I mean you're half right. In a zoo, the keepers care for their animals, making sure they're well fed, enriched, and healthy.

We're being farmed. They are using us to make money from our produce (labour). They're using us to make money. We're so over exploited we simply cannot afford to have children.

Proud owner of a tubal litigation here

A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation...

Every species of animals naturally multiplies in proportion to the means of their subsistence, and no species can ever multiply beyond it. But in civilised society it is only among the inferior ranks of people that the scantiness of subsistence can set limits to the further multiplication of the human species; and it can do so in no other way than by destroying a great part of the children which their fruitful marriages produce.

The liberal reward of labour, by enabling them to provide better for their children, and consequently to bring up a greater number, naturally tends to widen and extend those limits. It deserves to be remarked, too, that it necessarily does this as nearly as possible in the proportion which the demand for labour requires. If this demand is continually increasing, the reward of labour must necessarily encourage in such a manner the marriage and multiplication of labourers, as may enable them to supply that continually increasing demand by a continually increasing population.

• Adam Smith, the father of capitalism

This raises birth rates

I love this person's glasses.

Want higher birthrates? Just convince people that tomorrow will be better than today.

That's how you see a spike in birth rates.

To maintain a steady birthrate, just convince potential parents that the world will not be any worse for their children than it is today.

See, easy.

im not spending a fortune to raise a child when i can barely afford eggs

I would kill for a family. I'll die alone, I've accepted that. I understand that im unconventional and weird, I just wish I could meet someone that reflected that. But it's just not in the cards for a man like myself. So ill die surrounded by my animals and hopefully they'll consume my flesh so I can become Jesus 2.0 but with animals

On a more positive note the newest IPCC report on climate has population decline being the biggest positive impact on climate change, so keep at it!

I don't want to bring kids in this world that will inevitably grow up with a father when I take out all my frustration and grievances on members of the ruling class.

They're gonna wish I used a guillotine.

A friend of mine has three kids and works 70 hours a week. He is not able to make enough to support his family, and social services have been cut so much that his only option is to take out a personal loan, which will only make his problem worse.

Growing up, I was of the mindset that I would have got married and started a family by this point in my life. But as of the last few years, my thoughts have done just about a 180.

Even if I was currently with someone/married, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to raise kids in this day and age in the US (the bullet dodged me when my ex-girlfriend used plan b after we got intimate without protection). I think best case scenario for me now would be DINK, but gotta find someone that can put up with my dumpster fires first.

why would I want to bring somebody into this world. they'd only have to fight for basic things like "let's be nice to each other" and "maybe we should pool our money to spend it on big things that benefit us all"

fuck that. I'll live my little servile life as a cog in the machine as best I can, and then I'll die. and the dumb fucks who won't stop breeding while they try to make things worse for their children will repopulate the earth

Born in 84, I've noticed something of a trend in my area. Late gen X and late millennials are having children, most are having two or three, but a lot of people like me born in the mid 80's aren't. While this is by no means universal, there does seem to be more people within five years of my age going without kids.

Dumb question: do we really need more people? It feels very much like technology/productivity will allow us to support a good lifestyle with fewer people.