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And when it comes to self-absorption, one could make a case that generating a mini-replica to carry on one's legacy after you are gone ranks pretty high

I doubt very much you're a parent, or you wouldn't make such a ridiculous statement.

A society in which a significant number of people decide that reproduction is "optional," and an "option" they can do without, is doomed. That's not even debatable, unless you like to argue with mathematics. (Hint: mathematics always wins.)

That's why we call it selfish. It is selfish; it's eating your economic seed corn today so you can get good and fat, never mind the fact that there will be nothing to plant in the spring and you will starve next winter.

For a time, a society can artificially prop up its standard of living by refusing to bear, feed, raise and educate the next generation. But that only lasts so long, doesn't it.

Folks, if child rearing is so great, people will naturally choose it. Four out of five generally do.

The fertility rates in Spain, Italy, and Japan are something like 1.2 kids per woman, and going down. You do the math. 2.1 kids per woman is required just to replace the population.

>>And when it comes to self-absorption, one could make a case that generating a mini-replica to carry on one's legacy after you are gone ranks pretty high

>I doubt very much you're a parent, or you wouldn't make such a ridiculous statement.

I wasn't the one cooing about "posterity".

>A society in which a significant number of people decide that reproduction is "optional," and an "option" they can do without, is doomed. That's not even debatable, unless you like to argue with mathematics.

"Doomed"? That is ridiculous, because there has always been a segment, including happily married fertile couples, who choose not to reproduce.

>That's why we call it selfish. It is selfish; it's eating your economic seed corn today so you can get good and fat, never mind the fact that there will be nothing to plant in the spring and you will starve next winter.

Newsflash: reproduction is not immortality. Failure to have children does not cause one to starve. A more pertinent agricultural point is that at a more primitive time in human history, having lots of children was essential for a family's survival. In modern times, a family can survive just as easily with or without children.

>For a time, a society can artificially prop up its standard of living by refusing to bear, feed, raise and educate the next generation. But that only lasts so long, doesn't it.

You speak as if the small minority who choose not to have children are out there proselytizing and pressuring others not to. Yet you are living proof of who is doing a proselytizing and pressuring. And your language about "the next generation" sounds like Hillary Clinton's "it takes a Village". Don't kid yourself that you are raising the next generation. You are just raising your own kids, because that's what you wanted to do.