I have posted the following a few years ago:
> My ancestors thought it was okay to have kids during times in which many scholars where certain the apocalypse was due in the next 25 years, during periods in which the plague killed more than half of the population, during the 30 years war and in a time when there was a realistic chance of nuclear annihilation in the next 10 years. I am glad they did.
Today, as a father, I would add: as a potential parent, you are in no position to decide that your future children, grandchildren or great^x-grandchildren won't be glad to be alive. You don't know them, and most importantly you do not know and you cannot know about their world. In my opinion, this argument is nothing more but a convenient excuse to avoid the stress of bringing up kids. It is a valid reason to not want any kids because of the stress, but please don't rationalize yourself into peace of conscience by assuming that you can look into the future.
In my opinion, your ancestors had children largely because they had intercourse without accessing to birth control, not because they made a conscious decision to have children despite the circumstances.
The desire to make Descendants in hard times is a natural reaction. In more peaceful times you have more time to think about it logicality.
That's why I said "even the current world isn't".
Yes life continues to be harsh, brutal and tragic. It always has been and in some ways always will be. But if your kids are doomed to live in merely the 2nd best civilization humanity has ever produced, I don't think they have much to complain about relatively speaking.
The argument you put forth would have us end the species if everyone agreed to it. And I don't agree we should end human existence and squander all our potential in a fit of depressive nihilism anymore then you should sell all your stocks the moment the market goes down for a day.
It's more selfish IMO to make yourself the arbiter of your unborn childrens' future, denying them the chance at a good life just because you want to make it easier on yourself. Not saying you should have kids if you're not ready, but don't use the state of the world as an excuse. All your ancestors are laughing at how spoiled you are.
When we're talking about humans instead of rocks, being harmed is part of life. At the end of the day we're all harmed by something that ends up killing us. That doesn't make life worthless, and attempting to prevent harm at all costs is the definition of maladaptive behavior. If that's your argument then you're basically the ultimate helicopter parent. You're so worried that your child might get harmed you won't even let them be born.
Reward requires risk, and greater rewards require greater risks. That's true for every lifeform down to bacteria and viruses. Granted not all risk leads to reward, but the risk of parenting tends to reward those involved above a certain baseline of effort and capability.
As for your ancestors, you're descended from a line of beings stretching back millions of years that, whatever their flaws, managed to reproduce. If there is a point to life that we know about it's that life exists to propagate in harmony with nature (often brutally enforced by various aspects of nature). The point of society is that we all help each other in that endeavor and make it more meaningful. To fulfill our potential as a species. Even those who choose not to have children help in some way through jobs and taxes. This is part of the reason helping others makes us feel good.
There are many valid reasons to not have kids, but I don't understand how you can trust someone who says "I don't want to succeed at the basic function of life because the 2nd best civilization ever produced just isn't comfortable enough for me", and means it. Someone with that level of weakness is not going to be reliable in bad times, regardless of their intentions. Maybe you don't care if I trust you or not, but if you don't care if anyone trusts you... well then I hope your life is as comfortable as you clearly require, because you'll be getting by on charity if it's not.
Treating having children as a success and a reward in of itself is part of the problem. If someone doesn't want to have children because they feel like they'll have a bad life, that's their decision to make. Not yours to try and apply some strange value judgment where completely unborn children somehow have a say in the equation.
You're making the argument rather absurdly personal with your claims that they're a helicopter parent for not wanting to have children and claiming that they're weak/unreliable/untrustworthy. Stop it.
If for example you read about, say Global Warming and say that's the deciding reason you don't want to have kids, and it isn't just a self-serving lie/excuse and you actually understand the issue, then you are an extremely weak person and you should work on that. If everyone acknowledged global warming, or saw insert negative news story and decided not to have kids on that basis the species would end in a generation. That sounds like a pretty weak species to me, literally scared to death.
As for untrustworthy, in my experience weak people are inherently untrustworthy. Even if their motives are good they are unable to endure or contribute under stress. Someone who folds on the issue of having kids because of what they see on the news is someone who's likely to fold on other things under extremely mild pressure, and I don't want to have to depend on such people in a crisis; and everyone's life will have crises unless you're extremely lucky. This is hardly just my opinion.
As for the helicopter parent line, the poster argued that while hypothetical kids can't be harmed if they aren't born, having them does potentially cause them harm. Thus they are arguing that "harm" to the hypothetical kids is the deciding factor, and said "harm" should be avoided by shielding said kids from the world. That is the exact thought process of many helicopter parents, only taken to an extreme level of over-protection and perhaps with less overt narcissism.
And yes this gets a little personal, it's a philosophical argument and I'm calling out perceived weaknesses in another person's life philosophy, just as you are calling out weaknesses you perceive in me. I don't see a problem with any of that.
This is a pretty bizarre statement. If you had a pet dog, would you consider it immoral to not provide that dog with a mate, so they could flood the world with puppies?
It's extremely weak/arrogant to take a look at "the state of the world" (typically via news/blogs/etc) and then declare you absolutely know the future, and it sucks so hard that there's no way your children will have a decent life under any circumstances, regardless of your personal situation.
There are many valid reasons not to have kids, "the state of the world" isn't one of them unless you're living in the middle of one of those negative news stories, and then it's less "the state of the world" and more "the state of my immediate surroundings", which is far more reasonable.
You can paint pretty much any action as selfish by using this "just to make yourself feel good" angle. It's a meaningless non-argument.
It would be better to use some other kind of metric, like overall happiness vs suffering, perhaps like antinatalism attempts to do. For example, someone who enjoys working all the time, might see that as a boon for their children, and so decide that overall, it's better to have kids. While someone who doesn't like work might decide to empathize with their unborn children and decide it would be a blessing not to have them. Very subjective, but more well grounded arguments for each persons' decision.
So will conservative, successful people. It'll be fine.
If this argument really holds, why has the world become so much more progressive over the last two centuries?
It only became so progressive since the 1970's, the 50's were fine. The reason: drugs.
It especially has life-long consequences for the children! I wouldn't want to put children in this world. I don't think the future world is a nice place to grow up in, even the current world isn't. IMO it's selfish to make kids just to feel fulfilled and not be lonely.