[nononono109]

Anyone who finds themselves tending towards this nihilistic, fatalistic worldview desperately needs to recognise the extremely harmful predicament they find themselves in and work instead towards a life of meaning and purpose. I would further urge them to reflect on who is playing the fiddle that is leading them down this terrible path so that they can go forward with knowledge of their enemy.

Children are your purpose. Not your travel or dinner dates. Not your goddamn career. Your Excel spreadsheets will not be there holding your hand on your deathbed. Your dinner dates with equally-unproductive and increasingly-ageing friends are little more than a coping mechanism. They will mean nothing compared to the memories of childish giggles over the family dinner table.

You didn't come this far to just shrivel up and die. Your ancestors didn't build you a nation, defend it with their lives, bestow upon you and awe-inspiring culture and history just so that you could hit your sales projections and get drunk in Ibiza.

Your employer will hire someone else, your friends will move on, your clients won't even remember you. All that matters is family. And in your children, and their children after them, you will live on forever. Just as your ancestors do in you.

Don't be these forty-somethings realising they've left it too late and now have the last 50 years of their lives to twiddle away doing meaningless junk. Don't be that pitiful retired couple trying to fill the void with cruises and musicals.

You know that pang in your chest when you see the beautiful family walking down the street? You know the one. Bright, happy kids full of life, parents full of the pride and joy that can only be found in love and family. For god's sake don't deprive yourself of that, not for the shallow hedonism of a pay packet and extended youth.

You want that too. You know you do.

[philwelch]

While I don't disagree with you, I also don't find it particularly useful to try and change these people's minds. Anti-natalism can be a self-correcting problem. Just let the anti-natalists die off (as they inevitably will, by definition) and they will be replaced by people who made better choices.

[aivisol]

I agree with you totally. There is one problem, however. That those will be our children in which we invested, who will have to take care of them while they are old. That is not fair.

[wzdd]

> in your children, and their children after them, you will live on forever. Just as your ancestors do in you.

No you won't, and no they don't. Most people will be forgotten within a couple of generations -- or are you well-versed in the lives of your great-great grandparents? Your genes, random and (thus, probably) non-special as they are, will be insignificant within four generations.

> You know that pang in your chest when you see the beautiful family walking down the street?

Kids or not, unless you're incredibly skilled and/or lucky, your contribution to the world will be forgotten within a couple of hundred years and likely much sooner. Once you come to terms with that, life gets much better. Be kind to people, make thoughtful choices, and live the best life you can today.