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Perhaps I was not sufficiently clear: the moral choice is between saving existing lives and suffering versus preventing future lives and future descendents from

Perhaps I was not sufficiently clear: the moral choice is between saving existing lives and suffering versus preventing future lives and future descendents from existing at all. For example, birth control would be completely unacceptable since you could lose an immense number of future people regardless of any benefit for the living out their limited number of direct descendants.

shkkmo 3y ago
I'm not sure I'm following you here. At the very least I think the phrase I quoted is a poor way of making your point. The reason why birth control is not inherently wrong is that we cannot at all predict the long term effects of avoiding any specific birth. Indeed, I think removing reproductive choice creates a situation with negative utilitarian/longtermist outcomes because it prevents fine tuned decision making at the individual level by those with the most accurate understanding of the situation. I do think we have a moral obligation to aim for a sustainable birth rate, neither too high nor too low, precisely because of the moral value of future lives. However, you need to approach this goal by making structural changes that change the optimal decision for individuals, not by removing that choice from them.
corinroyal 3y ago
> birth control would be completely unacceptable since you could lose an immense number of future people Operative word = "could" Or lack of birth control could lead to an unsustainable level of population that causes resource exhaustion and we die that way. Oh, wait, that's already happening. We can't know how our actions effect the far future, but we can be more confident in our ability to improve the near future, and we should do that.
darkwater 3y ago
> For example, birth control would be completely unacceptable since you could lose an immense number of future people regardless of any benefit for the living out their limited number of direct descendants. But what about pollution/environmental destruction vs creating more wealth/food/average living conditions for everyone right now?
imtringued 3y ago
I am pretty sure that voluntary birth control is good for the long term. In fact, one problem with longtermism is the idea of constant and never interrupted progress. No backtracking is allowed. Once you allow backtracking. It is possible to spend millions of years in stagnation and then billions of years with massive progress. So the people who talk about getting to the future faster might end up wasting more time on getting back to the optimal path.

shkkmo 3y ago

I'm not sure I'm following you here. At the very least I think the phrase I quoted is a poor way of making your point. The reason why birth control is not inherently wrong is that we cannot at all predict the long term effects of avoiding any specific birth. Indeed, I think removing reproductive choice creates a situation with negative utilitarian/longtermist outcomes because it prevents fine tuned decision making at the individual level by those with the most accurate understanding of the situation. I do think we have a moral obligation to aim for a sustainable birth rate, neither too high nor too low, precisely because of the moral value of future lives. However, you need to approach this goal by making structural changes that change the optimal decision for individuals, not by removing that choice from them.

corinroyal 3y ago

> birth control would be completely unacceptable since you could lose an immense number of future people Operative word = "could" Or lack of birth control could lead to an unsustainable level of population that causes resource exhaustion and we die that way. Oh, wait, that's already happening. We can't know how our actions effect the far future, but we can be more confident in our ability to improve the near future, and we should do that.

darkwater 3y ago

> For example, birth control would be completely unacceptable since you could lose an immense number of future people regardless of any benefit for the living out their limited number of direct descendants. But what about pollution/environmental destruction vs creating more wealth/food/average living conditions for everyone right now?

imtringued 3y ago

I am pretty sure that voluntary birth control is good for the long term. In fact, one problem with longtermism is the idea of constant and never interrupted progress. No backtracking is allowed. Once you allow backtracking. It is possible to spend millions of years in stagnation and then billions of years with massive progress. So the people who talk about getting to the future faster might end up wasting more time on getting back to the optimal path.