Because people generally like having their own offspring instead of raising someone else's? Not trying to be insensitive given the number of homeless kids out there for adoption, but I would generally think parents would want their own offspring with their genetics over another...
I've never understood this. If you want someone to have your genes, you don't have to do anything, because you already have your own genes. Besides, your kids aren't going to be clones of you and probably will be nothing like you. They're individuals too.
rofl
sorta akin to what pernicious said, the desire to preserve your own genes is instictively programmed into every living being: they want to pass their own traits on.
your family ! = representation of all other human families. also, keep in mind that there's no societal goal per se in in creating a child, it's a personal goal for the parent. of course you don't give a shit that Mrs. Crimson Floyd wanted a baby, and neither will your (ostensibly, i'm assuming you don't want one but just for the sake of argument) son when you form him out of the blackness.
that is a very strange thing for a mother to say and i'm genuinely sorry that you had such a painful childhood. i think there is probably love there, deep down.
again, the goal of procreation isn't to cure cancer (although if you think about it for a sec, our kids are the natural extension to successful solipsism -- the average neckbeard thinks he's fucking brilliant and is going to make some amazing contribution, so naturally, wouldn't neckbeard jr. be able to do so also?) im not even gonna comment on the decade part because that literally makes no sense. again, the point is pride and ownership.
no one is saying it's a good thing, we're just arguing that it makes sense and you shouldn't say people are ridiculous for doing something so appealing. no offense, but no matter how shitty your life is, i doubt you would rather NOT EXIST than live it, so i don't buy that argument. as for the last sentence, i would agree with you if you knew your child was at risk for a developmental disorder or clinical depression, but not otherwise (you never know and if you're not a bad parent he won't "suffer for his entire life" -- not all experiences are your experiences)
yup, doesn't mean we can't try to ease our suffering though
I know she loves me, but she doesn't like me as a person. I can understand that. I don't even like myself as a person. She probably didn't mean what she said, and she was talking to someone else, so I wasn't supposed to hear it, but it's deeply upsetting to me when parents make such flippant comments about their own children.
I know. I was just using a cliched example to show how having kids on an overpopulated planet doesn't produce a net gain in monumental discoveries, while not having kids on the same planet will not produce a net loss. But I don't think I can prove that claim. It just makes sense to me logically.
If you mean ownership of the child, I have to disagree. You technically never own your child. You're just responsible for taking care of him until he can take care of himself.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to imply that people who have children are ridiculous. I just personally don't see the appeal in it. That's just me.
Well, nonexistence is unfathomable for us existent beings. But if I've gotten to the point of considering suicide, I can pretty confidently say that I'd be better off not existing, even though I technically wouldn't "be" at all. I'm not offended one bit, but I think I know myself well enough to say I genuinely wish I had never been born.
i place higher faith in ethics board comittees tbh
this is evolutionarily not the point, the point is to pass on your genes. We only have a 50% stake in our children, a 25% stake in our grand children and so on, so these qualities do not really "live on" in the grand scale of things. I would argue it's only nice to see these parts of us (and our genes, more importantly) reproduced because we are inherantly selfish, and we should try to be more altruistic -- this engineering children is a great example of where we can choose to be altruistic. why, when we know it to be unnatural to splice our own genes and remove the ones which correspond to certain illnesses should we continue with it, instead of trying to make our "legacy" in some other way? we could educate an adopted child as well as we could our own, and he would call you father. we could attempt to produce our own "memes" which would themselves form a legacy. you do not hear talk of socrates sons (who infact were described as "silly and dull", but i digress), yet why should he care? his philosophies live on even to this day!
preserving our own genes is indeed programmed into us, but in the unnatural society we live in today (with the welfare state etc.), there is far less natural selection in place to "weed out" as it were the people who otherwise would not have survived, and by resorting to genetic engineering all we are doing is making this society more unnatural... solution: condoms + adoption
incidentally, we cannot account for every mistake in IVF, as you may know. so even if we are rid of a few of these mistakes, there is never even a high degree of likelyhood they will not have some other illness caused by some other mistake in their genetic make up.
AM, I am willing to bet my account that you won't feel the same way when you find the woman of your dreams 10-20 years down the line. If you still feel that way by then, i'll eat crow.
Sorry for replying to this when it isn't directed at me, but I'm just wondering: What makes you think finding the woman of your dreams would lead to having kids with her anyway? If that's what you mean. Because I don't see how loving someone and wanting to reproduce with them are at all related.
Does altruism really exist in this world though? Even the people who act "altruistic" in public are either doing it for attention (celebrities), or doing it to fill some void inside themselves (raising one's self esteem and feeling like they've made a difference in the world). I know in my case, whenever I donate to charity or anything, I do it for the latter reason, not because I'm truly altruistic.
Altruism exists. Benefitting from an act, or even intending to benefit from an act, doesn't make it selfish. Your act of donating to charity is still altruistic compared to the alternative: not donating to charity. If you don't donate to charity, of course you're not going to feel like a better person, because you haven't actually helped anyone. Even if you are donating to charity just to fill a void in your life, it's a void that exists not necessarily because of low self-esteem or anything like that, but maybe because you just wouldn't feel right not donating to charity. If I had the ability to donate to charity, and if I chose not to, it would weigh on my conscience, but I wouldn't donate to charity just to relieve my conscience of that weight. If you feel like a better person after doing something selfless, you're doing it right. It doesn't take away from the selflessness of the act.
"true" altruism categorically does not exist, of course there is always ulterior motives. the above poster outlines why this is irrelevant very well.
I would say that what we think of as altruism does exist, but it is in fact a way of benefitting yourself which has evolved since humans (or our ancestors) began living in close-knit communities. I just scratched your back, you'd better scratch mine when you get the chance, etc.
well the unnatural argument mainly corresponds to unforeseen ramifications of gene manipulation, much like your homogeneity argument.
no, not necessarily. i would argue that overpopulation isn't just a problem for the reason that those people will have a lower quality of life, but for the effects it will have on many ecosystems. i am, for example, more concerned by the overfishing of several endangered species of fish than by the shortage / poor quality of council houses for certain humans. and nowhere did i say i disagree with the development of this technology, in fact all the technology i do mention is quite common place today i.e. IVF, i simply believe there is more altruistic alternatives we should at least consider before yielding to our selfish instincts.
I don't think I ever implied that, but ok. FYI, I don't plan on having kids, at all. (kids actually kind of suck...? This isn't set in stone but w/e)
