TLDR: This argument comes up again and again, usually from conservative readers: "I want to have kids in order to spread my genes." No you don't. You want to have kids for whatever other reasons. "Spreading your genes" is not something you consciously want to do - it's something that happens as a result of what you do.

There are three candidates for the level where evolution works:

1) the Genes,

2) the Individual, and

3) the Group.

Out of them, evolution works only on level 1 and 3, i.e. evolution only works on the level of Genes and Groups, not on Individuals.

It's our genes that get propagated by evolution not "our self". Our self dies. A lot of our behavior has been programmed in order for these little bastards to propagate themselves (and that, during the evolutionary period, not today).

So, for instance, even though you might be fully conscious that you don't ever want to have children, even if you have a vasectomy, your lithic-era programming makes you want to fuck women. They, i.e. your genes, think they will propagate, thus making you chase pussy. Their interests might very well be contrary to your interests. It's all subconscious.

Now honestly, the best way to propagate "your" genes today is becoming a sperm donor. But hardly anyone claiming "I want to propagate my genes" turns the world upside down in order to become a sperm donor. Why is that? Is it just hypocrisy?

Well, yes, it is, but they don't even realize it. They want to have "their" children, and "raise them right", etc etc etc. This means, they have internalized societal expectations, mixed them up with their psychological expectations and insecurities (I don't want to die alone, I want to have someones to look up to me, I want to be loved), mixed them up with what their genes wanted them to do back in the primeval era, and produced this haphazard "ideology" of child-making. It is even mainstream.

So,

1) The way to "spread your genes" today is to become a sperm donor. (In case you haven't caught it yet, I'm just saying that ironically, because they are not your genes, you are theirs).

2) If you want family and kids, that's what you want: family and kids. You don't want to "spread your genes". You don't get to want to spread your genes. It makes no sense. You are a vehicle for your genes to spread themselves.

Now, family and kids isn't even the way genes were spread during the evolutionary adaptedness period. Genes are spread with one way: fucking.

The takeaway:

I hope I'm being clear here: I'm not (in this post) arguing against having kids per se. I'm arguing that having kids, even more in today's social setup, is not about spreading your genes. It is something that you, for whatever reasons, legitimate or illegitimate, have been driven to desire.

So this took a bit longer that I planned, so I'm not going to go at length onto how evolution works in the Group level. (Short story: when a groups survives, its gene pool survives. That's because groups do survive. Individuals don't.)

TRP concludes "don't marry" for several good reasons. I hope that by making the issue around reproduction a bit clearer, you can let go of any pressure you might had had about it.

-Adam.

(EDITED for clarity.)