There are multiple philosophical points. For someone who lives/interacts with David Cox everyday, the loss is immense. But OP was referring to 'loss to the so

There are multiple philosophical points. For someone who lives/interacts with David Cox everyday, the loss is immense. But OP was referring to 'loss to the society'. When you bring in 'loss to the society', then it is inevitable that you measure their net-positive-contributions-to-society. Unless you are an outlier (<0.0001%), 25 and below is usually where you are sucking away resources without contributing back (easily measured by net worth or artifacts or offsprings). 25 - 60 is when you are peak contribution (offsprings, net worth, artifacts), after 60 most stop producing (offsprings, artifacts, wealth accumulation). Yes there are outliers to these too. Now to the controversial. Yes, offspring creation is (the ultimate) productive service to the society. It's the *only* way to keep humanity not going extinct. Thought experiment: Tomorrow if everyone decides to stop offsprings, humanity is guaranteed to be extinct in 100 years. However, if everyone decides to have a baby or two, humanity will chug along for at least quite a few hundred years (Climate Change is not going to make us extinct)