michael_nielsen

I can easily sink 80 hours/week into work I deeply enjoy. I can’t imagine doing so w/o the pleasure. Sometimes our values flow automatically from the particulars of our psychology. Makes it hard to imagine any other way. Seems like that’s what’s happening on both sides here.https://twitter.com/juliagalef/status/1103737522184609792 …

As an additional note, I don’t love disagreeing in a quote tweet because it can look like an attempt to dunk. I like Julia’s comparison a lot, it just pushed me in the opposite direction.

Note my claim wasn't that the childless are more likely to help humanity. Claim was that it's absurd (& a little concerning) to claim only parents care about the future of humanity. If I was betting on the effect of parenthood -> altruism, I'd be unsure:https://twitter.com/juliagalef/status/1103826631666294785 …

Like, I totally believe there are many people whose caring about the future stems from concern for their kids. I just raise my eyebrow at the claim "The only reason someone could have to care about the future is if their kids will be affected by it."

Vicarious emotion is a wonderful characteristic of humans. *Everybody* cares about children. We all used to be children, know children, and many of us have children. It's one of the universals.

I've met people who claim to simply dislike children. Not people I easily empathize with along other axes, but it's an existence proof. All were pretty misanthropic, IIRC, so maybe they just disliked people.

I know at least one very warm and friendly person who says she really dislikes kids.