Furthermore, from my perspective I think that it is one's duty to have as many children as they think they can have within as long they it does not negatively effect the raising of their other children to a large degree, and it does not put one below the poverty line.

Raising children who are moral/ upright, and positively add to the economy adds to the world by an exponential factor.

You could always adopt kids and give them the benefit of your intelligence, education, and motivation.

The "adopt" kids usually are the kids of alcoholic parents, who gave them a subtle but unrepairable "drink" too much. You will not be informed about that by government- and you will go through hell trying to repair what alcohol made unrepairable.

Would advise that only if government guarantees no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_spectrum_disorde...

Do you have any statistics on that, or is that just your personal bias?

Sorry its paywalled and german: http://www.spiegel.de/plus/alkoholgeschaedigte-adoptivkinder...

Summary of the story: Government knowingly passed retarded children - who destroyed several marriages and familys- simply because that sort of damage is not fixable with love and understanding. You can only tolerate it and adapt your lifestyle to the new member of the family.

I get your argument, but in terms of environmental impact on climate change, those ‘smart, educated, and motivated’ kids will likely have a greater negative impact on climate change than less educated kids.

It is the successful people who harm the environment the most.

I still don’t believe that we should stop having kids, but let’s not pretend that OUR kids won’t harm the environment.

Step 1. Move outside the US Step 2. Watch your kids's CO2 emissions get divided by 3 by pure magic.

The lifestyle the US society pushes on you and your children pushes you to have much higher CO2 emissions than really useful (airplanes to go everywhere, higher salaries and higher consumption, ...).

It's also the educated, motivated kids in the developed world that have the greatest chance of averting or remediating climate change.

Probably the best result would be a soft leveling off rather than abrupt stoppage in reproduction anywhere. Interestingly, some historians claim the Black Plague in Britain/England caused a disruption which later on cascaded in such way to allow the the transition from feudalism to more capital intensive economics (same wealth distributed among fewer heirs).

Some of the worst offenders, which are generally companies and governments, are led by educated, motivated kits in the developed world.

Yet the opposite is true, meaning that less educated people usually have more kids than vice-versa.

Hans Rosling actually talked about this, that a way of stopping over population is by investing more in education in poorer areas.

"...if your reading this than..." ouch

Are you implying kids of "smart, educated, motivated person" will contribute more than kids of people who don't fall into your arbitrary definition?

I think so. There isn't anything controversial being said here.

Children given education, good home lives, and goals are more likely to succeed than those without access to those opportunities. It isn't fair, but that doesn't mean we can't look for other ways to improve outcomes across the board.

So the key is giving more kids those opportunities. Not just some kids.

Obviously genetics and nurture play a massive role in a person's upbringing and largely determine what kind of person they will be. What is the issue here exactly?

If not, why have an education system at all?

Exactly? Education happens in school, college, friends, community and, partially, at home.

The concept that "my kids" are better than other people kids because they are like me is extremely silly on many levels. They might not share your ideals and even if they do, it promotes a single line of thinking.

The more we learn about iq the more heritable we believe it to be. Up to 80-85% in more recent studies

Which is why it’s weird so many kids from other countries want to come here for their higher studies, right?

Not sure I get your point. I don't think it's weird at all. Because:

- That happens to every country - One in three top US professors educated overseas https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/one-in-three-top-u... - Most of their classmates will be foreign students too https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/11/foreign...

> That happens to every country

Both your sources are for the US only. How did you get to 'every country'?

But other people and their children are not mentioned.

> the best thing you can do for the world is to have kids

...yet what is the best thing for the kids? That's a harder thing to know - you can't really compare "not existing" with "living in a world that has a ton of issues". You can debate how bad the issues will be, but that really dodges the inability to make that comparison.

> ...yet what is the best thing for the kids? That's a harder thing to know - you can't really compare "not existing" with "living in a world that has a ton of issues".

LOL! I certainly can 'compare "not existing" with "living in a world that has a ton of issues"'.

In the "don't exist" case, there is no possibility of anything good happening.

In the "exist" case, there is a possibility of something good happening.

Easy choice, and that's entirely outside my belief that the human race should continue, thrive, and expand across the stars. Climate change is likely not as severe as the alarmists portray, and is very likely to be solved by market forces. The future is bright!

See, this FEELS like a simple choice - but think of the implications of what you're saying.

If existing is flat out always better than not - and I want to note this is NOT about suicide (ending existence) but about creating the existence in the first place) - then you're saying the moral thing is to have as many children as possible. For everyone.

Taken to a hyperbolic extreme, this is clearly ridiculous. But this isn't a strawman argument - the point is not to say "I'm right", but to find what we're really valuing. If we can all agree that drowning the world in babies that live short lives of misery is laughably ridiculous, then where is the serious argument? Finding a happy medium where we should have as many people as we can sustainably?

Is creating distinct human existences REALLY something of inherent value? Are those of us choosing to be childless for whatever reason immoral?

I'm not sure you realize that the values that gets in one's mind and govern one's decision towards procreation is one form of current natural selection. It's funny to see some of the world's best and most promising getting bogged down by or getting utterly lost in some "smart people problem" instead of using their capacity to come ahead in the game of life.

> using their capacity to come ahead in the game of life

I, as an independent conscious entity, don't get a benefit from "coming ahead at the game of life".

If someone has a child that they love and cherish, that's great. I'd rather them have a child for that reason over having one because it represents the statistical viability of their collective genetic sequences.

I don't think the examined life is something to mock and put down...nor must it result in self-sterilization.

Most people would rather exist than not exist, and although it can sometimes seem like it, not everyone in the entire world is severely clinically depressed. Parents make decisions for their children all the time, and existence is one the the safest bets.

Do you have the maximum number of children biologically possible? If not ( and I assume you haven't ), then you've made choices that have prevented others from existing. Assuming you are okay with that ( and I assume you are ) then the decisions involved are not a simple as you portray.

>Do you have the maximum number of children biologically possible?

You can't reason about ethics from the standpoint that whatever you are doing right now is known to be ethical. If you did that, you'd just be constructing post-facto justifications for decisions you already made. There are plenty of things I should be doing from a utilitarian standpoint that I don't do (I'm not saving the maximum number of African children, for example).

> You can't reason about ethics from the standpoint that whatever you are doing right now is known to be ethical.

An excellent point...but we DO reason about ethics. We can draw parallels from our decisions in other areas to see if we are being consistent. Even if we can't achieve objectivity we can try for it and thus get closer.

And from this I find I feel bad about the good to other living creatures I COULD be doing and am not....but that I don't feel sorrow for the lack of of sorrow and joy from creatures that are merely potential.

Perhaps you feel differently. Others certainly do. I just want to point out that it's something worthy of thinking about rather than tossing out a facile "existence is always better".