I guess what I was trying to say was if I was in a really bad situation financially, health etc. I would choose not to bring a being into this life until I am in a better place. I wouldn't want it to suffer or have a bad quality of life. The quality of life and suffering would solely be my view on it as one mans meat is another mans poison. If that makes sense?

What's wrong with human beings existing?

Why on Earth even the whole discussion?

Was this for me? Anyways, suffering won't be an issue for the non-born. Also, no person would exist in this scenario to even be deprived. Win/win. Life is about daily dealings. Suffering is suffering. It just climbs the hierarchy of needs to more refined less physical versions of it. Not sure why quiet desperation or more psychological suffering matters less.

Is this question for me?

Yeah, that makes sense and all sounds pretty reasonable and thought out to me. We should always consider the child we may have before we have it and think about what quality of life we are capable of giving it. That’s responsible parenting.

But you’re not a full on Antinatalist? You believe bringing a child into the world is justified if you give them a good quality of life?

Humans are an animal species, and animals tend to produce young. Since evolution gifted them with consciousness, which proved an effective if dicey evolutionary weapon, they have some doubts about it, but not enough to make a serious difference: there should still be plenty of the species around to pay for the way it has crapped up the world. :)

If we are social creatures, it's about propaganda.

What's wrong with human beings existing?

Why on Earth even the whole discussion? — ssu

These "anti-natalists" are incredibly short-sighted. When they will be old and retired, the only reason why they would not starve to death, is because there will be a younger generation keeping the boat afloat. That is why I deeply resent state-run pension systems. It allows people like them to claim that they do not need children, because they expect someone else's children to pick up the bill. Fortunately, these state-run retirement systems are slated to go bust anyway. Good riddance!

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. — I like sushi

What kind of causal chain are you envisioning here?

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. — alcontali

Is this an actual post or were you just playing alt-right bingo?

Is this an actual post or were you just playing alt-right bingo? — Echarmion

My bingo is not necessarily "alt-right", but your criticism is certainly classified as "left":

Liberal and left-leaning observers have found themselves doing something they never normally do: criticising Muslims. Specifically Muslim parents in Birmingham who have successfully pressured the local primary school to stop teaching their kids about homosexuality and transgenderism. Apparently it is outrageous for parents to exercise moral authority over their very young children and instead they should trust the state to impart the correct moral wisdom to their offspring. That’s the undertone of the coverage of this controversy: that officialdom knows better than a child’s own parents how that child should be raised and morally instructed. The parents of these pupils have been kicking up a storm over the school’s ‘challenging homophobia’ programme, which involves teaching the kids about gay relationships and the transgender lifestyle. They have protested outside the school with placards saying ‘No to the promotion of homosexuality to our children’ and ‘Education not indoctrination’.

So, according to you these Muslim parents are "alt-right"?
Not so sure about that, really.

As far as I am concerned, the final solution for the problem of public-school indoctrination camps, i.e. die Endlösung der Indoktrinationsfrage, is to shut them down. We simply need a "final solution" for that problem.

The chain is quite simple. In countries where women are educated social inequality falls, family sizes fall, poverty decreases, etc.,. The knock-on effect of this is people in extreme poverty are not chopping down forests in order to grow crops and there is less strain on healthcare and education, less strain on law and order too. Family planning is a key issue. Poor families, as you can see in history, generally had several children because many of them would die young or in infancy. Then think about the cost of having children (education and basic health care - remember in many countries state education isn’t free).

You want to save the whales or lower the average carbon footprint of humans? Educating young women is probably your best choice of attack. Long term it’s cost effective and will drive equality in a better direction - already has in many cases (look to countries outside the ‘western realms’).

What about the young men from low socioeconomic backgrounds who miss out on an education due to an absence of both a male and female teacher in the classroom? Early education is dominated by women, young boys get given labels that effect them their whole life and female teachers generally seem to be a lot more tolerant and understanding of young women’s issues. I mean, I can’t really say that I even blame the women all that much either as they’ve had and still do have the short end of many sticks. However what I feel all female educators need to keep in mind, you’re not trying to stamp out the emotions that men feel just as men should not stamp out the emotions women feel. People are going to feel emotions, men and women aren’t always going to understand one another. Trying to stamp an emotion out of someone just makes them learn unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I hope you know I’m not saying any of this to be against women or to downplay any of the problems that women specifically face. I’d be lying however if I said my inner child didn’t cry a little reading your comment as I thought “This person hasn’t been through what you did, she doesn’t know about HER.” If you’ve ever been an undiagnosed autistic child being screamed at for not being able to recite his two times tables in front of the whole class (many of whom physically assault you each day) in less than two minutes by a women who swears under her breath and forgets her own schedule you’d feel like I feel right now.

Young people deserve a good education, whoever they are and however they identify. Once you start trying to say some more than others you justify every type of some more than others argument.

In Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Africa and the Orient? It’s getting better. You appear to be relating the problem to the west where inequality, poverty, education healthcare and women’s social standing isn’t really an issue (hence population growth).

Oh no, In other parts of the world you’re right it is much worse. Asia is getting better in some isolated places although I’ll need to go look for the source I remember reading for this.

I still don’t think it is wrong to state in those places that it’s not just the women who need educating, men need re-educating. Sure in some places men are definitely receiving more schooling but it’s evidently not being done well enough or women there would have more rights.

You appear to be relating the problem to the west where inequality, poverty, education healthcare and women’s social standing isn’t really an issue (hence population growth).

However we in the West still shouldn’t be trying to pedestal ourselves over the rest of the world like we’ve got it all right. Poverty isn’t an issue in the West? Do the poor have equal access to healthcare, education, and social standing here in the West? I’m sure if we’d solved those problems here we’d all be reading about whatever geniuses sorted that out. My sister would disagree with you as would my fiancé. Women’s issues are important, but to speak as if it’s the most important issue is a bit misguided. See here’s the thing, if you say priority of access to education should be given to women and succeed, then you aren’t creating equality you’re making more inequality.

If you say priority of access to education should be given to everyone and succeed then everyone(including all women) gets education.

I think you’ve touched upon the real issue here really, which is poverty.

As for those places you mentioned, you realise they have their own women’s rights activists as well right? Amazing women all over the world are fighting for equality yet here in the West we infantilise the rest of the world by ignoring our own problems and fixating on theirs. It’s paternalism and it’s just a form of positive racism. It’s also ignoring the women, men and others dying in our own backyards. We should help them, but be open to them helping us too and neither side should really be infantalising the other because there are no sides. Just Humans and the life they SHARE this planet with.

However, if you’re from those places then fight the good fight and don’t let me stop you. Shouldn’t try to diminish other people’s contributions just because they aren’t entirely agreeing with you but you can at least be aware enough to see where I am agreeing with you.

I generally agree with what you're saying here, but there is one issue:

You're taking a general trend -the inverse relationship between education and having children and the correlation between education and poverty, socially inequality etc.- and then start talking as if it only applies to a smaller group -women- in the general set of causes for the trend. There is no need for an emphasis on women as if they are the general factor compared to men who have a lesser effect in that narrative.

I don’t understand your sentence structures.

I apologize. I was simply talking about the fact that you focused on women when there was really no need to do so. I want to know why you did that.

However we in the West still shouldn’t be trying to pedestal ourselves over the rest of the world like we’ve got it all right. Poverty isn’t an issue in the West? Do the poor have equal access to healthcare, education, and social standing here in the West? — Mark Dennis

Relatively speaking, yes. It isn’t a huge issue. Small ups and downs look big if you’re used to stability.

Google what happened in Kerela, India. Look at correlations of GDP and family sizes. Listen to women in Africa who walk for miles to get access to birth control and raise and have educate their children because they cannot afford to send them to school. The simple truth is boys and girls benefit hugely when young women are educated. In the west this is irrelevant. The population boom isn’t happening in the west though.

Because when resources are focused toward the education of young women the outcomes are far greater in many areas of society (as mentioned).

Poorly educated women are more likely (by far) to have more children. Families with too many children mean a new generation comes through perpetuating the problem.

People have mentioned the trope of ‘what else should poor folk do to while away the hours’ which was more a case of if half your kids die before they hit 5 yrs of age you have more kids - because they will look after you in the long run.

This is exactly what I mean about pedestaling. While you’ve been going on and on about the west (like it’s a monolith) that knows very little hardship you are completely ignoring South America, also part of the West! Y’know where the Amazon rainforest is.

What about Greece in Europe with its economic crisis or places like Scotland, Ireland, wales and England due to Tory austerity and the crumbling of the £ with Brexit looming that more and more people are falling into poverty? Children are starving and dying and because you’re from the west and have it better than others you think everyone in the west is doing well as you? Ignorance. I can bring up countless more examples but I’m hoping I’ve made my point.

What is the point in doing philosophy when you bury your head in the sand and don’t go outside your news bubble to really research what is going on around the world from multiple news sources?

If every problem could be so easily fixed by solving just one, we’d have probably figured out what it is by now. Many problems need solving and every problem deserves an allocation of the population who make it their first priority. I don’t have to make it mine though. My priority is Ethics, which ultimately still puts me on women’s side.

I only bothered reading the first paragraph. When people talk about the Western World they generally refer to North America, Europe and Australia and New Zealand. You’re confusing ‘western hemisphere’ with ‘western world’. Granted, there are nuanced definitions used but it should’ve been clear enough what I meant.

Because when resources are focused toward the education of young women the outcomes are far greater in many areas of society (as mentioned). — I like sushi

I would only accept this statement if it was rephrased as "When resources are focused towards the education of people in general, the outcomes are far greater in many areas of society." because, so far, you have not provided justification for why we should "focus our resources on young women's education".
Also, what does it mean to "focus resources on young women's education"? Will we be diverting more resources to education of women than to education of men? That would be sexist.

What is the point in doing philosophy when you bury your head in the sand and don’t go outside your news bubble to really research what is going on around the world from multiple news sources? — Mark Dennis

This is neither a constructive nor an intelligent point. The rest is just a judgement based on assumptions of my condition and location.

Rather than pumping funds pooled internationally for combating global issues into areas that have shown little give. There are such international targets and the payback for funding to help family planning and education for young women is pretty damn good.

“What about Greece in Europe with its economic crisis or places like Scotland, Ireland, wales and England due to Tory austerity and the crumbling of the £ with Brexit looming that more and more people are falling into poverty? Children are starving and dying and because you’re from the west and have it better than others you think everyone in the west is doing well as you? Ignorance. I can bring up countless more examples but I’m hoping I’ve made my point.”

Uhm it is a point if you read what I wrote which you just admitted that you didn’t.

only bothered reading the first paragraph.

- you

The rest is just a judgement based on assumptions of my condition and location.

Nope, psychological evaluation of implied bias and your writing.

I’m assuming now that most of your reasoning is wrong because you claimed you don’t read what people actually say to you. Which also implies something else, that the reason you don’t believe in morality is because if you did, for whatever reason you would have a hard time seeing yourself as a good person.

If you don’t read then how in the world do you intend to try and lecture me on nuance?

Nope. That was not my objection-of course, education of young women should not be neglected and they should be helped. But that's not the issue here.

Please read what i've written more carefully. I was talking about your insistence on "focusing our resources on young women's education", which i think should be elaborated upon and also why we're talking about one gender in particular and neglecting the other.

If we are going to put about the same amount of resources on young women's education compared to young men's education, then why bring gender up?
If we are going to put much more of our resources on young women's education compared to young men's, then i would argue that it's sexist and this particular line of reasoning needs to be justified. "If we educate young women, the rate of poverty etc. falls." doesn't provide enough justification here, as the same applies to young men.

I did read. Maybe you don’t understand what I’m referring to.

https://unfoundation.org/what-we-do/issues/

Rather than pumping funds pooled internationally for combating global issues into areas that have shown little give. There are such international targets and the payback for funding to help family planning and education for young women is pretty damn good.

Oh like climate change and global warming? So girls schools yes? The continuation of our species no?

Empowering girls and women is good and all, but you said we should divert our resources to young women's education and not that we should, while dealing with the education of all people regardless of gender, deal with gender discrimination too. The central part of your solution was educating young women, not education in general. I'm against that as it is sexist and just counter-productive.

I can't be the only person around here with kids (and now grandkids for that matter), right?