> Child care is accessible and affordable if you look in the right places and are willing to be creative.

That is really not the case.

> And children do not meaningfully detract from any other positive sides of life.

Honestly, they actually quite often do. You are not allowed to talk about it, but reality of it is that you loose a lot.

Well, it depends on where you live. It’s certainly the case in Texas and much of the southern United States in my experience. San Francisco — yes, unlikely.

And it depends on what you think you are losing (FYI loose = not tight, lose = opposite of win). I think I have gained far more than I have lost.

I agree with your point on the word “doomerism” and I should have quoted it. Later in my comment I said “prophecy of economic or climactic doom,” which is more reflective of how I see it. Go back through history and you will see time and time again that the world was due to end, but did not. Bayesian probability says we’re probably not headed for a world-ending outcome.

But I suppose I also take issue with your claim that “things aren't as good as they were a few years ago.” On what metric are you measuring this?

Finally — your point about the dodo just reinforces what I’m saying all the more! What I’m saying is: let’s not go extinct!

We needn't jump to the end of the world or human extinction, hence why I didn't understand the need for finalistic terms like doom. What many people believe is that life simply isn't going to be as good for the next generation(s).

You can already see the downward trend from our parents generation to ours, the downward trend (economically, politically and socially) within our own lifetimes and project that to the next generation. Keep in mind, our parents received an unlikely to be repeated boost in their fortunes (which was paved with the largest war we've ever had and good luck for us to be on the receiving end of most of the spoils of that war, rightly or wrongly). There's a huge list of issues making life worse for people right now, and many more being kicked down the road for the next generation.

I live in the UK, so I speak mostly with the context of my own country. That's the life I live and what I know. I read quite a bit about affairs in other countries, as I said, once a week, and the picture doesn't seem to be too unique country-to-country.

I don't want to list everything that would fall under the metric of measurement, because while I know it looks like a cop-out, it's honestly a huge list filled with points that we all know about (war, inequality, political shifts, cost of living crisis, climate change, changing cultural landscape). I could pick one and discuss it at length, but I don't know what that would do besides allow for venting.

The advance of science, medicine, and technology can be used as a reliable metric for improvement, but these alone can't balance out the negative socio-economic and political changes, especially when they're all so intertwined. It's great that science can provide GLP drugs for people to lose weight, but the counter-balance is that socially people are less inclined to do without. New technology is always getting better, but if it's just being used to revolutionise serving ads and selling subscriptions, that's counterintuitive. Antibiotics are becoming redundant faster than we can create new types.

Fair points, I wasn’t trying to be condescending. You’re right about the UK. That is a different context than the US and the trends you mention are perhaps more economically “real” there than here.

But I still think the core question matters: what do we do about it? History shows decline isn’t always permanent. Rome fell and the Black Death killed a third of Europe. But we still ended up with the fruits of the Renaissance and Enlightenment because people kept making people and working for the betterment of the world.

You mention antibiotics becoming redundant. This is true. But we’re also developing phage therapy, CRISPR antimicrobials, and new drug classes. We’re figuring out protein folding at scale for the first time. Every one of these problems eventually leads to some kind of solution so long as there are smart people paying attention to what needs to be done.

The dodo couldn’t adapt but, as humans, we can. I’m not saying ignore the problems. I’m saying don’t let them paralyze you. To solve problems, we need more smart people — someone has to keep making them!

I think, as an outsider, the US faces most of the same problems, but I believe you do have a better starting position and extra cards in your hand than we do.

Personally I cannot see how the UK is going to steady declining living standards. I see the same from my reading in a lot of Europe, and many countries have a much lower starting point (Africa, Asia exc. China), or are accelerating their decline even faster by their actions (Russia). I don't envy any political party that comes to power because truthfully I doubt any of them can solve any of the problems we're facing, even with deeply unpopular changes and the stubbornness to see them through.

We don't have globalised tech companies, any real production basis, or energy/mineral wealth. We largely provide services which are going to be hit hardest by even basic LLM, and domestic services which are gradually being priced out of business by rent and energy price hikes. It's a small island with too many people living on it, fighting for scraps while whatever is left of the economy is sold off for the benefit of very few people (who will eventually emigrate when the fan is hit).

I strongly believe within my lifetime (early 30s) I will be living in a third-world country, and that global problems and events will be piled on top of that. Slow but steady social breakdown is very clear on a day-to-day basis (theft up to £200 is basically legalised, insufficient employment, large amounts of people out of work due to mental health issues).

Many of my friends in late 20s and 30s have a similar view, hence the no kids. At the minimum, I would only have children if the pretext was emigrating from the UK first.

When Rome fell, it was bad news for the citizens of the Western Roman Empire. We're gradually going through the same thing. If you have the ability to control birth and are acutely aware of these issues and the negative trends, it's many peoples opinion that its better to save the next generation the trouble of potentially being the ones to be holding the bomb when it goes off.

> This kind of doomerism is only accessible because you have social media and global news networks that expose you to the negativity bias of humanity.

I have zero social media, don't read the news, and have a happy stable lifestyle. I can afford to raise kids and ten years ago, yeah go for it. I wanted to have children.

Now? no way. My generation stops with me and many others my age (36) echo the same statement. I don't want to push kids through the next up-generations of the shite that's starting to pile up now.

"it's you because of X" is a strawman argurement. The world is bleak it's not a happy place but your welcome to keep that illusion.

We have wars, we have povetry, we have divide. Will it get better? Maybe, the future will decide but with my history of life doesn't feel like it will be anytime soon, I've seen in the past twenty years; how long do I wait for?

I like to think the good will always outweigh the evil however until something does come along and dethrones the current evil, issue consquences for their actions we are stuck here in a swurling-black-hole of dispair. That's realism and will that be you? Because I like to think it will be me. I can walk outside my apartment and see how shite it all is.

We have achieved so much, people are more educated than past generations, vaccines, advance technologies and the rest which is great. And now have a text box where you can ask a silly question of your choice and some robot will spit out the answer. Amazing stuff, the caveat being those running these systems are those who are producing the dysoptian mist.

> you can raise a family on a smaller budget than you'd imagine. Children are way less expensive than adults.

This is fallacy, i'm no father but there is much more expense then just feeding kids. What if your child get's ill? Need's special tutoring? Has a disability? Wants to learn to horse ride? Fair assumption if all kids were born equal but life isn't like that.

What if the "budget" ends up being cancelled, say losing your job because of some political reform and cuts? How do you raise children when themselves have no money; poverty is only increasing. Please tell because I'm sure their are plenty of homeless who would love to have that life hack.

The past didn't have rapid game changing technology like we have now.

Just because we are always evolving doesn't mean we can afford to in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if the next stage of evolution are desiginer-babies. Artfically created in a lab and ready to be posted to you to cradle. Some exec's wet dream and it's already in the making.

This isn't doomerism, this is real life, reality. Try looking outside the walled gardens and maybe you'll see the past, the present and the curtian of the future holding futuristic lies and corruption of the real world that shroud the real harmony of humanity.

We are at the best time in humanity but that can only be said by those who can afford it. Being pesstistmic is a downer, but being optistmic is bloody hard at the moment and to think some angel will come down from the sky and save us all, I won't stop you from dreaming.

I’m sorry that you feel this way and I hope that you can get help. I don’t say this to be mean or sarcastic — I would seriously advise that you screen yourself for some form of depressive disorder. Life can be better.

My email is in my HN bio if I can be of any help.