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Would you tell the same to people having children in developing countries? What about a hundred years ago? I get what all of you are trying to say, but having and raising children is such a persistent constant of the human experience that the argument seems outlandish. There is also the fact that children were usually your support system for old age. From that perspective, if everyone magically stopped having children right now, we would face lives of misery and helplessness in about two or three decades time. At that point, why not just advocate for mass suicide? It will result in less suffering and drastically cut emissions as well.
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Apr 5, 2018 18:32
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Oxxidation posted:also your kids will live lives of unspeakable poverty and suffering and die cursing your name, assuming you don't do any of the dozens of other things to make them hate you before the world ends Most of the current problems in first world countries can be directly traced to the decisions and culture of relatively close generations (e.g. the Boomers). Do you intend to die cursing your parents/grandparents name?
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Apr 5, 2018 18:45
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Okay then. I personally disagree, but I can definitely understand that.
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Apr 5, 2018 18:48
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Perry Mason Jar posted:I mean climate change certainly doesn't help but income inequality is widening, antibiotics are rapidly becoming useless, there's about a billion wars and multiple genocides happening right now with the US taking on a trade war with Russia and China that could feasibly become a massive war in and of itself. Add climate change to that equation. Even if your children lead humdrum middle class lives in the United States the odds that they'll be mentally ill, drug addicted, or murdered by a spree killer are pretty good and climbing. So you're saying they will have as good or better lives than most people in developing countries have right now?
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Apr 5, 2018 18:54
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Developing countries retain communal and spiritual lives, essentially wholly absent in the US and Canada (though not as absent in many European countries), that well insulate against mental illness and drug addiction so it's probably unintuitively worse here. They do? How? Also, if you look, I am sure you can find some welcoming communities or religions that accept outsiders in the U.S. or Canada. If you feel like that would lead you to a better life, you could always try and join them.
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Apr 5, 2018 19:04
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Mozi posted:I don't want to bet the future of the planet on 'we'll figure it out, trust me!' How does this relate to the current conversation about the morality of having children?
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Apr 5, 2018 19:48
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Because it's extremely selfish to roll the dice on a person's suffering or lack thereof when I could just not create a person and try to alleviate the suffering of a life that already exists. Adoption is definitely a good thing, I agree. What I don't agree with is casting having children as morally bad because they might grow up in conditions that plenty of others have gone through and are going through right now. It's not like you're personally responsible for their hypothetical suffering in the future.
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Apr 5, 2018 19:53
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Perry Mason Jar posted:I have enough evidence to suggest that I should expect an undue and unreasonable amount of suffering for future generations so I'd say I definitely am personally responsible for their suffering. It's not the same as having a kid and unexpectedly dying and now they're in the foster system or something like that. What is an undue and unreasonable amount of suffering? More importantly, what is a due and reasonable amount of suffering?
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Apr 5, 2018 20:01
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Mostly you've said that it's fine to have children, knowing that their life will very likely be poo poo, because life has been bad before and also is still bad in some places now. You should only have children if you can afford to raise them and take care of them. If that is the case, then at least part of their life will not be poo poo, or at least no more than yours is right now, and probably better, unless someone is taking care of you now. That quality of life may potentially drastically go down in the future isn't your fault, unless you are purposely working toward that goal.
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Apr 5, 2018 20:21
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Alternatively I could do the same thing with the same attitude for an already existing orphan. As I said, adoption is good. In this sense, it's better than having children. What I am saying is that having children isn't morally bad either. It is a morally neutral act and a prominent part of most people's lives.
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Apr 5, 2018 20:31
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Do people in this thread ever not rehash the same two arguments over and over again? Looking forward to checking this thread again in four months to read about how having children makes you immoral, how many countries OOCC flew to to photograph cats, how meaningless individual action is, and how we must all accept despair/murder politicians.
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Jul 31, 2018 08:19
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AceOfFlames posted:
Okay. What do you get out of posting in this thread and wallowing in depression? What's the "payout" here? You're literally choosing to do nothing while being utterly miserable, just because doing something has a high chance of failure, which means...what? How is failing to improve things for yourself worse than not trying in the first place and then...still not improving things for yourself? You are clearly unsatisfied with where you are at this point, otherwise you wouldn't be posting these screeds in this thread.
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Nov 3, 2018 11:41
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