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[SalmonGod]

My first gut instinct was to respond "the young." I don't want to shit all over idealism because we wouldn't have many of the things we call progress without it. But the young are idealistic, ignorantly so, and in some ways that's a strength. Their idealism hasn't been tested by life, financial realities and social consequences. Someone is providing for their needs and their security, which allows them the freedom to pursue selfless, idealistic goals. They can more easily brush off what would threaten say a 30-year-old who has rent to pay and possibly a family to support.

A little confused by this.  Sounds like you're referring to specifically late teens/early 20s who are still living with their parents or having their way paid through college.  Otherwise, not much of what you said applies, except to actual kids who are mostly powerless to impact much of anything.

And this kind of talk about idealism has always bothered me.  There's nothing ignorant or impractical about being idealistic.  Having ideals doesn't mean you realistically expect to achieve them.  That's kind of counter to the meaning of the word ideal.  Everyone has ideals that they'd like to move closer to.  That doesn't go away when they get tested or life gets more burdensome.  They get might get more sophisticated.  But mostly people just get busy and worn down, and that stuff all gets shoved to the back of their minds by necessity.  Not that they stop believing in or wanting it.  Looking at kids who haven't buried those ideals in doldrum crap yet and calling them "ignorant" I think is just... a coping mechanism.

But generally I'd agree that parents with children often have better reasons to pursue a career in politics and succeed at it. It gets twisted though really fast, and I've always (as someone with no kids) hated the "hold my kids up as a reason why X is right" method. You can pin almost anything on your kids, or kids in general, and it's pretty much unimpeachable in American society.

For sure, as someone with two kids, I don't share in the religious child-worshipping that goes on.  Children aren't angels.  Raising them isn't some divine fulfillment.  Having children doesn't magically change you and make you a better person or anything.  There's no moral imperative to have children (these days I'd lean towards the opposite).  Fuck all that noise.

I'm just saying that unless you are a terrible person, knowing that someone didn't ask to be brought into this world and you brought them in anyway, into a state of absolute dependence on you... presents a hell of an intrinsic imperative.  You truly do owe that person something.  If you brought them into a world that's collapsing, you owe them either a hell of an apology or a sincere interest in turning it around. 

Self-interest can be just as strong, but currently only carries so far (see: massive numbers of boomers going "not my problem" as their X'er kids are all middle-aged and their relationships are all played out).  Basic empathy isn't an imperative.

Who also has the most reason to say "fuck everyone else, I'm making sure me and my kids are provided for"?

It swings both ways.

That logic only really works if you're rich.  If you're not rich... well you can think like that anyway, and plenty do, but it's horribly misguided.  If everyone else is getting screwed, you probably are too.

People without kids often still want to leave something behind, even if it's not a genetic legacy, then something to be remembered by. As long as you want to be remembered for good things that help people, nothing wrong with that.

Personal experience hasn't shown me that a strong drive to leave a legacy is really all that common.  Or it's one of those ideals that gets buried.

[LordBaal]

Sorry to veer the subject again, but Elliott Abrams gave some declarations about how the sanctions against Maduro will put him out, and the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) needs to come closer to Guaido, be part of our future and participate in the next elections and how a military force is not necessary in a change of goverment and our own military will have to protect us in the event of a transition.

I guess we just doged the bullet of the "possibility of becoming collateral damage" but we are bitting the "stay hungry, sick and afraid for many years more" bullet really hard. A couple of points that migth come over Abrams head,:

Maduro & Co. don't give a shit about sanctions, they just keep happily plundering what they can here and keep getting that juicy income from drug trafficking so they really don't care about this piece of land beyond using it as a power base, hideout and reamin on a "diplomatic immunity" status.

Inviting the PSUV to be "part of the future" is akin to have had the NAZI party engage on the future of germany rigth after WWII ended.

Expecting the military to protect us from... themselves? The armed forces of Venezuela became the armed branch of the PSUV and hence the ruling mob. Their higher ups are involved in more corruption than Hoffa, Nixon and Escobar together, the middle guys are either deep into this and getting rich or too afraid and being hunt down, the lower ranks are enjoying the power trip of basically being able to mug anyone they want without repercussions and shoot unarmed people in the protests, or are leaving the hell outta here. This ranks are being refilled with whatever they can find and given the conditions the people that join them aren't exactly good people. And at any rate they leave the dirtiers work for the paramilitary called Colectivos (not afiliated with the Borg despite also being mindless drones) or cuban guys doning venezuelan uniforms.

The far and few military, mostly middle guys, that migth have something to object are watched closely by their peers and external agents, you see every week some of them being arrested and dragged away to the "tomb", a poor man's Guantanamo smack at a side of Caracas.

So no my dear Elliott, I know you migth have more knowledge in several orders of magnitude than me on international affairs and such, but unless you know something that I dont, having lived inside the problem for 20 years now, I beg to differ with you. Maybe he does know something, and mayne by next friday I'll be eating my own words but thats highly unlikely.

[sluissa]

Why does Elliott Abrams still have a job in Washington? Directly involved in some of the biggest fuckups of the past 50 years. Iran-Contra, the W. Bush Iraq war, fucking around in South America...

The man should be grateful he's not rotting in jail or worse.

[smjjames]

I thought this Ellliott Abrams guy was implied to be some Venezuelan official? And did he mean 'our own military as in Venezuelas military or the US military?

[Dunamisdeos]

I mean there are some situations where you can hold your kid up and be like "my opinion is more relevant than yours". Certain education concerns, for instance.

But yes, I see lots of people saying things like excuse me I raised like 3 kids at some point in my life nyehh when you contradict them about like, immigration or some such random unrelated crap.

[LordBaal]

I thought this Ellliott Abrams guy was implied to be some Venezuelan official? And did he mean 'our own military as in Venezuelas military or the US military?

Is the USA special appointment or envoy or whatever the fret that means. He said US army should not need to intervene, our Venezuelan army should help sort things out.

Should, SHOULD. People in North Korea should be free of tyranny, small children in the US should not need to learn what to do on the even of a shootout, woman in middle east should be able to drive without being flogged.... last time I see a lot of things that should aren't, and are bound to keep that way unless there's some kind of radical change.

[Frumple]

What it meant was he was the thing put there more or less specifically as a 'fuck you' to Venezuela. I wouldn't so much give weight to whatever he says as default to praying to whatever you think will listen his words have no weight. The alternative is probably worse than him spewing ineffectual hot air

[nenjin]

When people are like "I have 5 kids to take care of" my first reaction is always "no one made you have that many kids and take on that burden."

At which point we cross into religious reasons why people have so many kids.

That shit pisses me off so bad. Your religion prevents you from using contraception like a responsible adult, or wants you to breed for the sake of your religion. And so rather than being careful with your fucking, you have a ton of kids then demand society adjusts to accommodate you. "It's my right to have a big family, what is this, China?!?!?!" is a response I've seen before.

So their right to procreate irresponsibly beyond their means becomes my social, societal and tax burden.

[Dunamisdeos]

Oh come on now. People have multiple kids outside of religion, you dingus. You know that, I know that, we all know that.

Not every religion even has a problem with contraception. MOST don't in 2019. My family is predominantly Christian, and the question has never even come up because, yes, we have beliefs about sex before marriage, but no, we are way less into kids out of wedlock. My wife has been on contraceptives since she hit puberty, and her family is as religious as mine. Nobody cares outside of the Pope and his crew, and some of those fundamentalist compound-hugging sects who we call evangelicals these days.

Here's some reading on the subject. The first one is about a family that has lots o kiddies and no religion, the second one attempts to rebut that specific article but also says that yeah, religious people have more kids because they are happier and more stable. It also glosses over that their data reveals that people with more education are more prone to inbreeding, which is weird AF and I'd probably gloss that over too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/05/31/stop-assuming-that-families-with-lots-of-children-are-religious/?utm_term=.e2c8b1bcd0c7

https://www.acsh.org/news/2016/07/20/religious-people-really-do-have-more-children

Still tho, people that use their kids as a shield for their own bad behavior are poop. Having 5 kids doesn't make you an expert on macroeconomics, Karen.

[nenjin]

I'm well aware non-religious people have lots of kids too. That makes even less sense to me, and is less defensible when you have that many despite your ability to adequately support them. Religion will be religion and at least you can argue from that basis. But people who "just want a large family" because it fit some ideal, AND they can't adequately support them, is madness to me.

It also glosses over that their data reveals that people with more education are more prone to inbreeding, which is weird AF and I'd probably gloss that over too.

That would seem counterintuitive, yes. Maybe the result is though that more educated people end up gravitating toward riskier behavior and/or uh.....kinkier things.

[Dunamisdeos]

Well, that is perfectly fair. If you know you can't support then, that is very different. My wife and I had a contraceptive malfunction (the pill, believe it or not) resulting in our current kid. We were planning on waiting a bit longer for financial reasons, and we definitely 100% cannot afford a second child, even though we do want one. It's not even a thing we have a definitive timeframe for, at this point. I certainly don't think having kids you can't support is a religious bent, though. Frankly, most of the people I know with their own kids in a difficult financial situation are not religious (though that's hardly a data set to draw general conclusions from).

It's ok for people's ideal to be multiple kids, though. It's ok to have kids because they make you happy. I agree that you need to be as financially stable as possible before having kids, anything less is irresponsible.

[SalmonGod]

I'm not sure how this bit came about in the thread...

But limitations on child-having should be universal or not at all.  As inequality deepens, qualifiers like "able to support" increasingly carry the implication of "only the rich should have kids", which is only a step or two away from blatant eugenics promotion.

I'm of the opinion that it's irresponsible in today's world to have more than 2 kids, due to population pressures on environment and sociology.  But I apply that to everyone.  No qualifiers.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I've toyed with the idea that millionaires and up should be prohibited from having any children.

[Dunamisdeos]

I mean... it's situational and difficult to judge a person from an outside perspective, sure, but not hard to quantify.

At the time we had our kid, we were able to support ourselves +1.  We can buy food/necessities and have shelter. We're poor as balls after that, sure. But if you can in fact survive without outside assistance, you are being financially responsible in having children. It's certainly wiser or more comfortable to wait until you have extra money, sure, but not irresponsible.

I don't think it's unfair or unethical to say that yes, people with more money than me can support more children. I think that's normal and unavoidable and not at all an infringement on myself. We have relatives that are, by comparison, richer than God and have more kids than us. Doesn't bother me, and I love having the little ones over.

I think what we actually need as a society is to fight the stigma that having necessities available but being otherwise poor is somehow awful, or reflects some sort of major flaw in a family. I have spoken with dozens of people in a political conversation, for instance, who argue for realsies that it's literally better to be dead than poor or adopted. That's not an exaggeration, I had to talk to someone who honestly believed that being adopted meant you would unavoidably grow up to be a drunk or a criminal. Cause and effect. It drove their political beliefs.

[nenjin]

I've toyed with the idea that millionaires and up should be prohibited from having any children.

They'd just elect pseudo heirs in that case, or their wealth would just transfer to corporate interests in full.

I'm of the opinion that it's irresponsible in today's world to have more than 2 kids, due to population pressures on environment and sociology.  But I apply that to everyone.  No qualifiers.

This is my take as well. I've never understood the desire for large families. When your entire family were also employees, that rationale made more sense. Now it just seems like people want large families because "that's how I grew up."