Kids

R: Do you want kids?

Nathan: No, do you?

R: Of course I do.

Nathan: How many? Boys? Girls?

R: Probably one of each. Maybe I'd like three, altogether.

Nathan: Would you use technology to make sure you get what you want?

R: No, I would not try to genetically engineer my child. How come you don't want kids?

Nathan: I believe there are things that demand more urgent attention in our world.

R: Raising children is one of the most selfless things you can do.

Nathan: I disagree.

R: Why?

Nathan: I do think it would be wrong to have kids and then neglect them, but wanting them and getting them doesn't seem any more selfless than anything else.

R: Well, maybe not, but raising them and giving them all of you, protecting them, teaching them, and making them good people. That is selfless.

Nathan: When people talk about the children they've had, they use a possessive to describe them. "That child is mine," they say. Giving your all for your own possession is not exactly selfless. Sometimes people decide that having people who are likely to love them automatically is worth the effort of raising them. I don't think that making people "good" by having parental influence on them is an honest way to make good people either. People can try to push anything on their children, and the children will believe some nonsense because their parents do.

R: I didn't mean make them good. Just guide them through life and show them how to be good people.

Nathan: Good people are good for their good actions. Why play the lottery with kids? You can't make sure they're good, and even if they do turn out good, they can just use up their time making more good kids. Raising kids because they can be good people is a terrible case of procrastination. You're not just procrastinating the action until tomorrow or later in your life. You're avoiding it and passing it to the next generation. There's enough good to do to fill your entire life without having kids. What if every student who learned to be an accountant wanted to teach accounting instead of actually going out and being an accountant? There would be no accountants. It seems there is a shortage of people who do good but plenty who have children. It is possible to have children and do good, but a specialist does his job better, and because of the shortage of people who do good and the abundance of people who have children, skipping kids and putting more effort into doing good seems to be the better choice.