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MugaSofer comments on One Life Against the World - Less Wrong
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A lot of people don't consider failure to exist the same as dying. Of course, we need some level of procreation as long as there is death, and humanity would probably continue to expand even then.
Why? Because dying is painful? Beyond that, I see them equivalently.
Non-existing is not the same thing as ceasing to exist.
Among other reasons, if you die there will be people mourning you, whereas if you had never existed in the first place there won't.
But the whole point of the post above is that our personal feelings are negligible next the enormity of the utilitarian consequences behind our feelings.
Caring about the world isn't about having a gut feeling that corresponds to the amount of suffering in the world, it's about doing the right thing anyway. Even without the feeling.
The fact that no one knows the unborn person yet doesn't mean that she doesn't matter.
I was using mourning synecdochically to refer to all the externalities your death would have on other people, not just their feelings.
The goal behind altruism is to improve the quality of life for the human race. The motivation for altruism maybe due to evolutionary reasons such as propogation of the species etc., but it is not the same as altruism.
This post is however about the latter as you have rightly pointed out. Nevertheless,
and therefore, the way to go about maximizing is to first ensure that all people currently alive remain alive and well taken care of. After that there's plenty of time to go about having more babies :)