Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
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It is true that before reaching adulthood children are a financial burden for society, but primarily they are a financial burden on parents. Tax breaks help make it more affordable and a viable option for more than just the wealthy.
But you seem to be of the opinion that having children is a selfish act that society should punish rather than encourage. Some people are not responsible enough to be good parents, or otherwise are not in the right circumstances where it would make sense. But generally children are an investment in society's future, and very much worth the costs of supporting with projected future contributions.
This is going off on a bit of a tangent, but you're absolutely right. Having children is the most selfish act possible. Nobody on the planet asked to come into existence; we're all here because of a choice our parents made. Regardless of your place in the world, no human experiences their entire life without pain and suffering. I am personally very happy with my life, but there have of course been ups and downs. By producing a child, you're guaranteeing that another person will experience suffering and sadness. Nobody lives forever, so you're condemning another person to death.
Having children (to some degree, not unchecked) is necessary for the human race to continue to exist, but the idea that producing and raising a child is a selfless act is as far from the truth as you can get. If you consider a theoretical world where everyone was suddenly sterile, the human race would cease to exist within a very short time. A lot of other things would cease to exist: Sadness and heartbreak, murder, rape, war, terrorism, poverty, starvation.
One might argue that brief periods of happiness give a reason for continuing human existence, but is this really true? Most people, if they're lucky, go through life in a neutral state; we might not be happy or sad, but we're "doing okay." If suffering is a -1 and happiness is a +1, with everyday life being a 0, then every person is going to ultimately average out to somewhere around zero. By having a child, you're making an irrevocable choice that you want another human being to live a life that's either neutral to a point that's statistically insignificant or predominantly negative, and you're making this choice because something in your brain is telling you to. It's the epitome of selfishness.