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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML Real Biological Clock Is You're Going to Die (2018)
netsharc wrote 54 min ago:
A baby born this year will have their 74th birthday in 2100.
Although with the climate the way it is, it'll get progressively harder
to reach old age.
hare2eternity wrote 1 hour 19 min ago:
Being a parent gets harder the older you are, not just becoming a
parent which is where the focus tends to be. Yes you have fewer
financial resources and less life experience, but if you want kids the
best time is as soon as you can. Kids don't care about how rich you are
(so long as needs are met - those concerns come later and enough will
never be enough for a teenager) and they don't know that we're all
making it up as you go along. Have kids at 25 means that by your early
40s you are pretty much free again but parented in times of good
health.
Doing the school run now and seeing parents pushing 50 with primary
school aged children makes me sad for them and their kids when I see
how physically shattered they look through the fatigue and stress.
metalman wrote 2 hours 26 min ago:
I can only pray that there is a special heaven where sociopaths go,
that is also populated with all the nialists and narcists, together at
last, all there dreams writ large.
RamblingCTO wrote 2 hours 38 min ago:
> You are subtracting years from the time you will share the world with
your children.
Love the thought. But for me I wasn't able to commit to wanting to have
children because I had to learn so much about dating and what I think I
deserve and what I want. I just went with the "cool uncle" (which often
times hides the "I think I don't deserve love and thus sabotage
myself") narrative the last decade or so and had to have the bad
experiences I've had 2025 to come to the conclusion that I want a wife
and kids. Sometimes your life task dictates how it goes for you and a
little less grip on this journey seems beneficial to me.
This article came at a perfect time for me and I will go full steam
ahead to find someone to make kids with o7
ahf8Aithaex7Nai wrote 3 hours 45 min ago:
I like the text. A few additions: not everyone has to have children.
Not all of us have the opportunity to do so. It is possible to live a
fulfilling life even if you have not brought children into the world.
If you do not have children and it is foreseeable that you will not
have any, do not let anyone convince you that you are doomed to a
marginal existence. A child does not only need parents. It also needs
other adults: uncles, aunts, neighbors, teachers, etc. Children need a
healthy society, and everyone who contributes to this is contributing
to the well-being of children. For my taste, the text also lacks a
political component. Parenting is not just a personal project. It is
also a service to society. The parents of a child are raising a person
who will participate productively in the economy of the future. It
annoys me that this is treated as a free side effect. When you realize
this connection, parenthood as an imperative for personal fulfillment
takes on a strong ideological connotation. The fact that so many
people remain childless today is a failure at the societal level and
should not be compensated for by appeals at the individual level.
nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote 4 hours 16 min ago:
I (male) was very lucky and this made me realise. Had kids lateish (30)
but that is due to finding soneone to do that with took that long.
Being shy etc. But now I feel in 40s I am too old to have a baby! I
glad I didnt wait too long.
Or dont have kids at all which is fine and max on the freedom to do
whatever life. I think I agree decide if you want kids then if so have
them early as possible but under proviso of a good relationship and no
major issues like drugs/alcohol/violence etc.
pseudocomposer wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
Out of curiosity, what kind of physical shape are you in? Iâm
nearing 40 and have wanted kids my entire life, but similarly,
havenât found the right partner. If I ever felt I was too old to
have kids Iâd probably have no choice but to kill myself. But Iâm
also in excellent physical shape and feel no physically different
than I did in my 20s (other than being stronger and more coordinated
now).
hare2eternity wrote 1 hour 23 min ago:
I had kids 'early' for my peer group (early 30s when most are
pushing 40) and there is a noticeable difference in the amount of
energy I have. It's not playing games with kids (the stereotypical
keeping up with the kids at the park) it's that early years of
childhood mean that you have 5+ years of bad / shorter sleep and
get sick more than you probably have since you were a child.
leeoniya wrote 4 hours 0 min ago:
> If I ever felt I was too old to have kids Iâd probably have no
choice but to kill myself
sperm quantity and quality decreases with age. studies exist that
suggest higher risk of autism when father's age >= 45.
you're not too old, but you should probably test & freeze some good
sperm before you might actually be too old by the time you find the
right person. this way you won't ever feel like you're too old to
have kids. then the question becomes more of "how long and in what
manner will my remaining health allow me to enjoy them"
nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote 4 hours 7 min ago:
I have health issues so there is that. I think most 40 yo if they
go to the gym on a good routine can have the energy. Add in a
reasonable job (not an AI startup with a hammock in the kitchen).
But 40 you are rolling the dice. 40+ you can die from things and it
is not unheard of. It is quite old in a way. You can also have
issues unexpectedly that depleat capacity.
Just reread your comment. Don't kill yourself!!! Help raise your
niece or nephew or friends kids. You can pass on social
inheritence! And you can work in a cube at Google and send half the
money to kids charities.
matt3210 wrote 5 hours 10 min ago:
Speak for yourself, I plan to live forever
nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote 4 hours 14 min ago:
You will. Not you you. But you.
gond wrote 4 hours 38 min ago:
â Riker (TNG, Generations)
rokhayakebe wrote 5 hours 26 min ago:
I feel we should have children as early as possible between 18 and 30,
but we should also stay together with our parents. Grandparents can
raise their grandchildren. They would do a better job. The problem is
now everyone wants to go on their own, separate from the community,
then call modern life difficult.
anal_reactor wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
Because fuck community. It's extremely rare to meet people who don't
suck. My parents were never interested in me as a person, they were
interested in me fulfilling their fantasy of a picture-perfect
family. My aunt completely exploited her husband and then he happened
to drink himself to death which was completely and unavoidably his
own fault. Now she's ruining her daughter's teenage years just so
that she can score popularity points among other religious nuts. When
I was a kid I was the least popular in my class and I know that when
you reach the bottom, literally nobody cares about you, unless they
can extract something from you. It's dog eat dog. Now I'm an adult
and the more I interact with general population the more it feeds my
narcissism. I genuinely tried becoming a better person so that I'd
have more friends but at some point I understood "it's not me, it's
them". There's only so much I can do before I realize, most people
aren't worth being friends with. The few people that are worth it are
ridiculously difficult to find and usually have their own busy lives
and chances are, the ones you happen to meet live on the other side
of the city which is one hour one way.
4gotunameagain wrote 1 hour 4 min ago:
Don't look at the world through the lenses of your problematic
upbringing.
Healthy communities exist. They are increasingly rare due to the
massive shift in the way of living, but they do exist.
chadcmulligan wrote 4 hours 14 min ago:
I read a book that discusses this - "The Weirdest People in the
World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly
Prosperous" by Joseph Henrich. I found it interesting though I've
heard some criticisms of it.
s0ja wrote 5 hours 28 min ago:
Very interesting article! Really like when people use fonts with
serifs. I noticed the usage of accent aigu instead of apostrophes, was
that on purpose? An accent isnât an apostrophe, it takes up more
space horizontally. Much more obvious in this font.
ChrisArchitect wrote 5 hours 29 min ago:
(2018)
Some previous discussion:
2022
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31121453
fellowniusmonk wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
I was born with a heart defect that will kill me young. I spent my
youth waking up from surgeries until I became disappointed I'd woken
up. This author is still just a tourist of death going through what I
view as an early developmental stage of death realization and their
view is effectively just myopic shaming because they had their first
realization.
My parents died before I turned 20 and 28.
Death is horrible and loss is horrible but each person gets to pick
their meaning generation, that's what makes humans fucking cool.
We are like a random forest of meaning generation, an epicenter of
complex meaning creation, the plurality and uniqueness of paths is
critical, and each of us gets to decide what our meaning
exploration/creation will entail, and no one can rationally shame us
for that.
We are all very special. Each and every person. We are the unique
meaning generators of the universe, like stars emit photons we emit
complex meaning, there is no entity we have observed that has explained
to the universe the how and why of bird flight, we generated the how
and why of that, we are meaning generating organs of the universe
bootstrapped by simpler meaning in rna and dna and each one of us is
rare.
Complex meaning generation, storage and emission is still in it's
infancy from our empirical observations we can't predict how far into
the future meaning generation will reach or what it will accomplish, we
can't ex ante predict how important we are, no one can tell us we won't
be very important to the casual chain of the universe, it simply cannot
be computed ahead of time.
As a child I read the book version of A Baker's Dozen, a true story
about an efficiency expert with a heart defect that had 12 children and
dies at the end while calling his wife.
Each person generates unique meaning in the universe and the one thing
we get to do is decide what our unique meaning exploration path is, no
person is guaranteed to see any time with their kids, guaranteed to
want to have kids, guaranteed to have a kid they enjoy being around.
Decide what you intrinsically find meaningful and generate meaning, the
random forrest requires the diversity of search/creation paths.
leeoniya wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
> Did we choose the age at which we would have children? What does it
mean to choose?
we planned to have a kid by our early thirties. she specifically wanted
one by 30. we were both healthy, financially stable with solid careers.
then came multiple miscarriages, 10 years of background/foreground
stress, and IVF. now we finally have two healthy ones. i think daily
about those 10 years we've lost to spend with our kids while still
younger and able to do activities that i still enjoy like snowboarding,
mountain biking, etc. thankfully i'll still be able to do some of it,
but man, it has been rough. my awesome father-in-law died of cancer 9mo
before his grandson's birth; the only thing he ever knew were our
ongoing struggles :(
something else that happens is that all your same-aged friends with
kids...they have different lives now. you can't talk to them about the
same child struggles / tips in real time, the kids don't go to school
together or know the same people; they're a generation apart. it
becomes an isolating event when the delay is long enough.
despite all that, when i think of where i was financially then and now
(and what i did in those 10 years to get from there to here that would
not have happened otherwise), and that if i had a kid 10 years ago it
would be a different [probably worse] kid instead of the adorable 2.5yo
that runs to me each morning now, i feel a lot better.
my advice would not necessarily be to start earlier, but if you've
decided to procreate and are consciously deferring it until the "right"
time, just expect the really, really unexpected.
oliwarner wrote 4 hours 23 min ago:
> my awesome father-in-law died of cancer 9mo before his grandson's
birth
The death of the people I loved growing up is my biggest regret for
leaving having children until my mid-thirties.
We have friends who got on with it early and their kids are great.
The parents didn't have as much money or lived experience, but were
fitter, more energetic, and now their kids are teenagers and they're
able to focus on life. When our youngest is there, we'll be focussing
on retirement.
It's impossible to know, I know, but every year deferred is another
year less with a child that will probably love you, a love you will
value above practically anything else.
duttish wrote 5 hours 27 min ago:
For decades the discussion in schools have been around "this is how
you avoid unwanted pregnancy", safe sex and all of that.
With our(northern Europe) crashing fertility rate there's now also
discussions about adding on "when the woman is 25 this happens and
you're this likely to get pregnant, at 30 it's like this...", just so
that people can plan and try for the family they want. If one wants 3
kids and don't want IVF you should apparently start around when the
woman is 25-28 or something like that?
But who's financially secure at 25?
stevekemp wrote 3 hours 18 min ago:
> But who's financially secure at 25?
This is where free daycare, and support from the government helps.
(And yes of course it's not "free", it is paid for from taxes,
people are so smart to point that out.)
Different countries have different incentives, but I was really
pleased with the setup in Finland when we had our child. A free
box of first-clothes, daycare from 1-5 years old cheap enough that
it was almost free, and preschool at 6 before schooling started at
7.
Lots of minor perks, such as free transport on busses, trams, etc,
if you were pushing a stroller, and so on.
huhkerrf wrote 3 hours 44 min ago:
Plenty of people have kids before then and they work out fine. I'm
not saying that if you're truly destitute it's a good idea to have
kids, but the only people I hear complaining about not being
financially ready for kids are those who are objectively well off.
aziaziazi wrote 5 hours 16 min ago:
> But who's financially secure at 25?
Those backed up by their government?
fruitworks wrote 3 hours 49 min ago:
it's dysgenic to enable reproduction through welfare. Better to
create an economy where young people can start families off of
their own labor.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote 2 hours 10 min ago:
The party in power is doing neither so
esseph wrote 2 hours 59 min ago:
It's the tribe supporting the newest members. Seems the most
logical thing I can imagine.
lencastre wrote 5 hours 46 min ago:
itâs never the right time, not everyone deserves to have kids, and
not every kid deserves the parents they got, still, it has to be part
of the meaning of life, to see something that is your blood, discover,
play, become a responsible adult and one day hopefully decided that it
is worth to also have children of their own
happy 2026
fruitworks wrote 3 hours 26 min ago:
no one deserves to have kids
empressplay wrote 6 hours 5 min ago:
I have super-bad genetics. Not so bad that I have an entirely terrible
life, but bad enough that I wouldn't wish them on a child. I know they
would hate me, since I am aware of how bad my genetics are.
People who have children think having children is the right choice,
generally. They have to, to find meaning in all of the work of having
and raising a child. That's understandable. But it is by no means the
right choice for everyone.
I had a lousy childhood -- not just because of my genetics. There's no
license, no mandatory training for having a child. You can just have
one. Many parents are not qualified, by any measure. This keeps
therapists well-employed.
Only have a child if you would like to be that child. Only have a child
if you feel competent, and able, and certain that when they are an
adult they will not resent you -- yes, it's natural to have some
resentment for your parents, but this is not the sort of resentment I
am talking about.
Do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES have a child if you're just looking for
'legacy'. Write a book. Give to charity. But this is a terrible reason
to have a child! Don't.
simonask wrote 4 hours 34 min ago:
It is completely wild to me that we have apparently reached a stage
where eugenics is such an accepted ideology that people will apply it
to themselves.
This is disgusting. You deserve to live, and I'm sorry for whatever
experiences made you think you shouldn't.
silisili wrote 5 hours 28 min ago:
> Do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES have a child if you're just looking
for 'legacy'
Agreed with that. I couldn't even tell you the names of any of my
great grandparents, much less anything above.
ggggffggggg wrote 5 hours 59 min ago:
> Only have a child if you feel⦠certain that when they are an
adult they will not resent you.
Resenting oneâs parents, even like, a really really lot, is a small
price indeed to pay to be alive. The other option is to not exist.
card_zero wrote 5 hours 55 min ago:
How can I not exist if I don't even exist?
sublinear wrote 6 hours 7 min ago:
> But this idea of certainty is a sham, a distraction, something to
turn your attention away from the only truly certain thing, which is
that your time will run out.
I hard disagree with this entire blog post. What an incredibly
depressing, judgmental, and self-centered way to live life. It doesn't
matter when you do things as long as you are satisfied with the
results.
You should focus more on deeply appreciating all possible results life
has to offer than making any particular decision. This is how you find
certainty. You must have imagination and see how things would change
even if, for better or worse, most of those things never come true. As
a matter of fact, none of them will except for the ones you choose. You
must always be visualizing what comes next, or else of course you'd be
lost and scared. Everything single second of your life is compromises
before you even realize you're making them, and there are no right
answers. If you can't handle that, you'll never feel happy.
rand846633 wrote 5 hours 46 min ago:
Funny, for me the article reads like a ode to saying yes to life, not
the other way round..
nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote 4 hours 10 min ago:
I see it as an argument to have kids earlier, which is rare outside
of just "cus we did in our day". I feel there was a cut off maybe
90s someone has a baby you honour them 2000s onwards you feel sorry
for them! Everyone wants freedom and pleasure because nothing lasts
forever (!). So within agnostic/atheist etc. with the no kids
movement it is good to have a balance and then people decide what
to do. Make a decision considering the tradeoff.
tqi wrote 6 hours 7 min ago:
While I understand and empathize with what this article is getting at
("If you intend to have children, but you donât intend to have them
just yet, you are not banking extra years as a person who is still too
young to have children. You are subtracting years from the time you
will share the world with your children."), I strongly disagree. I
think people should have kids when they are ready. Make an assessment
to the best of their ability when exactly that time has arrived. Then,
don't dwell on it further. Especially don't blog about it. There are no
counterfactuals, this kind of reflection can only serve to make us
miserable.
fruitworks wrote 3 hours 45 min ago:
Civilization ending copium.
>Especially don't blog about it.
If we all bury our heads in the sand, maybe it will go away. After
all, our personal happyness is #1. It's our world and our children
are just living in it
michaelt wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
> I think people should have kids when they are ready. Make an
assessment to the best of their ability when exactly that time has
arrived.
While I kinda agree with this, I've known some folks whose standard
for 'ready' was a lot higher than previous generations/other
cultures.
For example, I could get a folding desk, move my home office into my
bedroom, and put 3 kids in bunk beds in one room.
Or I could say I'm not ready to have kids as I only have a 2 bedroom
home, whereas in a few years time I'll be able to afford a bigger
place.
fruitworks wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
For thousands of years, mankind struggled for survival. We invented
agriculture, shelter, clawed our way into modern medicine and
eventuallt multiplied on the face of the earth.
But as it turns out, the limit of our growth was that precious
currency of desk space. We scoured the ends of the earth and wept,
for there was no more desk space left.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote 2 hours 4 min ago:
Alas, a land value tax would fix this
magic_hamster wrote 5 hours 30 min ago:
No matter how long we waited, we did not feel ready. There was always
too much to do, it was never really the right time. At some point we
just gave in and perhaps we should have done it sooner.
Having kids in a later stage has a lot of advantages. You (hopefully)
saved more. You are more mature and informed. You know how to save
for your children from day one and what to teach them.
But the thing about time is true and doubly so when it comes to
grandparents. First of all if you live around your family and they
can help out, it's an invaluable rock to lean on, and of course if
you waited the grandparents are going to be too old to really help.
But what's worse, is your kids will probably know them for a very
short time if they even remember them when they grow up.
The thing about "being ready" is nonsense because you can't be ready.
You don't understand what a massive gift and blessing it is to have
children, and also how everything changes. You can't be ready because
you just can't understand it before it happens. So waiting for the
perfect time is useless. If you know want children at some point,
just do it.
silisili wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
I'm torn here because you're both right, kinda, from my viewpoint.
And that is you should do a thing, whether getting married, having
kids, etc. as soon as you're sure you want that.
You shouldn't rush it thinking of years lost, but at the same time,
shouldn't delay it until everything's perfect/'the right time',
because, from experience, everything will never be perfect.
Nevermark wrote 5 hours 49 min ago:
I don't know how anyone gets wisdom, without taking very opposite
views seriously.
And being grateful for those who took the time to share their
epiphanies in such a readable way.
It didn't come across to me as pushy advice, but as advice to think.
moultano wrote 5 hours 59 min ago:
I think most great parents didn't feel ready, and in some sense not
feeling ready is evidence of the kind of conscientiousness that makes
you a great parent. I think it is a valuable service to push people
who want kids but aren't sure when to have them to have them earlier
than they otherwise would. You never know how difficult it will be
for you until you start trying.
1659447091 wrote 4 hours 8 min ago:
> I think most great parents didn't feel ready
What makes a great parent?
Providing food, clothes, health and shelter? My parents weren't
ready. I interrupted my fathers dream he was on track for, but only
later learned about by doing the math in his rare moments of
nostalgia after a cancer diagnosis and given a handful of years to
live. My parents did a hard pivot and worked 3-5 jobs between them
at any given time to make ends meet because his sense of duty to
the family he wasn't ready for. I rarely saw or interacted with
them, but gained valuable experience in navigating the world
independently and being responsible for myself. I had good parents
-- I was fed, clothed, housed and healthy enough to make it to
adulthood and move out on my own after high school.
This part stuck out:
There are good reasons to wait, [...] My children have not had to
live with parents who are working 15-hour days, the way we worked
in our 20s, or who are financially desperate, as we might have been
if weâd been paying for children on the salaries of our 20s. Our
professional standing allows us to skip work for pediatric
appointments or parent-teacher conferences. [...] I got a promotion
[...] when it was time to buy a piano. We all sit down together for
home-cooked meals most evenings and talk about things.
That must be nice, but I wouldn't know. My youngest sibling does
though, their grandchildren knew that with them when they were
younger too. My parents finally built up the stability that gave
them time -- as I was on my way out. I have no idea who they are,
nor they me, that was not our relationship -- I had that with my
grandfather, but only briefly. And I would not trade that decade
for anything in the world, except maybe to have had that with my
parents, even if only for a few years to get to know as a child
should. My youngest sibling got the great parents because they were
ready to be by that time.
You get to be a great parent because you can spend time with your
kids -- whether you "felt" ready or not you were, but maybe
consider that's because the time you waited gave you the time to
spend with them. You're looking at it in terms of maximizing years.
Having more years doesn't mean anything if they can't be quality
years.
pzo wrote 5 hours 19 min ago:
the question is if this is not survivor bias - 'Those were great
parents and they where not ready so' doesn't implicate that most
people that are not ready will be great parents.
It also what you want to optimize for. I would prefer to have
hordes of good parents that just only dozens of great one in
society. We most likely can also say: "Most worst parents didn't
feel ready"
rhubarbtree wrote 5 hours 36 min ago:
Iâm about to become a parent, about 10 years later than Iâd
have liked. Main reason for that is just not meeting the right
person, pandemic, money etc.
But I only feel ready now. Iâm a late developer in general
(arenât all software engineers haha arf) and I honestly felt too
free spirited in the past. Many friends had kids a decade or more
ago, and they are looking forward to their kids leaving home so
they can travel etc. But Iâve already done all that, I have
nothing to devote my life to now other than work and family.
In my case at least, being ready was a real thing. Itâs really
about maturity and having had enough of a life myself.
moultano wrote 6 hours 16 min ago:
This essay was in part an inspiration for my (much more upbeat) essay
which was on here yesterday [1] , and I linked it at the end, but I
thought it deserved a submission on its own.
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46452763
rhubarbtree wrote 5 hours 34 min ago:
I find your essay more downbeat. I actually disagree with it too, as
it misses the fact that children arenât really aware of their lives
in the same way adults are. Life begins at 18 imo.
bythreads wrote 5 hours 40 min ago:
I liked it, made me reflect and consider - not always easy these
days.
Happy new years and thanks
gavmor wrote 6 hours 26 min ago:
> That entire group of middle-aged people, who made up the adult world
when my father was a child, is gone.
That really got me. How can I bring these people, this "adult world"
forward in time as a gift to my children?
tazjin wrote 5 hours 34 min ago:
You don't need to. This is the first generation where there's
millions of hours of online podcasts with tech bros for them to
enjoy. In general, we're a uniquely well-documented set of
generations, even if we exclude all the stuff that will be lost when
Google/Facebook/VK etc. collapse.
carbonguy wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
In one sense, you can't; the world they lived in lived with them, and
when they were gone their world was gone with them too.
In another sense, you can't *avoid* that world; the world they lived
in was one they *created*, physically, and much of it is still here
with us, shaping us as they shaped it.
And remember, none of the people who came before us ever experienced
anything but pieces of their world, just like we only ever experience
pieces of our own. But you can at least try to show your kids as many
of those pieces as possible.
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