I agree with Halstead that this post seems to ignore the upsides of creating more humans. If you, like me, subscribe to a totalist population ethics, then each additional person who enjoys life, lives richly, loves, expresses themselves creatively, etc. -- all of these things make for a better world. (That said, I think that improving the lives of existing people is currently a better way to achieve that than creating more—but I wouldn’t say that creating more is wrong).
Moreover, I think this post misses the instrumental value of people, too. To understand the all-inclusive impact of an additional person on the environment, you surely have to also consider the chance that they become a climate researcher or activist, or a politician, or a worker in a related technical field; or even more indirectly, that they contribute to the social and economic environment that supports people who do those things. For sure, that social and economic environment supports climate damage as well, but deciding how these factors weigh up means (it seems to me) deciding whether human social and technological progress is good or bad for climate change, and that seems like a really tricky question, never mind all the other things it’s good or bad for.
It is indeed a very tricky question. Of course, there is a chance that each newly born child becomes a climate researcher, politician, social worker etc. - but what are the odds? And do they outweigh, as you mentioned, all the “bad” (for lack of a better work that encompasses suffering and future issues) points?
My personal view on this, as I mentioned in my reply to Larks is that, until a certain point (namely the point where there is neither conflict about scarce resources within human society nor intense suffering caused by human society to other sentient beings) each additional individual probably has a net-positive happiness/suffering balance sheet. Once the population has reached a certain size, however, this may tip. Total carbon emissions are a direct function of (number of emitters) * (emission levels). Total factory farmed animal suffering is a direct function of (number of consumers) * (amount of factory-farmed meat consumed). The average consumer nowadays consumes more than 40 kg of meat p.a. - that means that several sentient beings spent almost all their lives in intense suffering because of one average consumer. Is that a net-positive balance sheet?
Either way, my main point is about voluntary pregnancy avoidance and not about forced population reduction through whatever coercive means. If providing access to family planning counselling, women’s education and empowerment means, and to contraceptives is so cheap—and at the same time links free choice with significant net-positive effects on several EA-aligned cause areas—what reasons would support not helping close that unmet need?
I agree with Halstead that this post seems to ignore the upsides of creating more humans. If you, like me, subscribe to a totalist population ethics, then each additional person who enjoys life, lives richly, loves, expresses themselves creatively, etc. -- all of these things make for a better world. (That said, I think that improving the lives of existing people is currently a better way to achieve that than creating more—but I wouldn’t say that creating more is wrong).
Moreover, I think this post misses the instrumental value of people, too. To understand the all-inclusive impact of an additional person on the environment, you surely have to also consider the chance that they become a climate researcher or activist, or a politician, or a worker in a related technical field; or even more indirectly, that they contribute to the social and economic environment that supports people who do those things. For sure, that social and economic environment supports climate damage as well, but deciding how these factors weigh up means (it seems to me) deciding whether human social and technological progress is good or bad for climate change, and that seems like a really tricky question, never mind all the other things it’s good or bad for.
It is indeed a very tricky question. Of course, there is a chance that each newly born child becomes a climate researcher, politician, social worker etc. - but what are the odds? And do they outweigh, as you mentioned, all the “bad” (for lack of a better work that encompasses suffering and future issues) points?
My personal view on this, as I mentioned in my reply to Larks is that, until a certain point (namely the point where there is neither conflict about scarce resources within human society nor intense suffering caused by human society to other sentient beings) each additional individual probably has a net-positive happiness/suffering balance sheet. Once the population has reached a certain size, however, this may tip. Total carbon emissions are a direct function of (number of emitters) * (emission levels). Total factory farmed animal suffering is a direct function of (number of consumers) * (amount of factory-farmed meat consumed). The average consumer nowadays consumes more than 40 kg of meat p.a. - that means that several sentient beings spent almost all their lives in intense suffering because of one average consumer. Is that a net-positive balance sheet?
Either way, my main point is about voluntary pregnancy avoidance and not about forced population reduction through whatever coercive means. If providing access to family planning counselling, women’s education and empowerment means, and to contraceptives is so cheap—and at the same time links free choice with significant net-positive effects on several EA-aligned cause areas—what reasons would support not helping close that unmet need?