Archive for category Personal
VHEMT
One of the most comprehensive and meaningful websites I have read so far: The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT)
Another thoughtful article which talks about the taboo topic “Eugenics”: Future Generations
It is almost scary to have understood the nature and scale of the problem we are heading to, and despite the existence of workable solutions, it is almost too late and we are letting nature to adjust the balance, at great cost to the whole humanity and our planet.
I am sure if Spock were alive today he would have said “May we live long and die out”.
Going paperless at home
I have been sick and tired of the flood of junk mails at my home. I have already opted for paperless delivery of bills and statements, but the insurance and credit card offers keep coming. Finally found a blog post with solution to stop them as well. Here are a couple useful links:
1. How I Went 99.9% Paperless At Home
2. Evernote Is Decluttering My Life
Got published on childfreedom blog
An article I wrote a while back got published on the childfreedom blog: A Man’s View
I am quite happy with the comments the post got so far, but the comment a reader sent me directly today made my day:
Enjoyed reading your post on the childfreedom blog. Good for you for speaking out about your view. I have seen so many of my friend’s husbands get talked into having a kid that they did not want. It damages the marriage not to mention all the stress it brings into daily life for 20+ years ! FAR TOO MANY men just go along with the woman and have kids they did not really want & then it’s too late!
There is an article in the September 2010 Real Simple magazine called ” My One and Only” by Rebecca walker. She has a 5 year old son – she is 40 and SHE wants another child but her husband does not. She is very honest and says she realizes it isn’t fair to ask her husband to do more child rearing and put his dreams of raising funds for a school in Cambodia & to make a film and have the time and the energy to promote it. So it’s good she was honest and wrote about honoring her husband’s wishes. I think she should count her blessings that she has got one healthy kid & be grateful her life will be less complicated by not having more-!!!!
Having kids is a crapshoot no matter how you look at it. Friends of ours in their early 40’s have twins that are now 2 1/2. They were so desperate to have kids they went through expensive fertility treatments. Now they are overwhelmed – living a frantic lifestyle. They are strapped for money now and the quality of life they once enjoyed is GONE.
I didn’t want kids because I did not want a life of non-stop stress, chaos, upset, mess, marital strain and financial ruin-!
Keep spreading the word that “child freedom” is a GREAT thing! Maybe you can prevent some men from ruining their lives !
Children and Marriage
A few interesting articles which talk about not only true facts but rather obvious outcomes of today’s socio-economic scenarios and modern lifestyles.
1. Having Kids Ruins Marriage
2. Why Children Ruin Marriage
3. Till Children Do Us Part
4. Married, successful and happy to be child-free
And to top it all, the post Alpha Female in the childfreedom blog sums it up nicely:
It’s time people stopped assuming that there is only one real reason a woman would opt out of motherhood – that she is a driven, career-starved ladder climber. The truth is, many (if not most) of us have chosen not to have kids for one simple reason:
We believe that parenthood sucks – and we want no part of it.
And from Bruce Gillespie in this article:
I’ve had people suggest that by not having kids, I’ll be missing out on something, and they’re undoubtedly right. But I’ll also be missing out on something by never climbing Mount Everest or walking on the moon, and I’m no more broken up about these missed opportunities than I am about never being a dad. I see it less as something I’m losing than something I’m gaining in the form of time, energy, and, let’s face it, money; without kids, I have more of all three to invest in my friends, my family, my work and my community.
The Baby Trap by Ellen Peck
Added a book to my rare list of must-reads.
The Baby Trap: The Controversial Bestseller That Dares to Prove That Parenthood is Dangerous
Tetra Society of North America
Posted by therider in Hobbies, Personal, Technology on July 29, 2010
As if it was destined to happen, a coworker today showed me the website of Tetra Society of North America. It is a nonprofit organization that recruits skilled volunteers to create customized assistive devices for the physically disabled.
Why did it get me so excited ? Not only do I understand the plight of the disabled, I am currently running out of ideas of what to build next in my home workshop. If I get to make some kind of assistive device, whether out of wood or metal, it will not only make practical use of whatever skills I have, it will also justify owning whatever tools I desire.
Thank you so much, Ted. I just applied for a technical volunteer position and will look forward to making some contributions in near future.
All Joy and No Fun
An extremely well-written overview of recent studies showing how and why the fun has gone out of parenthood:
Why is this important to the childfree by choice? Well, the next time someone says, “You’ll regret not having kid.” or, “Parenthood is such a joy, you’re missing out” you can send them a link to this article.
It is much much better to regret not having kids, than to regret for the rest of life after the fact. Too bad there is no 30-day return period. You can change everything else in life. Jobs can be changed, marriages can be ended in divorce, pets can be donated to shelters, yet you can’t dump or divorce your kids. Once you make that choice, there is absolutely no turning back.
A comment from a friend on facebook:
I know people who have raised their kids to the age of 26 & older, paid for their entire lives – drugs, vacations, college, rehab, wedding, given them jobs at the family business, cars – raise the next generation of grandchildren too. I blame it on the parents – not culture, not society. These folks get no respect from their offspring who wait for them to die, so they can inherit the house and properties. It’s pretty pathetic.
The fad of “living green”
“Green” is a major hype and propaganda these days. Hybrid cars, compostable cups, re-usable grocery bags, this and that. Makes us believe we care for the environment. Fancy TV advertisements regularly feature a smiling family of four “living green” in a huge mansion, driving a hybrid monster SUV.
What an epic hogwash in the light of overpopulation and global warming.
The biggest inconvenient truth is that we don’t need more humans for several decades before the world’s population comes down to a stable level. That means one thing – “thou shalt not reproduce unless you contribute to the society”. In other words, there should be incentives and rewards for people who choose to stay childfree, and high taxes for parents opting for more than two children.
Childfree by choice couples can even drive hummers and live opposite of a “green” lifestyle and still be consuming resources several orders of magnitude lower than a family with one or two kids. Living “green” is like saving up pennies, and when a child is born, the effective expense of the planet is of the order of several hundreds of dollars in comparison. Saving those hundreds of dollars and spending pennies in “guilty luxuries” is much much better in my opinion.
In a geek friend’s words: “Don’t have a kid unless he/she can invent cold fusion.”
The impact of having children
A few interesting reads:
1. Save the Planet, Have Fewer Kids
Under current conditions in the United States, for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent – about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.
2. Having Children Brings High Carbon Impact
3. Having large families ‘is an eco-crime’
4. Population growth imperils future of humanity
5. The case against having kids
Lets look at what an exploding population is leading to:
a. Resource contention – leading to war, famine, malnutrition, epidemics
b. Lack of quality education for all – leading to crimes, teenage pregnancies and other undesirable consequences
c. Rapid deterioration of living standards everywhere
d. Extinction of wildlife and natural habitats
The great pacific garbage patch is a horrific reminder of the waste the world is generating. Imagine a plastic wasteland the size of Texas a few feet below the water. Truth be told, unless the global birth rate comes down, there can be grave consequences down the road. The irony is that we will just let it happen, because a bad “destiny” is much more acceptable to the common mass than practical steps (rewards for childfree and high taxes for large families) which might be regarded as discriminatory by many.
We have managed to tweak Darwin’s theory beyond recognition. Animals are far better in maintaining a balance in their numbers. We will see how mother nature re-establishes the balance for us.
The case of overpopulation
A few interesting articles I have read recently:
1. Birth control vs. overpopulation
2. Overpopulation and population control
Indeed, the only conclusion to overpopulation IS war. Its guaranteed to happen. People need food to survive and will fight for that food if necessary. Its a fact of life that will continue until we choose to change our societies towards a more healthy birth-rate.
3. A Malthusian nightmare made real
For a while the media will continue to ascribe riots and other violent upheavals abroad mainly to ethnic and religious conflicts. But as these conflicts multiply, it will become apparent that something else is afoot, making more and more places ungovernable.
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Hi, I'm Joy. I am a developer at Yahoo! Finance. Besides having fun with software design, hacking and programming, I enjoy photography, woodworking and touring on a motorcycle. Read on, and welcome to my blog.
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