[toasterlovin]

There is a fork in the road. Along one fork, there are additional humans (your children!) who exist. Along the other fork, they do not exist. Deciding which fork Existence takes as it unfolds is entirely up to you.

But, sure, believe there are no moral consequences to this decision if that makes you feel better.

[ciokan]

This is no "Schrödinger's cat" which is both alive and dead. There is no fork if one decides to not have children. Decision was made so your fork is a straight line. Let's not dive into parallel universes spawned each time we make a decision.

[toasterlovin]

Isn't the whole reason we punish people for murder based on the idea that if the murderer had chosen not to murder (in other words, if they had taken the other route at the fork in the road) then the victim would still be alive?

Obviously, murdering an already alive person is not the same thing as not having children, but is not the reasoning the same? Am I missing something?

[ciokan]

Nope, the punishment is a reaction to an action (the murder). First there's the virus then comes the anti-virus. Without the action there is no punishment. You can twist this idea for as long as you wish, your point is still wrong as it's based on parallel universes and "what ifs" all the time. You remind me of the late Christopher Hitchens debates (go watch that man on youtube, also Sam Harris and Lawrence Krauss) where the religious arguments are always based on the premise of "prove me that God doesn't exist" while nobody can actually prove it exists neither.

I know a gypsy family in my country (it's been aired on TV 2 weeks ago - there are many such examples) which has 12 kids, all of them sent in Paris and Berlin to beg on the streets for money. Back home they have a palace and 4-5 cars each above 30-40k euros from everything they raised over the years. Most of those kids bring zero value to the society (it's not their fault - it's how they were raised), even worst, "it takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch" meaning that I see a trend in the youth to go for the "easy money" which brings us to the top of the list when it comes to fraud, identity theft, credit card theft, hacking and so on. This is just an example (and there's plenty more I can think of) but I want to ask you...are they a gift? To whom? To their parents maybe...in which case, isn't it selfish in some cases to make more kids than none at all? Aren't you just subjective by using yourself as an example to all arguments?

As a father myself, I don't see a goal in "preserving my bloodline" at all. The bloodline doesn't matter. I always go for quality over quantity. I don't need to pay tribute to anybody (ancestors). I didn't ask anybody to bring me into this world. A gift is something that you're offered, never imposed.

[toasterlovin]

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. We don't excuse murder by saying that as soon as the murderer decides to kill the victim the "fork becomes a straight line". Murder is a crime because other possible outcomes exist (the other possible outcome being that the murderer decides not to kill the victim).

And the nature of those other possible outcomes changes whether or not we consider one person killing another to be murder. Imagine that somebody puts a gun to your head and threatens to kill you unless you kill somebody else. If you decide to kill that other person, it is not considered murder because of the other possible outcome (the person putting the gun to your head kills you).

So what I am saying is that it is perfectly valid to consider forks in the road (or alternate outcomes or whatever you want to call them) when making moral arguments. We do it all the time.

(I am not saying, btw, that choosing not to have children is equivalent to murder. Murder is just a useful example for thinking through the validity of considering alternate outcomes.)

[rootusrootus]

We punish people for crime (including murder) to deter them from doing it, because such behavior is detrimental to society. I think you're reading far too much into the life part, and you are particularly far out there on the idea that not having children is akin to murdering them.

[toasterlovin]

> you are particularly far out there on the idea that not having children is akin to murdering them

I specifically pointed out that the two are not the same thing.