A thought: Especially when enabled by technology, people are very capable. In theory, a person can easily offset the negative impact of their greenhouse gas emissions and have a lot of time and resouces left over to pursue positive impact. For example, by donating a fraction of their money to carbon offsetting projects and not having a polluting lifestyle, the median American can easily have a net reducing effect on global greenhouse gas emissions throughout their lifetime. Also, I think the median person in the world can in theory achieve a net reducing effect as well, by devoting a fraction of their time and resources to planting trees (nature’s baseline technology for carbon capture).
So perhaps the right framing isn’t “Should you have children despite climate change?” One alternative framing is: suppose you want to influence the next generation, who will either capably help the world or capably harm the world. Should you do it by parenting and influencing your own children, or by influencing other people’s children?
I think most EAs favor the latter option, and indeed there is a compelling argument in favor of it. Humans are perhaps the only species whose primary mode of phenotypic inheritance is learning knowledge and values from group members: including not only parents, but also a lot of other people. This is why we are so adaptable and capable.
But for EAs who derive a lot of pleasure from parenting and are high-fidelity influencers as parents (i.e., have a high guarantee of influencing their children to have similar values as them), I think parenting can be an excellent use of their time and resources. I think optimal parenting is a domain which is quite neglected by EAs, and hope that this changes moving forward.
A thought: Especially when enabled by technology, people are very capable. In theory, a person can easily offset the negative impact of their greenhouse gas emissions and have a lot of time and resouces left over to pursue positive impact. For example, by donating a fraction of their money to carbon offsetting projects and not having a polluting lifestyle, the median American can easily have a net reducing effect on global greenhouse gas emissions throughout their lifetime. Also, I think the median person in the world can in theory achieve a net reducing effect as well, by devoting a fraction of their time and resources to planting trees (nature’s baseline technology for carbon capture).
So perhaps the right framing isn’t “Should you have children despite climate change?” One alternative framing is: suppose you want to influence the next generation, who will either capably help the world or capably harm the world. Should you do it by parenting and influencing your own children, or by influencing other people’s children?
I think most EAs favor the latter option, and indeed there is a compelling argument in favor of it. Humans are perhaps the only species whose primary mode of phenotypic inheritance is learning knowledge and values from group members: including not only parents, but also a lot of other people. This is why we are so adaptable and capable.
But for EAs who derive a lot of pleasure from parenting and are high-fidelity influencers as parents (i.e., have a high guarantee of influencing their children to have similar values as them), I think parenting can be an excellent use of their time and resources. I think optimal parenting is a domain which is quite neglected by EAs, and hope that this changes moving forward.
You might find posts with the parenting tag helpful.
Thank you so much for this extremely helpful suggestion, Linch! I really appreciate it.