Ask all your friends. How many are excited and aiming for 3+ children? Really excited and joyously motivated—not because it’s their duty for humanity and they’re on the EA burnout path. The life worth living is one with one child per couple among happy couples. Or 1.35 on average when you count the outliers.
I’m almost certainly somewhat of an outlier, but I am very excited about having 3+ children. My ideal number is 5 (or maybe more if I become reasonably wealthy). My girlfriend is also on board.
I just can’t picture anything more joyous in a normal life (i.e. excluding upload enabled perma-jhana) than finding someone I deeply love and combining ourselves to make new people. It’s a miracle that’s even possible! If this wasn’t a normal part of everyday life people would laugh at you for proposing such an absurd thing could ever be real.
EDIT: One more thing worth mentioning: If we ignore AGI for a second (not much point in talking about this otherwise), I think the long term solution to this problem is to create pro-natalist microcultures. Groups of friends living around each other raising their children in a shared environment. My dream is to live close to friends who also have a bunch of kids and raise them alongside people I love.
I know from reading reports of parents who have done or tried this that it’s not trivial. One of the most difficult parts seems to be getting everyone to agree to a set of parenting standards and having the flexibility and acceptance to not require perfect adherence to every rule from every parent all the time. But we are still going to try to make this happen, probably somewhere close by the bay area.
Groups of friends living around each other raising their children in a shared environment.
To get a taste of that, you could go on a vacation with friends who have children of similar age as yours.
One of the most difficult parts seems to be getting everyone to agree to a set of parenting standards and having the flexibility and acceptance to not require perfect adherence to every rule from every parent all the time.
Yeah. We experimented having vacations with various friends who have children, and indeed this was a problem with some of them. Some parents were “nature-oriented” and were shocked that our children were allowed to use computers at pre-school age (also that we refused to use homeopathy to solve all kinds of problems). Some parents insisted that every conflict or misunderstanding between children needs to be solved by endless moralizing and psychologizing (as opposed to just sending kids to different rooms and letting them calm down). Some parents were shocked to hear me tell children that they are not supposed to interrupt adults when they are talking, and especially not by repeatedly yelling something that was supposed to be very funny but actually was not (in their opinion, it is only legitimate to tell children “no” when you are already on the verge of collapse, and mere constant yelling shouldn’t get you there).
But that’s what you solve by trying different people. Either you find someone with similar norms, or someone who knows how to interact with people who have different norms. For example, we are an atheist family, but my children are taught that it is polite to respect that other people are religious—without necessarily agreeing with them. “They are wrong, but it is not your place to tell them, or to make fun of them.” (The differences in belief are often not a problem in practice, but proselytizing is.)
I’m almost certainly somewhat of an outlier, but I am very excited about having 3+ children. My ideal number is 5 (or maybe more if I become reasonably wealthy). My girlfriend is also on board.
It’s quite a different question whether you would really pull through with this or whether either of you would change their preference and stop at a much lower number.
We’re pretty firmly committed to at least 3. I think whether we have more than that depends on how well we’re doing financially and whether the world is still around at that point.
I’m almost certainly somewhat of an outlier, but I am very excited about having 3+ children. My ideal number is 5 (or maybe more if I become reasonably wealthy). My girlfriend is also on board.
I just can’t picture anything more joyous in a normal life (i.e. excluding upload enabled perma-jhana) than finding someone I deeply love and combining ourselves to make new people. It’s a miracle that’s even possible! If this wasn’t a normal part of everyday life people would laugh at you for proposing such an absurd thing could ever be real.
EDIT: One more thing worth mentioning: If we ignore AGI for a second (not much point in talking about this otherwise), I think the long term solution to this problem is to create pro-natalist microcultures. Groups of friends living around each other raising their children in a shared environment. My dream is to live close to friends who also have a bunch of kids and raise them alongside people I love.
I know from reading reports of parents who have done or tried this that it’s not trivial. One of the most difficult parts seems to be getting everyone to agree to a set of parenting standards and having the flexibility and acceptance to not require perfect adherence to every rule from every parent all the time. But we are still going to try to make this happen, probably somewhere close by the bay area.
To get a taste of that, you could go on a vacation with friends who have children of similar age as yours.
Yeah. We experimented having vacations with various friends who have children, and indeed this was a problem with some of them. Some parents were “nature-oriented” and were shocked that our children were allowed to use computers at pre-school age (also that we refused to use homeopathy to solve all kinds of problems). Some parents insisted that every conflict or misunderstanding between children needs to be solved by endless moralizing and psychologizing (as opposed to just sending kids to different rooms and letting them calm down). Some parents were shocked to hear me tell children that they are not supposed to interrupt adults when they are talking, and especially not by repeatedly yelling something that was supposed to be very funny but actually was not (in their opinion, it is only legitimate to tell children “no” when you are already on the verge of collapse, and mere constant yelling shouldn’t get you there).
But that’s what you solve by trying different people. Either you find someone with similar norms, or someone who knows how to interact with people who have different norms. For example, we are an atheist family, but my children are taught that it is polite to respect that other people are religious—without necessarily agreeing with them. “They are wrong, but it is not your place to tell them, or to make fun of them.” (The differences in belief are often not a problem in practice, but proselytizing is.)
It’s quite a different question whether you would really pull through with this or whether either of you would change their preference and stop at a much lower number.
We’re pretty firmly committed to at least 3. I think whether we have more than that depends on how well we’re doing financially and whether the world is still around at that point.