Being born: I'm going to skip conception, since all that takes is a bit of alcohol. Being born is very expensive, not for you (obviously) but for your family and society at large. Ignoring all of the costs associated with pregnancy, your very existence is a drain on the world. In Australia, parents get paid $5,000 to have a baby. Yep, you get paid to have children. Firstly, we do not need to incentivise people to have children, biological necessity already has that covered.
Secondly, all this does is make people have babies before they are ready. Considering the number of hoops that one needs to jump through in order to adopt children, having your own child is remarkably simple. It then follows that people will not always plan out their pregnancies, especially with this subgroup that consider abortion some unforgivable sin. Then we have people who are not ready to have children who now have children being given a huge amount of money. Brilliant idea, government.
Having children should not be rewarded. It's not just because I hate children (which I do), but its because we have too many people on Earth! We are running out of resources, and we cannot afford to keep shoving out babies at this rate, especially considering how long people are living for these days. We are fine for people at this point.
Plus, people with children are horribly entitled, as if the fact that they are a parent makes them special or deserving of extra credit. Nope, sorry. You chose to have kids, you don't get a cookie for raising kids. You are doing what is expected of you when you take on a task that billions of people throughout history have also completed. There is no reward for that.
Going to school: A proper education is of the utmost importance, if we're going to have all of these kids running around we'd better make sure they're good for something. But unfortunately school is full of things that are a huge drain on time and money. Primary school goes for ~7 years, and some people spend thousands in order to send their kids to a private primary school. But did you know that there is absolutely no way that anybody would be able to tell what sort of primary school an adult went to? It's true! Primary school is about counting and learning how to draw the letter 'a'. It does not matter where you go. And don't get me started on Catholic schools.
Secondary school is also largely pointless. I remember hours wasted on things that had no practical application to myself or society at large like: What happened in WW2, how to take photos of things, how to make pots, watching the Shawshank Redemption and watching Michael Jackson music videos. We seriously do not need to subject kids to 13 years of this crap. If school wasn't obviously just to keep children occupied until they get old enough to be useful, we could get rid of it. Reading Romeo and Juliet has not helped the anyone ever.
Going to University: This follows on from school. There is so much to do at University, and most of it is totally useless. Read: almost all social sciences. I did a semester of Sociology, it is literally just observations that everyone makes anyway, but with longer, unnecessary words. Many people get degrees and proceed to do nothing with them.
The problem is that society pushes young adults to go to University without knowing whether University is right for them or what they're good at. So many people I know had no idea what to do until right before they forced to make a decision, and how many of them will regret picking what they picked? The amount of time and money that one spends on money seems even worse considering how little degrees seem to be worth even 10 years after one gets one.
Getting married: What's the average amount that people spend on their weddings? I heard that it was around US$28,000. It boggles my mind that people would spend that much on one day. I saw a comment and somebody was implying that their $10, spent was considered cheap. They spent $3,000 on alcohol alone. What the fuck.
Maybe I'm just the wrong person to ask, as I don't see the point in getting married (or dating, for that matter). But spending tens of thousands of dollars on one event is extremely over the top. This is a problem in our society, that people can justify this sort of money sink. I would hope that the zeitgeist would shift towards more simple marriages (or none at all), but it appears that we're moving the opposite way. There should not be any way to rationalise spending this much money. No, I do not care that it is your special day. What a shit life you must have if only one day has this much worth, and considering that you'll probably get divorced anyway, what's the point?
People apparently have hundreds of people attending their weddings. Seriously, who has this many friends? The actual answer: nobody. At most one could really only a dozen or so good friends, and then a handful of family members who you actually care about. But no, for the wedding you must invite as many people as you can afford. Family members you haven't seen for years, friends you sort of know and see occasionally, plus ones and your weird step cousins who you've never seen, nobody is off limits. Is it just a need to show off, to make your big day as special as possible by having as many strangers as possible watching?
And please do not get me started on proposals. Yes, it's cute when your boyf gets a whole restaurant to play along in some stupid song, but it's annoying for everyone else. And why can't women propose, again? You know that your relationship will fail when instead of just talking about marriage like adults you resort to lame fucking hints and passive aggression.
Having your own children: I touched on this before, but one spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on children in their lifetime. Now, this isn't really a problem if you want children, as you would view the benefit as outweighing the cost, and anyway, that cost is spread of over decades (unlike a wedding, where the cost is spread over... a day). But what about those who don't really want children? Well, guess what? You get years of people asking you when you're going to be having children/why you won't be!
Luckily I am way too young to be hearing this stuff, not that I don't already know people who have had children. But I know all the stories. It's probably one of the things that I am dreading the most about being in my 30s, which I am otherwise looking forward to. Actually, I love confrontation, so it won't be so bad. I have no fear regarding telling people that their baby looks ugly.
Sidebar: I also have no problem telling people they picked a stupid name for their child. Most of these kids will have to change their names if they ever want to be taken seriously. Calling your kid Blaze or Storm is cute when they are one year old, not so cute when they are twenty five.
So my problem with pestering your friends to have children is that it is probably the biggest money/time sink in one's life. At best they will feel like they have to have children due to social convention, and that's certainly a good recipe for a loving family. If you want to spend your life creating other lives which will almost certainly be as futile as your own, be my guest. But please shut up about your children. Nobody cares that your little shit can read and he's only four. Go away.
I mentioned this before, but why is it so hard to adopt when it's so easy to have your own children? Anyone can breed, anyone at all. We should encourage adoption, as you could probably argue that with our lack of resources and the number of children without homes is is selfish to not adopt. Why is there such a stigma against telling people that they are not fit to be parents?
Being old: Yes, being old is a waste of money too. Realistically, there is no reason for the government to support seniors. One could argue that the government should only assist those who can benefit our society, and seniors have nothing to add. Of course I believe we should support our senior citizens, but is there really a rational reason for it? When we start going into debt, senior benefits should be the first thing we cut, but of course no politician would dare say that, due to the huge backlash. Another problem with democracy - it gives all the power to the uninformed majority.
Dying: Dying is surprisingly expensive. Have you seen the cost of funerals? Being cremated alone costs over $2000! You're just throwing a body into a furnace, where does all the money go? There are these ads on TV for funeral insurance, and apparently they cost so much money, even the flowers cost hundreds of dollars.
Now, I do not see the point in spending this much on funerals. Just like with weddings, I refuse to go into debt just to bury someone in a hole. Giving them a fancy funeral will not bring them back to life. My mother has said that they only have insurance in case of an accident, I told her that if she dies she's being chucked in the river. Sorry Mum, should've gotten a more comprehensive plan, eh?
Personally, I don't care what is done with me after I die. I'm dead, it doesn't matter. I won't know. I would get insurance if I had any dependants, because I wouldn't want them to deal with hassle. But I have no requests otherwise. Play whatever cheesy shit song you want, bury me whereever you want. I see it as more about helping the loved ones deal with the death rather than what the dead person wants. Seriously, they're dead. They will not know.
It's strange how that once someone dies we somehow treat them differently. I think I'll talk more about this later, maybe after some really famous person who I don't care about dies. But for the moment, I don't see why someone's death changes their status. If someone was a jerk alive, they're a jerk dead. While I celebrate the death of my enemies, I do feel for the loss of those who lost them. But come on, every one of those crazy evangelists who carks it is one less person to spew garbage in this world.
So there you are, there are the costs of living. I really just scratched the surface here, anyway. I don't think there's a lot we can really do other than trying to change the social conciousness, and what better way to do that other than writing a blog that nobody reads! Eh, it's just fun to get my feelings out there. But this is why I won't be able to have a political career, I'm just way too much of a maverick.
Have a nice day.
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