[actually_a_dog]

Your argument only works when the general trend is toward the better. After 50+ years of not doing anything about it, it's now a near certainty that the next 50 years of "progress" will be more like going backwards 100+ years.

[tsol]

No it doesn't? My argument is that human life has been full of unavoidable difficulty for 200,000 years, so if bringing kids into a painful world is unethical then having children has always been an unethical decision. Even if we as a society go back 200 years, the decision to have kids is still just as unethical as it ever was. Which is to say, having children isn't an ethical decision it's an emotional decision.

Or I can put it this way-- The most ethical thing any human can do really is to commit suicide so you don't further consume finite resources. But the desire to live is a strong emotional desire and even the most logical person will justify their own life while simultaneously consuming resources and contributing to the problem they lament.

[actually_a_dog]

No, it really does. Maybe you can emotionally justify bringing additional people into a problem created by people, but, I can't. And, if you can justify it, quite frankly, I think that makes you a bad person.

200 years ago, nobody had any reason to suspect that life would be significantly worse in 50 years. Today, we do. 200 years ago, we hadn't poisoned the planet with "forever chemicals" (PFAS) and microplastics. Oh, and let's not forget the economic mess we're leaving to future generations, either.

200 years ago, there was no reason to suspect the next generation would be worse off than this one. One could afford not to take ethical considerations into account when having children then, because there was no reason to suspect it would be unethical.

As for suicide, sure, I can justify that on ethical grounds. I'm not sure I want to continue much past whenever my dog dies. She's 7. OTOH, I can't see where I'm ethically required to commit suicide to solve a problem I didn't create.

[tsol]

>200 years ago, there was no reason to suspect the next generation would be worse off than this one

Wars, plagues, famines, economic issues and tyranny all existed 200 years ago. Only someone living in a very cushy position in the first world would be reasonably assured that life wouldn't be worse in the future. The future is always uncertain. Even now, for all we know the covid 19 virus may evolve into some incredibly virulent and deadly disease at any time. That was doubly so when the black death was still occurring, before antibiotics, along with a plethora of diseases we're only somewhat aware of today such as polio and leprosy.

You have an inaccurate view of the world if you think the bottom 25% of humans ever had any real assurance life was going to get better rather than worse. Making moral judgements on them is an easy way to sound naive. For example you're implying African slaves in the Americas were "bad people"(your words) because they had children despite knowing their children would be enslaved. It's incredibly simplistic to think that anyone ever had that kind of assurance except for the very most privileged in society. We're not in a wholly novel situation, we're returning to the uncertainty that our ancestors had to deal with. Forever chemicals and microplastics are a new poison, and one I really am concerned about to tell you the truth, but poison itself isn't new.

And you're just as ethically required to commit suicide as you are to not have kids-- they both are means to lower the anguish in the world. How can only be ethically required to care about my kids possible pain, but simultaneously not required to care about about the billions of working class around the world working their fingers to their bones mining our lithium and making our food and goods, for pennies a day, just to survive? The lithium batteries in our phones that were using to discuss this, are a testament to the way we are engaged in this awful system. I don't know why one humans anguish is acceptable to be a part of while another unborn humans anguish would be a moral sin. Either contributing to the pain and blood inherent in the system is bad, or its okay. It doesn't really matter whose kids are suffering, in the grand picture of morality-- you owe the same moral duty to do no harm to the kids other people created as you owe to your potential kids