Human beings are a resource (human resources) and therefor subject to supply and demand. The fewer there are, the higher the price. The more there are, the lower the price. When you are stuck in growth/progress model that doesn't perceive alternative directions of growth (i.e. growing smaller) and progress (i.e. not viewing people and nature as resources) then you want breeders slinging semen far and wide.

Good? No. But Mother Nature controls, notwithstanding our silly belief that we are exempt and can save ourselves with the current model. After all, if you are in the air, you must be flying and not falling, right?

I couldn't agree more!

We all know that life here is fraught with risks and that we have to work to survive and that for large portions of our lives we have no dignity and must depend on others to care for us. So those who, knowing that, nevertheless subject someone else to a lifetime here are doing something seriously immoral, other things being equal.

And their motives for doing so are often very bad indeed. For instance, they just want a project, or they are megolomaniacs who want their own little tribe to lord over, or they want a distraction from their grotty life or relationship, or they are egomaniacs who want to be loved blindly, or they are sick in the head and want someone else to depend on them, or they're just unbelievably unimaginative and like the fact that if you breed your life is suddenly all mapped out for you.

Anyway, it is - upon a bit of reflection - a clearly highly immoral thing to do, other things being equal.

There are those who harp on about the environment and the damage we all do to other creatures and their habitats and how we should divest ourselves of the luxuries of modern life and live like Neanderthals but who nevertheless think nothing of breeding (even though short of starting up a rubber burning plant, that's about the most environmentally unfriendly thing one can possibly do).

The simply fact is that it is our parents' fault that we exist and so they owe us a living, and owe it to others to protect others from us if we turn out to be a bad apple, and any sacrifices that need to be made to make-up for the harms we do to others just by leading an enjoyable life are sacrifices they owe, not us.

The only upside to their unjust decision to breed is that they thereby render all the risks of harm that they subsequently face in their lives fully deserved. For by breeding they do unto others what was done unto them.

Not to rain on your Anti-kid parade, because it's a decent rant, but kids are cool. Show me a screwed up kid and I will show you a bad parent.

All of that sounds pretty persuasive to me. However, I have met people who are genuinely, sincerely in love with life and want to share it with new life. I know there is other life around they could do that with (adopt), but they feel driven to breed. Just as suicide is relatively rare due to the desire to live, so too some people think breeding is part of evolution's (not grand but site-specific) plan. It would take intellect to override the desire to eat meat, so why fight it?

Show me a screwed up kid and I will show you a bad parent. — Book273

Ted Bundy. Parents good (as parents). Him, not so much.

Anyway, even if kids are cool - and they're not, it is an undignified state to be in as most kids themselves recognize (when you were a kid, did you want to stay one?) - the simple fact is other people are not our toys. To subject someone to a life - a life here, of all places - simply because you want something cool to have around is flagrantly immoral. Buy a motorbike instead. It'll cost you less and isn't immoral, so far as I can tell.

I don't think all parents are culpable for their decisions, or equally culpable. It depends on what informed the decision. And it depends on the circumstances. I think there's a limit to what morality demands of us and probably most decisions to breed were made in circumstances where not breeding would have subjected the non-breeder to such hardship they can't reasonably be expected to have made a different decision. That probably applies to most decisions to breed, historically speaking. But it doesn't apply to many of those made in wealthy western democracies.

As for wanting to share love - well, let's be clear: they want someone to love. That's fine - nothing wrong with that desire. But there's everything wrong with deciding to satisfy it by forcing into existence here someone you know will unthinkingly love the first faces they see. If you want to be loved, find someone who already exists and try and make them love you by doing your best to inspire those feelings in them in ways they could agree to.

I mean, what if I want to be loved and so I manufacture a love potion and put it in Jane's tea. Is that okay? Obviously not. So there's wanting to be loved and there's how one goes about satisfying that desire. 'Making' someone love you by means that do not involve appealing to their own informed judgements - so methods that involve bypassing their rational faculties - are wrong, or at least are wrong when used intentionally. Yet isn't that what a parent who wants sincerely to 'share the love' is doing?

I think children are on average lovely.

But childhood is the smallest proportion of life.

People talk about wanting to have a baby or child but not about wanting to have an adult or adopt an adult. But your children are all these adults.

I would prefer to make an existing human happy rather than creating another billionth human to make them happy.

I've met those who love life. They don't want a kid to love them. They want to share what they have found, and feel guilty keeping it all to themselves. I suppose if I were a Christian I might say the reason I go into the Amazon and totally fuck up bunch of lives is because, you know, Jesus and all that. I just have to share. Or, closer to home, when I find an absolutely stunning secret place I want to share it. Knowing, intellectually, such sharing will result in it's destruction, I don't share. But the urge is there anyway. I know some folks who love life the way I love this secret place I found, or like some bible thumper might love Jesus. To have a clean slate to share it with (a kid of your own) would be a lot safer than sharing it with someone who may not appreciate it the way I do (and then trash it) or who might ruin it.

Edited to add: I'm not defending it. I'm just providing a motivation that is not all mercenary or self-serving.

They want to share what they have found, and feel guilty keeping it all to themselves. — James Riley

My guilt is that what I enjoy is clearly created by mass exploitation and inequality.

I think your concept of sharing is great but with billions of humans existing now there is no danger of things not being shared. At the same time people have different preferences so sharing something does not ensure the person who recieves the share will appreciate it.

I have a lot of minority preferences such as baroque music and philosophy also am gay and throughout my life I have had to accept that I am in minority in many ways.

I think people are propogating majority preferences as opposed to propogating a diverse enjoyment of a multifaceted reality.

I think your concept of sharing is great but with billions of humans existing now there is no danger of things not being shared. — Andrew4Handel

Especially now, with social media. Word travels fast. While many folks are satisfied with the cyber world, others will definitely "get out there" and see it, and when they do, that's often the end of it.

At the same time people have different preferences so sharing something does not ensure the person who recieves the share will appreciate it. — Andrew4Handel

True. That's another reason people want kids. They think the kid is more likely to appreciate X than another person might. While kids are known for appreciating the ass-opposite things their folks appreciate, they are less likely to actually trash it. Some of the upbringing will instill a modicum of respect, if not appreciation. Especially if it's something outside of and independent of the parent. Daddy takes you fishing and you hate to fish, but you don't go back and ruin the lake. Share that lake with Billy Bob and Cletus, though, and, well, you get the picture.

I cannot see any reason to create a new child and I have not had any children myself. — Andrew4Handel

I fully endorse everyone who has commented so far not having children. The thought of any of you having children makes me shiver. Please make sure that all of you with any chance of being involved in a sexual relationship with a member of the opposite sex use effective birth control. Please.

Deciding to have children is not usually a rational decision while deciding not to often is. My brother and his wife decided not to have children. My daughter did too. Most people want to have children. Why? I'm sure it includes a combination of biological urges and social conditioning. It also includes a sense of wanting to contribute to our communities and families. I see my children as a gift to my extended family and I think they agree. I feel that way about my nieces. Having children is seen as a good thing and many of us, probably most of us, agree. When we get down to it, it doesn't matter why we want children, we do.

:cheer:

I think that the things we enjoy do not make us want have children.

No pleasurable Experience I have had has made that think I must have children.

I think that the reason people have children is largely cultural/social.

The worst scenario is that people have children to validate themselves.

The worst scenario is that people have children to validate themselves. — Andrew4Handel

Sometimes they even kids just to save a broken marriage... what happens at the end of the day? A kid raised in an unbalance family where nobody cares actually about him and probably he will end up with a lot of traumas in their adulthood

In the grand scheme of things, there are children because sex is very pleasant. That's the most parsimonious explanation.

True enough, some people decide to have no children. They are bucking nature. Some people decide to have several children, and do so quite consciously because they think god wants them to have many. Or they are patriotic, or suffer from some other major delusion.

Mostly though, children are the result of sex, and people like sex--as nature intended.

Nature has always been on the side of more life, a preference it has upheld for billions of years. We've been around a vanishingly short period of time, and we are as bound up in nature as every other species.

Mostly though, children are the result of sex, and people like sex--as nature intended. — Bitter Crank

Interesting quote. So, in this context, we can argue that sex is a trap created by nature just to promote human species.

As you know, as most people here know (I hope), sex is the means by which nature conducts reproduction in plants and animals. True, a lot of single celled plants and animals forego sex and simply divide--another successful method. But sexual reproduction is a very efficient way of regularly remixing genetic material between individuals (any species).

From the beginning of life on earth, nature opted for MORE and VARIED species (personalizing nature, here). Among complex plants and animals sex and reproduction have been mandatory, It might be unsuccessful (late frost might prevent fruit trees from being pollinated; mates may not be available this year for xyz species) but the imperative is still there: TRY.

Humans didn't invent having children--obviously. We didn't invent the mechanics by which children get born. We didn't invent the primal urges that drive men and women to mate. We didn't invent the attachment that parents feel for their children. We have behaved as nature led us to behave.

We did invent some ways of not having children. Some people have opted to use those methods. Besides that, some people are/were insufficiently motivated to reproduce, or are/were not fit partners. Gay men like me, for instance, are/were not fit partners for heterosexual women. Some straight men and women were also not fit partners.

Mostly though, not having children is bucking (defying) nature. I think there are too many people on earth, and I wish everyone would buck (defy) nature and reproduce at less than the population replacement level. Fat chance of that happening. When I started high school in 1960, there were about 3 billion people. 60 years later there are close to 8 billion. Too many in Europe; Asia; Africa; and the Americas. Everywhere.

It is now way too late for Zero Population Growth. If we do not shrink our population, nature will eventually find a method for reducing our excess population. Nature has done this before with other species and it will do it to us if necessary (or maybe we will do it to ourselves). I guarantee that we will not like it.

What possible reason could there be for creating another person? — Andrew4Handel

Childless myself, the only reason to procreate is there is no reason, just urges and her prerogative.

So, in this context, we can argue that sex is a trap created by nature just to promote human species. — javi2541997

:up:

In the grand scheme of things, there are children because sex is very pleasant. That's the most parsimonious explanation.

True enough, some people decide to have no children. They are bucking nature. Some people decide to have several children, and do so quite consciously because they think god wants them to have many. Or they are patriotic, or suffer from some other major delusion.

Mostly though, children are the result of sex, and people like sex--as nature intended.

Nature has always been on the side of more life, a preference it has upheld for billions of years. We've been around a vanishingly short period of time, and we are as bound up in nature as every other species. — Bitter Crank

:clap: :100: Can't spooge in a cup any more drip-free than that.

Some straight men and women were also not fit partners. — Bitter Crank

I am heterosexual and yes I am not a fit partner for anyone. This is why sometimes I doubt about the true nature of sex. I mean, it could be that little percentage of people that somehow do not get laid for a lot of reasons. When this happens, someone like me is being told that "I should go to a therapist because it is not normal at all not having affection or motivation for anyone"
Excuse me, why this has to be bad? Why don't we consider it as normal too? This situation of not fitting partner, as you explained, can happen too.

It is now way too late for Zero Population Growth. If we do not shrink our population, nature will eventually find a method for reducing our excess population. Nature has done this before with other species and it will do it to us if necessary (or maybe we will do it to ourselves). I guarantee that we will not like it. — Bitter Crank

Yes! Agreed. I going to sound pretty totalitarian but I like the chinese idea of 1 kid policy. There are a lot of people in Earth that nature is getting upset with us. Back in the day, for better or worse, we had a lot of wars so we compensate it. But now, living in the most long run Era of peace, it is clear how overpopulated the Earth is.
To be honest, it is true that I don't know which is the feeling of having kids and being a dad so I could sound ignorant. Nevertheless, my statement still be that we should be toughest about promiscuous sexuality

Childless myself, the only reason to procreate is there is no reason, just urges and her prerogative. — 180 Proof

:100: :up:

If you asked Kant, he would tell you that if there were a reason, and in olden times and primitive societies children were labour assets and providers for old age, it would be immoral because it would treat a person as a means.

There is no reason to require a reason for everything, and the creation of this miserable thread is as unreasonable as the procreation of children. My own children are completely useless and a pain it the butt. This makes me virtuous and stands as an awful warning to all you youngsters not to enjoy yourselves except with addictive drugs.

It is now way too late for Zero Population Growth. If we do not shrink our population, nature will eventually find a method for reducing our excess population. Nature has done this before with other species and it will do it to us if necessary (or maybe we will do it to ourselves). I guarantee that we will not like it. — Bitter Crank

:100:

What possible reason could there be for creating another person? — Andrew4Handel

We're nature's, life's, only hope of extricating itself from being at the mercy of chance. With our brains, excuse the hyperbole if one feels there's one, we can, given enough time and a decent amount of luck (??!!), get to the bottom of how evolution works and perhaps learn to control and give it a direction that would make it more efficient, more resilient, and more likely to survive catastrophic events. Ergo, in my humble opinion, if only to keep the torch of human progress in relevant fields burning, we should have children. Oddly, these very brains that seem to hold the key to success for life as a whole are also the source of life's biggest problems. Life, nature, is playing a game or risk...as usual. Keep the ball rolling, cross your fingers, wait and watch.

What possible reason could there be for creating another person?

The only reasons I can imagine are completely self centered around the parents personal desires. — Andrew4Handel

To continue improving the fate of those who remain after your death through projects that take longer than one generation to complete.

just wanted to say your posts in the “all things wrong with antinatalism” thread convinced me.

Now, If you had 100% certainty that your future kid would cure cancer, having them wouldn’t exactly be self centered.

There is no reason to require a reason for everything — unenlightened

I like what you said but what about the Principle Of Sufficient Reason?

To continue improving the fate of those who remain after your death through projects that take longer than one generation to complete. — Isaac

Better to plant trees than to add more people. “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit." Old Greek Proverb.

Better to plant trees than to add more people. “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit." — James Riley

Who, then, will tend the trees?

Who, then, will tend the trees? — Isaac

The trees will tend themselves.

The trees will tend themselves. — James Riley

Well then why do we need to plant them? They do that themselves too you know.