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[Rolan7]

Why not? It's one of the main goal posts wired into us by biology - to have your own genetic offshoots.

More personally, I want my mum and dad's genes to survive, not to mention my own, and I want any inheritor of my family's wealth (however much or little that is) to go to someone who is linked to those who accrued it. For instance, the family farm has been in our family for four hundred odd years.

And, more personally still, I would find it easier to connect to my own biological child. It would not be impossible to connect to someone else's child - quite the contrary - but I feel it would be a connection of a slightly different sort.

Yeah, but none of that's an actual explanation of why it's good, just why we generally want it.  And honestly I only care about the genes inasmuch as certain family members care a LOT, especially the ones I'm on the fence about talking to.

Everyone needs to pick values to live by, and genetic propagation is fine I guess.  But I see most of my cousins and nieces/nephews as strangers already, they're brought up in such different... cultures, from me.  And I get a lot of fun and fulfillment looking after them, from time to time.  Therefore, the idea of adopting a child and raising them as my own is no more scary than creating a new one.

Some people theorize that's a homosexual thing, I guess?  When reproduction is less necessary, perhaps superfluous, nonbreeder caretakers arise.  Dunno if there's any truth to that.

[Biowraith]

I have a cold.  I've not had a cold for years.  I'm not sure to what extent I'm supposed to whine for sympathy, but I'm fairly sure it's now my duty to infect everyone in my office in time for Christmas.

[Yoink]

If my kids aren't related to me they can fuck right off.    

I have a cold.  I've not had a cold for years.  I'm not sure to what extent I'm supposed to whine for sympathy, but I'm fairly sure it's now my duty to infect everyone in my office in time for Christmas.

Godspeed.

[LordBaal]

Well, if we were at risk of extinction we should all breed, but since there's plenty of humans around and specially there are plenty of human larvae under abandon by their parental units I would encourage anyone that can provide a loving and caring refugee to adopt.

This is something the wife and I have talked plenty, and we would love to provide someone with a better chance in life someday. Of course first we need to provide our own squab and ourselves a better chance.

[Hanslanda]

Well, if we were at risk of extinction we should all breed, but since there's plenty of humans around and specially there are plenty of human larvae under abandon by their parental units I would encourage anyone that can provide a loving and caring refugee to adopt.

This is something the wife and I have talked plenty, and we would love to provide someone with a better chance in life someday. Of course first we need to provide our own squab and ourselves a better chance.

Adopt-a-Refugee

I'm imagining that one heavyset guy from the Africa commercials (fifty cents could feed this child a day) walking up to a grown man like, "This is Alfonso. Everyday Alfonso has to go to work for 12 hours and not make any political statements or he'll get arrested. For just a thousand dollars, we could perform an extraordinary rendition and keep Alfonso in an overseas black site."

And the whole time Alfonso is steadily growing more uncomfortable and terrified while the guy puts his hand on his shoulder obliviously and gazes soulfully into the camera as Arms of an Angel plays and CIA blackbag guys wait impatiently in the background.

[Rowanas]

Well, if we were at risk of extinction we should all breed, but since there's plenty of humans around and specially there are plenty of human larvae under abandon by their parental units I would encourage anyone that can provide a loving and caring refugee to adopt.

This is something the wife and I have talked plenty, and we would love to provide someone with a better chance in life someday. Of course first we need to provide our own squab and ourselves a better chance.

Adopt-a-Refugee

I'm imagining that one heavyset guy from the Africa commercials (fifty cents could feed this child a day) walking up to a grown man like, "This is Alfonso. Everyday Alfonso has to go to work for 12 hours and not make any political statements or he'll get arrested. For just a thousand dollars, we could perform an extraordinary rendition and keep Alfonso in an overseas black site."

And the whole time Alfonso is steadily growing more uncomfortable and terrified while the guy puts his hand on his shoulder obliviously and gazes soulfully into the camera as Arms of an Angel plays and CIA blackbag guys wait impatiently in the background.

TAKE MY MONEY!

[Cathar]

Woah woah, I want my own larvae. I can adopt as far away as the son of a cousin, but as dwarfy mentionned, I want to breed because of my biologically determined tribalism, not out of love for humanity

[Rowanas]

I accept the biological argument, but people wanting their own kids are bloody selfish.  We've got waaaay too many people, and good kids needing good parents are overlooked for more bloody resource-devourers.

I didn't choose to have my daughter, of course I love her, but i'm not going to pretend that it was good sense to breed.

[Cathar]

I fully admit this is purely a selfish decision and I make no apology for it. I'm not setting up to solve any social issue with my reproductive behavior tho I recognize they exist.

(Also I don't want to go into details, but the previous gov we had attached a heavy (and probably contrary to international law) price tag to the operation of surrogacy, by deprieving surrogate kids of their human rights to a free education and medical aid. So right now I'm building up the means to pay for the inflated price, and maybe the new leadership will use that gunpoint money to fund orphenages and do its job of controlling demography. Either way, I'm just a guy, I ain't solving overpopulation with my own individual behavior)

[NullForceOmega]

I accept the biological argument, but people wanting their own kids are bloody selfish.  We've got waaaay too many people, and good kids needing good parents are overlooked for more bloody resource-devourers.

I didn't choose to have my daughter, of course I love her, but i'm not going to pretend that it was good sense to breed.

This is complete goddamn nonsense.  If the current generation doesn't breed at least at replacement levels then our entire system, from bottom to top, is going to completely collapse.  And don't feed me any garbage about how much ecological damage we're causing because it is far to fucking late to try to use that argument.  We aren't going to be able to even stabilize things unless we start using our resources much more intelligently, and that sure as hell won't happen if we regress to goddam subsistence farming.

We all have a basic biological imperative to try to continue our own genetic line, it isn't any more 'selfish' of me to have a family that I can support than it is for some central African or southeast Asian who CANNOT to have multiple children.  In fact, I'd argue that I am in a massively better position to make that choice.

You don't get to decide what is or isn't selfish, society as a whole does.

edit: If I have, in fact, misunderstood your argument again, then I apologize.  I'm gettin' real sick of this particular bullshit attitude I see floating around lately tho'.

[hector13]

Methinks you’re looking for an argument that wasn’t made.

[Il Palazzo]

You don't get to decide what is or isn't selfish, society as a whole does.

But my man. You don't get to decide who gets to decide what is or isn't selfish.

[bloop_bleep]

I agree, at least partially, with Rowanas. The point is that there are millions of children in the US alone who were incredibly unfortunate enough to lose both their parents. It doesn't make sense to me to bring more children into the world instead of directing my resources towards raising those that already exist and are suffering. If I ever want children, I would probably adopt instead of going the traditional way.

[NullForceOmega]

That is a completely reasonable attitude to have, and I am not arguing against supporting orphan children, but the massive contributors to overpopulation are not western countries (excepting the U.S.)  So complaining about people in western nations having children is kind of meaningless.

Hell, Africa's population is expected to nearly double (to around 2 billion) by 2050.  To equal the population of the two largest nations, China and India, requires the next 24-25 nations combined.  Bitching about children in Europe seems pretty stupid by those numbers.

[Rowanas]

Bloop_Bleep has it.

While on the global scale I do take my misanthropy past malthusianism and into genocide (I think we're just too flawed to build happy, sustainable communities and we need to die off in our entirety and let someone else take the stage), that wasn't the point of my post.

With that aside, we should be expending our resources to care for the children that already exist, rather than creating more children.  It's wasteful and foolish and has nothing to do with population numbers. If there is a child going without, and you want a child, why not make a life better rather than  making a new one and letting the existing child continue to suffer?  I would hold this to be true regardless of humanity's population.  It is always better to eliminate unhappiness when you can.