Potential children don't exist. They cannot be harmed by not existing. They can, however, be harmed by being brought into existence. This is true even if life is "worth living" or "generally good" or "mostly pleasurable". Depression and nihilism has nothing to do with it, and my ancestors also don't exist anymore, so why would I care about their opinions?

They exist as potential, the same way the rock at the top of hill has a certain amount of potential energy. You choose whether to push the rock down the hill or not, and declaring that the rock will absolutely be harmed to an unacceptable degree, when it's foggy and you can't see even 10 feet down the hill, is irrational. Especially given that billions of other rocks have been pushed down much steeper hills with extremely rough slopes in the past and still managed.

When we're talking about humans instead of rocks, being harmed is part of life. At the end of the day we're all harmed by something that ends up killing us. That doesn't make life worthless, and attempting to prevent harm at all costs is the definition of maladaptive behavior. If that's your argument then you're basically the ultimate helicopter parent. You're so worried that your child might get harmed you won't even let them be born.

Reward requires risk, and greater rewards require greater risks. That's true for every lifeform down to bacteria and viruses. Granted not all risk leads to reward, but the risk of parenting tends to reward those involved above a certain baseline of effort and capability.

As for your ancestors, you're descended from a line of beings stretching back millions of years that, whatever their flaws, managed to reproduce. If there is a point to life that we know about it's that life exists to propagate in harmony with nature (often brutally enforced by various aspects of nature). The point of society is that we all help each other in that endeavor and make it more meaningful. To fulfill our potential as a species. Even those who choose not to have children help in some way through jobs and taxes. This is part of the reason helping others makes us feel good.

There are many valid reasons to not have kids, but I don't understand how you can trust someone who says "I don't want to succeed at the basic function of life because the 2nd best civilization ever produced just isn't comfortable enough for me", and means it. Someone with that level of weakness is not going to be reliable in bad times, regardless of their intentions. Maybe you don't care if I trust you or not, but if you don't care if anyone trusts you... well then I hope your life is as comfortable as you clearly require, because you'll be getting by on charity if it's not.

>I don't want to succeed at the basic function of life

Treating having children as a success and a reward in of itself is part of the problem. If someone doesn't want to have children because they feel like they'll have a bad life, that's their decision to make. Not yours to try and apply some strange value judgment where completely unborn children somehow have a say in the equation.

You're making the argument rather absurdly personal with your claims that they're a helicopter parent for not wanting to have children and claiming that they're weak/unreliable/untrustworthy. Stop it.

I plainly said there were valid reasons for not having children. If you feel unable to give them material or emotional resources, that's fine. If you currently live in a Syrian refugee camp or a ghetto that's fine. If you just aren't emotionally ready/haven't found the right person and would resent the kids then that's fine. If you want to devote your life 100% to your career, or become a monk, among many other examples I could give, that's fine.

If for example you read about, say Global Warming and say that's the deciding reason you don't want to have kids, and it isn't just a self-serving lie/excuse and you actually understand the issue, then you are an extremely weak person and you should work on that. If everyone acknowledged global warming, or saw insert negative news story and decided not to have kids on that basis the species would end in a generation. That sounds like a pretty weak species to me, literally scared to death.

As for untrustworthy, in my experience weak people are inherently untrustworthy. Even if their motives are good they are unable to endure or contribute under stress. Someone who folds on the issue of having kids because of what they see on the news is someone who's likely to fold on other things under extremely mild pressure, and I don't want to have to depend on such people in a crisis; and everyone's life will have crises unless you're extremely lucky. This is hardly just my opinion.

As for the helicopter parent line, the poster argued that while hypothetical kids can't be harmed if they aren't born, having them does potentially cause them harm. Thus they are arguing that "harm" to the hypothetical kids is the deciding factor, and said "harm" should be avoided by shielding said kids from the world. That is the exact thought process of many helicopter parents, only taken to an extreme level of over-protection and perhaps with less overt narcissism.

And yes this gets a little personal, it's a philosophical argument and I'm calling out perceived weaknesses in another person's life philosophy, just as you are calling out weaknesses you perceive in me. I don't see a problem with any of that.

> It's more selfish IMO to make yourself the arbiter of your unborn childrens' future

This is a pretty bizarre statement. If you had a pet dog, would you consider it immoral to not provide that dog with a mate, so they could flood the world with puppies?

If your only argument to not providing a mate was "the state of the world", I would say yes. There are other arguments that carry far more weight in that regard.

It's extremely weak/arrogant to take a look at "the state of the world" (typically via news/blogs/etc) and then declare you absolutely know the future, and it sucks so hard that there's no way your children will have a decent life under any circumstances, regardless of your personal situation.

There are many valid reasons not to have kids, "the state of the world" isn't one of them unless you're living in the middle of one of those negative news stories, and then it's less "the state of the world" and more "the state of my immediate surroundings", which is far more reasonable.