To ask if you think coming into existence is a good thing for every human

[Pavementworrier]

We all live through pain at some point. Hopefully also joy (although I'd say that's a fairly modern possibility for ordinary folk). When you make a child exist is it always a good thing, regardless of the balance of ups and downs? Are you grateful just to be here for this experience no matter how it goes?

(Inspired by a conversation on another thread)

No not really.

Had some great times and some sreasful
ones. Struggled with bad mental health all my life. Life is just hard.

No. Those born very poorly and have no real life other than lying in a bed, blind & deaf etc I think its cruel.

For my part, while modern life for the fortunate is pretty fine and our generation in particular has lived through what has felt like a very hopeful period, I find it absolutely unbelievable that people kept having children before indoor toilets and hot showers existed.

You don't think ordinary people in the past felt joy?

I don't think indoor toilets and hot showers are essential for happiness.

I find it hard to believe that my ancestors who had to work from dawn til dusk in medial, boring, humiliating jobs just to feed themselves and their families had much time for joy tbh. Not to mention having to use a chamber pot. Double not to mention having to empty other people's chamber pots.

I don't think you miss what you've never had, and people in the past were less bothered by hygiene.
There is a lot of joy in good company, beautiful views, flowers. The love of family.

Of course your ancestors felt joy! Yes, they may have had less, and life was harder in many ways, but so much easier in others!
Financial wealth and positive mood do not go hand in hand!

I think you underestimate how unpleasant it is to live with constant stress, fear, sickness, normalised infant mortality, hunger, cold, smelly. I mean yea they didn't know anything else but it would still have absolutely sucked.

What a very odd idea. You've just dismissed about half the population of the world along with billions of ancestors. You'd have wiped out a lot of geniuses because those are both recent in the long story of the human race.
I can assure you that, although the mountain village I lived in had no plumbing and no running (let alone hot) water, the children were cared-for, loved and thriving. It's also often called the happiest country in the world.

Family, relationships, celebrations, music, festivities, nature, religious beliefs, simple pleasures, all these things have always brought joy to people everywhere. Yes, perhaps intertwined with hardship, but joy nevertheless

I'm not wiping anyone out I'm saying I don't fancy it. Is it more pleasant for a genius to exist?

Take medieval peasants for example, this is what AI says:

How they lived: Long days of farm labor, heavy taxes, uncertain harvests.
Sources of joy:

Feast days and festivals — medieval calendars had many religious holidays with games, dancing, music, and feasting.

Community gatherings — harvest celebrations, weddings, and village fairs.

Storytelling and humor — travelers, priests, and minstrels brought stories; villagers told jokes and folk tales by the fire.

Children — records and art show families playing simple games, laughing, and celebrating births.

Example: In the 1300s, the Feast of Fools allowed peasants to dress as nobles and mock authority — a day of laughter and release.

Super weird to think that poor and struggling people can't feel joy. What a bad take lmao.

Lack of contraception would explain why people have children in less than ideal situations, also the hope that children will look after them when they are sick, old.

As Haruki Murakami said: "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional". Some people feel joy despite the worst circumstances, others find ways to suffer having everything they could possibly desire.

People strive to survive (and procreate) in all kinds of difficult circumstances. You might think you’d rather not have kids (or possibly rather be dead?!) if you didn’t have ann indoor toilet but you’d be very unusual if that were the case.

I’ve been to very poor parts of the world and everyone is not miserable.

You should read Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton.

Yes this sort of thing is what I mean. Only allowed to eat festive things on certain days thanks to sumptuary laws. You BELONGED to your feudal lord FFS. No privacy. Other people's shit jokes as the Lord of Fools your only entertainment.

It makes the Mrs brown's boys Christmas special sound ok in comparison.

(I have never watched the Mrs brown's boys Christmas special)

Take it you're not much of a camping fan?!

Of course people in the past experienced joy despite not having indoor toilets.

When it comes down to it, most - not all, but most - people have a very strong urge to live, no matter their circumstances.

I guess the big difference between then and now is there is no sense of community now and people are expected to fend for themselves.. when I was growing up it was expected that I get a job straight from school and move out (working class background)
I admire cultures where the family live together through their lives, if not in the same house then usually next door or very close by.

I have read it, it was blah.

I don't want to have to have sex with a husband in order to keep a roof over my head, especially when the husband has been unable to ever in his entire life have a hot shower.

And I judge anyone who thinks that's ok.

The past sucks and not because they didn't have netflix.

Well they're pretty essential for mine, but if you never knew they existed..

Also I guess if you were toiling in the field all day, what else would give your life meaning other than kids

also - God

and no birth control

I don't want to have to have sex with a husband in order to keep a roof over my head, - believe me women are still doing this now. More then ever in fact, see; the housing crisis

I think they're deeply oppressive. But then I guess the deep oppression is also why people kept having kids. That and the no pension provision.

We all strive and hope for happiness, peace of mind, love and all the rest of it, and we hope to come through (the almost inevitable) bad times relatively unscathed, but some people just live shitty, horrible lives, so no, coming into existence isn't a good thing for everyone.