His ethical guideline has nothing to do with how close humanity is to extinction.

Except I already wrote:

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).

You don't even have to apply the principle of charity, you could just look at what I had literally written.

However, if practiced diligently, it can bring humanity to extinction in a few generations from any population size.

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.

2 responses:

1. It is possible that this would have been better overall.
2. Even if we reject 1, humanity was no where near extinction for thousands of years now.

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).

I personally wouldn't decide to have kids in a warzone...

...but it's okay if others do it? How is that different from saying, "I personally woudn't decide to abuse children..."

Is there any context outside of sudden, subjectively unlikely disaster where the quote is meaningful?

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.

I think "unintended consequences" is a better analysis framework than "parasite response from the ecosystem".

It certainly sounds less cynical, unless we use strong charity and see it in the most technical way possible.

I think the most plausible use case for government-funded incentives to have extra kids is a wide consensus that a society doesn't have enough of them at the time, according to some economical or social optimum.

But even this requires a level of cynicism in seeing kids as a means to an end.

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 suppose it was because the original quote started with a negative framing, the assumption that the baby might not be fed.

I think both birth and death are stressful experiences that are not worth going through unless there are compensating other factors. I don't think infants have enough of those if they die before they grow up.

Also I suspect human life is generally overrated, and the positives of life are often used as an excuse to justify the suffering of others. I do not trust people to make a realistic estimate and act with genuine benevolence.

The difference is that babies suffer if they starve, but not if they don't have cryonics.

The badness of making an extra life comes from its suffering (+ negative externalities) [- positive externalities]

The state is not an omnipotent entity who can make arbitrary choices. Its institutions are made of people, and its power is affected by how legitimate it is seen to be. Private individuals can make it stronger or weaker through their political, economic choices or even by breaking the law and using physical violence.

Freedom of religion is already a constitutional right in most western democracies and it is not at all futile to insist on it when religious lobby groups try to undermine it.

If you think of yourself as a slave who has no rights nor influence against the people who comprise "the state", then you are factually wrong. But I'm sure those people are happy if you belive it, as it makes power use (or abuse) easier for them.