You can't put a price on moving your genes forward in the time. It's is a kind of immortality. I know this couple in their 50s, and they never had kids. They make it a point to go to a tropical resort every Xmas. They seem kinda sad to me... there ain't nothing like being surrounded by multiple generations of family at holidays. Sure, we all have the crazy aunt or retarded stockbroker cousin, but all-in-all it's better to have a large family fighting over the drumstick on Thanksgiving than to be looking across a table at your spouse of 25 years and ordering another round of mai tais.
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But that's a circular argument. For example, if your life has no point to it without kids, then your kids' life has no point to it either. You would be raising someone to have a meaningless life. Life has to have a point of its own, for reproduction to have any point. After all, if life is otherwise pointless, what is the point in creating more of it or sustaining it? So, the meaning of life cannot be to have kids.
Well you are just as dead whether you died childless, or had 100+ kids like Genghis Khan. When you are dead, you are not in a position to care whether your passed on your DNA or not. You may think that matters now, but it will not matter to you one iota once you are worm food 6 feet under.
People start businesses, bust their asses for 40 years to make it successful and build a name for themselves that they hope will last for a long long time. Generally the company goes under or gets sold off and broken up 10 years or so after the owner retires and his legacy is gone...just like that. How is that for a worthless investment? On the other hand...A child can carry on your name well past your death. People want to die being remembered and they dont want to die being remembered as the lonely old man who lives by himself who maybe had a better than average car because he didnt have kids to spend money on. I mean really...Whats the point of working hard and saving all your money anyway? So you can get in a situation one day and say "hey, I have more money than you buddy, so that makes me better!" Really? I dont get it.
How do you know how someone feels after they die? 90% of the world believes there is some kind of afterlife after they die.