally, I'm glad the sex and procreation urge never awoke in me.
It saved a lot of trouble and saved a life or lives.
Thou shall not kill is considered an ultimate ethical way of living.
Yet every time someone creates another human, you have given the death sentence for them.

Yes, life on this planet would run out if everyone stopped having babies.
But, then we're back to oblivion and no individual consciousness to care.
I have no idea why we were created. And, yes, the world will end, some day.
No one knows how or when. Just the law of physics for everything known in the Universe.
Nothing is infinite, change is inevitable.

Everyone just has their own feelings on the subject. Human life as we know it on this planet
happened. Why?
...and I know just what I'd change, if I went back in time somehow,
but, there's nothing I can do about it now..

 

[Esa]

There are a lot of kids who are desperate to feel loved and cared for.
There is no excuse for the selfish and inconsiderate need of people who still think their own DNA is anything special. As long as they continue to discriminate based on genetics, I won’t be convinced that they want to have children. They want little versions of themselves. The more we tolerate this nonsense, more children will continue to suffer.
I understand despair, so I’m sure people can understand why I don’t care about the primitive needs of humans. There are simple things in life. We know life isn’t fair to most people. It’s because people aren’t fair. And most people go through times when they feel helpless and it’s not their fault that they were brought into existence without their consent. The least anyone can do is take action to do some good for those who are already here. But that won’t happen. People will keep creating problems for themselves and for others and end up complaining about why some are miserable when they can be happy. Look around and you’ll see magnificent things that are enough to make you happy. But the things we ignore are the reasons why we are all so terrible. We don’t look so that we won’t have to see and feel any remorse about the things that affect humanity as long as it doesn’t affect us directly.
Isn’t that why people are suffering? On different levels in different places, but still suffering.

 

[Pats]

Well, 99.99% of people in the world don’t use their lives to make a difference. They spend it in a cubicle, more or less, increasing the profits of the billionaires who rule the world, and their off-time is spent eating, watching TV, defecating, and posting selfies on Facebook.

You don't think much of people, do you? I have the opposite take and believe in people in general. Happy to be alive and happy to help others along the road of life. I said earlier, I have grown children who have children. Not every one was deliberate, but all was a blessing. I'm very proud of my kids and I've seen them all helping others in all kinds of circumstances. I'm sure the old lady trying to mow her lawn before the storm came was happy that my son was alive when he stopped and finished the mowing for her. And the guy who was unable to get a job when my son gave him a job with no experience, but took the time to teach. I could go on and on. That's why we're here - no one can move on without the help from someone. So maybe you see life as you described - maybe you need to be the one to help them find purpose.

 

[Pats]

I just don't understand this thread. What good is anything with the people? What good is the beauty of nature if there is no one to take it in? What good are the song birds or anything in creation without people to know it's there?

 

[Gracey]

If my own children spent the rest of my natural life time waiting around for the world to end filled with gloom and bitterness without ever lifting a finger to contribute to society,
experience as much as they could handle,
or even trying to appreciate a world rammed to capacity with the weird, the wonderful and the completely bewildering,

I'd kick their butts !

...but then again they haven't been raised in a 'rose tinted' environment. Only one way to see their world. Only ever one type of person inhabiting it.

For any of them to start to feel that way would mean a big shift away from their norm'



Am I selfish for wanting to mix up my own and Mr Gracey's genes to create mini Gracies,
Yes, probably. It was lots of fun

Do I feel guilty over that selfishness?
Nope.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

Many times when I was younger I wished I was never born. I still do sometimes think like that even recent but God has a plan for my life even though I don't know what it is.

 

[Crossbreed]

I cant remember being asked to be born...

(My literal Aspie autistic mind can't get past the following dilemma...)
How could anyone ask you, if you weren't born yet...?

 

[Au Naturel]

The purpose in life is the living. That's what Spike told Buffy and I believe it.