This post was inspired by a Reddit thread where a man responded to his friend’s comment about not having kids with, “What’s the point of living then?”

Let me answer that for you, son.

The point of living is being alive. It is experiencing, learning, connecting, and carving a path through this world that no one will ever tread again. It’s staying up to watch the stars shine, hugging your grandma, and demolishing the first chocolate after Lent. It’s all the tiny and huge and wonderful and beautiful and terrible and exquisite moments that make up your time on this planet. And you’ve just reduced it all to a mindless conveyor belt of biological code.

Do you honestly believe that the fundamental purpose of a person’s existence is to create more people? That’s it? You’re just here to merge your goods with someone else’s, pop out some 50/50 splits and die?

If that’s all you’re striving for in life, I feel sorry for you.

Humans like to consider ourselves far above the other organisms on this planet, superior to everything from lions to spiders. And yet we seem to pride ourselves disproportionately on one thing they can all do without even thinking: reproduce. Shouldn’t we be more proud of our soaring skyscrapers, our life-saving scientific discoveries, our art and literature?

If our sole mission is to pass on our genes, why be conscious at all? Why have thoughts or feelings? Why build a society or choose a career or even get up in the morning? Single-celled organisms replicate a lot more prolifically without this messy business called living getting in the way.

Many, many thousands of people don’t have kids, and still have rich, fulfilled lives that we’ve all benefited from. Take Salvador Dali. George Clooney. George Eliot. Dostoevsky. Ricky Gervais. Oprah Winfrey. Vivaldi. Michaelangelo. Emily Bronte. James Dean. Jesus Christ. MOTHER FLIPPING TERESA. Are you getting me yet? Are you just going to wipe out these people’s achievements because they haven’t done something most 16-year-olds could accomplish in the toilets at school?

Now, I’ll concede that passing on your genes is a great thing for humanity. I’ll also accept that while creating a baby is not hard work (some people seem to rather enjoy it), raising one well absolutely is. Fine. I agree. But to say life is pointless without it? I’m not having that.

So here’s some advice for you, Mr Judges-His-Friends: it is perfectly possible to pass on your genes without having kids. If you really think you’re just here to ensure your autosomal DNA lives another day, well, the sperm bank has a plastic pot with your name on it. But don’t think about, say, Cameron Diaz while you’re in there, will you? Because according to you, her empty womb renders her worthless — and you couldn’t be more wrong.