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!
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, 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.
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).
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".
...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.