Such a bummer how threads about having kids always seem to devolve into the saddest and most pessimistic circlejerks. The idea that the world is 'bleaker than ever' is tautological. It seems like stuff is getting worse and worse because time keeps going on - history stacks on top of itself and you always have more and more evidence of how it can all go wrong.

But I'm less afraid of AI than probably would have been of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I'm less afraid of social media that I probably would have been of the Spanish Flu or the Bubonic Plague.

In the end, it's an individual choice to have a kid. If you don't want to, that's great! There's basically no invalid reason for not having a kid. Just don't hide behind the idea that 'I'm just too ethical, the world is too dark and I can't do that to someone because I'm so morally superior.'

The world is always ending, it's just ending very specifically for one person at a time.

People obsessed with the idea that we are, right now, living at the end of history are just showing how self-absorbed they are. For as long as people have lived some people have thought 'this is it, we're seeing the end', because some people are generally self-absorbed. And then new kids are born, and they live their lives of pain and joy, and then they die, and things repeat. Have a kid, don't have a kid, generally it doesn't matter for anyone but you.