Thanks! Good question—indeed I did consider lots of meditation, writing a book, and various other things, and the decision was close. Having kids had the added bonus of “exploring the breadth of human experience” and that felt important. It also has a certain reliability as you mentioned.
KidsOrNoKids
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Thanks for the question! While from an emotional perspective, I care a ton about our kids’ wellbeing, from a utilitarian standpoint this is a relatively minor consideration given I hope to positively impact many beings’ lives through my career. Thus, we looked at the child’s wellbeing on a very high level—guessing that our children have good chances at a net positive life because they will likely grow up with lots of resources and a good social environment. The one aspect we weren’t confident enough to just eyeball was whether lots of nanny would be bad for them, hence we did some research on that (under “Child health”).
It’s still under review by the Lesswrong team I believe—should hopefully go live shortly
Thanks! This is a good point—I’ll look into that.
Thanks for the added perspective!