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HedonicTreader comments on Rationality Quotes Thread April 2015 - Less Wrong
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Even if we're willing to take it out of context like this, we might still consider it ethically undesirable to have kids in a time and place where military conflict or politically caused poverty is likely.
I personally wouldn't decide to have kids in a warzone... But what context are you referring to? Is there any context outside of sudden, subjectively unlikely disaster where the quote is meaningful?
...but it's okay if others do it? How is that different from saying, "I personally woudn't decide to abuse children..."
It was written by Michael Jackson. I don't think he was referring to sudden, subjectively unlikely disasters, but the personal material means of people deciding to become parents.
Is it the same to die without ever abusing children and to die childless?
It's impossible to have children and do no actions whatsoever which are less than optimal for the children. Rather, people make--and have to make--tradeoffs between things being bad for the children and other considerations. There is an acceptable range of such tradeoffs. Having kids in a warzone falls in that range and abusing kids does not. And even if you think people making other tradeoffs are actually wrong rather than just making the tradeoffs based on different circumstances, there are degrees of being wrong and abuse is wrong to a greater degree.
Applying this, humanity would have quietly died out a few thousand years ago...
2 responses:
You can easily augment the underlying harm avoidance principle with a condition that it should not result in the extinction of intelligent life (assuming that intelligent life doesn't cause even more harm in the long run).
That makes no sense to me at all.
Because it did not follow the ethical guideline that you suggested.
This statement, if true, only shows that not following the guideline back then was the correct choice. What about today?
What, do you feel, is the relevant difference between back then and today?
It's as HedonicTreader said: humanity is nowhere near extinction today.
His ethical guideline has nothing to do with how close humanity is to extinction.
However, if practiced diligently, it can bring humanity to extinction in a few generations from any population size.
This is a questionable claim. Do you have any evidence to support it?
It's a hypothetical -- there is no evidence for or against it as it never happened and is highly unlikely to happen.
But let me point out that it sets up a downward feedback loop.
Except I already wrote:
You don't even have to apply the principle of charity, you could just look at what I had literally written.
Nonsense. Most humans don't live in a warzone at any time now. And followed in extreme poverty, this principle would reduce local malthusian traps and probably reduce poverty; at least the suffering of children from poverty.