So affirmative perspectives get themselves into all sorts of thorny convolutions, including the idea that existence has to be improved. If it has to be improved, then was it ever good to begin with? Better surely is not equivalent to good. We are left with the uncomfortable notion that no matter how much exists, or what exists, there is always something more or something else that could be better. This is because existence is fundamentally an imperfection.

Humans are part of the natural world, and we are doing what we can to make it a better place for us. Over all, the proportion of people who die by human violence is lower now than in the past. We are, on the whole, healthier now than we have previously been.

True enough and most unfortunately, we are also messing up the environment on which we depend, but that's because we are an exploring, expanding, curious, active techno-species. Messing up natural environments is our thing. It's what we do. We've been doing it for a long time.

We don't live in a perfect world. In fact, it's unsatisfactory a good share of time, but that is just tough shit. We're tough, and we've survived worse -- much worse.

Do what good you can, don't make a bigger mess of your piece of the world than you have to, and enjoy being a human. Have a couple of children. Do a good job rearing them to be happy, productive adults.

But if in my scenario there is a perfect world somewhere else in the universe can we justify creating life here? It seems to me that there is no justification for creating unsatisfactory lives.

It seems like having children on this planet amounts to claiming that this is the best we can do. It seems to imply that this is the only planet with life on and there is no other planet in the infinite universe with a better quality of life.

In my specific scenario I was wondering if the existence of a perfect planet would deter people from procreating here but coming to think of it people procreate here in the face of gross inequality where there are billionaires with potentially incredible lifestyles.
But then we are told to be aspirational and aim towards that lifestyle. It feels to me like people are having children for self comfort (and sometimes sheer negligence) because they could improve the world and a child's lifestyle before creating a child.

If that planet is toxic to humans then no, I wouldn't have children on that planet. Presumably they (and I) wouldn't survive?

I am asking, would you have children on this planet, knowing that there are a form of humans with a much better lifestyle with no suffering. Would you need to create more humans when these other ones where doing everything we want a fulfilled human to do?

The reason I made the environment toxic to us is to prevent you from moving to the planet and having children there. But the perfect planet is supposed to challenge your acceptance of a poor quality life here.

Because currently people can claim "This is the only world and this is my only chance"

But if in my scenario there is a perfect world somewhere else in the universe can we justify creating life here? It seems to me that there is no justification for creating unsatisfactory lives.

It seems like having children on this planet amounts to claiming that this is the best we can do. It seems to imply that this is the only planet with life on and there is no other planet in the infinite universe with a better quality of life.

In my specific scenario I was wondering if the existence of a perfect planet would deter people from procreating here but coming to think of it people procreate here in the face of gross inequality where there are billionaires with potentially incredible lifestyles.
But then we are told to be aspirational and aim towards that lifestyle. It feels to me like people are having children for self comfort (and sometimes sheer negligence) because they could improve the world and a child's lifestyle before creating a child. — Andrew4Handel

For me, this is warmed over anti-natalism. Threads have been running along these lines for years on the old Philosophy Forum and the current The Philosophy forum.

There are reasons for having children, reasons for having fewer children, and reasons for not having any children at all. We can judge those reasons good or bad based on the reality of the persons in question. I find your argument, that there is a perfect planet somewhere else, so why bother having children here, to be nonsensical.

There may be millions of better, even perfect, planets in the universe, but we exist here only, and this is the only place we will exist in the distant future. So any justification for our existence, or extinction, rests here.

I understand why some people who could reproduce decide to forego reproduction because they believe bringing children into THIS world would be wrong. They see this world as irredeemable, doomed to destruction, or a place of inevitable pain and suffering Fine. Those reasons are this worldly.

I used to be in favor of ZPG (zero population growth) but that was 2 or 3 billion people ago. At this point, we need less than ZPG, and that's harder to argue for, because it means strongly discouraging people from reproducing at all. People tend to resent the suggestion that the world doesn't need their offspring, or to put it more bluntly, the world will be better off without their children.

We are part of nature, and nature will persist whether we are around or not. Our disappearance would reduce the suffering of some species, and would make no difference to other species. This world is not a perfect place, and that condition will remain the case, no matter what.

So, if you want to argue anti-natalism, why not limit the parameters to this world alone?

I am definitely one hundred percent antinatalist and I think it is always wrong and unjustifiable to have children.

I want to understand why people would harm children when they didn't need to when they could have higher expectations for them.

So I think that in this thought experiment people would inflict suffering on a child not for the survival of the species and not because there was no other alternative.... I think the idea that having children is inevitable and that this is the best we can do is a force for pronatalism. How committed are people to their child's welfare?

Even if you don't want people to stop having children why wouldn't you expect them to have higher expectations for their children?

I would love to write music like Handel and Bach but they have already done it. Their genius has prevented me from trying to emulate this reasonably. They and others have set a high standard which means you can recognise when its not being met. So I am not going to churn out reams of sub standard music. So surely knowing that children can have a better quality of life should make us aspire only for this quality of life for them?

I am not saying that we shouldn't have children here because of the possibility of a perfect planet here. I am questioning parents commitments and motives. Why are we afraid to have high standards for parents? you need lessons and a licence for a car?

Having seen what even ordinary people can do to their children, let alone what screwed up people do, I am all in favor of raising the standards for parenthood.

I would love to write music like Handel and Bach but they have already done it. — Andrew4Handel

Well sure, who wouldn't like to turn out a pack of Handel's oratorios or concerti grosso? But, as you have discovered, you can't repeat Bach or Handel, and you can't really repeat the worst composer there ever was, either (not quite sure who that would be--so many contenders). What you can do, should do, and can only do is be you. If people could have written just like their favorite composers, we might be stuck in early medieval music, and never gotten beyond that. Bach and Handel might never have appeared, perhaps. And if we got stuck on Bach and Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn might not have appeared, and if we had gotten stuck on big band music in the 1940s, there would be no rock and roll -- and then what? No sex, no drugs, and no rock and roll for you.

Your argument is bad. It does not follow from the existence of a better possible world that the current one is not worth living in.

I didn't argue that. I asked how you could justify creating a poorer quality life. There are separate arguments easily made about why this world is bad place. (Genocide and famine etc) The question is why create poor quality lives in face of evidence of better quality lives?

Your "evidence of better quality lives" was on another planet. Better quality lives can be created on this planet.

Possible scenarios of a better world are themselves evidence of better quality lives. By the standards of the possible world, we live "worse" (by some standard that has yet to be established) lives. I can always imagine a world with where I have more money, or another friend, or a higher status, and so on. Again, just because I am not in the top 1% of earners in the United States does not mean my life is not worth living. Likewise, just because there is some future scenario where the top 1% of earners living better quality lives than the current top 1% of earners does not mean the current top 1% do not lead lives worth living.

So, either you must argue all lives below perfection are of poor quality because, by the evidence of the possible perfect world, we live poorer quality lives than we might have, or you have to accept that possibly creating poor quality lives is on the table.

Imagine humans discovered a planet almost Identical to earth with a human like species yhumans. The main differences were that this planet is toxic to humans and also that there is no suffering no this planet and the yhumans there live for a thousand years in happiness. — Andrew4Handel

You just gave a pretty good description of a very non-human (non-earth-like actually) species. A non-negative-feedback-having race would not be human-like at all. Grass has a more exciting life.
In what possible way could they be like us?
You've given a description of heaven, which seems to have all the fulfillment of a person perpetually on a heroin high with hospital equipment to keep you alive against your lack of effort to that end.

Thank you, I'll remain what I am, given the choice.

I was reminded of A Case of Conscience at first, but on reflection, a better guide is the dystopian Brave New World, and by contrast, Huxley's utopian Island.

But if you don't have time for science fiction much, simply consider that a game you can't lose isn't much of a game, and I'll leave it at that.

The point I made is that the people on the other planet live for much, much longer and have much better lives in a way that is not obtainable here.

If an argument for having children is that you are creating more quality lives then in my scenario you are not creating more quality lives because there are far better lives somewhere else. So again what is the point of creating lives on here when in this scenario there are yhumans who are having much better and longer experiences. You can't claim you are adding to some over all happiness or that you are providing someone with something invaluable.

The unborn don't have any desires so in my scenario you know that your child will be born with a relatively poor quality life to what is possible and not living up to her potential.

People were happy before the internet but does that mean those pre-internet people would not have wanted to use the internet? They were happy with less because that is all they knew not because they were living up to their full potential.

Most of you seem to be advocating the premise that new facts should not alter your decisions.

There is strong evidence that people are influenced by the just world fallacy.

When I was a child I thought the world was better than it actually is and was unaware of the extent of exploitation and inequality and poverty etc. The more you find it about these things the more it can influence your values and decision making.

But because of the fundamental attribution error and just world hypothesis and similar things people tolerate gross inequality and so on.

People were happy before the internet but does that mean those pre-internet people would not have wanted to use the internet? They were happy with less because that is all they knew not because they were living up to their full potential. — Andrew4Handel

It's debatable how much "more" the Internet has added. True, when I was growing up there was no YouTube, no FaceBook, no Google (I graduated from high school in 1964). There were other resources, however. For instance, there was the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature -- an index of magazine and journal articles updated monthly, There were encyclopedias, dictionaries, reference books, (reference libraries, even) general libraries, etc. A lot of the really useful information on the Internet is the same kind of stuff people have had access to at universities and large urban libraries for a long time -- it's just much more convenient now.

Am I glad there is an Internet now? Absolutely. Were people living up to their full potential before the Internet? Absolutely. And the "full" mark was just as high then as it is now.

The point I made is that the people on the other planet live for much, much longer and have much better lives in a way that is not obtainable here. — Andrew4Handel

The point I made is that "yhumans" don't exist, so a comparison between here and there is empty. It counts for nothing. If you said, "Human life in France and Norway is superior to human life in the United States", we could debate that. It may well be better there, and maybe Americans should stop having children since the French and Norwegians have much better lives. Or maybe life isn't better there.

If someone offers you either 1 million dollars or 2 Million dollars would you turn down the latter because the first was sufficient?

I don't think having an okay standard of life makes having a much better quality of life less desirable.

The reason people believe we can do better is because we actually can. We can do a lot better and are very far from utopia, people still starve to death every day and hundreds of thousands of people commit suicide every year.

But I think people are subconsciously influenced by unspoken arguments that this is the best we can do and this is all we have. I don't understand peoples tolerance of inequality and low standards. It seems immensely selfish to tolerate these because you personally are happy.

I think the only way you could possibly justify creating a child is if you were definitely giving them a good quality of life. But inequality proves people aren't.

How do you know yhumans don't exist? The universe is immensely vast. You seem to be fatalistic about this being the only possible configuration of life.

I am not saying people didn't lead full lives before the internet but they didn't live up to their full potential.

Imagine someone died from smallpox before the vaccine was invented. Did they live up to their full potential? Clearly not. The rise of the internet, air travel, telephones, vaccines among other things illustrates that people in the past were not experiencing all there was to experience and there is a lot of evidence that they simply did have poorer quality lives that they would acknowledge themselves.

My parents certainly view their current lifestyle as easier and better in some respects for instance now my mother has a washing machine and dryer and doesn't need to use the mangle. My dad has now travelled around the world to several countries.

The reason people believe we can do better is because we actually can. — Andrew4Handel

I believe people can do better in reality, but not quite as well in reality as in theory. We are limited beings living in a limited world. We can not turn all of our wishes into our commands and see them fulfilled, at once! There may be unlimited beings living in unlimited worlds, who can do whatever they wish, but that is not us.

How do you know yhumans don't exist? — Andrew4Handel

Because you made them up.

Imagine humans discovered a planet almost Identical to earth with a human like species yhumans. — Andrew4Handel

By the logic that people who died before smallpox vaccine was invented didn't reach their full potential, no one will ever reach their full potential because something new (in some category) will come along which might be construed as an improvement. Did William Shakespeare reach his full potential? He lived before smallpox vaccine was invented (and he didn't die of smallpox, either.) He was 52. Did Einstein reach his full potential? He died before Viagra was invented.

I'll grant you, if a young person dies before they reach adulthood they almost certainly will not have reached anything close to their full potential. Once one is an adult, the conduct of one's life leads one towards achieving full potential, or away from it. Many people--some through no fault of their own, others entirely through their own fault--fail to reach full potential.

I'm 70, and I have not reached my full intellectual potential (the physical peak happened decades ago). This is mostly my fault. I frittered away too much time on non-fulfilling activities. While life is not over, there are some things that I am just not likely to accomplish -- maybe never was likely to accomplish. I would have liked to learn Latin or Greek, and French or German. Didn't. I learned a little Latin and am trying to learn French. (L'univers des francophones maîtrisés frissonne d'horreur. The universe of fluent french speakers shivers in horror.)

Yhumans are only humans, with a better quality of life. They are a distinct possibility and there are yhumans in this sense here. You are resisting the possibility there could be a better world for humans and hence making sure that we tolerate this substandard one.

There is no excuse for creating humans who have poor quality of life. And I think that it is rather grotesque that people seem to think that they should be created in some kind of utilitarian calculation because some people find life fulfilling.

It is irrelevant whether you.think other people have reached their full potential because they clearly have not. For example if you are only using ten percent of your computers memory you clearly have the potential to store a lot more information and do a lot more with the computer regardless of how much enjoyment you get out of using the computer at 10 percent its capacity. If you think happiness is all that matters that leads to the absurd conclusion that people could live in hell as long as they are happy.

Saying someone has not reached there full potential is not the same as saying they are unhappy or unfulfilled.

So, if we discover a planet where the quality of life is significantly worse than here, we should all have as many kids as possible?

I personally won't create a child and I don't understand why the world isn't a good place because surely parents should only bring children into a good world? For example if I complain about poverty then I would try and end poverty before creating more people. — Andrew4Handel

The anti-natalist would eliminate poverty by eliminating people. Which I suppose is a perfect solution. But a world without people is not a world at all.

Sorry, I can't understand your English. At least fix the misspellings and wrong word usage please. At least in the original post, there are some mistakes.

From trying to understand your post, if the humans on the planet are immune to the poison and have been living there happily while my humans and I aren't immune to the poison then producing offspring to compete with the humans who are immune to the poison is a lost cause. I rather not invade another sentient population, even if it's not within the same species, for the gain of extending the existence of my own people because it's unethical to do so. Being a good being has higher ethical expectations than a good parent, sorry. This is one reason why theists don't regard God as a mere parent.

From reading other replies and the post again, I think I understand the jest of it now. I understand your feelings and logic regarding not wanting to create a child due to this cruel current world. However, you're child could be a person to bring good to this world or make it a better place, if you think optimistic about it and are willing to be a good parent and teacher. It's intelligent that you aren't making offspring for selfish reasons such as wanting to merely raise a family, wanting company, or pleasing your wife by producing a child to just merely gain her respect. However, if you want good reasons to produce a child, you have to think outside of the box. Hope is the most important thing for children and the next generations to come and if you're going to teach your offspring to lack hope, then you shouldn't produce a child, in my opinion.

The question you should be asking yourself on whether or not to produce a child or not isn't if the environment or the world is good enough for the child, but are you good enough of a parent to raise your child right and give the child what s/he needs and wants within this reality? If you feel like you lack power in raising your child and that's why you are worried that the world isn't good enough for the child, then maybe that's a good reason to not produce offspring as well. Often bad parents blame God, the world, other people, child support, and/or school for their family problems such as having a poor relationship with his or her child. So if you truly want a child, you should be willing to change the damn world while the child exists in order for the child to fit in and appreciate life. The small world around the child shouldn't be an obstacle because you, the parent, can influence it greatly. Thinking that the current world isn't good enough for children is a lazy excuse for anything and if you truly think this, then you are too lazy to care for a child properly.

There are increasing more couples, in modern times versus the past, that marry and don't have children for objective, subjective, and financial reasons as well. So being a married couple with no children isn't a bad thing. However, both parties of the couple should form some sort of negotiation or agreement in not having or producing a child first.

It seems problematic because you would have found a breed of humans that live in total happiness for a much longer period of time. — Andrew4Handel

the PROBLEM is that you could equally imagine humans living in total misery for a thousand years, so any conclusions you draw from that are totally meaningless.

Imagine — Andrew4Handel

that there is no suffering — Andrew4Handel

Nope, I'm afraid I can't. Not in this universe at any rate.

There are billions of human beings alive. How many of them are having similar experiences? What is so radically different about your child's experience that makes creating them necessary? What value you can there be in numerous people having much the same experiences?

I don't know what kind of assertion is being made when people have children. I would have to have a massive incentive to want to create a child and that kind of incentive would have to be that either they would have an excellent quality of life or that they had something very unique to offer.

I feel that mindless unreflective reproduction is a massive source of irrationality and I am trying to understand peoples motives. I can think of numerous reasons not to have a child and no compelling reason to have a child.

I think that if we did discover a perfect planet with near identical humans on it, with better longer lives people would have no reason to have a child, because other human like creatures were being created. If there were a billion of these perfect yhumans what would be so special about creating another sentience with a poorer quality life?

Like I mentioned with my Bach/Handel analogy, if someone has already written amazing music then what is the point of creating mediocre music?

I think the presence of better things shows what a lot of people don't have and that better things exists means we should not accept a poorer quality of life.

Well, if you compare humans to the universe, we are like a grain of salt. You are correct that the child's existence will most likely have no significance in this universe along with the current lives at stake on this planet. I personally can't disagree with you that there are any good legitimate reasons to produce a child if one thinks the current world isn't enough for the child (reminds me of a James Bond title :o).

James Bond - The world is not enough theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM63rhWsz4s

However, there is a flaw at play here in the way you are thinking in regards to applying this to your personal life. You say "what if there's a perfect planet and ..." Problem with this is this is just a mere probability and isn't yet a known fact. You can't determine what actions to perform merely on probabilities or possibilities. It's just not a reliable way of performing worthwhile actions. This is what ernestm and Thorongil are trying to express to you.

If you want a child, you have to overlook the cruel world and look forward to your inner world. It's a selfish desire that most of us have and like the saying goes, "It's a small world after all." However, positive inner worlds can influence the cruel world to be less of a horrible place.

Also, I read some threads and article titles in the past relating to this issue regarding that it's unethical to produce offspring into this world because one is unleashing the new person into a world of pain. I honestly don't know how to counter-argue these topics while at the same time agreeing with the assumptions and logic of the person's arguments. I usually like to use people's logic against them in arguments because then it's easier for them to realize that they are flawed and it's just a safer way to counter-argue for me.

However, if you want a personal answer in why I would produce offspring despite my selfish reasons it's because God created this universe, this world of pain, to teach us something. To teach us to become something beyond the capabilities of that of a human. If we never learn what pain is and never learn to endure it, we will never grow resistance towards it and thus will easily become manipulated or consumed by great evil if it comes. This is a theistic perspective and you are probably an atheist because the majority of very active users here are atheists and usually people with the mindset of an atheist makes posts such as this thread. There's not much wrong with your logic, to be honest. However, perhaps the assertions you are looking for on why people create offspring is related to spiritual and religious influences, and we all know the majority of people on this planet are theists. I'm not a typical theist and I lived around mostly Christians out in past school days when I was a child and in public. Christians think there's pain in this world because it has something to do with Adam and Eve, but to me I see a bigger mechanic at play than just mere punishment.