An Investment in the Future, or… Should we even have kids?
"Never had a lot of faith in human beings, But sometimes we manage to shine, Like a light on a hill beaming out to space, From somewhere hard to find" ~ Great Big Love , Bruce Cockburn

Where were we…
In the last post, we left with the sentiment, “Yeah Dean, maybe there is a future for life on this planet, but what’s it going to be like for people? Who will want to live there?”
Well, let’s address that.
I like how the Aymara Culture of South America pictures the time continuum. Unlike most of us, they see the past metaphorically in front of them and the future behind them. It makes sense, we can see in front of us, just as we can see the past but have no idea what that future lurking behind us will bring.
When we look at the past and compare it to today, we can see the trend line of human happiness, lifespan, and well-being is rising. Despite the bad news we hear from various sectors, worldwide, women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals and communities have more rights, and opportunities now than in the past. Slavery is largely nonexistent, and the average standard of living for most people in the developed world is breathtakingly better than 100 years ago.
There are most certainly challenges in our world today and many are heartbreaking, but keep an eye on the big picture. MLK correctly said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” For many people (especially the younger generation who don’t have the perspective time gives) change seems like it doesn’t happen fast enough, but it does happen and will continue to.
So, what can we do? I recommend the book What We Owe the Future, by the Scottish philosopher and ethicist William MacAskill (Basic Books, 2022). In a way, it was part of the spark for me to write these essays. It’s deep, thought-provoking, philosophical, and in a way, rewarding to see his perspective.
The book makes the case for longtermism, the view that positively influencing the long-term future of the human species is a key moral priority of our time. After going through the perils and challenges of climate change, pandemics, AI, and other viable threats to human existence, he talks about the best things we humans can do to influence the future positively. These recommendations echoed my sentiments on this matter.
MacAskill lists 3 major ways to positively influence the future. The top two are Political Activism and Spreading Good Ideas. I’ve always felt political activism is fundamental, get out and vote, for EVERY election not just the big ones. Don’t shy away from political “arguments” become informed and engage with others in a calm respectful manner. If someone starts getting passionate, emotional, loud, and contentious, let it be the other person. Don’t be angry, belittling, or resort to jingoistic name-calling. Chances are these folks are your neighbors or people you need to work with, and more than likely most are good, honest people. Back off, see where their concerns lie, do your research, and find some common ground you both can relate to. Then, on some other day, approach the topic from that angle and see how it goes. There will be times that you will just have to agree to disagree without being disagreeable.
Get involved and become aware of what your local government, school board, or supervisors are up to. It’s not hard, your representative will most likely have a newsletter they will be happy to email to you. Their staff will record or at least tally your opinion when expressed via phone calls or emails to their office. When I talk about political activism sometimes people think “Can one person really make a difference?” Yes. As MacAskill says, “Mountains erode because of individual raindrops”.
MacAskill’s other way of influencing the future is Spreading Good Ideas. It may seem like a simple concept, but it can be a huge part of your life and can shape your career. Assuming you live a long healthy life, a good estimate of the time you will spend working in a career is about 80,000 hours. If you can spend that in a job that is both rewarding and fulfilling to you personally but is also involved in affecting change or addressing the most pressing social and environmental problems, that’s the perfect fit.
80,000 hours is also the name of a website dedicated to helping people find careers that can have the most positive impact on the future. They focus on problems that others tend to neglect. Problems which are solvable, unusually big in scale, and have the potential to affect future generations. They have a list of careers addressing existential risks like AI, engineered pandemics, nuclear war, ecosystem degradation, and climate change. Check out 80000 Hours if you are searching for a way to make the biggest impact.
The final way that MacAskill lists for positively influencing the future rings true to me. Have children and raise them to be good humans. When our first child was still in utero we were at a party with several other parents and I remember telling one mother (of 3 kids, all under 6 years old) that we knew having children would change our lifestyle. She burst out laughing, “Change your lifestyle? No Dean, it’s gonna change your fucking life!” No truer words were spoken. The choice of whether or not to have children is a momentous decision. A decision based on how it will affect you and/or the other potential parent. Also, it is the single most significant investment in the future you can make.
On a personal level, there are downsides to having kids for sure, sleepless nights, financial burdens, time devoted to extracurricular activities, the list goes on, and as they age those issues fade.
Now to be clear, just because some decide not to birth or parent children doesn’t mean they don’t have children in their lives, many do - other people’s children. That’s important for those children and important for you because as the years go by and the snow builds on your head, the benefits of having a younger person in your life who cares about you and your well-being is priceless. It will make those “golden years” so much less lonely and so much easier to weather.
Recently, the Pew Research Center reported that the main reason adults under 50 don’t have children was “they just don’t want to”, or they “wanted to focus on other things”. The third most cited reason was “concerns about the state of the world” which mimics why many wonderful environmentally-minded people have chosen not to have children.
I’m sure the sentiment “the world is too screwed up right now to bring a child into” was probably around in many past generations, such as during the height of the Cold War with nuclear Armageddon seemingly one button away. I’m sure there were similar feelings s in Europe during WWII, WWI, or the plague and on back in time. But as I said earlier, we are a resilient species, and barring some massive meteorite hitting our earth, we have a future, there will be humans on the planet. We will survive, we will get by.
So, if humans will be on the planet existing in some form or another, the next question is what kind of humans do we want to lead us into the future? I believe children raised and or taught by caring, environmentally, and scientifically literate people will be some of the most valuable people on the planet. Those are exactly the types of humans we need to represent our species, protect our ecosystems, and sustain our civilization.
So, yes, have kids; or if you choose not to have kids, adopt or become a foster parent, a guardian, a godparent, a mentor, a teacher, or be an awesome, influential aunt or uncle. As Glynnis MacNicol said,
“Loving anything is an investment in the future. Loving children, however you have access to them, feels like the definition of being human”.
We owe it to the future to raise the next generation of intelligent humans willing to steward our planet and further humanity’s progress. There is no question in my mind that we can create even more amazing art, technology, music, and other intellectual achievements all while creating a more virtuous, sustainable society that understands its connection to the natural world. Plus, there are over 100 billion other planets in our galaxy, there’s no principal reason we couldn’t eventually expand there. That’s long-term thinking.
I’ll end this as MacAskill did at the end of his book, “We’re unsure whether this great future will really happen, but that’s all the more reason to keep civilization going so we have a chance to find out. Failing to pass on the torch to the next generation might be the worst thing we could ever do.”
Along the same lines as your thoughts, Carl Sagan looked at the big picture about our responsibility to our only home: Earth. His perspective was looking at tiny, barely discernible image of Earth taken from the Voyager spacecraft millions of miles away.
“ Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Dean, As you know, I am one of the Childless Adults who with Tiko chose to be Childless. The child investment in the future is priceless, yes. To think about: Raising "good kids", what meaning does that actually have? As cultures continue to collide, with lethal force, the who, what, when, where comes into the equation and we suddenly find ourselves in perpetuity, in a war culture. What compass shall we choose? I do believe it is the heart, and that one speck in the moment, one beat of the heart can be miraculous. I think that while living to live into the future my greatest choice is to encourage others to stop fighting. Yet, to gain a hold, a stand, freedom, peace of mind, we are encouraged to fight. This saddens me and continues to feed the war metaphor. Coming into the world, some born are very lucky to have had caregivers that modelled generosity, gentleness, strength, courage, safety, and above all loving and being loved. Before the age of five, we wee ones are but a tapestry woven of emotional stitching . There is no articulation for this. Foundations for life are forming this tapestry. Moving forward, the weaving, unbeknownest, directs and shapes becoming human. Automatic Pilot is scary. Especially if unaware it's Automatic Pilot. There's no doubt in my mind that whatever path is being walked, one must do a reality check as often as needed to sense whether it is the moment to find a new path. What We Owe The Future, by the Scottish philosopher and ethicist William MacAskill (Basic Books, 2022), maybe the library will have it? Somehow honoring culture, the culture of interdependence seems a fair way to approach the future. Let love be what we do best.