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While I do not think it is "unethical" to bring new life to this world, I don't think it is fair to the unborn child.
Today's world and the foreseeable future is dim. There are too many negatives today. The child you bring into the world today is going to be at a disadvantage unless the parents are very well off financially.
My wife and I saw the future 35 years ago and both decided then that we would never have children.
To this day we know we did the right thing for us and for any potential off spring.
I never wanted my child to say to me "Daddy, if you knew how bad the world was and where it was going why did you
have us in the first place"
Now is NOT the time. Hopefully in the future the world will be a better place to live. Hopefully.
,
Self-centered people love to bring kids into the world that they're not ready for, give them a life of suffering, not teach them a thing about the world and later say "why can't you get a better job???"
The days I grew up in, the 60's and 70's werent as bad as these days. My time growing up was a time of change.
I dont know where I got my crystal ball, I think it is my genes. What is worse? The breakdown of society is the major factor. I predicted car jackings way before they started to happen regularly. I predicted that the day will come when you would leave the supermarket and be held up for the groceries and your car. I predicted that society would go down the tubes and people would all be out for themselves at the cost of everyone else. I predicted what became the crack cocaine epidemic. I predicted a world where jobs would be scarce and there would be a huge growth of the lower class and that the middle class would be wiped out. I predicted a time when children would turn against their parents with deadly consequences. Those are a few of the thoughts I had in the later 70s and earlier.
I saw the decline of society in the early 70s and its been on a downward trend since.
Sure, a lot of things are better. None of them have to do with basic human behavior though. Its all based on technological advances.
You can have your thoughts and I will hold to mine. I cant think of how many times we said to each other "thank God we didnt have kids".
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkb0714
LOL. Really? Have you ever actually said the bolded part to your parents? I have never even known anyone who wished they were never born based on a generalized less than ideal "future".
Oh and where did you get your crystal ball to predict the future? What exactly is so much worse now than in 1978?
Of course you are entitled to your entirely subjective opinion that everything is worse, but for every example of something "worse" people can come up with ten things that are better. It is not an objective truth by any means.
Self-centered people love to bring kids into the world that they're not ready for, give them a life of suffering, not teach them a thing about the world and later say "why can't you get a better job???"
Have you ever actually said the bolded part to your parents? I have never even known anyone who wished they were never born based on a generalized less than ideal "future".
...
I have actually said something similar to my own parents (instead of "if you knew how bad the world was and where it was going why did you have [me] in the first place", "Have you not had occasion to contemplate, before I was born, that I might regret having been born?").
I don't count myself as part of the camp who considers the present world to be worse than it was 30 years ago. Nor do I believe that humanity is inexorably headed for decline, or that we've become debased from a halcyon golden-age that's forever lost in the mists of memory. I'm actually optimistic about successive generations becoming more rational and more moral than their predecessors. If I had to be born, but could chose the epoch, I would have chosen some distant future, rather than the present or the past.
So much for being labeled an unregenerate pessimist. Instead, my objection to reproduction is an abstraction. Nobody had a choice as to whether to be born. And suicide isn't a viable option, because of the entanglements of every life, once made. Consider the analogy of inmates in a prisoner-of-war camp. Suppose that you're a strong and resourceful prisoner, who sees the opportunity to escape. Would you take that opportunity, knowing that your escape will likely lead to the torture of those left behind? Or would you voluntarily stay behind, waiting for hostilities to be over, so that everyone could be released?
Again, if those who find themselves to be dissatisfied with life could hit the eject-button without qualm or consequence (other than their own deaths), the "reproduction is immoral" question would be moot. If you don't like the deal offered to you, return the merchandise for a full refund, so to speak. But I don't see things that way. In my view, you can't get out of the game... but you had no choice whether to begin! That is the quandary. And that is why the game isn't worth playing.
Can we be absolutely sure of that, though? I reached a point not long ago where
I've questioned that seemingly popular assumption.
Granted, I don't remember choosing to come into this world, but, by the same token,
I don't remember being issued an ultimatum to do so either.
It's quite possible that participation in this world/dimension is completely voluntary.
To put it simply, those who have compared this world to a stage, and its inhabitants
to actors, just might be on to something. I know for myself that this particular paradigm
has turned my own "why-God-why"-sentiments into one huge "Ah-hah!"-moment.
So much for being labeled an unregenerate pessimist. Instead, my objection to reproduction is an abstraction. Nobody had a choice as to whether to be born. And suicide isn't a viable option, because of the entanglements of every life, once made. Consider the analogy of inmates in a prisoner-of-war camp. Suppose that you're a strong and resourceful prisoner, who sees the opportunity to escape. Would you take that opportunity, knowing that your escape will likely lead to the torture of those left behind? Or would you voluntarily stay behind, waiting for hostilities to be over, so that everyone could be released?
The answer to that question, taught to soldiers, is that you do take the opportunity to escape.
The days I grew up in, the 60's and 70's werent as bad as these days.
Again completely subjective and by no means fact.
Quote:
My time growing up was a time of change.
I dont know where I got my crystal ball, I think it is my genes. What is worse? The breakdown of society is the major factor. I predicted car jackings way before they started to happen regularly. I predicted that the day will come when you would leave the supermarket and be held up for the groceries and your car. I predicted that society would go down the tubes and people would all be out for themselves at the cost of everyone else. I predicted what became the crack cocaine epidemic. I predicted a world where jobs would be scarce and there would be a huge growth of the lower class and that the middle class would be wiped out. I predicted a time when children would turn against their parents with deadly consequences. Those are a few of the thoughts I had in the later 70s and earlier.
I saw the decline of society in the early 70s and its been on a downward trend since.
Sure, a lot of things are better. None of them have to do with basic human behavior though. Its all based on technological advances.
You can have your thoughts and I will hold to mine. I cant think of how many times we said to each other "thank God we didnt have kids".
You are of course welcome to your completely subjective opinion but it is not fact nor even a particularly well informed opinion. But ultimately I agree it was best you didn't have children.
Unemployment is not any higher than it hasn't been cyclically before. And it has been significantly higher, say 1940, to then get significantly better, in 10 years. As for human behavior, you are focused on car jacking sand ignoring the fact that organized crime, which was frequently much more bloody, was far worse before you were born. You really have no objective measure for whether things are worse or not. But since you see evil, and danger everywhere it is best that you not be a parent as you would likely raise paranoid, fearful, negative children.
You are of course welcome to your completely subjective opinion but it is not fact nor even a particularly well informed opinion. But ultimately I agree it was best you didn't have children.
Unemployment is not any higher than it hasn't been cyclically before. And it has been significantly higher, say 1940, to then get significantly better, in 10 years. As for human behavior, you are focused on car jacking sand ignoring the fact that organized crime, which was frequently much more bloody, was far worse before you were born. You really have no objective measure for whether things are worse or not. But since you see evil, and danger everywhere it is best that you not be a parent as you would likely raise paranoid, fearful, negative children.
Subjective or not, my opinion is what I had to live by and I never regretted it. Sure unemployment has been higher, things have been worse. Organized crime did not affect the average Joe. Car jackings do. In my earlier days kids were able to go out and play on the streets without fear of being molested, kidnapped or killed. Children weren't murdering their parents and parents werent murdering their children as they do these days. Drug use was minimal compared to today. I frankly don't give a rats ass what you think about my opinion, it means nothing to me. You did not live my life nor will you live my future. You do as you want and I will do as I want. I don't need your opinion as to whether I was right or wrong in your eyes.
The fact that you can't predict, either, whether a given child won't be Bill Gates means that it's equally morally wrong not to have that child
Because the potential Bill Gates can't be deprived of his existence. It's not a duty to bring him into existence.
If you say that...How can you predict that you won't have 16 "Bill Gates"?
Does it mean then that a couple should bring 16 kids into existence because if not, they are denying them the opportunity of happiness ? How could they predict that their potential 16 kids would not have a wonderful, charming, blissful life? Are they being immoral then?
Last edited by Nill; 01-01-2014 at 04:29 AM..
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