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Romashka 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.
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.
Is it the same to die without ever abusing children and to die childless?