I have a wonderful family, my parents are still married and still very much in love after 50 years, and I don’t have kids. And we’re OK with that.
For both my spouse and I, our sisters reproduced. Maybe if they hadn’t we would have felt more urgency, but our families will go on, with or without us.
We’re in our 40’s. It just so happened we weren’t going to have kids without medical intervention or adoption. We elected not to go to the effort. After all, there’s not a people shortage in the world. I’m sorry if you feel that’s somehow “selfish” or abnormal, but there it is.
It’s not like we then ran around acquiring “things” or becoming greedy materialists. And one of the reasons I was able to put my life on hold a couple years ago, drop everything, and go live with my two ill parents who needed round-the-clock supervision for many weeks, is because I don’t have kids - my sisters who did have children simply couldn’t pick up and leave their homes for that length of time.
So enough of calling us kidless folks “selfish” - some are, some aren’t, just like people who have kids.
My wit is fair to middling. Don’t underestimate the value of a witless foil.
Please, please Bob, tell me these deeper truths about myself that only you can know, despite never having met me, or even encountered me on these boards, that I remember. And do bear in mind that I actually *have * a much wanted and beloved child, so my monkey brain is bathed in the warm, golden glow of genetic destiny fulfilled.
I know that you have wisdom to share with us. I’ve seen the light now, and I’m prepared to learn at your feet. Please be patient with the rest. I’m sure that eventually they’ll see that the smoke that blows endlessly out of your ass is actually a sign from God.
Ah, the Persecuted Nonconformist defense. Rarely anything but nonsense, and so it is here. Are you truly saying that a leftist saying what you’re saying would be lauded and praised?
You probably are. Sad.
If you had even bothered to make an argument, we could start refuting it. Instead of dodging, how about answering this simple question of mine:
Being selfish is caring more about yourself than others; who are these others who are harmed by me not having children?
No, not at all. If it interests you that much, go back and look at my posting history. I’ve been in a shit-load of threads where I took a counter-position to the majority and never once used a personal insult.
But, sorry, sometimes I gotsta call 'em as I sees 'em. You are being dimwitted, or, if you prefer, “obtuse.” And, unfortunately, it appears you are being so deliberately.
I noticed that you didn’t bother to address any of my points, including the one in which I explained WHY I think you’re being dimwitted, or obtuse. You are using inflammatory language which insults those who don’t agree with your lifestyle choice, and then acting “all suprised” when you get it back, albeit on somewhat of a more personal level.
You apparently haven’t been around long enough, or read enough threads. If I were you, I would reserve judgement until I’d done a little more research. But that’s just me.
Perhaps if you had phrased your beliefs in a respectful way, you wouldn’t be having this problem. As with anything in life, if you find everyone around youobjecting to something you’re doing, it may not be because they don’t “like you”-- they may actually have a valid point.
Look at it this way. If a Christian started posting things like: “Anyone who doesn’t agree with my position on religion is a heathen and is going to go to hell,” you’d see the same sort of responses. Why? Not because they are upset at the Christian’s religion. No-- they’re upset at being called a heathen and threatened with eternal damnation. You did much the same. You came in here and started calling people selfish and saying their lifetyle choices were invalid.
You muisunderstand. I don’t hate you at all. Actually, I don’t hate ANYONE. I do feel a little sorry for you, because you don’t seem to see what you’re doing to cause yourself to be insulted.
And, yes, you’re right that some people here might hate the things your saying or be enraged by them. It’s a natural reaction to prejudice.
If being on a messageboard is so bad, why are YOU here? Don’t you have “more important” things to do than care what we think?
As for my intellect taking me far in life-- it has. I’m extremely happy with my life, especially my career. Frankly, I don’t need to put you down to feel good about myself. There must be some sort of other motivation for it, and maybe it’s because I’m insulted by your notions of superiority.
Uhm, I did just that with my question about your opinions on gay people, and you accused me of going off on a tangent. And in the post before this I pointed out how your opinions on gay people having kids is incompatible with your own opinions using your own argument. But alright; i’ll have another go.
Your approach would mean the eventual extinction of all humans on Earth. How so? Well, you’d like everyone to have two kids - enough to replace themselves. If we assume that all people who physically can have kids, do so, regardless of whether they want to or not or are gay or have any other reason, then we should end up with roughly a static population - over the years, the number of people on Earth will remain relatively the same.
Except of course that it won’t. We’d be losing people.
If you die before you reproduce, then you don’t get anyone to replace you.
Infertile people would remove at least one person from the static population, and if they find a partner it will mean the removal of two.
Some people never find a partner to have kids with anyway.
And since we’re losing people without replacing them with their kids, the human population will eventually dwindle down to nothing. Extinction.
Your thoughts?
If you’ll look at my posts, at no time did I call you a troll. I used that word in conjunction with you twice, and in both cases it was to say that in my opinion you were not one. So please don’t go throwing the “he called me a troll!” thing around like you’re in a place to do that now just to try to win the argument.
Hit-and-run implies 1) hitting and 2) running. I’ve certainly hit; but i’m still here, responding to your posts. And, in fact, I pointed out exactly where you were cherry-picking; you responded to my posts that mocked you and ignored the posts that had serious debate potential, until I called you on it. And when I said it was illogical, I pointed out some reasons why; see my response to you on your lack of coherency re: gay people, and this very post. I have backed up all of my assertations with arguments. How would you like me to be more specific?
Oh, and I noticed this reponse to another poster;
Your argument has been that they cannot be truly happy unless people have kids. Your are again logically incoherent; your children cannot, under your opinion, be happy without kids.
What does any of that have to do with the question before the SDMB group mind (What’s the most effective way of shutting down assholes who insist on asking this rude personal question?)?
There was an experiment conducted to test the opposite proposition, that mankind could progress through selflessness. It was in all the papers while it lasted (1917-1991).
And, given that you had to snip out about one line’s worth of text, he didn’t even respect the custom of inserting some padding between mutually exclusive statements in order to maintain a pretence of respect for the reader’s intelligence.
About as credibly as Immanuel Velikovsky “established” that the planets careened around the Solar System like pinballs a few thousand years back, Lyndon LaRouche “established” that the Queen of England runs the international drug trade, and Geraldo Rivera “established” that Al Capone stashed his treasure and the bodies of his rivals in a hidden vault. :rolleyes:
Listen up, Bob, I am childless by choice, and I am no more or less selfish than you. Probably no more materialistic, either. You chose to have kids and devote yourself to them and their needs because you find that fullfilling. Good on you. I chose not to, and to devote myself to other things, like my work, my husband, my friends, charity, and (I don’t consider this one trivial) not adding to problem of overpopulation.
If at some point I decide that I NEED children to make my life complete, there are literally millions of kids who don’t have parents, or a home, or care, or food, etc. So if I suddenly want kids, or get terrified of dying alone, I’ll look into adopting one. To me, with that many kids dying for lack of help, you breeders are the selfish ones.
Your ISP seems to have lopped off the portion of your message where you support this claim by typing in a list of four thousand names. Come back and try again.
Amazing! We have it folks! This is offically the stupiest thing I have ever read! Its like the Holy Grail of intellectual dishonesty, illogical debate, straw men, and red herings all rolled into one! We may as well stop here, I don’t think that even Bob can top this one.
So, Bob, how have you made the world better for native Americans? Did your having children prevent famine in Ethiopia? What!? It didn’t? You selfish bastard :mad:! You know how many people have died from starvation in Ethiopia? Why haven’t you saved them? How can you be so selfish?
So, your having had children may make the world better for a handful of people (including yourself, your spouse, and your children). Thomas Paine helped make the world better for millions upon millions upon millions of people. How does this make you the selfless one?
No, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the first ammendment because you’re throwing it around on a privately owned messageboard in response to people telling you to shut up. Do you actually know what the first ammendment says? It’s not that long. Here it is in its entirety:
See that first word there? “Congress.” Guess what, Bob? I ain’t congress. I can tell you to shut up all day long, and I haven’t infringed on your first ammendment rights in the least.
And this is emblematic of everything you’ve posted in this thread. You’ve demonstrated a total lack of understanding of sociology, psychology, political science, and simple human decency. You’ve got a PhD in cellular biology. Apparently, you weren’t just making that up. But having an advanced degree in one field does not make your opinion in any other field worth a baggie of warm spit. You’re free to express your opinion on the boards only to the extent that the Chicago Reader lets you express your opinion on these boards. And we’re all equally free to express our opinion back at you. And the overwhelming opinion in this thread, from people who are both liberal and conservative, from people who have kids and who have no interest in kids, is that you’re an abrasive, loudmouthed idiot who has no idea what he’s talking about.
Yes, we’ve got that, thank you. And my opinion is that you’re an asshole. See how putting “My opinion” in front of an insult doesn’t actually make it less insulting? Funny how that works, isn’t it? Now, why don’t you take a minute to consider how that applies to what you’ve posted in this thread.
Not having kids does not mean one loathes society. This is part of that whole “ignorant” thing we keep harping on. You’ve got no interest in what childless people actually think or feel or believe. You’ve got a preconception of how you think people should behave, that has no scientific basis, and when people don’t match up to it, you assume they must be miserable or misanthropic. Just because you need to have kids to be happy, doesn’t mean that everyone else needs kids to be happy. People are not all exactly like you, Bob. Some people want different things out of life. This doesn’t make them selfish, or hateful, or miserable. You have absolutely no way to know this about people. You have no standing to make this determination. People can be happy with out kids. They can be fulfilled. They can be helpful, and productive, and caring. But you’ll never know this, because you can’t be bothered to actually get to know people who are different then you. You’re to busy shitting all over them for that.
None of those subjects have anything to do with this thread. Conservatives choose to not have kids, too. So do the religious. Especially the religious: priests are specifically forbidden to have kids. Capitalists choose not to have kids. People who are intimatly involved in improving society choose not to have kids. All of these are gigantic red herrings that you’ve dragged into this thread to cover up the fact that you don’t have an argument. Not having kids is not a political issue, no matter how hard you try to make it so.
He has been specific. And he never called you a troll. This is exactly why I’ve spent most of this thread making fun of you, instead of trying to engage you. Because you’re simply not up to it. You’ve consistently misread other people’s posts. You’ve ignored counter arguments. You’ve glossed over any example that undercuts your unsupported declarations of fact. Why should any of us take you seriously, when you’re so totally dedicated to avoiding serious debate?
On the contrary, if you take the time to look at my posting history, I’m more than happy to engage civilly with anyone who offers me the same courtesy. I can easily name a half dozen posters with whom I have a cordial relationship, despite having radically different political beliefs. I get along with them and treat them respectfully, because they treat me respectfully in turn. At no point in this thread have you shown any respect to people who disagree with you. Your first post in this thread, you insulted everyone who disagrees with you. You’ve told people that you know what makes them happy better than they know themselves. Do you honestly not see how completly disrespectful that is? Can you not see why that would make people angry? It’s not because you’re right. Clearly, my posts have pissed you off. Is that because what I’m saying is true, or is it because what I’m saying is insulting? Why do you think our reaction to your posts is any different?
I never said that.
No, that only works if you show us the respect you demand we show you. You have not demonstrated any respect for the people posting to this thread. Why should we give you any in return?
But I thought it was impossible to be happy if you didn’t have kids. Hasn’t that been the underpinning of your entire argument in this thread?
That’s because you only see things that confirm your preconceptions, and ignore anything that runs counter to them. A habit amply demonstrated by your behavior in this thread.
It really doesn’t register with you that you’ve been spending just as much time, doing exactly the same thing, in exactly the same place, does it?
Yes, but those samples were taken using establish scientific polling methods. It wasn’t just researchers saying, “Well, that’s what all my friends think, so it must be true.” If you want people to take your claims in this thread as seriously as they take a Zogby poll, you’re going to have to pony up some raw data and a description of your polling techniques. Otherwise, people are going to continue to treat you like you’re talking out your ass.
As I said earlier, being skilled in one field does not make you skilled in any other. I’ll take as granted that you know your shit in cellular biology. That does not mean that you have a clue when it comes to any other field. Nothing you’ve posted in this thread has related to your field of expertise, and everything you’ve posted has been ignorant, prejudicial, and inflamatory. Are you familiar with the concept of the fallacy of appeal to authority? Knowing a lot about cancer metastasis does not give your insights into parenting or the psychology of childless people any particular weight.
That’s all you’ve done in this thread.
No, that is not what the thread is about. It was about someone venting because people were disrespecting her choice not to have kids. And your response to that was to come in here, and disrespect her choice not to have kids. You didn’t offer any insight or POV that we were unfamiliar with. All you did was demonstrate exactly the narrowminded, condescending attitude that the OP was ranting about in the first place.
And there’s nothing at all selfish about that. Seriously, are you ever going to explain how having children is a selfless act? Do you have any reasoning behind that at all?
Didn’t you just say, in this very same post, that you weren’t going to respond to my insults anymore?
If you want a normal discussion of the matter at hand, don’t start off insulting everyone who disagrees with you! How hard is this concept to grasp? You came in this thread and called everyone who disagrees with you selfish. That’s insulting. I doesn’t matter if it’s “just your opinion.” That doesn’t magically turn it into “not an insult.” You’re welcome to hold that opinion, but if you think so poorly of people who are different than you, why should those people think any better of you?
Well, obviously. For instance, we can evaluate the claim “God hates American and helps Iraqi insurgents blow up our soldiers because of the continued presence of fags” by noting that people actually bother to say nasty things about Fred Phelps, thereby proving the underlying truth of the notion.
Your lack of common courtesy and decency is precisely what has made you the laughingstock of this thread in the first place. Flaunting the fact that you are equally rude and obnoxious in person is hardly a useful response.
Not to distract from the pileing on of Bob55, but I second that. Having had a teacher like you in the past I can say that what you do by being that kind of teacher will effect some of those kids for their whole lives. You are truely devoting yourself to the next generation.