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Comment by IggleSniggle | Hacker News Reader

My spouse and I struggled with whether it was ethical to have children. It was a financial burden of course but one we felt capable of meeting.

I don't think it's really a question of "enjoy your riches," because no matter what your status, nobody can "afford" children, not even the ultra high net worth individuals. It's a burden regardless.

But I think therein lies the answer. There was a time not all that long ago that not having children was a burden. Who was going to bring in the harvest, or at the very least supervise bringing in the harvest? Who could you really trust to take care of you properly when you got old? And of course, there's a biological compulsion as well, but that's much easier to sidestep only in the last couple generations.

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Just what exactly about having kids is not ethical? If ethics is a human construct-and you are contributing to having no more humans around…I don’t know, it just seems like a strange way of framing it.

As for the burden of having kids, I think it’s way too simplistic to say it was a burden NOT to have them in the past. There were different cultural dynamics, for sure, but kids have always been a mixed blessing—both difficult and extremely rewarding. Having kids has historically forced adults to face their own shortcomings. Not an easy thing to do in any era.

No child can consent to being born.

Sure, but if you were to poll everyone on if they were happy to be born, it'd be overwhelmingly yes. Your odds are pretty good of having a kid that was happy that you doinked.

> Sure, but if you were to poll everyone on if they were happy to be born, it'd be overwhelmingly yes

...why do you assume it would be yes?

There'd be a lot fewer people, otherwise. From a pragmatic point of view, we've likely evolved to answer yes to that question, otherwise we would've been outcompeted by another species with a thirst to live and reproduce.

Not necessarily, there are a lot of species that are functional no-ops, such as the Luna moths that grow up to be unable to eat anything as they have no mouths. They can only procreate, continuing the cycle. They are no-ops because there is nothing they can do besides procreate, they cannot even obtain sustenance. So, they might say that it was not worth being born, had they been able to be polled.

The survival instinct is still active if someone would rather not have been born, as is the instinct and desire to reproduce.

Yeah, probably.

But if, as hotpotamus suggests, "consent" is a useful way to look at this, then that's not good enough. You can't randomly do surgery on people just because you believe there's a 90% chance they'll be happy with the results.

I’m pretty sure you can.

Someone is unconscious and dying, you can save them with surgery, surely it’s highly unethical to wait for their explicit consent?!

If you polled me, the answer would be no. I'm not exactly unhappy about it either, but I'm conflicted enough about it that it's not something I will do to another.

Applying the ethics of consent to this topic is probably just shallow reasoning. There are much better frameworks, but if all you have is a hammer I understand the temptation:)

The burden it places on yourself, your child, and the incremental burden it places on everyone else living on the planet?

If the ethical thing to do is increase the total happiness (or perhaps contentedness, or satisfaction) of all humans...well it's just not really clear that adding a statistically average human is the way to increase human prosperity / reduce human suffering.

To your other point, now that I'm a parent, it's easy to see that becoming a parent made me into a better person, but there was no way I could have known that that would happen before becoming one.

Increasing human prosperity/reducing human suffering is largely a function of technological advancement, wealth distribution and avoiding wars. All of these require a large population of educated humans to drive forward and since yours will likely be educated, probably net positive.

You couldn't observe that around you growing up? It's was clear to me growing up that big families and children with siblings were mostly happier. It didn't matter if the family was rich or barely getting by.

> well it's just not really clear that adding a statistically average human is the way to increase human prosperity / reduce human suffering.

All of history has been an steady march forward of more prosperity and less suffering accomplished by an entire population of, on average, average people.

> Just what exactly about having kids is not ethical? If ethics is a human construct-and you are contributing to having no more humans around…

We're really really far from extinction. That's just simply not an issue at all.

Ah, we are really just one smart kid away from extinction.

Something something boson something neutron, and the Earth goes kaboom.

Children can be very dangerous.

True, don't let your kid play with the large hadron collider at work!

If finances weren't an issue most couples would have more children. It's very practical to have them. I had an an awesome childhood because holidays were so much fun because my parents generation were so many and had lots of children too. We have a huge extended family. It's great/practical to have a huge family / clan regardless if its the 1800s or now.

Why do rich countries have fewer children than poor countries?

Why do rich people in rich countries have fewer children than poor people in rich countries?

Nowhere is it seen that more money correlates to more children.

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