My parents asked when I planned on having kids, and I answered something along the lines of “I love my unborn children FAR too much to consider bringing them into this hell-hole.”
…that was maybe 5 years ago? They haven’t TOUCHED that topic since, lol.
I said the same thing to my parents and they said “Well if you enjoy life, so will your children!” They were really stumped when I told them I wouldn’t exactly say I “enjoy” life.
Man now I want these clowns to ban jacking off so I can make that joke. No wait…
That’s weird because the world is in better shape than it was when I grew up. You have drills for what to do in active shooter situations. I had drills for what to do in case of a nuclear war. I don’t think it’s as much to do with how bad the world is vs how bad the economy is for young people… and I"m not even sure if it’s statistically worse. Certainly housing is worse. Are there any other metrics that are really worse? (This is an honest question, I"m not looking for a generational fight. None of us have any control over when we were born.) Wealth inequality has gotten worse, but it was pretty bad before too.
I guess what I"m really arguing is that I think there is too much negativity and pessimism in our society especially amongst the young. Some things do suck. But finding someone who you love and then deciding to start a family with them and creating a small pocket of a better world seems 100% worth it to me.
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And we still have nuclear Armageddon to worry about, it just got buried under the pile of things to worry about.
Over having nuclear war hanging over your head enough you need drills for it? Yes, it is an improvement. Very much so.
While shooters are way too much of a problem that we’re not addressing, they’re still actually pretty rare. Most people will be never be affected. I’m not trying to stick my head in the sand here or minimize the issue, just add the perspective that sometimes “way too often” is still rare. We need to be outraged, we need to do something, but this is not as likely for most of us as the internet might make you believe
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Economy is a huge one. If minimum wage kept pace with cost of living, it’d be something like $30 per hour today. That’s one of the hardest points to drive to older folks, cuz they see shit like pushes for $15 and think it’s ridiculous cuz theirs was only $5 and think we’re asking for three times more than what they earned; and simultaneously that the difference is only a factor of three. The cost of everything has left our earning potential in the dust, so we’re having to cut things like health insurance just to keep a roof over our head. Boomers had it WAY easy financially, but so many of them feel like they have a super human work ethic cuz they paid for college by working a summer… that shit doesn’t work anymore.
Climate is another hard hitter. We’re actively watching a mass extinction event kick off, and we know what needs to happen to fix it, but the people with the power to do anything about it don’t give a fuck, so the rest of us get to just watch helplessly as our planet dies. This situation is going to be worse and worse for every incoming generation, so shouldering our potential kids with that burden would be one of the cruelest things we’re capable of.
Then there’s culture. You’d think we’d have at least made some progress here, but no. The Nazis are back, white supremacism is rampant, and christofascism is a rapidly growing cancer that our political and justice systems don’t seem able or willing to address. All it takes is a meme on Facebook for WAY too many parents to abandon their children’s safety by denying them vaccines. Women are being denied healthcare and imprisoned for things like a miscarriage.
…and that’s today. Everything I mentioned is in a nose dive, so how much worse is it going to be in 5? 10? 50 years?
Who in their right mind would look at the dumpster fire we live in and think “Yup! This is a suitable environment to raise a kid!”? I know a lot of people just want their ‘bundle of joy’ but that’s completely ignoring the kid’s perspective - damning them to all ^that is selfish to a borderline evil extent.
We’re fucked, but our kids are WAY more fucked.
Past generations wondered “Wow, I wonder what the future will look like?”, but nowadays we only think “The world is fucked and it’s only getting worse.”
I know doom thinking is bad and all that, but there is just so little reason to become excited about what’s to come
Let me suggest you find different corners of the internet to lurk in. I can’t imagine going back to a time before the internet, but one of the things it’s very good at is spreading outrage, bad news, problem after problem. If it’s getting overwhelming, maybe it would help to change your view. I’m not trying to sell you a picture of everything being perfect, just that there have always been big problems and the difference today is hearing them non-stop. Make it stop. Get a more balanced life picture.
That’s one of the hardest points to drive to older folks, cuz they see shit like pushes for $15 and think it’s ridiculous.
You might talk about income inequality here. A low minimum wage is not as much of a concern if you think those are all part time jobs for teenagers. I think a lot of people don’t really understand that with the shrinking middle class, there are way too many adults actually stuck in jobs close to minimum wage
I started replying in detail, but just let me suggest that you look around more. It’s always the bad news that makes headlines, outrage over disasters, but that’s not the full story. Every fear you expressed here also has measurable improvement, even if it doesn’t make headlines as often. Everything is getting better in many ways. We’re doing our usual muddling from one crisis to another, but there’s no reason to believe we’re finally doing a Thelma and Louise
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Climate change and the loss of biodiversity is going to be catastrophic. The world is getting better by many metrics but that’s worthless if we can’t solve climate change.
Ten years ago, all too many people wouldn’t believe climate change was happening, even in the face of all the facts, and we were doing almost nothing about it. We were driving full speed down Fury Road.
Now, people no longer try to argue it’s not happening. Globally, renewables are the highest growth power generation. Electric vehicles are no longer a niche, but the fastest growth area of personal vehicles. In the US, we’re laggards in adopting but it is already making a measurable difference. We’re squinting ahead at Fury Road, thinking we might not want to go there.
While we may be zooming past our target of 1.5°C warming, at least we have our foot off the gas and are slowing. However , remember the climate is not binary, most of the affects just get worse as we cause more warming and there is no magic number we’re good at vs not good at.tipping points may be a different story, and they become more likely as things get worse, but even that doesn’t mean the end of civilization
Biodiversity is a tough one, though. Barely recognized, the impact is too abstract for most people to understand, and we don’t even have a specific goal or target to try for. We need people to be working on that next, but solving climate change is going to be step one
Your comment does a pretty good job of illustrating the main reasons: further wealth inequality, difficult housing market, and a crazier society that’s becoming more accepting of school shootings/shootings in general…not to mention climate change, more wars, and batshit politics becoming the norm globally. How bout that response to covid? If anything had ever disgusted me about this country it’s how brazenly people were willing to risk other people’s lives because they couldn’t be bothered to even attempt to be safe or consider others safety. As if i didn’t have enough reasons not to have kids before… it seems almost cruel to bring them into today’s world.
For sure, turning a blind eye to all that and escaping into a relationship and starting a family sounds great. You need a good job to do that…or you and your partner may both need good jobs to do that. Who watches the kids then? How much time will you actually get to spend with them? Are you going to saddle your parents or in-laws with the responsibility of raising them? Day care? What point is there in having children if you’re spending most of your time away from them? Disregard all that of course, if you’re rich ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I just don’t think I’m ready to spend all of my waking hours endlessly trying to produce enough income to maintain all the expenses that come with a family, while still putting aside money for the kids to go to college and a retirement fund to boot.
It would be nice to have a family, i just don’t think it’s practical anymore. I don’t believe it’s the simple choice you make it out to be (at least that’s how i interpreted the last sentence of your comment)
Also the nuclear war never happened. Shooters on the other hand…
You wanna compare how many children died from nuclear war vs how many children died from school shootings in your lifetime?
I used to scoff at people being pessimistic that society is getting worse. But all the material security and safety is mitigated as climate change is getting worse and scientists are not optimistic about the prospects. And the phenomenon is inducing loss of biodiversity and food and migration which causes social tensions. I agree that the current society is much better off than the previous generations but I’m afraid we can’t say the same about the future ones.
I never see it brought up but. We were told not to constantly! Unless you were rich you weren’t supposed to have kids and now they are shocked people listened to them. It’s been said for at least 100 years
I had the same experience and always wondered whether I lived in a weird bubble. Maybe there’s a couple of weird bubbles out there. But no one I know in my generation or the adjacent generations has ever been told or pressured into having kids. Hardly anyone had parents who took it for granted they’d have grandchildren. It was more like school first, career first, stability first, happiness first, self fulfillment first, and then maaaaybe you can think about whether you want a kid in your life but we don’t recommend. All the sex ed throughout school was focused on how to avoid pregnancy and STIs and how to pleasure oneself and your partner (which I don’t want otherwise, just pointing it out).
You may need to listen better. In all of that was the implied, “so you’ll be able to provide a good home for your family”. In all of that was the expectation that getting married and having kids were a normal part of life, but work much better when you establish yourself first
“Because I was bought up to be a moral person who put the wellbeing of others before myself - why would I inflict a world that defines a person by their job on anyone?”
Is there a BoomersBeingFools community anywhere on lemmy?
I’m pretty sure there’s a Jokes community. That’s a good place to find them in the wild.
If you hit The Far Side, you’ve gone too far.
I’ve seen that community on here, it’s real good material for comedycemetery
You have to ask, is our problem our reluctance to become monsters?
I know the monster I become is drug addict nihalist who is constantly in and out of prison. Probably die from lung cancer in the next 5-10 years.
The guilt of something like charismatic cult leader or disingenuous pastor would crush me. I’m too nervous/anxious to scam/con. Then my empathy is way too much to be an enforcer or offer dark web services.
Nope, if I gave up, I’m the guy they point at and say, “don’t do drugs kids.”
Our reluctance to become monsters despite the incentive gives me hope.
Let’s hope we can hold out.
The world is better with you in it, I hope you can find some people that make you want to stick around and be with them as long as you can.
I definitely get despair when I think about the future, but I also want to just exist around my friends and loved ones. Their company is my motivation these days, and not hurting them or letting them down is enough reason to keep trying to make something of myself.
It’s not easy, but I’ve found it worth it. Making them happy makes me happier, and makes me feel like I’m doing something right.
Take care friend, I’m rooting for you.
Ever read a Cormac McCarthy book? If not, you should.
Nightmare* 😋
The internet is such a funny place.
Open Lemmy and see this on the front page today with a ton of upvotes, yet I make a post a while back criticizing Boomers and my account gets brigaded and spammed. Hope that’s not happening to you OP!
Lemmy is almost as toxic as Reddit these days.
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Also work perfectly with France’s curent president.
I am entirely convinced that this movement was started by rich oligarchy to get the poors to ‘breed’ themselves out of existence.
People will be fucking and having kids regardless. The people who never really wanted kids anyway just fall back on this as an excuse rather than being honest with themselves or are too lame to just say no rather than feeling like they need to justify it. I’ll admit, it’s a convenient excuse that gives yourself a nice big virtue signalling pat on the back though.
It’s more to do with the collapse of civilization. I have kids, but if I knew then, what I know now, I wouldn’t have had them.
I think having kids is an entirely selfish act and anyone who has them knowing they will likely be dead in 30 years because of our decisions is a terrible person
Some of us had them before we knew the extent of the damage. I’ve apologized repeatedly to my kids, and they are well aware of their future.
Oh I wasn’t putting blame on you, you mentioned you wouldn’t do it with what you now know
I am to blame though. I should have been aware.
This sounds terrible!
It is. But better than denying reality.
Well, it doesn’t look good, I absolutely agree. But still, you’re no fortune teller and world history is full of plot twists. Christianity went from a strange little hippie-cult to a world religion in no time, and noone saw that coming. Germany reuniting? Not in a 1000 years, said everyone a year before it actually happened. I’m too lazy to find more examples, because this is not my native language. You get my point: We don’t know! Let veganism conquer the world, maybe! Telling your children we’re doomed feels so desperate and grim. But there is always hope. I’m not doomed at this very moment, so let’s do something! Grow a tomato, hug your child, take a walk, punch a fascist, blow up a pipeline. :)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
The Club of Rome predicted the future back in 1972. We are currently in the “business as usual” track. Although we have made modest improvements to carbon emissions, that will not stop collapse. You cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet:
Our resources are running out. These charts show how urgently action is needed
And the reason you don’t know about any of this, Why Media Ignores the Coming Disaster
Don’t worry, we’re banning abortion so you don’t have to be selfish to have kids.
Consume less doomer content mate lol.
Cheating with Kurzgesagt but there’s plenty to back it all up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348 - Human Pop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw - Climate Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrIRuqr_Ozg - Nuclear War
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide check https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_620_original_image/public/2022-06/IPCC_AR6_WGI_TS-CO21950-2100.gif?itok=saFYe6xs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions check https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/1850-_Annual_emissions_of_carbon_dioxide%2C_by_country.svg/800px-1850-_Annual_emissions_of_carbon_dioxide%2C_by_country.svg.png
Most of this is just CO2 as well. Not even Methane which we’re getting on top of now too. Turns out renewable energy + batteries is OP.
Everything is under control, just don’t look up
Right.? Self-deception is a helluva drug.
One of the many reasons we weren’t able to get on top of climate change is it’s a long term process. Actions we take now, have consequences in years to come. We are making progress with the human causes of climate change, but if you’re looking at actual temperature change, the result, you’ll need to look ahead
Similar with population growth. Previous generations couldn’t comprehend climate because it was too far in th pe future, too long term. I think it’s similar with current generation and population change. Global society has already changed to lock in a decrease in population and some countries may se enough to be destabilized, but you’re not going to see those effects yet. Look a little farther in the future for the effects, and they are there. I’d argue it’s getting to be time to try to reverse DEpopulation. Sure, we’ll grow for a few more decades until bigger generations die off and current generations of less than replacement come to dominate, but we’ve already done this. Now’s the time to make changes if we want to control collapsing population in 50 years
The problem is even if we 100% fix climate change we are still gonna devastate the planet, well kill off our society at the least. Like we can’t destroy ecosystems and expect no repercussions down the foodchain, we can’t keep overfishing and expect fish to still be there, and we can’t expect our crops to grow when we destroy the topsoil viability. We are fucked
There have always been existential threats and it’s certainly true now, but it hasn’t happened yet. A bit of a tautology, but where there’s hope, there’s hope. As long as we don’t give up, as long as we tackle the important issues ahead, as long as we can picture the society that can live past it, we can make it happen
Who is we? We seem intent on killing 99% of us to keep 1% happy
… This is addressed in 4/5 of the links I posted lol.
Right cause ~ 5% of energy being generated by renewables is such a big help!!
Do any of you cite or do you just enjoy clinging to doomer YouTube videos with sketchy sources and a reach so far they may as well be Mr. Fantastic? Propaganda hitting y’all hard.
Most first world nations are far above 5%. I see some 10-20 year old data that suggests around 5… we are well above that in the USA, let alone the world.
Renewable energy generates over 20% of all U.S. electricity , and that percentage continues to grow. The following graphic breaks down the shares of total electricity production in 2022 among the types of renewable power: In 2022, annual U.S. renewable energy generation surpassed coal for the first time in history.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/renewable-energy
In 2022, 38% of the world’s electricity was delivered by carbon-free generation sources (nuclear, hydropower, and combined renewables), similar to 2021. The global electricity system is still mostly powered by fossil energy, but it is undergoing an increasingly rapid rate of change.
38% of electricity. Check here it says about 15% is “renewable” energy (which still relies on fossil fuels to be constructed) and its not like the demand for fuel/electricity is slowing down, its rapidly increasing!
Renewables won’t stop the oil companies from selling their product. But I’m optimistic for different reasons; ol Zuck is making sure he’s the tastiest billionaire on the menu with his wagyu diet.
That fails the logic test. The rich oligarchy may look down on the rest of us, exploit us, disrespect us, but they also need us and they know it. There’s a much better argument for them needing an ever growing class of the down trodden, uneducated, gullible consumers
People are waaaaaaaay less needed than you think mate.
Almost every manufacturing job can be done with automation. Most other jobs comes from service industry, healthcare, education… The population stablizing on it’s own is already great, but to maintain a functional advancing civilization doesn’t require the 10.4 billion people our population is expected to stop at in 2100.
Regardless, it’s less about getting people to not have kids so there’s less poors. It’s more about a cruel joke where the rich have tricked the poor into thinking they can’t have kids then they self defeat themselves. Meanwhile they get to keep having them and it’s the laughingrichpeople.jpg . The poor are always going to outnumber them just from a numbers game. It’s more about how funny they’d think it that the people who benefit the most from a civilization, the smartest of the lower class, aren’t having children causing them to ‘breed themselves out of existence.’
