From: Steve Davies (steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Tue Jun 12 2001 - 13:01:11 MDT
-----Original Message-----
From: hal@finney.org <hal@finney.org>
To: extropians@extropy.org <extropians@extropy.org>
Date: 12 June 2001 18:24
Subject: Re: Godhood vs Children
>> My question here is, how do you reconcile having children with pursuing
>> goals that can't be accomplished in a normal lifespan to begin with?
Besides
>> comprehensive and radical self improvement and enlightenment, my specific
>> goals for this life include helping to legalize drugs, end intellectual
>> property, and extend maximum lifespan (in the relatively short term,
meaning
>> several decades) and helping humanity transition into posthumanity and
making
>> that transition myself (long term).
>
>Hal said
>There are several aspects to having kids which are positive. For one,
>it doesn't have to be that much of a draw on your time. I know this
>is not politically correct today, but historically many children have
>had most of their attention coming from their mother. The father was
>often gone most of the day, with just some perfunctory attention to
>the kids when he comes home from work, before they are sent off to bed.
Even more can be said than that. Despite all of the panic mongering about
"neglected children" the reality is that parents spend more time with their
kids today than in any period of history - that is one reason why so many
marriages are under strain (another reason is husbands and wives spend too
much time in each other's company these days - seriously) and having
children is such a drain on time. It wasn't only fathers who didn't see as
much of their kids, mothers saw much less of them as well. Children were
left much more to their own devices and also childhood ended at a much
earlier age than it does today. My point? Don't assume that the kind of
child rearing you see today is inevitable or the only way it can be done,
there are other (I think) better ways of doing it. Life with children is
certainly different but it isn't inevitably a matter of restrictions and "so
much to do so little time". In the last analysis it's up to you and your
wife to decide, this isn't a decision anyone else can make. Steve Davies
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