So big news! Adri and I got legally married!
Kelsey officiated and our two friends Jen and John witnessed it. It was at home, we didn’t have a wedding.
Oh, and the three of us are having kids! Adri and Kelsey are both pregnant!
Here are some questions and answers:
(CW: This will probably be upsetting to read if you don’t have a partner, or if you want kids but can’t have them.)
Did you propose?
Yes!
Adri and I used to go on long night walks when we lived in Berkeley. We went back to California for our 10th anniversary trip and spent the day walking around Berkeley, visiting all the places we used to visit. We had dinner at our favorite restaurant and caught up with an old friend there. Then we went walking in North Berkeley where we used to go so many years ago. I was anxiously texting Kelsey throughout the night. We stopped in front of a random church and I set up my Go Pro like I was taking a picture. Then I just dropped down on one knee and proposed! Spoiler alert: she said yes.
Kelsey and I picked out the ring. Adri doesn’t like how big the rock is but I wanted it to be at least one carat. Alas.
What about Kelsey?
We plan to propose to Kelsey sometime too!
Why did Adri and I get married rather than Adri and Kelsey or Kelsey and I?
If all three of us could get legally married, then we would. But we’re playing the game, we’re pragmatists.
We sometimes want to avoid social friction and discomfort as much as we can. If Kelsey and I are staying in the closet about being poly, we will usually individually mention Adri as our partner because otherwise our living in Michigan or Florida wouldn’t make sense.
Also, Adri and I being married is best tax-wise, so Uncle Sam robs us less.
We’re conscious of people like Kelsey’s family feeling weird in the back of their minds about her not being “really” married, despite us thinking government-sanctioned marriage is bullshit.
Does it feel different?
Not really. I guess it feels settled in the sense that we don’t have to go through the bureaucratic hoops anymore.
What about a wedding?
We may have a wedding sometime! We think it’d be really nice to celebrate our relationship with loved ones. We also think it’d be nice to have a wedding for the three of us, but that may feel extra weird for some people.
Relatedly, we know it can be psychologically taxing that our parents don’t have “normal” kids, hitting society’s milestones like getting married to one opposite sex person and having children, or not caring about things outside the Overton window like life extension and AI safety. But that’s the price you pay for having smart kids!
Overall, they’ve been pretty supportive!
You and Adri have been together for over 11 years. You, Adri, and Kelsey have been together over 6 years. Why are you getting married now?
Because we’re having kids!
To be clear: we didn’t get married because Adri was pregnant. We decided we should have kids so we got married before trying to conceive.
I wanted us to be married before we had kids because it felt trashy otherwise. Philosophically, I don’t think people need to be married before they have kids, but it was a thing that would have bothered me personally.
And besides the image, we of course wanted to get married for the ease of navigating medical situations and legal protection. We’re also doing all the legal paperwork we can for the three of us to have power of attorney, be responsible for the kids if one of us dies, etc.
Should you have kids?
(This section that may be upsetting for some to read, especially for women without children.)
The decision to have kids is a really unfair one.
Assuming you have a partner and that both of you are fertile, you have a very limited window in which to make the decision.
You also have to decide with imperfect information. Unless you’re one of those people who “always knew” you wanted kids, you have to guess if you’ll be net happier with or without kids.
How do you find out?
Maybe you look around and see what kids and their parents are like. But you’re not necessarily encouraged by what you see. It seems like for every nice moment with a baby laughing or kids happily playing, there are innumerable ones of kids screaming and crying, not to mention their exhausted and harried-looking parents.
Maybe you even know some parents around your age. You’ll hear them go into long tirades about how they haven’t slept in months since their baby was born. Of course, they’ll add a perfunctory “But it’s all worth it!” at the end of the spiel.
“Is it?” you think to yourself. Are they trying to convince you or themselves?
You try to probe them more but it’s not kosher to say you regret having kids or wish you hadn’t. You’d be seen as a monster, so only with really close friends behind closed doors might you hear those dark thoughts. There’s a selection effect: you’re never going to hear those horror stories about how people truly regret having kids. (We tried to find some of those stories on the Internet, places like r/nokids where people were very motivated to prove to themselves and each other that they made the right decision to *not* have kids, but the only stories they came up with seemed to be along the lines of: “I am a single mom with no social support who just had a baby two months ago and now I hate my life.”)
Your parents’ and grandparents’ generation will tell you it’s worth it to have kids. With mild or full-on condescension, they tell you that eventually you’ll want kids, that you will be happier with them even if you say you won’t.
The problem is that none of this is falsifiable. The parents don’t know what their lives would have been like without kids. And the people without kids don’t know what it would have been like with them. Would they have been happier? We can only guess.
Okay, those are anecdotes. “Let’s look at some ‘scientific’ data!” you say.
You look up some research. Hmm, the data is mixed. Some say parents are happier and some say they aren’t. When you look closely, it seems like parents can report being less happy at any given moment but they also say they’re “happier” overall. What accounts for this discrepancy?
Distinguishing between experiential happiness and reflective happiness helps clear up this mystery.
Experiential happiness is the pleasure you get from something in the moment. Like the taste of a succulent Chinese meal. Reflective value, on the other hand, is the value you get from having done it and looking back on it later.
Let’s say you’re visiting Berkeley and eating at the famous Cheese Board Pizzeria. You bite into a slice of pizza and it tastes so good! That’s experiential happiness.
Now, let’s say it’s a year later, and you’re reading a list of the best restaurants and see the Cheese Board listed. Now you’re thinking about what a great time you had there, and the friends you shared it with, and you feel glad you’ve visited one of the best restaurants! That’s reflective happiness. (Yes, you could argue this is also experiential happiness but it’s more about whether it’s from something in the moment or not.)
I usually end up having more reflective than experiential happiness. For example, when I’m traveling, I can often be stressed out. I may not actually be that happy in the moment. I may be too distracted and overwhelmed. But after the trip is over, I get a lot of reflective value about it either way.
A couple who is watching a movie or going on a trip to Paris may be happier in the moment than parents cleaning up their toddler’s mess. But the parents could feel more reflective happiness or “fullness” looking back at their life than the people who didn’t have kids.
Okay, maybe having kids is best in theory but what about in practice?
(Having kids? In this economy?)
That’s another annoying thing about the timing. There’s a tension between the biology and the economics of it. Biologically, the earlier you have kids, the better. Economically, the later you have kids, the better.
“And is this the world you want to bring them into?” people say while broadly gesturing at the world and pointing to some war or climate change or whatever.
Ironically for an AGI doomer, I think most people talking about how terrible the world is are misguided. I generally buy into the Better Angels of Our Nature argument that things are better now in many ways than they’ve ever been. Most of the things people point to as being worse are actually way better than any other time in history. So unless they’re arguing that no one should have ever had kids at any time in history (anti-natalism is a valid argument), their argument is inconsistent.
Okay, let’s say you’ve decided you want kids!
(This section may be triggering for people without good partners or who cannot have children.)
Great! Do you have a partner you want to have kids with and they want to have kids with you and you’re fertile? Great!
But what if you don’t have a partner? Okay, well how old are you? Because you need to start finding one ASAP.
There are some facets of modern society that make this difficult. I’m thinking of roughly three things that make it particularly hard.
First off, there are a lot of mental health problems and unhappiness in general from the decline of strong social connections, friendships, communities, and otherwise that people like Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone have talked about.
For good and bad, humans are tribal creatures and we don’t thrive without strong social connections. Part of those social connections are relationships and families. Living in good economic conditions and in a high-trust society would make having kids much more appealing.
Second, there’s the growing infantilization of the current generation where independence has been delayed and adolescence has been more and more drawn out. Our grandparents were married and had kids before most of us figured out our college major.
Some of this is the shitty economy and some of this is other stuff. There are tons of depressing memes about this trend:
My parents at 24 vs me at 24 pic.twitter.com/iG1q1mdTpj
— Perc Nowitzki (@Bloody5Iveezy) December 7, 2020
Now you may look at the current trend and say it looks great! I agree that we should have the freedom to do what we want.
If you’re happier not going down the traditional path, more power to you (and to me being in a poly triad!).
I just think it’s important to acknowledge the tradeoffs to both the individual and society.
It’s a mistake to tell people that they can focus on a career for the majority of their child-bearing years if one of their goals is to find a partner (or partners) to have kids with. They can’t expect the odds of success to be in their favor.
(This is a general problem people have in arguing. The right thing to do may be whatever they’re advocating, but they don’t give any ground in acknowledging the downsides and tradeoffs.)
I obviously believe in the freedom to go against traditional societal standards. Yes, women should be free to pursue whatever career path they want, and should be free to choose a career over children. But it’s a huge mistake to act like you have plenty of time to figure out finding a partner or having kids after that.
I acknowledge that this is totally unfair, and not the way I would design things if I could. We should be able to have our cake and eat it too!
However, people don’t acknowledge there are tradeoffs in life, and act like “I’m just going to have a career and have children and it’s going to be great!” and then they don’t actually find a partner they like or get around to having kids. Or they do have kids and don’t get to spend time with them. Either way, they aren’t happy with the results, and if they say they are, they are probably defensively lying about how happy they are.
This brings me to the third problem: the current dating market.
Dating apps have probably made things worse on average for the majority of people.
The majority of men lose, with just a small fraction of men getting all the women. And the majority of women lose because they get strung along by the most attractive men who want sex instead of a relationship.
Hookup culture, as fun as it can be, isn’t generally conducive to being in a happy relationship. (Come join the ethical non-monogamy side for that, peeps.)
Dating apps also contribute to women having unrealistic expectations and standards for potential partners. I don’t mean unrealistic like “not being an asshole”. I mean unrealistic like “6’2” college-educated athlete who makes six figures. Also not a conservative!”
Women reading this may think that sounds fine and that they shouldn’t feel bad for wanting such a man! But it’s important to know how few of these men exist and that you face great competition for them. Not to mention, most women would be uncomfortable reading the reverse: “I want a girl who’s skinny with big tits and also a great cook! Not to mention great between the sheets!”
There’s also a cynicism that develops from being on dating apps for too long.
One of the other inherent problems in the dating market is efficient market hypothesis. In a mostly monogamous society, the longer time goes on, the fewer “quality” mates are available because they are already in relationships!
“Wait a minute!” you might be saying. “I’m a quality partner! I’m exceptional even!” I hear you. I know plenty of quality, single people. But you’re like a Lamborghini. Many people want to drive a Lamborghini but most people can’t afford it. The more exceptional you are, the more exceptional you want your partner to be. And by definition, there are fewer exceptional people than normal people, so you already have a much smaller pool of potential partners, in the same way that fewer people can afford a Lamborghini.
So getting back to the kids thing, how in the heck are you supposed to have your dream career AND find a quality partner who has mutual feelings about kids, all long before age 35? I know women personally who have had to make the decision to either:
-Hold out for a good life partner and have kids with them whenever that happens
-Lower their standards and get whoever they can get to knock them up
-Find a sperm donor
Men have their own problems to deal with but I think because we have more time biologically to have kids, and women traditionally have more identity placed on having children or being mothers, it’s a bit different.
What was the decision-making process for us?
Was the biological clock ticking?
On the one hand, yes, and on the other hand, absolutely not.
I think the biological clock is always ticking in the sense that aging and entropy in general is always happening and fertility is decreasing.
It wasn’t ticking in the sense that we all felt a strong urge to have kids.
Adri never felt a natural maternal urge and always thought we wouldn’t have kids. Kelsey had mixed feelings about having kids. Historically, I’ve been open to doing whatever my partner wanted. When I was with my first partner, we talked about having kids. When I was with Adri, we talked about not having kids. We continued to assume we wouldn’t have kids when we all got together.
The only thing that changed when I got older was that I would notice myself feeling wistful or warm towards seeing sweet moments between parents and their kids.
This section may sound foreign to some of you. “We didn’t even think about it! We wanted kids so we had them!” Most people just do things. But we don’t take the responsibility of bringing new consciousness into the world lightly.
We recognized the implications of this decision, and that we have a limited window in which to make it. This was important enough to warrant a significant amount of time and consideration. By a lot of consideration, I mean *a lot*.
We ended up spending close to two years deliberating! And I don’t mean it just took that long to get around to it. I mean very long, difficult discussions, journaling, shared Google Docs, etc. We talked about pros and cons on walks, on drives, long into the evenings. I even paid someone to compile all the posts in the rationality sphere about having kids so we could go through them! Part of what we found difficult about this decision was that we didn’t identify with many of the reasons people seem to list for having kids (e.g. “I felt an emptiness that needed to be filled”, or “I love babies, I’ve just dreamed of having them my whole life!”).
Why we thought we should
Humans evolved to enjoy having children. The three of us are all unique snowflakes, but because we enjoy all the other things humans evolved to enjoy, like food and sex and status, we thought we’d enjoy having kids too.
We also think it’s best to try to avoid the biggest average downside surrounding children, which is being existentially upset we didn’t have them.
When I say average, I’m contrasting that with horrific but very unlikely potential downsides, like having kids with extreme health problems that make them suffer a lot and require a ton of care, or having a little Omen psychopath kid.
If you don’t have kids, you don’t have to worry about issues like that, but the biggest *average* downside surrounding children is regretting not having had them. We thought it best to let the most common potential downside guide our decision-making rather than extreme but very rare ones.
Based on our personalities and spontaneous desire for kids thus far, we do think we’d be less likely to be very psychologically affected by not having kids the way others are.
Why?
I think that much of this suffering comes from either being in a mediocre to bad relationship, or being single and alone.
People also have a lot of confusion about “meaning” and “life’s purpose” that contributes. They keep their preferences and desires in a Schrödinger cat’s state of uncertainty, so they don’t have to acknowledge they are in a shitty place in life.
I think some people’s hesitation in saying they want kids is the same type of copium where people say they’re happy being single. If they were in a great relationship, they’d feel differently.
We thought about freezing eggs or embryos to buy us more time, but it seemed like an extreme hassle, and the odds of success aren’t encouraging.
Even though all of us are the kind of people who would naturally stress about doing parenting “right”, it helps that we recognize that parenting matters very little for long-term outcomes. (Read Bryan Caplan.) Genes matter most.
We’ll also be raising kids in a very different world. One in which they can’t be competitive in a job market and one in which they won’t need to be competitive (because of AGI).
(It’s kind of a bummer considering the three of us would make some rapacious kids.)
What about AGI? Or the crazy future in general?
Good question.
All parents have children knowing their children will one day die. Some unfortunate ones live to see it.
We thought about waiting to have kids because (if humanity doesn’t kill itself first) we’ll probably develop the technology for people to have kids at any age.
This would be amazing because then you wouldn’t have to guess if you wanted kids in the future. You could just wait until you wanted them and have them then.
There’s also the benefit of being able to have *gasp* designer babies in the future, which would be better so we could eliminate disease, neuroticism, and other things that make people suffer. What I wouldn’t do to get rid of my unnecessary biodetermined suffering!
People against designer babies are usually hyper-empathetic to those less fortunate, and rather than trying to raise people up so no one suffers, they bring everyone down. It’s the equivalent of making more people poor rather than ensuring that other people can be rich.
They also feel insecure about themselves and their own characteristics and imagine no one wanting them.
They also don’t understand that sexual selection does the same thing, just less efficiently.
As for AGI and the AI apocalypse, we don’t think our children will suffer if it goes wrong. It’s likely AGI will wipe us out very quickly and indifferently, like by releasing a toxin in the air that kills us instantly.
Obviously, we’re hoping for the post-scarcity and post-suffering utopia for us and our children, and for everyone.
Why it’s a bit easier for us
First off, there are three of us. Having kids will be *much* easier with three people.
One of us can watch them while the other two go out on a date. Adri and Kelsey can sleep in different rooms while I stay up and watch a movie or play video games or whatever while the babies (hopefully) sleep.
There are tradeoffs. If we had kids, it would be more difficult for all three of us to travel, especially internationally. But this is a normal downside all parents face.
We’re also not poor. Parenting is stressful enough without being constantly worried about how you’re going to afford everything. I knew since I was young, I would never have kids while being poor.
The only real downside to having three parents is that it makes the poly thing even weirder for people. We already get funny questions at border crossings because there are three of us together. We usually say Adri and I are married and Kelsey is our friend, but as one border guard astutely pointed out, “You’re married and you live with your friend…?”
What has it been like so far?
The process of trying to conceive is stressful. If you don’t already have kids, it’s easy to ruminate on whether pregnancy is going to happen at all because you don’t know if you can until it happens. “Will this be the time?” It’d be especially stressful if you’ve struggled at all with infertility! Luckily for us, it happened very quickly.
And once you do conceive, you also have to try to not get too attached to the baby because there’s such a high rate of miscarriage in the first trimester.
How extreme should you get with your diet or not? How extreme should you get with your environment? Should we be taking extreme measures to reduce microplastics or fluoride? What is pseudoscience, and what is something that’s just understudied and probably best to avoid?
Some people might say, “Just don’t worry about it!” but would those people be okay with children ingesting lead paint or asbestos?
Other people might say, “Just don’t stress too much about it if you’re getting the lower-hanging fruit right,” and I would say they have something of a point. It’s easy to Pascal’s-mug yourself.
Liberals and conservatives both get science wrong.
Liberals think we should “believe” and “trust in science” which is mind-blowingly naive. (Remember the replication crisis? Or how in February and March 2020 when the Surgeon General and the CDC told everyone to not use masks for COVID?) This is coming from someone who mostly just cares about technological development which is based on science.
Conservatives get too into conspiracy theories. They have too many false positives and can reject life-saving things like measles vaccines. They fall victim to the naturalistic fallacy and don’t realize the universe is indifferent and hostile.
Clinicians and scientists also have their own problems. (Don’t get me started with bioethicists!)
Clinicians will give you this blanket list of things to avoid like alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, more than 200mg a day of caffeine, raw fish, soft cheese, fresh fruit juice, and cold lunch meat. There’s no distinction between something that’s harmful in any amount, something that’s harmful above a certain threshold, and something that’s only harmful if it’s already contaminated. But then again, they have to make rules that are easy to follow for most people (and most people can’t follow rules as simple as “Take your heart medication”).
As for scientists, it’s very hard to run good studies and get good evidence. And nutritional science is one of the worst fields. This video illustrates this perfectly. One minute, eggs can be like smoking a cigarette and the next they can be essential.
So you can have the view that you shouldn’t worry about anything by default, and you only restrict something if the evidence meets a certain threshold.
Or you can have the opposite view, where everything is restricted until it meets the threshold of being safe.
Or you can be somewhere in the middle.
Ironically, I think medical professionals are too much on the side of the former: if there’s no evidence for it, they don’t worry about it. Some of this is practical because they don’t want to freak patients out about trivial things, and because most patients won’t change their behavior anyway, and they just want them to focus on not smoking or drinking or whatever. But if you’re trying to play a tighter game with regards to optimal baby health, you have to explore these things.
One way of doing this is to think about the ancestral environment and what we likely adapted to. This is more refined than just going by what’s “natural”. You’d have to take your own ancestral background into account. Maybe you’re not adapted to drink milk. Maybe you’re more adapted to a vegetarian diet, like if you’re from South Asia.
The 80/20 that’s recommended is to take folic acid and not smoke.
We know we got the most important thing right, though, which is choosing good partners to mate with. Adriana Lima got her beauty secret on point:
So here we are, nervous but excited!
It’s been quite the adventure getting here! Adri and my long journey here. The three of us getting together. Being in the closet for so long. Coming out to our family. Then coming out to everyone. And finally deciding to have kids!
Please hit us with all the advice you have!
What are your parenting tips?! Favorite resources?
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