There is a subtle but important distinction. Doing the things that met with evolutionary success may or may not lead to success in our current, resource constrained generation. Getting monetary assets to move up on the mating/resource ladder gives us the neurotransmitter mix that makes us 'feel good'. We have to recognize that we seek this 'feeling good', but that the cultural metric is flawed. In this sense, our brains (hardware) have been infected with the wrong program (software) on a planet full of desirous people.

But youre right - it ultimately gets down to the meaning of life, and how one spends his/her time. Writing this article is a prime example - I will not have children - I consciously know this. I also have a girlfriend, enough money, etc. I spend my time on this because it 'feels' like the right thing to do. Is this maladaptive? Im not certain, but I do know that the more people that are aware of our evolutionary derived tendencies, the more likely we can access the rational aspects of behaviour that we will need to defer consumption.

To think that one obeys one's selfish genes is to misunderstand what a selfish gene is. They don't give orders to phenomenes in real time, and no one suggests that they are even aware of the phenomene that carries them. Secondly, you could think of your brain as "infected" by unhelpful memes but this too is a distortion of the concept of a meme. Memes are neither helpful nor harmful to genes in a direct fashion. Assuming one accepts the concept of a meme, then their operational impact is through the phenomene, and so their operational impacts are concluded in total unawareness of a gene. There is also nothing contradictory about the operation of a meme, even if it generated your feelings of not wanting children, and the functioning of your genes. What it perhaps does illustrate is your awakening political awareness that all is not right in the world in a broad sense including both the ecological and political spectrums.

And yet, who cares?

To paraphrase Steven Pinker, your genes can go jump in a lake, if they don't like your plans.

Actually, the situation only gets me to be all the more glad I never had kids. After all, who would want to have kids in an environment where they will be worse off than any of us are in now? Why have kids when our government policy is to overpopulate the place by unbridled immigration? We have essentially outsourced child birth! Were it not for the 1965 immigration law change, our population would have stabilised around 230,000,000. But no, it's topping 300,000,000 and climbing like a jet plane on steroids. Any wonder housing is unaffordable?

Had that law not been made, we would have just for starters a lot less of an oil pinch like we have now. We would still be around the oil peak but not yet having gasoline at $4/gallon - with a hurricane threat of WAY higher prices at that pump.

Second, housing costs would not be orbital. Forget mere stratospheric! I mean 6-digit prices for studio condos just to start.

Petrol prices high enough yet? Just wait!