Is it vegan to have children?

[brimstoneSalad]

brimstoneSalad, you made some good points in the other post, and you usually do. I admit to probably exaggerating regarding what harm we cause others.

If you admit you may be wrong, I'll take it. The bottom line is that we should not be advocating antinatalism or accepting people advocating antinatalism because it is in no way clear that it is the right position and doing so harms vegan advocacy.

If you want to make a philosophical argument completely divorced from advocacy (and conceding that it's not something we should ever promote right now even if it were true), that's fine: we can have that discussion. But promoting antinatalism, or pressuring/shaming people not to have children, is unacceptable. And no, I will not tolerate that behavior any more than I'll tolerate open racism.

I don't agree with everything you wrote, and I don't feel like going through it point by point because you're being extremely RUDE, INTOLERANT and SNARKY.

If you will not respond to my points, then you can take your toys and go home like a bratty child. The forum rules indicate answering arguments, not being nice.

You accuse me of being rude, which I wasn't aware of, then you become 100 times worse yourself.

I believe I was responding appropriately to the vile position you were advocating. I would probably be inclined respond in kind to a white supremacist who advocated wiping out all inferior races too. You're worse than a white supremacist in my eyes, though, since you don't just advocate wiping out some people -- you want to destroy all of us, and possibly all life, and see a completely non-sentient world. This is a revolting philosophy, and it is appropriate to be intolerant of such intolerance of life itself as you have.

That said, this is a venue of free speech, and you are permitted to express your views and respond to arguments. As I will respond to yours.
I make no promises to be nice, but I will address your arguments logically.

I will review your prior posts and respond to them shortly. You will be expected to respond in kind and address my arguments and questions.

I don't see it as obvious that antinatalism is wrong, and a lot of people don't.

I understand that. But neither is it obvious that is it right: for many, it is a faith based position. As such, you should not be advocating it.

It's not a common topic to discuss, but you treat it like it's obvious that everyone should be against antinatalist arguments (then attack a bunch of strawmans).

If you're going to accuse me of attacking a straw man, then you need to put forth evidence of this, and explain where you think I have misrepresented the position.
A large portion of my argument does speak to the logical conclusions antinatalists draw from their flawed premises, this is not in itself a straw man -- you may not realize that these are necessary conclusions, though, so they may seem so.

[brimstoneSalad]

Good and bad is relative and I was making the post out of frustration after watching popular youtube videos.

It is perhaps a bad idea to make an argument out of frustration rather than reasoned contemplation.

I read a number of comments from antinatalists complaining about being picked on for their choices -- it's not about your choices, it's about your behavior toward others.
If antinatalists merely chose to personally not have children, rather than asserting that it was morally wrong for others to do so, there would likely be no such issue. The problem is your assertion, and shaming others for having children when there's no sound evidence or reasoning on your side.

The main point I'm focusing on is whether having children will do more harm or less harm. Several arguments are more side-topics, like saying someone is selfish/unselfish, or assuming that the goal is to eradicate the human race or something like that. They don't address the main issue.

The selfishness is irrelevant to consequence, but does speak to potential biases in perception and rationalization.

The end goal of the behavior and the logical conclusions of the premise are very relevant. We have to look not just at immediate consequences, but long term as well.

We also have to consider the consequences of the mentality of pessimism inherently linked to antinatalism.

I will respond to your criticism in your latest post regarding the "equation". The very basic idea is that it comes down to whether we should gamble or not. I think not gambling with the lives of others is the responsible thing to do.

Bullshit, you gamble every single day, with your life and the lives of others. We should and must gamble when the odds are in our favor. No behavior has absolutely certain outcome.

Every time you get behind the wheel of a car you are gambling; you're betting on the odds of its positive utility being greater than the risk to you and others.
Every time you post on the internet about how life is suffering and it would be better not to exist you're gambling too: you're betting on the odds of somebody not reading that and deciding to commit a mass murder/suicide based on the logical conclusions of that premise (or maybe you want them to do that). You're somehow betting this all does more good than harm.

Every action you take is a gamble, if you were really against gambling, you'd be unable to act in this world.

I'm constantly seeing condescending remarks like it's being silly to find the antinatalist arguments compelling even though the counter arguments, as I've tried to epxress in previous post, isn't very compelling themselves.

Christians get offended by the suggestion that religion is silly too, and don't find the atheistic arguments compelling: this is due to their personal bias.
Likewise, you are delusional, and the victim of a powerful pessimistic bias. It is your faith that prevents you from seeing reason.

Antinatalists aren't just making the personal decision not to have children; they claim it is morally wrong for others to have children, and try to guilt and shame others.

They do have a point. Anyone who is convinced that something is unethical may try spread that idea.

Obviously, and that's why you're being criticized. Because you're doing HARM to others. Not unlike a fundamentalist Christian who believes and advocates that homosexuality is a sin and that gays should go to hell and suffer eternally. It's an evil idea, rooted only in faith, that has somehow taken hold of you: you need to be relieved of it.

How am I the villain for being frustrated by youtube arguments for having children? The frustration comes from for example condescending remarks that antinatalists are silly etc.

Antinatalists are not just silly, they are delusional and harmful, like Christian fundamentalism. It is not inappropriate to ridicule ridiculous ideas.

There are two basic types of antinatalists/philosophical pessimists:

1. The type who are deontologically libertarian (which is in itself irrational), and because of that do not want to follow the philosophy to its logical conclusion of destroying the world.

2. The kind who are consequentialists, and logically consistent, and want to destroy the world -- who are obviously evil to any sensible person. We're talking cartoon villain level here.

The former is unstable, and will either decay into the latter and support the destruction of all sentient life, or abandon the pessimistic position.

I have a feeling you're trying to advocate the first type, and you think I'm straw manning you by arguing against the second. This is where you're an idiot, because you fail to understand the logical contradictions in maintaining a deontological libertarian position (like David Benatar).
It's like advocating for liberal Christianity or Islam, and then you're surprised when people criticize the actual content of your scripture and the logical conclusions people would (and clearly do) draw from reading it and sincerely believing it.

My reaction wasn't in your face, loud, or anything like that. I expressed frustration, and now you blow it out of proportion,

I consider my response pretty proportional. If you don't see it, it is due to your ignorance.

Much like a liberal Christian sees the new Atheist response against liberal Christianity as disproportional. After all, they aren't advocating stoning people or killing homosexuals: they're just advancing the idea that the Bible is a good book, but never mind reading it or being consistent because it's all about love. Well, that's not how the world works.

No one had addressed the main points in this thread either, so it's not like I am dissing anyone on this forum.

What points?
You can't just claim that. Tell me what I have not addressed. I'm ready and willing to shred any argument you have.

I'm merely bringing this topic up on a vegan forum. That is not the same as promoting antinatalism with veganism.

See the flat earth thread. By simply being vegan and being a nutcase, you relate the two to anybody who is made aware of your personal connection.

I am all for effective activism.

The problem if what you think the goal should be.

Yes, people can kill themselves for the greater good,

This, right here. You legitimately think it would be good for people to kill themselves. You think I should kill myself. You think EquALLity should kill herself. You think everybody on this forum should really just kill themselves for the greater good, right?

And if you had the opportunity to poison us all and kill us painlessly, would you take it?

Stuff like this tells me this philosophy is making you an evil person.

It doesn't seem like effective activism either. Would you be inspired by people killing themselves?

Oh, so, just because it wouldn't be "inspiring" for people to witness us killing ourselves.

How about if you can just kill everybody?
Do you lust after the giant red button of the O.O.S. crowd?

Those who do not exist are not harmed by still not existing.

I think you are riled up and make strawman arguments.

What about it is? Did you read my argument?

It doesn't mean I need to shut about antinatalism and discuss what is ethical or not. Me bringing this up on a forum is not vegan activism. Everything I do is not vegan activism.

Everything you do and believe reflects on veganism. There is a large overlap between veganism and misanthropy/philosophical pessimism/antinatalism. This reflects very poorly on veganism.

If you want to continue being vegan, you should shut up about antinatalism, or please stop calling yourself vegan. If you want to destroy all life on Earth, you're about the least vegan person there is.

The example of Eselstyn family seems to be to be a unique case, because there is fame, fortune and respect involved, which people are naturally attracted to.

The only reliable case studies we have are of famous families; other cases are hard to confirm. Given a lack of statistics, it's reasonable to look to case studies. We can't draw strong conclusions from them, but there's no reason recidivism should be high.

Edit: I made a big embarrassing error in my calculation...

If you can't do math, stop putting so much faith in your "calculations".
You're like a numerologist. You think this stuff is rational, but it's just you pushing numbers around. It's very easy to build a chaotic function, and that makes this all just a big ad hoc hypothesis that you can easily tweak in either direction with slight changes in the variables: all your equations do is make it look fancy and convincing to people who are ignorant of mathematics and statistics.

You made much more embarrassing errors in your assumptions:

1. Those who go back to eating meat after being veg frequently eat less meat, both for ethical considerations and because they are accustomed to and familiar with more options. This is not an either-or issue, but a spectrum.
2. Likewise, vegans will usually only convince a few people to go vegan, but may influence dozens or hundreds of people to reduce meat consumption. Are you aware that the vast majority of consumers buying vegan products in stores actually are not vegan themselves?
3. Non-vegans also have a positive effect on others, given that they are flexitarian-reducitarian. This is to be expected of a lot of failed vegans, who frequently still support animal rights or welfare, and often encourage people to eat less meat, and still see veganism as "a good thing to do".
4. The principle of critical mass: Feedback is non-linear. The more socially normal and accessible veganism is, the easier it becomes to convince people to reduce or eliminate animal products. I would take an extra billion people in the world today if only a quarter of them were vegan.

The thing for me that is the most surprising is the advances in veganism that have come from non-vegans. For example, Mark Bittman is one of my favorite vegan evangelists and he's not vegan. He wouldn't pass muster with the hardcore, 100 percent vegans with their ethical purity tests, but people like Ellen Degeneres, who's not a vegan, have done more to advance the cause of animal rights than most vegans I know.

http://www.foodandwine.com/blogs/moby-v ... evangelism

With this 1.02 number, it would require 50.5% of children to be vegan just to break even.

Skimming your "math", you need to explain more clearly what you think you're doing if you want people to follow your "logic" here.

But if you needed to use an equation to tell you that in order for the ratio of vegans to carnists to grow indefinitely based on the contributions of vegans alone, a vegan needs to produce slightly more vegans than carnists, that's pretty silly.


That's a useless number, though, in so many ways.

You completely ignore the actual number of carnists today, and their contributions.

If there are a billion carnists in the world, and I'm the only vegan, if I have a hundred children and only two of them end up vegan, once I'm gone I will have still almost doubled the ratio of vegans to carnists in the world.
This is closer to the situation we have today. Having 98 carnist kids does almost nothing to influence the number of carnists, but having two vegan kids doubles the vegan influence on the world.

The ratio is very important to social change, because it's what contributes the most in terms of ideological influence.
This is why I say I would gladly add a billion people to the world today if only 25% of them were vegan.
It would probably be a good choice if only 10% of them were vegan too.
Do you have any idea what kind of market pressure that would create? How much influence on peers in favor of social normalcy that would result in? How much political pressure that would mean?

At some point as the percentage lowered, this might become a bad choice, but it's not clear where (perhaps if it were under 1%).

You are apparently laboring under the delusion that the only positive influence we can have on the world is by creating vegans in one-on-one direct evangelism with on the spot conversions. That's not how influence works.

All of your attempts at mathematical reasoning are useless, because all you have done is represent the worst case scenario in ignorance of how real change and social movements manifest.

than Usually children follow their parents footstep, so it is reasonable to lower the 75% recidivism rate (which could be higher) and maybe have at least 50%?

Much higher than that, if you consider the fact that even the "failures" will positively regard animal rights and welfare, and use fewer animal products than the typical consumer.

The goal is less meat eaters.

Is it really? I thought it was less animal suffering.
If you just want fewer meat eaters, you could become a mass murder and achieve that goal pretty easily.

If we can have less meat eaters with more vegans in the long run, I would support that. If the expected value is less meat eaters, I would agree that having more kids is a good thing because I trust in probability theory.

So, now you do trust probability theory, and accept "gambling" if the odds are in your favor.

I just to know the value of each variable to feel confident.

Then don't be an anti-natalist. Be neutral on the subject if you really want: I won't criticize you so harshly for that.
Antinatalists are making a claim, and in doing so adopt a burden of proof that they are unwilling or unable to carry.

We don't know what would happen, therefore it seems more responsible to not gamble. Sure if you don't take a risk, you won't win, but now there is a solution that allows us to win without taking much risk.

What is your "solution" that you think has so little risk?
How arrogant are you, exactly, that you think you have the one and only answer to everything?

Do you want to wipe out all life on Earth? What?
You think vegans not breeding is going to inspire everybody to realize voluntary human extinction?
You think vegans not breeding is going to cause the population to level off so it never reaches a critical level?

We don't know what it's like to live with 30 billion people or what new problems would occur or which old problems that can be solved. What issues does veganism solve and what doesn't veganism solve? For example, pollution or deforestation; while being vegan does help a lot, it's not the only solution.

None of this is relevant to the topic at hand, because dysgenic antinatalism is not a solution to population growth. All you'll do is make the population stupider and less responsible by advocating these policies, and place a selective pressure for stronger breeding instincts.

The way I see it, the answer to what is more ethical depends on the person and what they are willing to do/not do.

Oh, so for a person who is only willing to eat factory farmed meat or free ranged meat, that person would be ethical if he or she chose the better option?

For example, a person who is willing to do activism and is progressing, and not drained by the activism, would do more good not to adopt, because caring for another being requires time and energy invested into it.

You're gambling on the good that you can do in a single lifetime without being distracted being greater than the good your lineage will do over generations. That's pretty arrogant.
If you're on the verge of developing a clean fusion technology and you just need a little more time to perfect it, this may be valid, but for most people it will not be.

Adopting helps at least one person,

And wastes tens of thousands of dollars, which is not effective altruism.

If you're willing to spend ten thousand dollars on adoption, then just have your own kid instead and donate that money. Even donating a small fraction of that would do more good than the adoption itself.

I didn't know they had lower IQ on average, but that wouldn't make much of a difference based on the calculation above (and assumptions).

Because your assumptions are wrong, and your calculation is not relevant to the discussion. Higher IQ makes an enormous difference. IQ is correlated with being vegetarian (and should be correlated to staying veg too, given that), and it certainly contributes strongly to effective advocacy. Stupid people are not as persuasive as smart people, and have difficulty understanding and engaging in the kind of discussion (and probably the emotional distance) needed to be good advocates.
In the very least, IQ is also correlated to a higher income, which also means more ability to give to animal charities and causes.

The goal to have fewer non-vegans, not more vegans in the end. If more vegans means less non-vegans, that would be good too, but I don't see it. It is the percentage that matters.

Your goals, and your perspective of social change are highly distorted, No wonder you can't see reason on this topic: all of your premises are profoundly ignorant.

[Anon0045]

brimstoneSalad, you made some good points in the other post, and you usually do. I admit to probably exaggerating regarding what harm we cause others. I don't agree with everything you wrote, and I don't feel like going through it point by point because you're being extremely RUDE, INTOLERANT and SNARKY. You accuse me of being rude, which I wasn't aware of, then you become 100 times worse yourself.
I don't see it as obvious that antinatalism is wrong, and a lot of people don't. It's not a common topic to discuss, but you treat it like it's obvious that everyone should be against antinatalist arguments (then attack a bunch of strawmans).

"I don't see it as obvious that antinatalism is wrong, and a lot of people don't."
A lot more people think eating meat is acceptable. What's your point?

I didn't create this thread and used hostility and shaming tactics that brimstoneSalad is using. He's being an asshole.

[brimstoneSalad]

brimstoneSalad, you made some good points in the other post, and you usually do. I admit to probably exaggerating regarding what harm we cause others. I don't agree with everything you wrote, and I don't feel like going through it point by point because you're being extremely RUDE, INTOLERANT and SNARKY. You accuse me of being rude, which I wasn't aware of, then you become 100 times worse yourself.
I don't see it as obvious that antinatalism is wrong, and a lot of people don't. It's not a common topic to discuss, but you treat it like it's obvious that everyone should be against antinatalist arguments (then attack a bunch of strawmans).

"I don't see it as obvious that antinatalism is wrong, and a lot of people don't."
A lot more people think eating meat is acceptable. What's your point?

I didn't create this thread and used hostility and shaming tactics that brimstoneSalad is using. He's being an asshole.

Anon0045 has violated the first forum rule.

1. This is a discussion forum. Please come here willing to discuss. This isn't a place to lecture, and then refuse to address others' rational arguments or even answer others' questions. Discussion is founded upon logic, if you don't accept basic logic as valid, there's really nothing for you to do here except lecture, and this isn't the place for it. Again: This is a discussion forum.

In regard to Anon0045:
1. He recognizes "good points" have been made (so clearly this is not an issue of complete misunderstanding)
2. He still makes the claim that some points are wrong (which? He will not say)
3. He won't address them or answer the questions posed to him, or answer to the "good points" and his stead fast faith regarless
4. He doubles down on his defensive claims without argument, and fails to respond properly to a third party challenging him on this
5. He claims he hasn't shamed anybody (despite claiming originally that it is not vegan to have children, which seems to me very much like shaming), and continues to respond and throw around accusations despite not presenting any arguments.
6. As to the claims: HE started this thread, and HE then again bumped the thread, now more apparent than ever to further advance his agenda of procreation-shaming, as opposed to real discussion on the subject.

Given the above,
Anon0045: This is your final warning. Respond to the arguments made, or you will be banned for violation of Rule1.
You have 48 hours to comply.

[Anon0045]

This is a response to the following post by brimstoneSalad: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... =20#p20792

1. That life is not worth living to begin with, because "life is suffering". That is, even for the child.
Which is profoundly arrogant bullshit, to decide for others that their lives are not worth living.

I thought you used to be at least half sensible:

https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 848#p10848
"Who are we to decide if their lives are not worth living anyway."

Or did you decide it IS your job after all to decide for others that their lives are not worth living?

Strawman. There's a difference between non-existence and being alive. I can ask you directly what you think, and if you say you like to live, I can't argue against that.
We have an instinct to live, and hence are forced to play the "life game". Everyone does not enjoy it, but adapt, because they're forced to. Everyone can't adapt, but they can't give up either since committing suicide is instinctively very difficult. The consequence is bad, so taking the risk with the lives of others that you can't control is, even with good odds, seems very questionable to me. When it is acceptable to take the risk, is up not something that I can be objectively say (like at what percentage). I believe that the golden rule apply here. Personally, I wouldn't willingy take some risks. Others might. , My "defense" is subjective and not very strong.

By the way, I don't think I am an antinatalist by definition and I am likely ignorant of most of the antinatalist arguments.

2. The harm we cause others by living is greater than the good we do.
Societal:
Given that most other people seem to, on balance, prefer to live and generally enjoy the social interactions, love, and support their receive from each other, this is a patently absurd argument in a human context.
We make each other's lives happier than we make them miserable, and when we make them more miserable than happy we have a tendency to shuffle our social structures to change that -- this is why things like divorce and the ability to relocate are important (humans harming each other through normal social relationships is only a compelling argument against conservatism that bans separation).

There are socially bad people out there, but they are the exceptions, not the norm, and not the average.

You're accountable for the probable effects of your actions -- the average effect that would reasonably be expected -- not the rare chance of a catastrophe (and neither do you get credit for the rare saint). We never know the outcome of our actions perfectly, so we're only responsible for the probable results.

In this context, it is good (at least for intelligent and well off people) to have children due to the TYPICAL good they'll do for others in the social context, and the contribution they'll make to society.

The good is pretty obvious, to humans only, if the area isn't overpopulated already. How much this translates to less harm is what I don't see.

Inter-Societal:
Most of the worst places on Earth aren't bad because of the actions of those in the developed world, so it's irrelevant to our acts of procreation.
Counter to the ignorant bleeding-heart position, sweat shops in developing countries actually infuse needed money and jobs into their economies in the safest and most sustainable way we know. We HELP these people by hiring them; the jobs aren't good by our standards, but they're better than the alternatives, they create upward mobility, and even reduce the excessive rates of procreation by increasing access to education and birth control in these countries (places that, unlike the developed world, NEED less procreation).
...

That is good, that people buy stuff from poorer countries, since it'll help them get out of poverty. How much worse the alternative to working at a sweatshop for example is, is unclear to me, but it seems sensible that it could help in the long run. How much good does this do in comparison to buying factory farmed meat in your opinion?

Now for two actual inter-societal harms:
1. Warfare...
2. Global warming...

Global warming is an urgent problem, so I think while more people will lead to more political pressure, it's a long-term plan which might take several generations. Meanwhile, those future persons will be using energy and pollute, just like any other ordinary consumer, including vegans, although vegans do it much less.

Harm to non-human animals
This is legitimate and relatively non-controversial; we all understand that this is a profound tragedy, and the vast majority of this harm comes down to animal agriculture.

Yes, some small number of animals are killed in plant agriculture, but it actually only amounts to 1-2 animals per year for vegans (small and marginally intelligent animals like mice, not large animals like cows, pigs, and chickens).
http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc
For those consuming animal products, we're looking at a harm footprint of more like a hundred and something a year, taking into account smaller animals that are eaten, even more.

I concede the point about vegans doing a lot of harm to non-human animals. If only 2 animals are killed each year in agriculture, and it's the worst offender, the small numbers adding up, will end up quite small.

NET HARM is still an open question

Given all of this, even for a conventional carnist consumer, net harm is still an open question.
Comparing societal and inter-societal good against inter-societal harm and harm to non-human animals is not the trivial task you imply it is.

Is a carnist more harmful to the world than the good done?
It's very hard to say. And yet you say it so definitively and with no question.

A carnist can do "good", i.e. reducing suffering, but I don't know what you mean by it being an open question when they on average kill up to hundred animals each year or more for mere pleasure, and pretty much all of them support factory farms with their money. Even if you count their pleasure as a good thing, I don't know how it would be an open question. They'd have to reduce their animal product consumption and spread political ideas that do a lot of good for the future. How much worth do you think a single vote is, or a solid and "good" idea is compared to animals being tortured and killed? I guess we can see it like a time period where there is very little happening, but far into the future, change will happen, because of some trigger way back in time. The sooner the trigger happens, the better. And it could prevent suffering.

---
I'm gonna skip the "you start at a minus, still at a minus...", because I already conceded those points earlier. On a sidenote, you start at a minus when you subtract all the unavoidable harm and add all the unavoidable "good". At least I don't see any unavoidable "good". The point about we influence others more or less to reduce their meat consumption is good. I'm probably more pessimistic than you, but still.

The probability that they'll leaflet a couple weekends in their lives, post animal rights stuff on facebook, or have occasional conversations about the issues is not low: it's pretty much guaranteed, particularly when they're younger.

If you teach your children to be activists, at least until they rebel in their teens, they probability of them being extremely involved activists on the weekends with you and their friends approaches 100% for an effective 5 or so years.

If you teach your children to be activists, you'd have to lead by example and become an activist yourself. They don't do as you say, but what you do. Are most vegan parents vegan activists? I assumed most vegans were not activists.

"In any case, the better choice is clearly to not have a child if you can adopt,"

No, it isn't. Instead, have your own kids and donate that $10,000+ in adoption fees to effective charities.
Adopting is NOT effective altruism, it's a waste of money that could go to other causes, and do much more good than the adoption itself.

And adopting a kid for free (or on the cheap) means an older child, who will likely be much more difficult and have behavioral issues. It's not the same.

Again, look at my post on the differences in adopting a pet from a shelter and adopting a child.
Particularly, if you want a child with an IQ over 95 who will be an effective activist, you have little choice other than having your own.

Good point about money. Need to look into that. I see only activist parents need to worry about IQ, since they are the ones encouraging their children to be activists.

If you're comparing to the optimal behavior, it's immoral for you to go to a movie, to watch youtube -- to do anything else in this life other than full time activism, and making money to donate to activism.

Not all sub-optimal behaviors are harmful. Having a child and devoting those resources to a child making a good human being for the next generation is a good thing. It may be a lesser good than spending all of those resources on activism instead. But if you condemn a lesser good as an evil, you have to condemn everything humans do that isn't activism as evil.

True.

Of course you do. Typical misanthropist. Do you think this makes veganism look good?

Effective activism is a different topic.

[brimstoneSalad]

By the way, I don't think I am an antinatalist by definition and I am likely ignorant of most of the antinatalist arguments.

Then you can't say it's a straw man argument when I'm arguing against common antinatalist claims.

Strawman. There's a difference between non-existence and being alive. I can ask you directly what you think, and if you say you like to live, I can't argue against that.

But antinatalists DO argue against that. They say something like, "you think you enjoy life, but actually you're just dleusional and have an optimism bias. In reality, you're suffering, and it would be better for you to die".

We have an instinct to live, and hence are forced to play the "life game". Everyone does not enjoy it, but adapt, because they're forced to. Everyone can't adapt, but they can't give up either since committing suicide is instinctively very difficult.

If you are arguing that people legitimately do not enjoy life and secretly want do die, but are only living because of an irrational instinct that is forcing them to, then do you think it would be a charity to go around killing people (painlessly of course) without them knowing about it?

Or are you saying that just some people are depressed?

People successfully commit suicide all of the time. It's not that difficult. It's actually extremely easy if you have basic knowledge of physiology.
The thing that's difficult is struggling with whether it's the right thing to do or not. Pessimism vs. optimism, and the effect on others.

People suffering from depression need treatment, not pessimists validating their depression as the correct way of seeing life and effectively enabling their depression and encouraging them to commit suicide.
What you're arguing is not just philosophically wrong, but practically very dangerous. It's like pro-ana.

This is an argument for better access to mental health care, and in the case where everything has been tried and nothing works, legal access to painless suicide and social acceptance of the choice to die.

The consequence is bad, so taking the risk with the lives of others that you can't control is, even with good odds, seems very questionable to me.

It's like the "risk" in trying anything new. "Hey, watch this TV show, ti's cool!". If you like it, keep watching. If you don't like it, turn it off.

Those who genuinely do not enjoy life can exit. It's not difficult.
Most "attempts" at suicide are not real attempts: they are cries for help from people who are conflicted and of two minds.
Actually killing yourself, painlessly, is very easy and cheap (actually cheap, not "I'm privileged and don't know what things cost" cheap).

I'm not going to say how on this forum because EquALLity would kill me.
You'll just have to take my word for it because I won't provide links or resources on this.

When it is acceptable to take the risk, is up not something that I can be objectively say (like at what percentage).

It's not a risk. If you don't like it, spit it out. The only case this would really not be an option is if you raised them religious, and to believe they would go to hell if they opted out -- that's another form of abuse that's irrelevant to this particular discussion.

The harm being done here is not having children, the harm is not getting them help if they are depressed, and not being willing to let go if the depression is chronic and untreatable. This is a rare case.

I believe that the golden rule apply here. Personally, I wouldn't willingy take some risks. Others might. , My "defense" is subjective and not very strong.

Then you should not say things such as you did, that you think having children is not vegan.

The good is pretty obvious, to humans only, if the area isn't overpopulated already. How much this translates to less harm is what I don't see.

Because you're irrationally biased to favor any harm reduction over any amount of good.

Morality means consideration for others interests: that is negative AND positive.

Doing unto others as they would have themselves done unto means doing nice things for them and not doing mean things to them. These have inherent exchange rates, and it's no more rational to dismiss positive experience and put all weight on negative than it is to dismiss negative experience and put all weight on the positive.

Somebody like you, equivalently irrational, but with the opposite mindset is a carnist who thinks eating meat is good because it lets an animal come into the world which will have at least some rare positive experiences (very limited in time and scope, but positive), and who waves away all negative experiences of suffering as morally irrelevant.

Do you see how that perspective is equally "valid" to yours? Do you see how they're both actually invalid?

That is good, that people buy stuff from poorer countries, since it'll help them get out of poverty. How much worse the alternative to working at a sweatshop for example is, is unclear to me, but it seems sensible that it could help in the long run. How much good does this do in comparison to buying factory farmed meat in your opinion?

In some of these places, it's very bad, and there are no jobs, or jobs that barely let people survive. These sweatshop jobs are gold: like working at Google is in the tech sector. These are often the only jobs available that offer upward mobility.

Does this counterbalance the meat in itself? I have no idea.
I'm not claiming to know, I'm explaining why you don't know either.
The argument that it does not is very weak, and based only on a wild guess or a matter of faith and personal bias.
If that's the kind of argument we think is respectable, then the opposite is equally so.

Global warming is an urgent problem, so I think while more people will lead to more political pressure, it's a long-term plan which might take several generations. Meanwhile, those future persons will be using energy and pollute, just like any other ordinary consumer, including vegans, although vegans do it much less.

Which one of these is larger?
You don't know.
Just as above, you have no idea how all of these positives and negatives work together, and you can't claim that there is net harm.

The claim that having a child is harmful, or that having a vegan child is harmful, is a very strong one for which you adopt the burden of proof -- a burden you can not carry.

I concede the point about vegans doing a lot of harm to non-human animals. If only 2 animals are killed each year in agriculture, and it's the worst offender, the small numbers adding up, will end up quite small.

Not only is it quite small, but on this front we actually have a lot more data, and it's easy to demonstrate how simply that harm can be offset by even the smallest influence from them upon others -- offset and easily exceeded.

So for animals, having vegan children is easily a plus.
The other stuff? It's harder to say -- and so it's safer to remain either agnostic or optimistic on those points (optimism actually does influence outcome, if we think we will not succeed, we're less likely to try).

A carnist can do "good", i.e. reducing suffering, but I don't know what you mean by it being an open question when they on average kill up to hundred animals each year or more for mere pleasure, and pretty much all of them support factory farms with their money.

Good is not limited to reducing suffering -- it can be as simple as making your mother happy by sending her a birthday card (although these are trivial goods in and of themselves, they may add up). I also mentioned the inter-societal goods above, which can be very substantial.

It is an open question because it is in no way clear how that scale tips.

They'd have to reduce their animal product consumption and spread political ideas that do a lot of good for the future.

This would only make it more obvious that's they are good on balance in the bumbling behavior of society. Currently, it's not very obvious either way; social progress is good and it relies on a society, but the returns on higher population are not that clear.

The take home message here is learning to recognize when agnosticism, rather than moral condemnation for society in general, is appropriate.

On a sidenote, you start at a minus when you subtract all the unavoidable harm and add all the unavoidable "good". At least I don't see any unavoidable "good".

The point of something being hypothetically unavoidable or not is irrelevant. An unavoidable good, by the way, would come about by just participating in the economy by working and buying goods likely made in developing countries (just because they're cheaper).
What matters is what's probable.

The point about we influence others more or less to reduce their meat consumption is good. I'm probably more pessimistic than you, but still.

Be as pessimistic as you want, as long as you're realistic about our influence. See that calculator I linked to earlier about animal lives saved per dollar. It's remarkably easy to offset small amounts of harm.

If you teach your children to be activists, you'd have to lead by example and become an activist yourself. They don't do as you say, but what you do. Are most vegan parents vegan activists? I assumed most vegans were not activists.

Parents frequently become better people in order to serve as better examples for their children.

I see only activist parents need to worry about IQ, since they are the ones encouraging their children to be activists.

Everybody needs to worry about IQ. It's critical for STEM jobs, and it's correlated to pretty much every social good there is (including chance of going vegetarian on their own).

Effective activism is a different topic.

I think you were trying to conflate them before, by saying there were better things that could be done with the time/money than having kids.
The bottom line is that it's not harmful, and at least for intelligent vegan parents, there's overwhelming reason to believe it's helpful -- it may not be as helpful as handing out leaflets with all of that time and money instead (this is unclear), but it's still good.

[EquALLity]

This is an argument for better access to mental health care, and in the case where everything has been tried and nothing works, legal access to painless suicide and social acceptance of the choice to die.

Is this what you support?

I lean towards being against assisted-suicide in cases of mental health issues.
For terminal illnesses, I think it should be legal, with very strong and careful restrictions and guidelines.

However, in cases involving things like depression, I don't think it should be.
First, what do you mean, everything has been tried? A person can't try all of the therapists in the world.
There's always a chance that things will start to work, also, and I don't want people to go through with assisted-suicide when they could've eventually had a happy life.

I'm not going to say how on this forum because EquALLity would kill me.
You'll just have to take my word for it because I won't provide links or resources on this.

Muahaha, you'd be wishing you committed suicide.

[brimstoneSalad]

First, what do you mean, everything has been tried? A person can't try all of the therapists in the world.
There's always a chance that things will start to work, also, and I don't want people to go through with assisted-suicide when they could've eventually had a happy life.

You can say the same thing for any degenerative terminal illness which results in a lot of pain and suffering: there might always be a miracle around the next corner.
The issue is one of probability.

I think people with depression should have to be cleared by multiple therapists, and demonstrate that they've made good faith efforts to try all of the mainstream existing treatments, made recommended lifestyle changes, etc. and it still didn't work.

There are a small minority of people perhaps for whom medication and therapy/lifestyle change won't work.

[EquALLity]

First, what do you mean, everything has been tried? A person can't try all of the therapists in the world.
There's always a chance that things will start to work, also, and I don't want people to go through with assisted-suicide when they could've eventually had a happy life.

You can say the same thing for any degenerative terminal illness which results in a lot of pain and suffering: there might always be a miracle around the next corner.
The issue is one of probability.

I think somebody with depression should have to be cleared by multiple therapists, and demonstrate that they've made a good faith effort to try all of the mainstream existing treatments, made recommended lifestyle changes, etc. and it still didn't work.

There are a small minority of people perhaps for whom medication and therapy/lifestyle change won't work.

Hmmm... I think that's different, though.

When it comes to physical illness, we have evidenced-based percentages on probability that can be used to justify euthanasia.

When it comes to mental illness, that stuff is much more flexible.

[brimstoneSalad]

Hmmm... I think that's different, though.

When it comes to physical illness, we have evidenced-based percentages on probability that can be used to justify euthanasia.

When it comes to mental illness, that stuff is much more flexible.

Psychology is a much softer science, sure, but at a certain point you have to trust the person who is experiencing the depression that he or she is in a state that he or she doesn't want to live in. We have to respect that interest, after we've taken the best measures we can to fix it.