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Comment by toasterlovin | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, maybe let your kids decide if life is worth living. Seems wrong to make that decision for them...

Is it wrong to make the decision for the first 1.8 kids or the next 8-10?

Simple: as many kids as you would have if the world weren't so terrible that "it's wrong to bring them into a world like this."

You make this decision when you have kids, not by not having them.

All I'm saying is that, as a reason for not having children, "it would be wrong to bring them into a world like this", is just bad reasoning. We all possess the ability to take our own lives, so if you're alive and considering whether or not to have children, you are demonstrating with your very existence that a life in current circumstances is worth living.

Otherwise you would have killed yourself.

Killing yourself is not easy.

There are literally millions of people who have tried repeatedly but the instinct is strong and prevents you from actually doing it. Just go to any psychatric hospital and you will see many people wanting to die, living a miserable life, but who have not quite succeeded in killing themselves, and are just barely maintained alive by the system.

In addition, the fact that life is bearable for one person at one moment doesn't mean it will be so as well for its children in 30 /50 / 60 years.

You can dismiss the argument, but it makes sense and this is why eastern european countries have had such a low fertility for decades now.

A different way to look at it: being alive is so great that it’s worth it despite having to contend with a massive amount of misery.

It just seems wrong to me to deny something so great to your children because you’re worried about global warming or whatever. Let them decide if life is worth living. Give them agency by giving them life.

Also: fertility rates are dropping in all of the developed world. This phenomenon is not unique to Eastern Europe.

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