• Flying SquidM
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    978 months ago

    I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to have kids in this environment.

    • The Snark Urge
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      728 months ago

      Not only that, but with the increasingly credible threat of automation looming, I don’t think we should be looking to traditional economic wisdom for advice about labor shortages.

        • Richard
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          98 months ago

          Cringe af. Can you please stop with the constant violent rhetoric? This does not solve any problems and instead divides humanity. You will not create a better future by killing more people.

          • @[email protected]
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            218 months ago

            History repeats itself. Unless laws change to reign in the 1% and the billionair class, heads will guaranteeably roll…the question is whether it’s sooner or later. It just comes down to a question of how much are people willing to put up with before someone takes matters into their own hands, and that will be the catalyst that causes change. Either others will follow suit, or the laws will get passed to control these people.

          • @[email protected]
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            138 months ago

            We’d have a better present right now if we guillotined rich fucks and their bootlickers.

          • @[email protected]
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            68 months ago

            Don’t kid yourself Richard, If Zuckerberg ever got the chance he’d eat you and everyone you care about!

            But seriously, you worry about a divided humanity? We’ve been divided for centuries, and the people at the top aren’t going to willingly step down from their mountain of corpses to slum it with the rest of us.

          • @[email protected]
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            8 months ago

            It requires killing a lot fewer people than the .01% kills every day through economic violence. They’re just a walking trolley problem at this point.

          • @[email protected]
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            18 months ago

            Totally agree. Instead of trying to create understanding, violence and thinking of other people as non-human only tears people apart.

        • The Snark Urge
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          88 months ago

          It has to be deprivatised if it’s going to be a positive for humanity, otherwise it’s just another upward wealth transfer.

          • @[email protected]
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            98 months ago

            Yep. Basically we already have answer to question “what if we had replicator?” and it is “DMCA”. Technology is not enough for society to be better.

            • The Snark Urge
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              78 months ago

              Our modern rich think that with enough technology they can insulate themselves from our power entirely. The way I see it we either prove them wrong, or die.

      • @[email protected]
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        28 months ago

        Automation (eliminating work) only is a problem (eliminating jobs) in our shitty economic system.

        • The Snark Urge
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          38 months ago

          The economic system (capitalism) only values AI for its ability to create problems for us (poor people)

    • @[email protected]
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      288 months ago

      Yes, my wife and I considered not for environmental reasons. My parents thought we were nuts citing the threat of nuclear war when they were kids and everyone continuing to have kids then. They’ve come around to understand our hesitation now, mostly, but it was distressing that they couldn’t understand , if not agree, with hesitating.

      Of course, the environment is just one thing that gives us pause these days. People are crazy. Politicians and the laws they create are (or the dissolution of certain laws is) crazy. Plenty of reasons to pause.

      • Flying SquidM
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        178 months ago

        We did have a child, and I do not regret it, but we also have the means to support her and a way to escape the U.S. if things get much worse. Many Americans don’t have either option, and no child should be neglected or abused and every child should have a robust support system. I wish we would encourage and educate people on contraception on a grand scale.

        • @[email protected]
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          58 months ago

          My wife travels a lot for work, and I dabbled in genealogy years ago to track down my own birth relatives. By combining the two, my wife and our daughter now have EU passports, and I’m eligible for a long-term visa.

          Theoretically I could be eligible for Slovakian citizenship (which is not their EU country) based on my own DNA ties, but that would require some mental gymnastics and a very progressive interpretation of how closed infant adoption affects legal rights.

          I am actually very fond of Texas, and I think the idea of it is worth fighting for, and that there’s a strain of tolerance and hospitality and diversity here that could be compatible with a much more progressive worldview. I have hope that it can be better than it is. I think any place with people who love it is worth trying to make into the best version of itself, to say nothing of the people who couldn’t leave even if they wanted to…

          but we’re also not going to be the last ones out if we lose that hope.

            • @[email protected]
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              18 months ago

              You need a grand-grandparent (or more recent) born in Slovakia. My biological great grandmother was born in a small town in the eastern half of what is now Slovakia, and immigrated to the US in the late 1920s. I was adopted as an infant though, so my legal family has no such connections, and while I could try to make my case, it would be both circumstantial and rather technical unless I could get help from my birth father, which is, shall we say, unlikely.

              • @[email protected]
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                8 months ago

                Interesting. My grandmother was.

                I’ve wondered what my options to get to the EU are if I really wanted. That…is interesting.

                Edit: do you have a source by any chance? So far I only see rules allowing if parents were Slovakian citizens.

                • @[email protected]
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                  18 months ago

                  The Australian embassy seems to have updated their page more recently than the US or Canada, and they mention the grandparents and great grandparents thing. I’d check with the US embassy (assuming you’re in the US) to confirm, but it looks like the long-discussed law change did happen. I kinda lost interest when I realized the doors I’d have to barge in to have a plausible chance of success. YMMV. :-)

          • Flying SquidM
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            118 months ago

            Not if Trump is president. My daughter is queer, she and I are both Jewish, and my wife is a librarian. They either want us to be part of their genocide or, in my wife’s case, in prison.

            I have dual citizenship with the UK and also theoretically German citizenship. And I am sure as hell going to take advantage of that depending on what happens in November. I don’t even care about me, I care about my daughter.

            • Nougat
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              8 months ago

              Well, as I’ve said before, Illinois is close, and probably easier to get to on short notice if necessary. I’m a ways north of you (in IL), but my home is available to you if you find yourself in danger.

              Edit: And you’d be coming this way anyway to fly overseas out of O’Hare, right?

              • Flying SquidM
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                38 months ago

                Honestly, I’d probably drive somewhere less prominent and fly out from there. No reason to attract attention if you’re fleeing. But I appreciate the offer.

              • Flying SquidM
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                38 months ago

                That’s really awesome of him! I don’t care whether it was being friendly or officially announcing it. Either way, that’s amazing!

        • @[email protected]
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          38 months ago

          Quick note though, one child is still far below replacement rate. Though you didn’t state if you’re one and done or not.

          • Flying SquidM
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            58 months ago

            True, and we were definitely one and done and now my wife is 46, so it would be way too risky. We wouldn’t have been able to financially support a child and I didn’t want to end up having a favorite, which sure happened with me and my brother who could do no wrong despite being a major asshole. I wouldn’t want to have a favorite, but I wouldn’t be able to prevent it either. And I wouldn’t want to have more than one kid if it turned out I thought one was better than the other. That could lead to proper child care issues.

            Also, raising just the one has been a herculean effort due to all sorts of things, so I don’t regret it. I love her more than anything in the world and I don’t regret any of the effort I’ve made, but I don’t know that I would have been able to handle two such kids on a mental level.

        • @[email protected]
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          38 months ago

          Yes, the same here. We had 2 kids (and then a vasectomy). We’re not rich, but we do have a house we could sell to aid leaving, and we have enough in savings to make it without selling the house, if we needed to leave right away. Of course, environmental issues will be a global problem, but the response to those will likely be better in some places as compared to others.