Should I have kids?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 985 Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2021
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"To be or not to be” was never your decision. No one alive today is an “exister” by consent - your parents made that call for you. But who can blame them? Animals are hardwired with strong impulses towards their procreative goals, and we humans, by and large, are no different. But for some conscientious people alive today, this most fundamental of biological impulses is butting up against a rational pessimism about the future...
With apocalyptic scenes of natural disasters, rising sea levels and global pandemics causing existential dread and actual suffering, it's understandable that CrowdScience listener Philine Hoven from Austria wrote to us asking for help her make sense of what she sees as the most difficult question she faces - should she have children?
In this episode, presenter Geoff Marsh helps Philine to predict what kind of a world her hypothetical child might inhabit, and explores the impact their existence, or indeed non-existence might have on society and the planet. Plus, we'll explore what ‘antinatalism’- a philosophical stance which argues against procreation, can tell us about the moral landscape of the unborn. With Ms Caroline Hickman, Professor Mike Berners-Lee, Professor Noriko Tsuya and Professor David Benatar.
Presented and produced by Geoff Marsh for BBC World Service
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. I have a younger sister. I was actually. |
| 0:35.0 | Zoon. |
| 0:36.0 | I'm plaid? |
| 0:38.0 | No, fake. |
| 0:40.0 | I have a younger sister, she's 12. I was 12 when my mother gave birth to her so I know what it is like to raise a child because I was really engaging in that as well. |
| 0:55.0 | Who does hang? |
| 0:58.0 | Welcome to Crowds from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:01.0 | I'm Jeff Marsh and this week we're trying to find an answer to one of life's most common |
| 1:05.9 | quandaries. My name is Feline. I live in Salzburg in Austria. My question for crowd science is, is it responsible for me to have children? |
| 1:17.5 | You want that for yourself? I really would like to have children, but when I look at the news, I get quite pessimistic and |
| 1:28.9 | unsure of the future. The United Nations estimates that drought brought on by the effects of climate change could displace |
| 1:39.4 | as many as 700 million people by the... |
| 1:41.8 | Thousands of people in the Western United States |
| 1:44.6 | are spending the weekend and evacuation. |
| 1:48.2 | We start with these catastrophic floods in the Europe, |
| 1:51.3 | the Western German states of Rhineland, Polytinate and North Westphalia have experienced their |
... |
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