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RichardKennaway comments on Why people want to die - Less Wrong Discussion

49 Post author: PhilGoetz 24 August 2015 08:13PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 25 August 2015 10:29:20AM 0 points [-]

How does this compare to the general population of a similar age?

Comment author: Dustin 25 August 2015 02:55:14PM *  3 points [-]

According to Gallup, 53% of people 18-40 (I'm 37) have children, and another 40% who don't want to.

Also according to Gallup and contrary to the implications in the original post, only 7% of all those aged 45+ with children would go back and not have children.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspx

Comment author: slicedtoad 28 August 2015 02:46:18PM *  2 points [-]

"Go back and not have children"

Ehh, I don't think that's a valid question to ask someone with kids. It's effectively, "would you prefer your children not be alive right now?" Or, "do you consider your children mistakes now that you've raised them?".

I'm not sure what the optimal way to phrase the question would be but maybe:

"If your biological age was reset to 20, would you start another family?" Or "If you could give advice to the parallel universe you who is 25 years younger, would you tell him to have kids?"

Hmm, those still aren't great.

Comment author: Dustin 28 August 2015 10:02:52PM *  2 points [-]

This is a good point, but I did a poor job conveying the actual question asked by Gallup, which was:

If you had to do it over again, how many children would you have, or would you not have any at all?

Which, at least, is a little better than what I implied.