From a logical point of view, there is no reason to have children. However, the world population grows exponentially, why?

There are many reasons to have children, for instance to have a family, societal pressure, to create lifelong bonds, someone to take care of and to take care of us, legacy, biology, to pass on values and so on.

Because men love poking women, and women love being poked. :love: (Practice safe poking folks...)

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People, most people, aren’t very logical in the sense that you mean, but having children addresses deep psychological needs, and very often, practical needs. Not everyone lives in a welfare state, so having children may represent a source of labor and insurance for the future; someone to look after us in our old age, that sort of thing.

Pedantic Point: Yes, global population is growing, but hardly exponentially. Laugh out loud!

Cause the practice feels so good.

Swan beat me to it...

Contra your conception: lack of contraception...?

Well, it's because we are psychologically predisposed to having children.

Howewer, is there really no logical reason to have children? Because having children ensures that society goes on, which i think is necessary for whatever you think morality should be aiming for.

Something like that. :eyes:

Despair. Their rugrats are effigies of hope.

From a logical point of view, there is no reason to have children. — John Pingo

Life is a system.
In that system it works exactly the other way around as you think.

If you do not want children, and I want them, then your views will not be represented in the next generation, while mine will. Hence, in life-as-a-system your point of view is self-defeating while mine is self-perpetuating.

Either you reason within a system, or else about a system, because in all other cases, you are doing system-less bullshit.

Please explain..

Besides the obvious (as noted by Swan) people had lots of kids because most would die. Then they had kids to take care of them in their old age - financial and emotional support.

Give current welfare systems and pensions many couples are opting out. Where poverty decreases and education and health go up (especially directed at young women) numbers of children go down.

Some, if not all, people probably think in terms of leaving a ‘legacy’ and/or see children as something akin to ‘living’ beyond their own grave.

Also, keep in mind that some people enjoy playing music, or painting OR raising children. Children are fascinating and the more time I spend around them the more they help me to connect with the child I used to be. If you observe closely you’ll find memories surface that you’d completely forgotten.

The moral of the story here is if you want a better world (environmentally, economically or whatever) your best bet is to invest in young women in countries where ready access to healthcare and education is limited. It’s the nest way to combat global warming, economic inequalities and environmental concerns. Sadly people are more obsessed with uses most of their resources on the symptoms rather than paying attention to known underlying causes.

Busting out babies is just false hope for a better future; but there is no better future. It also does your figure no favors.

If you do not want children, and I want them, then your views will not be represented in the next generation, while mine will. Hence, in life-as-a-system your point of view is self-defeating while mine is self-perpetuating.

Either you reason within a system, or else about a system, because in all other cases, you are doing system-less bullshit. — alcontali

This is what (bored) - and (boring) people say. Write a book, climb a mountain, cut the ribbon.

There is a reason why poor folks or people with lower IQ's have more kids. What ELSE is there to life other than fucking, having kids, fucking, having kids...

I would say that this only applies to low-income families in poor countries.
There are generally no such things like that involved in the majority of the cases-i.e. the middle or the upper classes. Saying this applies to most of the cases would be a faulty generalization.

What ELSE is there to life other than fucking, having kids, fucking, having kids... — Swan

:point: :ok: über alles, lil creampie! :yum:

No idea what your whinging about. Especially since I didn't even make an inductive argument. Btw, welcome to TPF.

Unbelievably, some people like children.

Well, let me rephrase it then:
"That reason is spesific to low-income families that do not have a good standard of living. What about the other ones?"

By the way, i appreciate your welcome.

This is what (bored) - and (boring) people say. Write a book, climb a mountain, cut the ribbon. — Swan

If you're about making new experiences, having children is a pretty good example of an experience you can not get any other way.

There is a reason why poor folks or people with lower IQ's have more kids. — Swan

IQ strongly correlates with the number of years of public-school indoctrination camp. It does not necessarily correlate with anything else. It is therefore mostly a measure for how often a local feminazi herded you into the school's lecture hall in order to listen to a transvestite pornstar expounding the virtues of gender fluidity. Next, you grow up to become a soyboy that no girl wants to have kids with, or an aggressive lesbian that no man would want in his house. Total number of kids: zero.

Why work hard all your life, work 9-5 (for most people) build/buy assets like houses, cars etc. save money but then only to die and lose it all?
I come from a background of nothing, so I want to build strong foundations for future generations and it can be passed down to my kids, onto theirs etc. I wouldn't want my kids to go through what I did, I'd want them to have a good start in life which I didn't and all of my friends did.

Yes this is very much something I would say and agree with, which is why I ask. That shouldn't be a surprise though.

If we are to debate philosophically, the OP is about whether it is good to bring new people into the world. Why is human life assumed to be good enough to make another person to live through it? What's wrong with no one experiencing anything at all? There are no downsides, or sides at all to never being born.

Procreation is a choice. It's not inevitable. People can choose to discontinue birth.

I think that if someone is convinced life has a meaning and finds life meaningful they might consider life a gift.

When I was a child and teenager I just expected to get married and have children until I realised that being gay made that impossible (in the 90's).

I think there is a narrative about life that makes certain things seem inevitable. I might have just blindly had children if I was straight without reflecting on it because there was no alternative narrative.

However I was surprised in my teens that two world wars, genocide,crimes against women (misogyny/gendercide) and slavery didn't deter people from having children. I felt the world was mad.

I do think children can create a lot of meaning and love though.

From a logical point of view, there is no reason to have children. However, the world population grows exponentially, why?

Is this sentence different from this one; From a logical point of view, there is no reason to stay alive. However, the world population keeps living, why?

Is there a difference? Is one wrong and the other right? Both right? Both wrong?

Yeah I agree with you. If bringing in a life which is going to give it a poor quality of life (human or animal) then why do it. It's a choice.

poor quality of life (human or animal) then why do it.

Who gets to decide what is and isn’t a poor quality of life? A financially poor family can find love and happiness together through hardship while a financially wealthy person can be hateful and isolated. Which is the poorer quality of life? If you were to ask someone with Downs Syndrome if they are happy in life they nearly always are and they don’t even much care for people's criticisms of them either. Some can even work and hold good jobs and they can even appear before a court to strongly argue that they are actually capable of a quality of life with a lot of positivity, happiness and love; and that this is why they feel when parents discover they are pregnant with a downs child, they should really think and morally consider the child properly before deciding to abort.

If you’ve ever met or cared for a downs person you’d find it extremely difficult to convince them that life is not worth living. They probably feel more sorry for us than we should feel sorry for them.

Yes, but I'd go further and say procreation is always bad no matter what socioeconomic circumstance. Something is not always or even ever better than nothing. Life being worth it only matters once born because humans need existential direction to cope and be. However, for those who never existed, this of course doesn't matter. It's not an issue. There are no issues in that scenario. Somehow parents feel they are the arbiters of worth. People need to be brought into the world so they can "appreciate" it's worth. But as I just stated, worth is something contrived after the fact to cope with our own beingness. It's a poor man that rides on top of the prior decision made on behalf of the person affected by being born at all.

It's not for anyone to decide except the being themselves. I do not have everything in life but I am very happy with what I have.

Okay. So your issue with procreation is that we cannot get the beings permission before we create one, correct?

If we say, that it is wrong to create a life, is there a punishment for that?