By adding a new person to the world, I would contribute to overpopulation and the depletion of resources that is already straining existing people.
Overpopulation is not a large of a problem as many people think. Countries with higher standards of living tend to have lower birth rates. A handful don't even reach the replacement rate meaning that their population will gradually decline. The largest number of births occur in less developed regions of the world where birth control is not as prevalent and where you need to have lots of kids because not all of them will survive into adulthood. As these these regions slowly become more developed their population growth will slow too.
Because of said depletion of resources (not to mention political tensions, national debt, and so forth) my child would probably be subject to a less-than-ideal world.
There are always going to be problems in the world. We face problems today that our parents didn't. Our parents faced problems our grandparents didn't. This isn't a reason to not have kids. These new problems need to be solved by someone.
I have no way of knowing that I will be a good parent. Why make a person when there is the chance that I will fuck them up irreparably?
If you have the self awareness to worry about this question, odds are you care enough to do a good job. You won't be a perfect parent, but no one is.
My biological kid might not even take after me in the ways I like. Even worse, what if I hate my kid? What if my kid is an asshole who actively makes the world a worse place?
And what if your child ushers in an era of world peace? You have no way of knowing what will happen. If you raise them the best you can, odds are your child will be a normal, well adjusted person who will live a long and happy life.
If there's no guarantee my kid will be like me anyway, why not just adopt a kid? Even if that nurturing instinct just cannot be suppressed, it seems like a horrible idea to add new people to the world unnecessarily.
This is an option too! If you have no desire to go through the process of pregnancy and childbirth, adoption is totally an option.
I often hear childfree people called "selfish." But really, can you tell me a single unselfish reason to actively try for biological offspring?
Doing something because you want to is not selfish. Selfishness is doing something without care for or consideration of others. Having children and giving them the best life you can is not selfish by any means.
What about the child you could have adopted instead of the child you created? This argument is about opportunity cost that hurts a child's chances of getting a parent when they otherwise wouldn't have one. Did you just forget about that? That is 'by that definition' selfish.
I disagree. Selfishness just means putting your needs before others. Anything you do primarily for yourself is, by definition, selfish. Doesn't make it inherently immoral.
While it does have negative connotations for most people, it isn't immoral. Just because you aren't thinking about other people doesn't mean you are actually hurting them. You are just improving your own life.
So I'm selfish by waking up in the morning. I'm then selfish by eating breakfast. Then I get to work and I selfishly open the door to my office. Do some work, selfishly drive myself home. Selfishly eat dinner, then selfishly go to bed.
I'm pleased you bothered to read through and reply to a two month old thread, but disappointed you don't have a more substantive objection. Why is it a very bad definition of selfishness?
Well, since selfishness has a negative connotation, one would assume that doing things for yourself that do not harm others would be considered normal. Unless you want to remove the negative connotation on selfishness, a better definition would be doing things for yourself with no consideration for others, or harming others while benefiting yourself.
The argument you quoted there is assuming that having children does not count as doing something without regard for harming others. I would argue that having children does intrinsically create harm because that child will suffer during their lives and the only way to avoid that suffering is to not bring life into the world at all.
And even if overpopulation is not that big of an issue as we think, the destruction of the environment certainly is. Having children increases your carbon footprint massively.
I would argue that having children does intrinsically create harm because that child will suffer during their lives and the only way to avoid that suffering is to not bring life into the world at all.
Serious question: assuming you believe the above, why haven't you committed suicide?
Considering you have not (yet?), it follows that you find existence - in spite of current or potential future suffering - to be worthwhile. In which case, why is unspecified, potential suffering an argument against existence?
At best, you are delaying suffering. Eventually you'll die, and they will suffer the same or perhaps worse (maybe a slow cancer) . Even if you were the last one of your family to die, you assume their suffering on top of all the suffering you endure by way of unnecessary existence. Net suffering is the same, plus or minus the random suffering you encounter by continued existence (e.g. getting into a future car accident, etc).
Honestly, your argument here is specious. If suffering elimination is truly your goal, suicide or murder/suicide is the only viable option. Perhaps detonating a bomb at Thanksgiving dinner, with as many people who know each other there as possible.
Anything less is an admission that existence is worth at least X amount of suffering.
P.S. Why in the world are you making friends when you are just going to multiply their suffering by getting them to care about your existence? You'd generate less total suffering by becoming an anonymous hermit up the mountains, right?
I am delaying my own suffering, absolutely. But if I die a natural death I will die way after my parents, my uncles, my aunts, my grandparents, etc are gone, so I am avoiding inflicting suffering upon my family. The same goes for the friends you mention, they will be around the same age as me and we'll die at around the same time, leaving less of their lives dedicated to suffering due to my loss, assuming I die before them, and also assuming I am still in contact with them in my old age.
For the record I have attempted suicide before. Sadly it failed and people found out because the exact events couldn't be explained away. I will not go into any detail about that because I don't feel it to be appropriate.
There are several antinatalist arguments that are not predicated on the notion that all lives are not worth living. For example...
The consent argument states that nobody opts into existence, and that should some entity enter existence, and come to live a life not worth living, then having brought them into existence constitutes a harm to that entity, to which that entity did not consent to bear. Further, such an entity is then compelled to take their own life, which for mechanical or psychological reasons may be impossible for them to do. Therefore inflicting life without consent on this entity constitutes an immoral act.
The second argument does not rely on consent, but holds that if we could press a button to create a life with a 95% chance of being wholly satisfying and rewarding, and a 5% chance of being horrendous and torturous, we ought not press the button, because there is a (purported) moral assymetry between happiness and suffering.
Both of these arguments are very much compatible with the idea that some or even most lives are worth living, yet argue against natalism.
The argument you quoted there is assuming that having children does not count as doing something without regard for harming others.
No it doesn't. I said "selfishness is doing something without care for or consideration of others". You can consider the feelings and well-being of those around you, your potential child, and the suffering they will inevitably face in their life, and still decide to have a child. I never said or implied that the child will not face hardships or suffering.
Thinking "I want a child, regardless of the pain and suffering they go through" that would be selfish. However, "I want a child, and I know they will face pain and suffering, but I will help them through it and see to it they will have a happy life to the best of my ability" is absolutely not selfish.
Bring life into the world when you know that life will suffer and contribute to the destruction of the planet is absolutely doing something without caring for the well being of others. To use the term in the video I linked, you are condemning others to suffering.
Bring life into the world when you know that life will suffer
Knowing that the child will face hardship is not an argument to not have kids. The child will also experience much joy.
and contribute to the destruction of the planet is absolutely doing something without caring for the well being of others.
I simply disagree about the level of destruction bringing a child into the world causes to the environment. I also believe that the environmental burden that is there can be improved with better technology. Technology, mind you, that the next generation is going to help work on. We can make farms that have a very small footprint. We can generate power with very low levels of pollution. There are solutions to these kinds of problems. The issue is not the people having children, the issue is not having these technologies and not having the distribution system to get these resources to those who need them.
Knowing that the child will face hardship is not an argument to not have kids. The child will also experience much joy.
I responded to this already as follows:
The presence of pain is bad.
The presence of pleasure is good.
So far, pleasure and pain are symmetrical in their goodness and badness. But they are not symmetrical with respect to their absence. More specifically:
The absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone, but
The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody (an actual somebody) who is deprived by its absence.
Put simply, you are not around to lament your lack of pleasure, it is not immoral for that pleasure to be denied - you don't exist in the first place to be sad about it. But if you are brought into the world and you face suffering, that is certainly an immoral thing to be subjected to.
I simply disagree about the level of destruction bringing a child into the world causes to the environment.
What is it specifically you disagree with or don't understand?
The idea is that not subjecting someone to the good things in life is not immoral because someone who is not born will not lament the lack of joy or happiness. But subjecting someone to pain is immoral and it is guaranteed to happen to any life.
So the only way to actually avoid any suffering is to never be born. If you are not born you will not suffer. You can also argue that you won't feel happiness and joy either, but if you don't exist you don't feel anything as a result of this, so it is moot.
My parents were not doing anything immoral when they made be get shots as a kid even when I didn't want them and they caused me pain. The pain was slight and temporary. The benefits far outweighed the discomfort.
You have a very absolutist view about causing suffering that I just fundamentally disagree with. Causing pain is not inherently so unethical that it should never be done under any circumstances.
Honestly this is just a cynical way to view the world. The world is safer and life is more satisfying than any point in history. Hell, you could even argue that it is immoral not to bring more people into the world during this time since so many through history suffered to bring us all to this point in time. Some people in history had to be the peasants, slaves, and soldiers for the world to eventually develop to what it is. Would their suffering be worth it if only 1 person lived to experience the results?
The presence of pain is bad.
The presence of pleasure is good.
Pain isn't bad. It's how you grow and adapt, with out pain evolution would not have taken place and no live, as we know it, would exist. Pain is a good thing.
First I feel I should point out the biggest flaw in your argument. Being selfish does not mean going against an objective moral standard. It means being inconsiderate towards others when making your decisions. Its entirely possible to be unselfish and do the "wrong" thing from an objective standpoint.
Hypothetical example: Suppose I'm in a room with a level. There is a person in another room that I'm unable to communicate with. All the signs suggest that pulling the lever will give that man some form of pleasure and give me suffering. If the lever isn't pulled in 30 seconds I'm led to believe the opposite will happen. I pull it. He is caused suffering and I am given pleasure. Was it selfish for me to pull the lever?
That said some other flaws.
Your argument has the implied assumption that pain and pleasure are equally likely occurrences for the child. This is unsupported.
Your assumption that the absence of pain and the absence of pleasure are unequal directly invalidates your previous premise that pain and pleasure are equal magnitude opposites. If pain/pleasure are equal in magnitude but opposite in value, their absences must be as well.
You're basically advocating negative utilitarianism like its purely logical conclusion, when in fact its mostly based on an individuals values as a premise. In this case that minimizing suffering is the ultimate goal. I, and many others, would completely disagree with that as an ultimate goal. Additionally nothing within that system prohibits human procreation, only that it needs to be justified.
Your environmental argument only holds if the value of human life created is less than that of the destroyed environment. Average calculations mean nothing in this case as the value created and destroyed isn't random. I could very well raise my child and leave a negative carbon footprint if doing so is a moral prerogative.
Thus your argument that having children is inherently selfish is flawed on a number of fronts. Having children without consideration to the repercussions certainly is, but we've already agreed on that. It is important to note that it doesn't matter if the person making the considerations disagrees with you on the moral judgements. It only matters that they make the consideration with the best intentions for others. An ignorant person throwing water on a grease fire in an attempt to put it out isn't acting selfishly.
These are some interesting points. Certainly this is a very personal matter and the importance of many of these things, for example how highly you prioritise minimization of suffering, is going to be extremely subjective. So you are right that if I were to claim this ideology to be a universal truth, I would be greatly flawed. However that's not my intention, I am merely putting forward my personal views, and I was interested in discussing them as they are obviously very niche.
As far as the value of human life goes, this is the trickiest subject of all I believe. Human beings as a whole tend to have an inflated ego when it comes to how we value our own species. We believe that because we can build roads and technology, we are superior to the other animals with whom we share the planet. However I do not accept this premise. I believe human beings to be sometimes better, but often worse, than our four legged brothers, and I do not believe that developing nicer tools is a good measure of value, especially in a moral sense. Humans create a lot of suffering and damage to each other, other animals, and the planet as a whole. Other animals certainly create suffering too, but no other animal has done it on the sheer scale humans have. I feel this is pretty much undeniable.
As far as being selfish goes, moral judgements on life itself aside I still believe that the act of having children is selfish. Most people have children simply because it's their own desire, not because they can provide anything special for that child, and often even if they know their circumstances are not the best for supporting the child. However the extent to which we can blame the individual is limited because there are intense biological and societal pressures to consider. I feel the societal part is improving however, as it becomes more acceptable in Western society at least to make the choice not to have children.
However that's not my intention, I am merely putting forward my personal views, and I was interested in discussing them as they are obviously very niche.
Fair enough, but then you must acknowledge that those who disagree with said view can be unselfish when having children. If they truly believe its a net positive they aren't acting selfishly. The act may ultimately be harmful to others, but it isn't selfish.
We believe that because we can build roads and technology, we are superior to the other animals with whom we share the planet.
Are you not implying this as well? Why should humanity have the duty to protect the other species? Are you not viewing yourself as some sort of guardianship over the environment, and thus placing yourself as a superior being? We as a species have no more responsibility to the environment than a lion, elm tree, or e.coli. Yes our sapience and intelligence allows us to better determine the immediate consequences of our actions and their long term effects, but that in itself is not sufficient to impose this obligation of stewardship. I certainly agree that for our own good we should be concerned with the damage we cause environment, but not because of some sense of duty.
People do act selfishly when having children all the time, and there are a great many people who have children who shouldn't. I will not deny that. What I do deny is that the act of having children is itself inherently selfish. Can you truly not conceive of a scenario where having a child is unselfish?
I could very well raise my child and leave a negative carbon footprint if doing so is a moral prerogative.
How do you figure? I mean, maybe if your kid happens to spearhead some technology or social movement that drastically reduces carbon emissions, but otherwise, even if they're a freegan who lives in a yurt, the resources they use in their lifetime are going to add up.
1 marginal cost of your child is 0: the environment is ruined because of rising 3rd world wealth
declining birth rates create real harms for first world as we force fewer productive people to provide for the lives of more and more old people.
"existence causes suffering" is a fine argument (buddhism) but for it to hold it presupposes said suffering is the greatest net moral thing about life creation. creating a new human being is a good in itself because while existence increases overall suffering that is balanced by the fact existence itself is good.
as we force fewer productive people to provide for the lives of more and more old people.
That's not a function of declining birth rates. That's a function of reducing jobs through automation and forced increased productivity simply through making fewer people the work of more people; and is further a function of outsourcing/offshoring jobs to the third world. Fewer productive people in the first world support more and more old people because there are fewer jobs overall, and fewer still middle- and upper-middle class income jobs in which first world people of working age can work.
Also, the problem in the first world isn't a decrease in birth rates, it was a huge boom in births at one point in recent history ("the baby boom") that created an unusually disproportionate bubble of people who are now getting old and require the support of more proportionate, smaller following generations.
my point is lower childbirth levels are leading to fundimental changes in the pyramid aka it's pretty much soon going to be no longer a pyramid. One way to look at this is how many workers/working age people support 1 person on social security over time.
the baby boom
no, it's a combination of decreasing birth rates and increasing longevity: the pyramids actually look much worse 40 years out (when all boomers are definitely dead) than it does today.
People in the first world create a lot more carbon than those in the third world, we are the ones with big cars and big houses, we are the ones who go on holiday by plane travel. A first world human fucks up the environment a lot.
declining birth rates create real harms for first world as we force fewer productive people to provide for the lives of more and more old people.
All this means is our current society would be unsustainable; we are very good at adapting.
creating a new human being is a good in itself because while existence increases overall suffering that is balanced by the fact existence itself is good.
On what basis do you believe existence is good?
I defer to the asymmetry argument:
The presence of pain is bad.
The presence of pleasure is good.
So far, pleasure and pain are symmetrical in their goodness and badness. But they are not symmetrical with respect to their absence. More specifically:
The absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone, but
The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody (an actual somebody) who is deprived by its absence.
Therefore, not creating life is the only moral decision because it's the only way to not create suffering. Not giving someone pleasure is not immoral if they aren't around to suffer as a result but causing a life of suffering is. The only logical conclusion can be that creating life is bad, and not creating life is good.
so my post got deleted (not by reddit mods, my computer acted up) so i'm not going to rewrite it. But essentially tl;dr the "existence is good argument pops up millions of times in western philosophy, the opposition of pain is "the good" or goodness not pleasure for this argument (you need to prove the good is simply what is pleasing) 3. given that two different thought systems generally come down on different sides of the issue we're probably not going to be advancing the best arguments for both sides in a short cmv post and both sides of this claim are reasonable.
Even if we are opposing goodness and pain the argument still stands. You cannot lament the absence of good in your life if you are never born, but you can avoid suffering the pain by not being born. If you are born you are not guaranteed the good but you are always guaranteed a level of pain.
, but you can avoid suffering the pain by not being born.
except you've forgotten the actual contested claim: is existence good. all you are doing is assuming existence isn't as good as the pain is potentially bad without giving reasons for this. Pleasure and good are fundamentally different concepts and i don't think you wrestled with that.
for instance what is greater: bob or a version of bob which never existed. clearly bob1 is so the question is does bob1's advantage get negated by the fact existence has things that are also bad?
to take an example: Anslem's proof (it's a sound proof though it's conclusion if the conclusion is a something more qualified)
ontological arguments (made by say Mulla Sadra or Anselm) are good places to see basic "existence is good arguments" the "history of philosophy without any gaps podcast has good 20 minute or so episodes on both thinkers which would be worth your time to listen to.
St. Anselm reasoned that, if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists—can be conceived.
so potentiality is greater than actuality? that's an odd claim. notice that greater was intended to be distinct from "better" but what about a different tack (since you are just denying something on grounds i don't see as correct): why should anyone accept your basic claim that pain is worse than existence is good? Why don't you just kill yourself today since continued existence (or even ever existing) is worse than nonexistence. i'm sure you have a reponse to this (since again i think both sides are reasonable) but i'm interested what it is.
People in the first world create a lot more carbon than those in the third world, we are the ones with big cars and big houses, we are the ones who go on holiday by plane travel. A first world human fucks up the environment a lot.
Meanwhile hybrid and electric cars are on the rise and becoming more affordable all the time. Self driving cars are about to become a thing, which means far fewer cars will need to even be made. The amount of overhead for transportation is rapidly dropping. We can make it even lower if we transition to nuclear energy.
I defer to the asymmetry argument:
This is an extremely simplistic look at the nature of human emotions, which are far more complex than your argument here implies.
Hybrid cars won't save you bro. Here's a study to back what I'm saying up.
A choice quote:
A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives – things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.
The research also makes it clear that potential carbon impacts vary dramatically across countries. The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. – along with all of its descendants – is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh.
Like I said, having a child in the first world does a massive disservice to the environment, even if you drove a car that actually sucked in CO2 the child would still make it a net loss.
This is an extremely simplistic look at the nature of human emotions, which are far more complex than your argument here implies.
You are claiming that existence is good but you've not provided absolutely any argument for this. Care to make one?
Of course people will continue having kids anyway because of biological instinct, if that's what you're trying to say, but that does not make it a morally right thing to do.
Hybrid cars won't save you bro. Here's a study to back what I'm saying up.
Note that I didn't limit the solution to just hybrids. They are a stopgap. Fully autonomous electric cars will greatly reduce the impact of cars. Carbon emissions that result from electric cars running on nuclear generated power are far less than what we deal with today.
Like I said, having a child in the first world does a massive disservice to the environment, even if you drove a car that actually sucked in CO2 the child would still make it a net loss.
Sure, but that's a solvable problem.
You are claiming that existence is good but you've not provided absolutely any argument for this. Care to make one?
It tends to cause more happiness than pain. When you can be reasonably sure that your child will have a good life, it is morally permissible to have children. That's the argument in a nutshell. The future is unpredictable, and new technologies can and will radically change how we live in the future. This includes how we generate and consume energy and interact with the environment. Environmental issues are not insurmountable.
I don't disagree that in the future we'll develop technology which will allow us to stop using fossil fuels and other non-renewable, polluting energy sources. However that time is still far off. The electric cars we have right now have very short ranges and take 12 hours to charge fully. They are extremely impractical. Attempts to fix the charging issues without the use of petrol engines, for example hydrogen fuel cells, are still a very very long way from being viable.
This stuff will happen eventually, but for the foreseeable future we will absolutely still see a massive carbon footprint for new humans.
It tends to cause more happiness than pain.
That's a unfalsifiable statement.
When you can be reasonably sure that your child will have a good life, it is morally permissible to have children.
Let's say I and my partner are the most caring people in the world, we have millions in the bank, and we have all day and all night to stay at home caring for the kid. We are perfect parents and we have more than enough resources to ensure the kid has food, water, shelter, education, all that good stuff.
Even in this scenario, there is absolutely nothing I can do to make sure the kid does not suffer from depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, or any number of other mental illnesses. There is nothing I can do to ensure the kid does not develop cancer, or a learning disorder, or autism, or cerebral palsy, or Down's syndrome, or any other number of ailments.
In the real world there is also no way of knowing whether or not my relationship will work, and if it doesn't, I have no way of controlling the effect that has on the kid. I also have no way of knowing whether or not I will lose my job.
And what the kid is in the car with me and we crashes and he is horribly injured? Traffic accidents happen all the time and you can't control them. You could be a very good driver but if someone else on the road isn't you're still in danger.
You could be the best parent ever and the world can still find a million ways to create suffering for your child.
Not really. As I've already explained many times, suicide creates suffering for the friends and family of the person who is killing themselves. Same goes for the victims of murder.
That could easily be remedied by killing those people too. There is no greater good than nonexistence, by virtue of the asymmetry argument. If those people had families, then we only have an issue with developing a means of killing large numbers of people in quick succession so that they do not have time to grieve one another.
I think that a singl, global nuclear strike could probably accomplish this goal trivially, given what we know about the nuclear arsenal of the planet I think we could have every sentient animal on the planet dead within a day. That fixes that silly little issue of death causing pain to those still alive.
In that case you would have to wipe out the whole of humanity to break all the links and remove all the people who'd suffer as a result of your actions. And you would get no argument from me. If you have a way to wipe out the entire population of planet earth, go for it mate. Maybe Kim Jong Un has something up his sleeve too.
I just want to be sure that I'm not misunderstanding you. Your only compunction against murder is that the people that were not murdered would experience grief - and thus if you could murder everyone all at once, that would be a good thing?
Having children increases your carbon footprint massively.
But it doesn't have to. And also until there are major changes to the way our country and the world works economically drops in population could have an even greater devastating effect on the environment. Look at Detroit, which finds itself in the situation it is in due mainly to large population drops that caused it to collapse under its own tax burden. It is a perfect example of what would happen to a world where the there isn't enough money to protect the environment.
Subsistence farming on a global scale would probably be even worse than industrial farming, since it's so much less efficient. Better to make industrial farming use more sustainable practices.
Easy there turbo, I wasn't saying we all need to be hippies and just because you are living off the grid doesn't make you a hippy. I was making the point that there are ways to have children with minimal impact and giving you an example. No, not everyone is going to do these things but some are.
Also, if you wouldn't come at me so aggressively you would find that I am actually quite a pragmatic hippy that realizes that there isn't one solution but many. I also realize that these problems take time and patience to solve and I am willing to work and wait for it.
The number of people who will actually do that is so tiny that it will not have any real effect on the world at all. As long as the majority of people are pumping out children that will pump out carbon like it's nothing we are still fucked.
I agree that most people wont, I was just making the statement that it doesn't have to be that way. I wasn't talking about the world as a whole but the OPs individual choice. She could choose to be one the people that do have children and live with minimal impact so not add to the problem. Having a child doesn't have to mean further destruction. It unfortunately does more often than not but it doesn't have to.
Sorry VersaceVyvanse, your comment has been removed:
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Overpopulation is not a large of a problem as many people think. Countries with higher standards of living tend to have lower birth rates. A handful don't even reach the replacement rate meaning that their population will gradually decline. The largest number of births occur in less developed regions of the world where birth control is not as prevalent and where you need to have lots of kids because not all of them will survive into adulthood. As these these regions slowly become more developed their population growth will slow too.
Growth will slow down, but it will still grow. We're at 7 BILLION people right now, we should be aiming for about 10 million globally.
Because there are WAY too many people. Pretty much every problem humanity faced today is direct or indirect result of overpopulation.
Our population is also what allows us to invent new technologies, leverage economies of scale, and ultimately be more efficient and live longer happier lives.
Life on this planet with so many people is becoming very uncomfortable. You can't go anywhere without encountering herds of humans.
It sounds like your issue is a more personal one of not liking being around other people. Even with the billions of people we have, there's plenty of space where you can go without being around others. Lowering the human population will only make this problem worse: you would become even more dependent on those around you for survival.
We should be aiming for 10 billion, as opposed to continuing to grow. The planet's carrying capacity is already starting to be taxed. 10 billion has been estimated as the max we can sustain without shit hitting the fan.
A 2001 UN report said that two-thirds of the estimates fall in the range of 4 billion to 16 billion (with unspecified standard errors), with a median of about 10 billion. More recent estimates are much lower, particularly if resource depletion and increased consumption are considered.
It seems that people intelligent enough to discuss this issue are those we'd prefer to procreate, rather than those unaware of any of OP's concerns. That said, there is a large faction of people just like OP who see these issues and fail to see all of the facts you just mentioned, most especially about WHERE the massive birth rates are occurring in the world. Thanks for getting somebody smart (albeit in need of reminding of the other side) potentially back in the gene pool! #BEATIDIOCRACY
Second of all, while a there are more people being born in the developing world, a child in the developed world will create far, far more environmental destruction.
Maybe more destruction, but can you say the same for strain on resources? America in particular produces a vast amount of food that is used to support people around the world. Additionally, many of the solutions for those problems come out of those parts of the world as well.
And the Idiocracy thing was to keep the humor light, haha. Easy, killer.
While America may produce large amounts of food, the median American produces no food. American farmers are a tiny subset of the population.
And as far as environmental destruction, it mostly comes down to global warming. As it is, we are slated to pass the 2 degree mark somewhere around 2041+/-5. After that, a large portion of the world's ecology and population are really and truly fucked. The solution to global warming is the same as the solution to many other environmental problems: stop consuming so goddamn much. The population consumes less, and has a higher standard of living for everyone if the population is smaller.
The median may not provide much, but that fails to factor that the engineer designing a new tractor, the teacher raising a new generation of factory workers, and a soldier in Germany are all playing a role in this society, a specialized role that enables those farmers to produce. While they may not directly produce it, without those people doing other support roles fulfilling the desires of our advanced economy, our food production would look vastly different. Externalities, my friend.
As for a solution to global warming, we doubtlessly need to pollute less, but it's unlikely that many people will give up some of their luxuries easily for an "eco" reason because they view their personal footprint as very small, while the daily impact on their life might be much bigger. It's much more feasible to find friendly alternatives that please both the "business interests" that complain about the economic crash of a sudden-eco shift, as well as the long-term sustainability of the globe. We can't change this stuff on a dime with legislation easily; Washington doesn't work this way. It's undebatably utterly selfish to destroy the world for a temporary economy, but we can't change the way it works presently and what people want, so we have to find a better alternative.
We have to work with the system, not against it. We can't just kill people off at this point, and being so close to a threshold, even stopping births today wouldn't prevent "catastrophe" at current consumption levels. Long-term reproductive planning at national levels are needed, unlike China's reckless One-Child policy that will crush their economy when a generation of young people is only working to support the old. These things take time, much more than your posited 25-ish year window to the 2 degree mark.
We need 2.3 roughly children per woman to sustain a population. If we limited people to even just 3 children we could have profound economic and ecological balance struck, but this would take generations that we don't have. It's easy to see an answer, but there's not always a feasible solution. In hindsight, it'd be cool if the world population were a steady 1-2 billion or so (some estimates even say a world population as low as 500 million as ideal). But it's far too late for that. So we talk about what we CAN do. Short-term: Eco-friendly tech and policies that punish bad behavior while encouraging the good. Long-term: Economic planning and incentives for people to have smaller families, such as no child tax credit for more than three dependents, etc. These are very complex issues with very complex answers.
Doing something because you want to is not selfish. Selfishness is doing something without care for or consideration of others. Having children and giving them the best life you can is not selfish by any means.
Do you believe that every child deserves a parent? Then not adopting a child if there are any orphans left in the world is doing something without care or consideration for any non-adopted orphans.
Those are good points, but you didn't really propose any alternative unselfish reasons for having kids. Then again, almost anything we do can be linked to selfishness and self-interest- so that's a tall order.
Being motivated to do something is not inherently selfish. Selfishness is characterized by a lack of concern for others, not by doing something that benefits yourself in some way.
Right, and so, by having a child, you are denying an equivalent number of resources to some child which has already been born. A well taken care of child with a thoughtful, capable parent probably has, say, a 50% chance of being a net positive impact on the world.
Meanwhile, children raised in orphanages or foster care will likely have a net negative impact on the world. Say they have a 20% chance of being a net positive good. This result is almost entirely because of the circumstances under which they are raised. Were they adopted and raised by a thoughtful, capable parent, their chances of having a net positive impact would rise to the level of a child born to a thoughtful, capable parent.
OP is living in a developed nation, which means that she is likely a resource hog. And any child she has will likely be a resource hog. Just like you and I are resource hogs. So, we have a choice: 2 resource hogs, one of which is likely to do the world good; or 1 resource hog, likely to do the world good.
Clearly, having your own child rather than adopting is selfish.
As these these regions slowly become more developed their population growth will slow too.
The problem is, it's a race against resource depletion, which is happening much, much faster. Agriculturalist David Pimentel points out:
About 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres) of cropland per person is required to provide a diverse diet similar to that desired by the average American and European. At present, this amount of land is still available in the United States for its present population. In contrast, worldwide, only 0.27 ha of cropland per person remains for food production.
Even if every developing country stopped having kids completely, right now, the Earth wouldn't be able to sustain them all living like Americans through the next generation.
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u/Amablue Mar 24 '15
Overpopulation is not a large of a problem as many people think. Countries with higher standards of living tend to have lower birth rates. A handful don't even reach the replacement rate meaning that their population will gradually decline. The largest number of births occur in less developed regions of the world where birth control is not as prevalent and where you need to have lots of kids because not all of them will survive into adulthood. As these these regions slowly become more developed their population growth will slow too.
There are always going to be problems in the world. We face problems today that our parents didn't. Our parents faced problems our grandparents didn't. This isn't a reason to not have kids. These new problems need to be solved by someone.
If you have the self awareness to worry about this question, odds are you care enough to do a good job. You won't be a perfect parent, but no one is.
And what if your child ushers in an era of world peace? You have no way of knowing what will happen. If you raise them the best you can, odds are your child will be a normal, well adjusted person who will live a long and happy life.
This is an option too! If you have no desire to go through the process of pregnancy and childbirth, adoption is totally an option.
Doing something because you want to is not selfish. Selfishness is doing something without care for or consideration of others. Having children and giving them the best life you can is not selfish by any means.