Having 10 Kids

[Excelsior]

Look I get it its scary to think about death and how little value a person really has in the big picture. And to help compensate for that people like you have kids for no other reason than the mistaken belief they will be able to leave the world with a piece of themselves through their offspring.

Just to chime in here, it should be noted that this belief is not, technically, mistaken. When you have offspring, you are leaving a piece of yourself (your DNA is what makes you what you are) on earth to persist after you die. That piece of you will, in turn, continue to exist through successive generations, making up a part of a much larger puzzle.

The thing I dont get is dont you realize in but a mere few generations your dna will make up but a tiny fraction of future descendants.

You don't need to contribute 50% of someone's genetic code to matter. Traits are inherited and continually passed down with much smaller pieces of genetic material than that.

Your bloodline is on an ascending path. Perfection is the ultimate, yet unattainable goal.

History yields no examples confirming your theory. If people enjoy raising kids, go for it. But do it because you enjoy it or find it satisfying - not out of some delusion that you're creating something permanent.

No examples of what, precisely? Do you mean to say that, in history, there are no examples of a man siring a large family and having his descendants create a lasting and important legacy that resonates well after his death and also improves upon what he managed to accomplish in life?

 

[iknowexactly]

Look I get it its scary to think about death and how little value a person really has...

The thing I dont get is dont you realize in but a mere few generations your dna will make up but a tiny fraction of future descendants.

You don't need to contribute 50% of someone's genetic code to matter....

Your bloodline is on an ascending path. Perfection is the ultimate, yet unattainable goal.

History yields no examples confirming your theory. If people enjoy raising kids, go for it. But do it because you enjoy it or find it satisfying - not out of some delusion that you're creating something permanent.

No examples of what, precisely? Do you mean to say that, in history, there are no examples of a man siring a large family and having his descendants create a lasting and important legacy that resonates well after his death and also improves upon what he managed to accomplish in life?

Well, if you reverse engineer you're right. Everyone who's accomplished and living right now is a successful descendent, someone's 18th grandson.

But then, Shakespeare, the greatest genius ever to my tastes, has no direct living descendants. He lives on in his art.

There are living descendants of his sister, however.

 

[Icarus]

Shakespeare, the greatest genius ever to my tastes, has no direct living descendants. He lives on in his art.

How many Shakespeares were there? Only one. Ancient Greece had Homer. Ancient Rome had Virgil. Italy had Dante. Spain had Cervantes. Portugal had Camões. It's not within one's power to become such a literary genius. It just happens, sometimes, once in a millennium, that such a übermensch is born.

So, once one realizes that one is no Dante, no Newton, no Tesla, what does one do? One can embrace hedonism and fuck around, and travel, but that gets old after a decade or two. The one and only thing one can do to catch a glimpse of eternity is to have children better than oneself. Of course, this project requires the existence of marriageable women who were raised to be good wives and good mothers, and such women are becoming mythical creatures comparable to the cyclopes that Homer wrote about in Odyssey.

 

[Ovid]

Of course, this project requires the existence of marriageable women who were raised to be good wives and good mothers, and such women are becoming mythical creatures comparable to the cyclopes that Homer wrote about in Odyssey.

Odysseus is basically the model I strive to emulate. He left home when young, saw the world, became a great man, had sex with numerous beautiful women, including a stint as the lover of a goddess, was strong yet intelligent and very clever, and then came home to settle down with Penelope (who, in Homer's world, was still amazingly hot even when she must have been pushing 38 at least) and enjoy domestic tranquility. He had epic adventures in the literal sense of the term, and after those virile urges were sated, he came home to play the role of patriarch -with, however, the understanding that his future held further travels and conquests. Could a man aspire to more?

 

[UrbanNerd]

10 kids = 10 mouths to feed, clothed, spend money on extra-curriculars and college savings.

If I had the money?...maybe...but even with a $150K-$200K salary, I don't know where my luxury cars, higher-end audio equipment and international golf trips will fit in if I have to feed 10 kids.

I don't want to be one of those "complaining family men" who is mad at the government because they have to struggle supporting their family of some housewife and 3 kids on a $50,0000/year income. I am like..."Who told YOU to have a few kids with a factory job??"

 

[n0000]

10 kids = 10 mouths to feed, clothed, spend money on extra-curriculars and college savings.

If I had the money?...maybe...but even with a $150K-$200K salary, I don't know where my luxury cars, higher-end audio equipment and international golf trips will fit in if I have to feed 10 kids.

I don't want to be one of those "complaining family men" who is mad at the government because they have to struggle supporting their family of some housewife and 3 kids on a $50,0000/year income. I am like..."Who told YOU to have a few kids with a factory job??"

These guys do have a point. I was curious to see how much richer everyone would be if we rolled back some of this out of control gov't spending and regulations. I stumbled upon this site:

http://costofgovernment.org/cost-government-report-a98

According to that, out of every year the entire economy spends 197 days(54% of gdp) working to pay for the cost of government. Everyone would be substantially richer if we cut that down a bit and an average guy might be able to support a 5-6 kid family on a blue collar wage like he did in the 50s. Real wages have dropped since the 60s, our standard of living is being eaten up by taxation, regulation, inflation, increased size of houses, car safety mandates and other government interventions into the market.

The reason why everyone has these new phones and cars is that the savings rate is negative or close to it. The consumer goods are being purchased on credit.